The Profession by Bill Bratton & Peter Knobler
Author:Bill Bratton & Peter Knobler [Bratton, Bill & Knobler, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00
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And then there was âSweet Aliceâ Harris.
Alice Harris was born in Gadsden, Alabama. Her mother had been mentally ill all her life, but Alice just thought she was mean. âBad and mean,â she says. âWe didnât like her.â Her father made the kids behave. There were eleven children in the house; her father had five when he married Aliceâs mother, who already had two. His children were being taken care of by his mother, a schoolteacher who lived in a nice neighborhood, but when he married she sent them to live with him in a poorer part of town. Aliceâs mother came home from work one day and found his five children sitting on her porch. Within two weeks the oldest boy had gotten hold of some matches and set the house on fire. Together they had four more kids, Alice among them.
Her mother told all her daughters that if they got pregnant, they would have to leave. By the time she was eight years old Alice was praying, âLord, let me come up with a baby so that I can leave here.â She was thirteen when she had her first child. A few years later she had her second. By that time her father had died, and her mother put her out of the house. Her fatherâs car sat unattended in the front yard, so she slept there.
They called her âNothinâ.â âHere come âNothinâ,â âThere go âNothinâ.â At that time if a girl got pregnant and had a baby, she wasnât allowed to play with kids from the school she was attending, so Alice had to stay with the old folk.
A woman named Annabelle lived across the street and worked as a domestic for a wealthy white couple, Marvin and Ann Cohen. Annabelle got sick one night and had to be taken to the hospital. The next day, Mr. Cohen came around and honked his car horn in the street. âMy wife is having a bridge party,â he said. âWhere is Annabelle?â
âShe went to the hospital,â Alice told him.
âCan you come up here and watch the kids for the day?â
âYes sir, yes sir!â Alice left her children with her mother and jumped in the car.
She had never seen such a place as the gated community where the Cohens lived. Mr. Cohen told his wife about Annabelle and said, âI brought the girl across the street.â
âYou didnât bring the bad girl, did you?â So Miss Annabelle had been talking.
âYou want me to take her back?â
âYou canât take her back. People are coming in.â
âWell, have the maid watch her.â The Cohens had a maid, a cook, a gardener, a chauffeur. One of them would keep an eye on Alice. She didnât mind; she went and played with the kids. Long story short, the children took to Alice immediately, and she became their nanny.
After Alice had been working six months, Mrs. Cohen said, âMy children wonât need you all their life, but I want to help you.â This was
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