God Don’t Like Ugly (20 page)

M
uh’Dear was not able to get off work to attend Granny Goose’s funeral on Saturday, but she did send three sweet potato pies and some poke salad. Mr. Boatwright, who had developed a severe cold, went with me.

After the burial, most of the mourners returned to the Nelsons’ house. Jock took all his young white relatives to meet some of his friends, and Rhoda and I hid ourselves in her room. Mr. Boatwright was busy going on and on to anybody who would listen about how much he was going to miss Granny Goose to pay much attention to me.

“I’ll be glad when they all leave,” Rhoda said as soon as she shut her bedroom door.

“I know exactly what you mean.” I sat on the bed and watched Rhoda stand in front of her door mirror and fuss with her hair and smooth the sides of her black jumper.

“Now we can take our trip to the Bahamas for Christmas.” She yawned.

“Do you have to go with them?” I groaned. I wet the tip of my finger with spit and tried to remove a grease stain from the navy blue woolen suit I’d worn to Granny Goose’s funeral.

“What’s wrong with you, girl? The trip was my idea! Mine and Aunt Lola’s. Of course I have to go with them. I’m the one who has been on Daddy about it so much. Why?” she said, still standing in front of her mirror.

“The next few weeks are really going to be rough for me,” I moaned.

Rhoda sat next to me with a concerned look on her face.

“We did get rid of that baby you were carryin’.”

“I know, and I’m glad. But Muh’Dear is really going to be on my case now until I can get out of that house. Mr. Boatwright’s been staring at me a lot more than usual.”

“Has he…” she nodded, and her eyes became slits.

I shook my head. “Not yet. He hasn’t done
it
to me again, yet.”

“You want to come to the Bahamas with us? I’ll pay your way out of my savin’s. It’ll be my Christmas present to you this year.”

“Don’t make me laugh. I’m not even allowed to go to the movies anymore for a while; do you think I’d be allowed to go on a trip halfway around the world.”

“I can call you every day from down there,” Rhoda offered with a sigh of defeat.

“That’s not the same as you being here. For two weeks we’ll be on Christmas break. For me that means two weeks alone in the house with Mr. Boatwright.”

Rhoda gave me a thoughtful look. “You know how much I care about what you’ve been goin’ through, Annette. But I can only do so much. You can’t tell on him because he has a gun and said he’d kill you. What else is there to do?”

I shrugged, then stood up. “Nothing I guess.”

“Did you tell him you’re movin’ to Erie after graduation?”

I nodded. “He’s not going to let me go. I’ll have to wait a while. I’ll let him and my mama think I’ve changed my mind, then I’ll sneak away.”

I returned to school the Monday after the funeral. I didn’t even have to make up any lies to tell the kids as to where I’d been; nobody asked.

Rhoda and Otis cut classes right after lunch and sneaked off to a motel, so I had to suffer through the afternoon without seeing her between classes. I was thoroughly disappointed that sex had become such an important thing with her.

When I arrived home Mr. Boatwright was not in. I didn’t know how much time I had to myself, but I planned to enjoy it. Before I could decide what to do, the phone rang.

“When you get out the hospital?” Pee Wee asked.

“Four days ago.”

“If I had known that I could have been over there sittin’ with you, updatin’ you,” he whined.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Let me put my clothes on. I’m comin’ over there right now. I ain’t got nothin’ else to do tonight. I been spendin’ all my spare time with Florence, and she ain’t no fun at all. Walkin’ into walls and shit.”

“Pee Wee, you don’t have to come over—”

“OK. Well, I guess I’ll sit here and eat this
large
pizza all by myself or share it with Florence after all…”

I sighed, and told him, “I’ll turn the porch light on.”

Pee Wee was only with me for ten minutes before Caleb called and made him come home to sweep hair off the barbershop floor. I went to my room, read a few chapters of
In Cold Blood
, then dozed off.

I heard muffled voices downstairs and got up to put my ear to the heat register on my bedroom floor. My room was directly over the living room so it was easy to hear people talking downstairs. Rhoda was in the house. Muh’Dear was going on and on about it being too late for her to be out visiting. She gave in when Rhoda promised to come back the next day to deliver some of the food left over from Granny Goose’s funeral.

“Some of that cracklin’ bread, if you don’t mind,” Mama purred.

“Oh yes, Ma’am. I’ll bring you a whole pan of it,” Rhoda said in a sweet, humble voice she used only with grown folks. Her voice was getting louder as she got closer to my room. “Matter of fact, I’ll bring two pans.” I pictured her walking backwards, all the while grinning and nodding for my mother’s benefit.

“Don’t you stay up there too long, Rhoda. Annette’s got to get up early for school tomorrow, and I know you do, too,” Muh’Dear yelled.

Rhoda rushed in and sat down next to me on my lumpy bed and crossed her legs. I frowned when I noticed a gold chain from Otis wrapped around her ankle.

“My God, girl. You look like hell,” she told me, shaking her head.

“Thanks, Rhoda. I needed that.”

“You’re welcome.” She yawned and stretched her arms high above her head, shaking her hands. Then she started blowing on her nails.

We stared long and hard at one another.

“Well,” I said, shrugging. Her unexpected but welcome visit was a surprise.

“Well, is he pesterin’ you again yet?” Rhoda whispered, motioning with her head toward Mr. Boatwright’s room.

I sighed heavily and looked at the floor. “No. Not yet. But I know he will. I saw his eyeball peeping through my keyhole last night,” I mumbled.

Rhoda gave me an incredulous look and gasped. In a hard, controlled, throaty voice she said, “
That-piece-of-shit
”. She made a fist and brought her hand down so hard on my precarious nightstand, my goosenecked lamp fell off.

I called Rhoda’s house the following Saturday morning around ten, and her mother told me she was at Miss Rachel’s beauty parlor at the shopping center. I was alone in the house with Mr. Boatwright. Right after I hung up the phone, he joined me in the kitchen.

“You want some more breakfast, possum?” he asked, gently placing his hand on my shoulder. Even though he abused me, I appreciated the pleasant times we shared.

“Yeah,” I replied, looking up from my seat at the kitchen table.

“I’ll call you when it’s ready,” he said. He smiled at me, and, to my own amazement, I smiled back.

“I’ll make us some popcorn, and I’ll have ’em deliver us a pizza,” he said. The pleading look on his face and the promise of popcorn and pizza weakened me.

“OK,” I muttered. My addiction to food was probably my biggest downfall. Later, I sat on the living-room couch next to Mr. Boatwright watching
American Bandstand
.

“Watchin’ white folks dance is as much fun as watchin’ wrestlin’. Just look at ’em! Hoppin’ around like they tryin’ to stomp out a fire, ain’t they?” He chuckled, his mouth full of pizza.

“Uh-huh.” I laughed, nodding. The coffee table in front of us was covered with snacks. The whole time, he had one arm around my shoulder like any other lover. A few times he leaned over and kissed me on my cheek. Surprisingly, he didn’t want sex that night.

I didn’t see or talk to Rhoda for two days. She didn’t call me or come to my house and was “out” each time I attempted to reach her.

“I needed some time alone,” she explained a day later at school. She approached me in the hallway right after fourth period class, and we walked to the cafeteria together for lunch. “I really want to help you out of this mess with Buttwright. I’ve just been tryin’ to come up with a plan.”

“It better be soon.” I sniffed. “Can you come over this evening? He’s got that look in his eyes…like he wants to do something,” I added. I was afraid to tell her how nice he had been acting the last few days. I thought that if I did, she would back out of helping me. I knew Mr. Boatwright well enough to know that his niceness was temporary.

“I can come and stop him tonight. But I can’t come every night,” Rhoda replied.

“Well, anytime you can stop him would make it a little easier on me. I can’t…I’m
not
going to let him touch me again,” I said. My words surprised Rhoda more than they surprised me.

“How are you goin’ to stop him?” she asked.

“He won’t bother me as long as somebody else is in the house. You can come over when Muh’Dear’s not home, and I can get Pee Wee or Florence to come when you can’t come.”

“OK.” Rhoda sighed tiredly. I sensed that she was finally getting impatient and maybe even frustrated with my situation. Something had to happen soon.

My scheme only lasted six days. Two days in a row, Rhoda stayed with me from the time school was out until Muh’Dear came home. Pee Wee and Florence came over the next four days. Mr. Boatwright must have figured out what I was up to because he went to Muh’Dear with his complaints.

“Them kids been spendin’ more time over here than they should. All that activity is makin’ Brother Boatwright nervous,” Muh’Dear told me.

“They come over to keep me company,” I defended.

“You tell ’em the longest they can stay durin’ a school night is one hour,” Muh’Dear said firmly, shaking her finger in my face. “Now go to bed.”

I didn’t sleep much that night. I couldn’t wait for morning so I could talk to Rhoda.

“I knew that son of a bitch would sabotage everything first chance he got!” Rhoda seethed when I reported Mr. Boatwright’s tattling the next morning on the way to school.

“We’ll come up with another plan,” I said quickly. I had to run to keep up with Rhoda, she was stomping down Reed Street so hard and fast.

“You’re damn right we will!” she assured me through clenched teeth. “Because I’m beginnin’ to take this shit personal!”

T
wo days after Rhoda and her family left for the Bahamas, I got lonely enough to visit Florence around seven that evening. I was horrified when Scary Mary told me Florence was out on a date.

“A
date?
” I shrieked. “With who?” I was on Scary Mary’s back porch. She was in the doorway removing rollers from her new wig, the reddest one yet.

“She at the church Christmas dance with her boyfriend, girl!” Scary Mary shouted, stomping her foot. She placed her hand on her hip and gave me an exasperated look.

“I…I didn’t know Florence had a boyfriend,” I pouted. “When did this happen?” It was cold, and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground. But I’d left my house in such a hurry I had not bothered to put on my coat or boots.

“Oh, she been keepin’ company with one of them Hawkins boys a couple of weeks now.”

“Oh. Well, tell her I came by.” I rushed home to my room and threw myself across the bed and howled. I figured I’d have a good cry, then invite Pee Wee over.

“Florence’s got a boyfriend” I told him as soon as he arrived.

“I know; Jimmy Hawkins. The one with the harelip,” Pee Wee announced, falling down sideways onto our living-room couch.

I was amazed. Florence had never given me the impression she cared about boys enough to date one.

“But she’s blind!” I wailed.

“So?” Pee Wee said with a smirk. “Blind girls need love, too. So do harelipped boys.” He gave me a thoughtful look and continued. “Wonder how they kiss? She almost ain’t got no sight, how she goin’ to find the lips he almost ain’t got?”

Pee Wee babbled on for a while, but I wasn’t really listening. I just felt so lonely with Rhoda gone and now…Florence.

When Rhoda returned from the Bahamas, everything returned to normal for the next few months.

On a rainy Saturday morning I called her up and asked if she could give me a ride to the slaughterhouse. Fooling around waiting for buses in the rain was something I avoided every chance I got.

“Sure. Meet me in front of my house in ten,” she said cheerfully. I was surprised when she led me to her mother’s car in the driveway.

“Where’s the Ford?” I asked, climbing into the passenger side. Rhoda didn’t like her mother’s two-month-old Volkswagen because of the way it looked. I didn’t like it because it wasn’t designed to accommodate obese people comfortably. But I didn’t complain. It was still better than the bus, and it was free.

“Um…it’s in the body shop
again
. I ran into a mailbox to avoid a cat the other night,” she explained, not looking at me. She adjusted her seat, then checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. “Damn pimple. My period must be comin’ early again.” Finally, she turned on the ignition. The radio came on, and she started humming along with Diana Ross as we pulled off.

“You’re in a real good mood,” I commented. I waved to Mr. Nelson, who had come out on the front porch.

“Why shouldn’t I be? Hey—how is the beast?”

“Mr. Boatwright’s about the same.” I sighed. “I bit his hand the other day when he tried to…you know.”

“That miserable old fucker. I’m goin’ to go home with you when we leave the slaughterhouse. My presence pisses the hell out of him.” Rhoda started laughing so hard she almost drove up on the sidewalk. “Oops!”

Even though she now had a boyfriend, too, Florence still called me up and came over on a regular basis. I saw her when I felt like it, but Rhoda still came first in my life. A few times I even stood Florence up to be with Rhoda, but every time I did, I felt bad about it later. What puzzled me was, as inconsiderate as I was with her, Florence was always nice to me. I knew the Hawkins boy from church, but I never followed him and Florence on their dates the way I did Rhoda and Otis.

On April Fool’s Day, a week after my last trip to the slaughterhouse with Rhoda, Pee Wee snatched open our front door without knocking and ran into the kitchen where Mr. Boatwright and I were eating collard greens, pig ears, and corn bread, and announced, “The radio news just said that po’lice that killed Rhoda’s brother is dead.”

Just fifteen minutes earlier, Mr. Boatwright had wrestled me all over the living-room couch, laughing and cussing at the same time because even with what he described as a “hat-rack hard-on,” he couldn’t perform. The bottle of Thunderbird I had encouraged him to drink had slowed him down.

“What happened to him, Pee Wee?” I was no longer hungry. Just thinking about how Rhoda and Uncle Johnny had reacted that day in the Buttercup restaurant when they saw this same man made me lose my appetite. I stopped eating, but Mr. Boatwright kept gnawing on pig tails like a hound.

“They found him layin’ along the side of the road off the Sampson River Bridge in the bushes. He been layin’ there a few days, and they say it look like a hit-and-run. I bet he was drunk and staggered out in front of a Mack truck. Them greens and them hush puppies sure lookin’ good, y’all.” Pee Wee grabbed an empty plate off the counter and snatched the lid off the pot containing the greens. “Brother Nelson already got the body,” he added, almost out of breath. Instead of sitting at the table, he chose to stand in front of the stove and eat with his fingers.

Mr. Boatwright grunted and nodded. “That’s what he get for shootin’ Brother Nelson’s boy like he done.” Mr. Boatwright paused long enough to grab a bottle of beer on the table next to his plate and take a long swallow. When he set the bottle back on the table and let out a great belch, I frowned. “I knowed sooner or later it was gwine to catch up with him. Everybody oughta know by now God don’t like ugly, and you gwine to reap what you sow,” he announced, his head tilted to one side.

Pee Wee confirmed this information with a nod.

“So true,” I said levelly, looking Mr. Boatwright straight in the eye.

He turned away immediately. “Pee Wee, go turn on the TV. The wrestlin’ matches is about to come on,” Mr. Boatwright said.

I was curious as to how Rhoda had reacted to the policeman’s death. I didn’t even finish dinner. As soon as Mr. Boatwright and Pee Wee left the kitchen, I jumped up from the table and ran to the phone on the wall and dialed her number.

“Uh…hi, Uncle Johnny. Um…Pee Wee just told us about that policeman that killed your nephew getting himself killed,” I said.

“And may he burn in hell!” Uncle Johnny roared.

“Can I speak to Rhoda?” Rhoda must have been sitting on Uncle Johnny’s lap because she got on the phone seconds later. “I just heard about that policeman that killed your brother getting killed,” I told her.

“Uh…huh.” She sounded disembodied. I could still hear her uncle in the background cussing the dead policeman’s soul.

“Are you OK? You don’t sound like yourself,” I said. Even though I was using the phone in the kitchen, I had to talk loud. Pee Wee and Mr. Boatwright were in the living room in front of the TV yelling at the screen.

“I’m fine. I’m just havin’ a hard time absorbin’ this news,” Rhoda admitted.

“I bet.” I let out a long, deep breath. “I’m surprised your daddy is handling the body. The man did kill his firstborn son.”

“My folks forgave him. They’re even goin’ to attend his funeral.” Rhoda sighed with disgust. “But Muh’Dear’s all depressed about it anyway. She’s been in the bed on the verge of a nervous breakdown ever since we heard the news. I’m goin’ to help Daddy prepare the body because Uncle Johnny won’t help. He’s still mad about what happened to David.”

“Rhoda, have you forgiven that man for killing your brother?” I asked.

“I’ll
never
forgive him,” Rhoda hissed. I heard some muffled sounds on her end, and then she excused herself.

Martin Luther King was assassinated the same day as the policeman’s funeral. I was glad they closed the schools for two days to honor Dr. King because his death hit me hard, and I got so depressed I couldn’t eat. I removed a picture of him from my bedroom wall because I cried every time I looked at it. I had no way of knowing, but I was sure that wherever my daddy was, he was crushed. Long before I’d heard of Dr. King, I’d heard Daddy make public speeches similar to the ones Dr. King had made.

“Nobody is going to fight as hard for civil rights as Dr. King did,” I said to Mr. Boatwright on the couch, watching the TV’s coverage of the shooting.

“As if colored folks ain’t got enough of a cross to bear,” Mr. Boatwright commented. He sat next to me fanning his face with a rolled-up copy of
Ebony
magazine. He had actually shed a few tears. “We fightin’ in them wars white folks started and still can’t eat and live where we want to. It wasn’t enough devilment for them white devils to blow up that church in Birmin’ham and kill them four little colored gals and lynchin’, beatin’, shootin’ at, and turnin’ dogs loose on them civil rights workers down South every time I look up. If killin’ Dr. King don’t satisfy ’em, nothin’ will.” He wiped tears from his face with his sleeve.

His words moved me. He was showing a side I’d never seen before.

“You want me to get you a beer?” I asked, patting his shoulder.

He shook his head and rose. I watched until he disappeared up the stairs.

A minor riot broke out in Richland. By the end of the third day after the assassination, two local Blacks had been killed and several people had been arrested for looting.

Muh’Dear still had to work, but because of the racial uproar we were experiencing, the cabs stopped running at 6
P.M
., and the bus she normally took stopped running for a few days. When Judge Lawson was unable to provide transportation, she had to walk to work, leaving the house two hours earlier to get across town and getting home two hours later.

It was a few minutes before 10
P.M
. four days after the assassination, when Mr. Boatwright hopped into my room and jumped into my bed and started kissing up and down my neck. I had been in bed since 7
P.M
., but I was still wide-awake. I was still mildly depressed. In addition to the assassination, there was so much on my mind: the policeman’s mysterious death, the riot, my uncertain future, and my relationship with Mr. Boatwright. “How could you be thinking about sex at a time like this?” I asked. I sat up and pushed him away as hard as I could. When I was younger, smaller, and weaker he used to get real mad and threaten to whup me when I resisted him. Now when I did it, he still got mad, but his age and failing health had slowed him down tremendously. I was as strong as he was now, maybe even stronger. I had pushed him so hard he almost rolled off the bed.

“You tryin’ to kill me or what?” he asked, more startled than angry. He sighed with exasperation and slid off the bed, struggling with the bedpost to balance himself.

“Get the hell out of here!” I ordered. “Martin Luther King might not have meant much to you, but I cared about him.” I stood up next to my bed and put my hand on my hip, facing him angrily.

There was a look of absolute astonishment on his face. “Don’t flatter yourself. Who said I came in here to pester
you?
I’m upset over Dr. King, too. The whole mess got me feelin’ real befuddled. Just like that Kennedy thing. All I wanted was a hug from somebody,” he whined.

I looked at his pleading eyes for a long time. In my confusion, I leaned over, wrapped my arm around his shoulder, and patted him. Then, surprisingly, he let out a long sigh and left my room without another word. I don’t know how much time passed, but I had dozed off when he returned to my room later and shook me awake. “Slide over,” he ordered. “I done run out of condoms,” he complained, crawling back into my bed.

“I…can’t wait until I get out of school so I can leave this town and get away from you,” I said tiredly, trying to push him away with no success.

He didn’t say anything else until after he had entered me. “You ain’t…gwine no place,” he muttered between thrusts. “You do, you…you might…not never see your mama alive again…”

I was wide-awake by the time he had satisfied himself. He left the room without a word. I put on my housecoat and went downstairs to the kitchen and dialed Rhoda’s number. Uncle Johnny answered and yelled at me for calling so late, but he called Rhoda to the phone.

“He did it to me without a condom,” I blurted. “I hope I don’t get pregnant again.” I stared at the phone for a moment, waiting for Rhoda to respond.

“Did you hear me, Rhoda?”

“I heard you.” She sounded as detached as she did when I talked to her about the policeman’s death.

“He didn’t say it, but I think he was tellin’ me he would do somethin’ to my mama if I leave home. Besides, after we do graduate, I’d still have to get a job and save enough money to leave home with. That could take another year.” I moaned. “I can’t go through this for another year. I’ve had it, Rhoda. I was still a little depressed, and he knew it but still did me,” I wailed.

Rhoda cussed under her breath, and I could hear her shifting around in her seat.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“He went to bed. Can you come over? I wouldn’t be surprised if he came at me again before Muh’Dear comes home. I can’t ever let him touch me again.”

“He won’t,” Rhoda said calmly.

I heard her let out a long sigh first. Then she told me, “As soon as I finish helpin’ my daddy and Uncle Johnny clean up the mortuary, I’ll come over. But first I have to help Aunt Lola unpack. She got back up here a little while ago. She’s here to stay.”

“For good?”

“Uh-huh. In David’s room. She’s much happier here, and Uncle Carmine said he’ll give her a job waitressing at Antonosanti’s.” Rhoda paused and sucked in her breath. “I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

She arrived ten minutes after we got off the phone. “Buttwright still got that gun?” she asked, before I even closed the door behind her.

“As far as I know,” I told her. “Why?”

“Nothin’,” she replied, making herself comfortable on the living-room couch. She placed her coat on the back of the couch. I sat down next to her, and we didn’t talk for five minutes. Instead, we watched more TV news reports about Martin Luther King’s assassination.

“So you think he’s still got that gun, huh?” She spoke without taking her eyes off the screen.