Miss Brown and Me

by Marilyn Mathis

She was seven feet tall and four feet wide, with a frown. I doubted “Miss Brown” was her real name.

I sat down in Booth Number Six, and Miss Brown sat down opposite me. She stared at me. I stared at her. We did not speak. Am I doing this right? I wondered.

I had never before been audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

As a 20-year-old college student, working part-time, I only used the short form for taxes. Really short. With a little editing I could have gotten it down to a postcard. Consequently, there were only so many mistakes I could have made. On the way to the IRS office, I had wondered if I was being audited for an arithmetic error, and whether the penalty would be severe. Receiving the letter from IRS was frightening enough. Clearly, I had committed some grievous error, maybe even a crime.

Miss Brown was still staring at me. If this was an intimidation tactic, it was working.

I remembered how my doctor always started our appointments and began, “What seems to be the problem?”

“We don’t think you’re making enough money.”

This was the last thing I expected. I turned my head and faced the wall. I was poor and had been found out.

I explained that I also received grants and loans to attend college. From my purse, I pulled my financial aid application for law school, which listed the government grants, loans and private donations I had received for the last four years to supply living expenses and tuition.

Miss Brown took the paperwork, and her fingers flew over her 10-key adding machine. She was staring at me again.

“This still isn’t very much money.”

My heart sank. Did the IRS really penalize people for not making enough money? Could I go to jail?

“Yes ma’am, I know, but it’s all I have.”

“How did you get in this situation?”

With that, the whole unfortunate true story came out: how we had to leave my father because he was beating my mother, how my mother was ill and couldn’t work, and so I came to claim her as a dependent on my tax form, starting at the age of 17. I repeated it clear-eyed, succinctly. It was a fact of my life, and I was seeking no sympathy. Certainly not here.

But Miss Brown began to cry.

They were real tears. She had to take out her handkerchief, blot her eyes and blow her nose.

Then she told me her story, a tale of woe, abandonment and betrayal. Following her lead, I found tissues and began dabbing at my eyes.

“Oh, Miss Brown, that’s just awful! I’m so sorry,” I said sincerely. She stood up and came around to my side of the booth.

Newfound sisters, we hugged each other. We promised to keep in touch. She said I didn’t have to worry about the audit. I left that office a free woman.

I’ve checked with several accountants. They have all told me no one else has ever made the IRS cry.

And I still don’t make enough money.

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Marilyn Mathis has published poetry in Sylvia Literary Magazine, the blog “Live, Write, Thrive,” and New Verse News, and received third place in Ageless Authors Poetry Contest. She has received international awards for corporate writing/editing and authored magazine and newspaper features. She has edited Thriving Beyond Survival (nonfiction) by Martha Germann.