“Since my no-job dad has been laid off..”  Joey thinks, “mom  an’  dad  have lots of time to talk, talk.” Then he giggles, “sometimes all night.   ’Then they get up in the mornin’ still talkin’ and yawnin’ “.

“Darn! Where’s the Jobs?!” Joey’s no-job dad, Willie,  grumbles as he sits leaning  over the breakfast table. He mangles the newspaper with  laborer’s  claws.  Squinting, he looks up an’ down the same week-old  coffee and syrup stained classified ads he mulled over yesterday. The dim dusty light bulbs make Willie keep his eyes a few inches from the newspaper

The wind rattling broken window panes don’t drown out Joey’s mom, Lizzie’s  chatter. “ ‘Nother one has packed up bags and flew to the sky,”  she shakes her head, thinking of the recent beloved celebrities’ deaths.

Willie grunts, concentrating of his smudged ads,  while Lizzie pours more milk on Joey’s oat meal.  

“First it was Michael Jackson,” Lizzie  says, looking up at the ceiling and letting out a low moan.

Joey stops eating and thinks of Michael’s “Moon-Walking Thriller.”

“I sho’ loved blonde Farrah Fawcett ,” Lizzie says, throwing her head back and patting her own hair and taking a nibble off her biscuit.  Willie  squirms in his chair, making it squeak and makes Joey giggle.

“I saw Patrick Swayze in ‘Ghost,” Lizzie  continues, grinning,  while Willie lets out a “me, too, unh-huh” grunt.

“Saw Henry Gibson,” Lizzie goes on, in a southern accent, “in ‘Laugh-In’ and ‘Nashville.’  ”

“And now,” sighs Willie, “ it’s that great folk singer Mary Travers of Peter , Paul an’ Mary. All them powerful millionaire folks, with all of  their fortunes and fame, now fadin’ ‘way from us.”

Looking down, Lizzie mumurs, “Packed up their bags an’ gone away. Gonna miss ‘em all. Gone  up there into the  heavens, an’ makin’ more singin’ and dancin’ movies.” Then she adds, “and makin’ more millions.”