God Ain't Through Yet (4 page)

“I
…I tried to let you down easy,” Pee Wee told me.

“I don't believe what I'm hearing.” I shook my head again; then I rubbed my ears with both hands as if that would change what I'd just heard. “I thought you were leaving,” I quipped, waving toward the door.

“I am. But I just want to make sure you're all right before I leave,” he said gently.

“What makes you think I won't be all right?”

He gave me a pitiful look; then he spoke in a slow, clear manner, as if he was addressing an idiot. And maybe he was. Something had to be wrong with me, because even after what he'd already told me, I still couldn't believe what was happening. “You don't seem to understand what's goin' on. You look a little…delirious. And just now you were talkin' some kind of gibberish. If you want me to call you a doctor, or Reverend Upshaw, I will.”

“If you do call somebody, it won't be for me, because there is nothing wrong with me. I can take care of myself. And you of all people know me well enough by now to know that if you see me wrestling with a bear, you'd better help the bear.”

He flinched when I shook a warning fist in his face. I had mauled his head with my fist before, so he knew what I was capable of doing if I got mad enough. Lizzie whimpered and moved closer to the door.

“I just…I just want to make sure you realize what I'm doin',” he told me.

The fact that he was taking his time leaving confused me. And the way Lizzie was shifting her weight from one foot to the other and glancing at her watch, I could see how impatient she had become.

Since this particular act of betrayal was a first for me, and the most devastating, I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to say or do. That was one reason I kept asking the obvious. “I got the message. You're leaving me.” I sniffed. “But can you tell me WHY?” Now that was one of the dumbest things I'd said so far. I was handling this nightmare in such an awkward manner that it made me almost as angry with myself as I was with Pee Wee and Lizzie. “Well, I won't stop you!” I hollered, rotating my neck and grinding my teeth. I was surprised that he was still standing, because I was giving him looks that could have brought down a giant. “But before you leave me for this—this enema bag, let me tell you something! I won't have any trouble replacing your sorry-ass dick with a good vibrator!”

A horrified look swept across Pee Wee's face like a sandstorm; but that lasted only a few seconds. Before his face could relax, another miserable expression presented itself, making him look even more horrified. This one was so severe it scared me. In all of the years that I'd known him, I had never seen him display so much misery. Not even when he had to be medicated for some mysterious ailment called
grippe
, and a month later for gout. Or the time he fell off the roof and landed on his back on a rake. I had not met a man yet who didn't get wild-eyed when a woman gave his bedroom performance a low rating. Especially when it was not true. His eyes looked like they belonged on a creature from a black lagoon. My comment had startled him that much. Pee Wee was the best lover I'd ever had and he knew it. “Now look, we don't need to go there. I was a good husband,” he said, tears flooding his lying eyes.

“A
good
husband doesn't fuck his wife's friend!” I boomed.

“You can dog me all you want, but it won't change a damn thing. I'm in love with Lizzie and I'm leavin' you for her.”

It felt like somebody had batted my head with a sledgehammer. The pain was so intense that I got dizzy and started to sway from side to side.

When Pee Wee grabbed me by my shoulders to keep me from falling, I slapped his hands away. Then I pinched them. It was only then that I realized how much I hated the hair on the back of his hands. This was the first time that they reminded me of a monkey's paws.

I almost laughed when I thought about the fact that I was standing in my own kitchen making a fuss over a man who had turned into a creature right before my eyes. Within seconds, my mind was as sharp as a tack, but my vision was off the chart. For the next couple of seconds the only thing I could see in that kitchen was Pee Wee's face. But it wasn't the face of a creature. It was the face of the only man I had ever really loved. And I wanted to slap that face through the wall. If this situation didn't justify a violent crime of passion, nothing did.

I knew that if I got ugly, somebody was going to end up hurt.

I took a deep breath. One so deep that my tongue felt like it was about to slide down my throat. As angry as I was, I was surprised that I was so composed. “You know what? You two deserve each other!” I yelled, shaking a finger in Pee Wee's face, looking from him to her, then back to him.

He nodded, “You're right.” That was not what I expected to hear. He had already broken my heart. Now it felt like he was dancing a jig on it. “Me and Lizzie do deserve each other.”

“So this is not just a little fling, huh?” I croaked, determined not to cry until I was alone. “Do you honestly think that you will be happier with her?”

He nodded again.

It took a few moments for me to get my next sentence out. “But—but
wh
y? We were doing so well trying to get back to where we were—”

Pee Wee held his hand up and gave me a stern look. “We don't need to go into all that now. The bottom line is, me and Lizzie have been in love for a while now, and we don't want to keep on sneakin' around.”

“A while? Just how…how long has this mess been going on?” I asked, looking at Lizzie.

“Mess? I don't appreciate you usin' such a tacky word,” he informed me. “We are all grown, reasonable adults up in here. You could show a little more respect. I am bein' very civil about this, ain't I? And so is Lizzie.”

“Like I said, I want to know how long this…this
mess
has been going on?” I demanded through clenched teeth.

“What difference does it make?” Pee Wee answered. I stumbled forward and I guess he must have thought I was lunging for Lizzie because he shielded her body with his. “I…uh…we already put a deposit on an apartment. Life is too short—”

“And yours is going to be shorter than you think if you don't come to your senses!” I threatened.

Pee Wee gave me another wild-eyed look. “Me come to my senses? Woman, you got a lot of nerve sayin' some shit like that to me! Especially after what
you
did with that punk-ass
gigolo
last year!”

There was a large plastic bowl on the counter by the sink. It contained cold water up to the rim. I had used the water the night before to wash some Chinese mustard greens that I planned to cook for dinner this evening. My fussy daughter, Charlotte, a spoiled child who regarded good old down-home soul food like it was a cancer, had screamed and bolted from the kitchen in terror when she saw the greens. A few minutes later, she returned and played in that same water, pushing a tiny sailboat with a little man in it that resembled a young John Travolta. What fascinated her about the water was that it was so clear she could see her face in it. I could see my face in it now, but it wasn't a face I wanted to see, or one I recognized. There was so much anger in my eyes that it had sharpened my vision. I could see the red veins that had popped up in the whites of my eyes around my dilated pupils. My lips were twisted and my cheeks were trembling. I looked like some kind of wild-eyed creature from a black lagoon myself, just like Pee Wee. I felt like one, too. I knew that if Pee Wee and his bitch didn't vacate the premises soon, they'd have to deal with my full-blown wrath. Unfortunately for them, they didn't leave in time.

I could no longer contain myself. My fist connected with the side of Pee Wee's face so hard one of his teeth flew out of his mouth, sounding like a coin when it hit my freshly waxed linoleum floor. He howled and stumbled into Lizzie's arms, moaning and rubbing his cheek with both hands.

“Do you realize what you've just done?” she screeched, giving me a frantic look.

“I realize you're next!” I responded. She ducked when I swung my fist toward her face, but ducking didn't help her. I grabbed a rolling pin off the counter and batted her head a few times before she crumbled to the floor, taking Pee Wee down with her. They looked like two mangled rag dolls lying there on my floor. When Lizzie spat out some blood onto my clean floor, I kicked her in the side for doing that.

“Pee Wee, I knew you were going to bring that up! I knew you were going to bring up Louis Baines to make yourself look better!” I roared, standing over them with one hand on my hip and the rolling pin still in my other hand. “That's over and done with, and you know why I got involved with another man! You had stopped treating me like a woman. You didn't touch me in the bedroom for a whole year! What else could I do? But what's your excuse? What reason did you have to go outside of your marriage?”

“Annette, I told you I'm in love with Lizzie,” Pee Wee said with a heavy sigh.

They wobbled up from the floor at the same time, holding hands like a couple of teenaged lovebirds. That pissed me off even more, and I raised my hand to let them have it again. But I didn't. I was afraid that if I didn't stop, I'd kill them both. Prison was not where I wanted to spend even a minute of my golden years.

Pee Wee continued, “I didn't know it was going to come to this, but it did. And the sooner you get that through your head, the better for all of us. You and I have a daughter together, so I hope we can still be friendly enough so it won't be hard on her.”

Lizzie peeked at me from around Pee Wee's shoulder. What I could not understand was how any woman in her right mind could enter the house of the woman whose man she was taking!

“And I want you to know right now that when Pee Wee brings your daughter around, I will treat her like she's my own,” Lizzie declared.

I must have hit Lizzie harder than I thought. A bruise that looked like a bull's-eye had already formed in the center of her forehead.

Shaking my fist in her direction, I said, “Look, bitch. Do me a favor and go wait in the car. There is nothing you have to say now that I want to hear.” I swallowed hard and gave Lizzie the most menacing look I could manage. But she still didn't move. I gave Pee Wee a sharp look. “I can't believe that all this time—all of these last few weeks you were romancing me and talking all that trash about how important your marriage was to you, you were already planning this shit!”

“It just happened, baby!” Pee Wee claimed in a small voice. For a moment I
still
thought that he was going to break into a grin and tell me that this was all a bad joke. If only that were the case—
if only
! But he didn't. He gave me an indifferent look; then he wrapped his arm around Lizzie's waist and squeezed her. “That's life,” he added with a shrug.

“That's bullshit!” I screamed.

Things were happening too fast for me. I had just made passionate love to this man a few hours earlier, and now here he was standing in my kitchen telling me he was leaving me for another woman? Oh, HELL no!

My marriage was the biggest investment I'd ever made in my life, and I was not about to let it end easily.

“L
ook, Pee Wee, I know I've made some bad mistakes lately, and I know it might take a while for you to get over some of the things I've done, but I can't believe that you are walking out on me and our daughter like this!” I didn't realize I was crying until I tasted the tears on my lips. “Whatever was wrong, you could have at least talked to me about it!”

Now I was the one stalling, or buying more time was a better way of looking at it. On one hand, I wanted Pee Wee and Lizzie to get out of my sight because I knew that I was no longer responsible for my actions. But on the other hand, I had to keep them in place as I tried to make some sense out of what was happening. “I am your wife and this is your home! You can't just up and walk out like this,” I insisted, making a sweeping gesture with my hand.

I knew that if we didn't settle this mess within the next minute or two, I was going to be either on the floor in a heap or chasing Pee Wee and his bitch out of town on a rail.

“Why can't he?” Little Leg Lizzie asked, looking at me with her eyes narrowed into slits. For a woman in her position, she had a lot of nerve. From the look on her face now and the tone of her voice, you would have thought that I was the one breaking up her marriage. “He should have left you right after he found out you were cheating on him last summer—with a common flimflam man at that! And you were even
stupid
enough to give him money! I want you to know that I told Pee Wee that if he had had any sense, he would have left you then!”

I gasped. Pee Wee and I had just mentioned the affair that I had last summer, and I didn't care about Lizzie knowing that now. But I did have a problem with her
already
knowing about the affair. “Pee Wee, you told her all about me and Louis Baines?” I asked, more hot tears forming in my eyes. “You put our business out in the street?” He just blinked. “Can't you even answer my question?” He bowed his head and looked at the floor.

“Can't you put two and two together? Does everything have to be spelled out for you? Yes, Pee Wee told me about you and your little boy toy. And I swear to God, when I heard how you had given that…your…
gigolo
some money, I lost all respect for you, Annette. I never thought you'd be that stupid.” Lizzie snorted. “And I always thought you had a little more class than the rest of the hoochie mamas in Richland. Tsk, tsk, tsk!”

Lizzie sucking on her teeth grated on my nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. As if I didn't already feel bad enough, my body felt like it was about to shed my skin like a snake.

“Look, I just want to get some of my things this morning. I'll come for the rest later, after you cool off,” Pee Wee said in a low voice. There was raw fear in his demeanor. He was frightened and he had every reason to be. As a matter of fact, he looked like he was in pain. Well, since I was in serious pain myself, I was glad to see that he was, too. “My cousin Steve said I could use his truck….”

I didn't know how many more times I was going to gasp, but I gasped again, this time so hard my eyes crossed. I had to shut my eyes for a moment and shake my head before I could focus again. I looked at Pee Wee like I was seeing him for the first time. He looked like a stranger. I could not interpret the look on his face. If I had to guess, I would have to say that it was a look of contempt. But it was only half as potent as the one on my face.

I glared at him so hard he grimaced. “Steve knows? Your cousin Steve, a man with a mouth as big as the Grand Canyon knows and I'm just now hearing about that? I…I…can't believe my ears,” I whispered, stumbling back to the table. “A couple of meddlesome people dropped a few hints around me from time to time that you and Lizzie were fooling around.” I had to stop talking so I could catch my breath. I rubbed my chest, blinked hard a few times, and shook my head. “I let them know that I didn't believe them. I made it clear to them that you would never cheat on me. At least not with Lizzie…”

“Well, you were wrong again,” my husband taunted. “Now, if you don't mind, I'll grab a few things and be on my way.” Pee Wee and Lizzie rushed out of the kitchen, scurrying across the floor like roaches. Then they sounded like two horses stampeding up the stairs to the second floor of a house that now felt like a chamber of horrors to me.

I must have blacked out for a few moments, because I was barely aware of what happened next. I was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the wall when my husband and his lover came galloping down the stairs and back into the kitchen with two suitcases that contained some of his things.

“I might be back later today. And I'll sit Charlotte down and explain things to her,” Pee Wee offered. “I don't want my daughter to hear about this from anybody but me.”

I looked at him. I was so stunned I couldn't even focus. For a split second he looked like a demon from hell. His eyes were red; his thin, graying hair was askew.

And the cheek that I had hit looked like a raw piece of meat, and that scared me. His tooth, the root covered in blood, was still on the floor looking like a discarded pebble. I didn't know it was that easy to knock somebody's tooth out!

“I want you to tell me how in the world you let something like this happen? Have you lost your fucking mind?” I barked. “Please tell me that, Pee Wee!”

“Uh, when I get settled, I'll come by and we can talk about it,” he grunted. “I'll tell you all the things that were wrong with our marriage then.”

All the things that were
wrong
with our marriage? How was it that Pee Wee could see what was wrong with our marriage and I couldn't?

“It's not important enough for you to tell me now?” I whimpered. “Is it so bad that it can't be repaired?” One thing about myself that I was proud of was the fact that I'd never tried to cling to a man who didn't want to be clung to. Now here I was acting like Pee Wee was the last conscious man in the world. My mother had practically crawled on her belly like a serpent the day my daddy left us. I hated seeing her like that. Even though I was a toddler back then, I was precocious enough to know that a woman crawling after a man looked like a desperate fool. I was so glad that my own daughter was not around to see me looking and acting like a desperate fool.

Had I seen this coming, I would have been better prepared. I could have handled it in a much more dignified manner. Hell, had I known in time that Pee Wee no longer loved me and wanted to be with another woman, I probably would have helped him pack! I had enough going for me that my life didn't revolve around my husband.

If Pee Wee had dumped me when he found out about me and Louis, it would have made sense, and I would not have protested the way I was doing now. I would have been hurt, but I would have moved on with my life. Shit! He was the one who had adamantly refused to consider a divorce! It seemed so cruel of him to lift my spirits so high these past few months and then to drop me like a bad habit.

“This is not a good time, Annette,” he said hotly.

“And why is this not a good time? If it's a good time for you to bring your whore into my house, it's a good time for you to talk to me about it!” It seemed like I was getting angrier by the second. I knew that if this episode didn't conclude soon, somebody was going to be
real
sorry.

“Look, woman! I'm tryin' to make this as painless as possible.” Pee Wee eased the door open with his foot and beckoned with his head for Lizzie to leave. She scrambled out like the rat she was.

I grabbed his arm and he stopped, shaking his head. “Turn me loose,” he ordered. He set down one of his suitcases and rubbed the cheek I'd coldcocked. “And I advise you not to hit me no more!”

Right after he said that I throttled and boxed the back of his head with both of my fists. All he did was yelp, grab the suitcase he had set on the floor, and move faster out the door.

I followed him onto the porch. “Just like that? You are leaving me, just like that? Don't you know I can make you suffer?”

“Annette, you've already done that,” he smirked. “Why do you think I' leavin'?” he said, trotting to his car.

“Hurry up! That bitch is crazy!” Lizzie yelled. She had already opened the trunk to Pee Wee's car and was sitting in the front passenger seat. To add insult to injury, she quickly rolled up the window, locked the door, and was now looking at me like I was a carjacker.

Pee Wee dropped the suitcases into the trunk. I stomped out to the driveway and stood in front of his car with my hands on my hips.

“There's one more thing before you go!” I sneered.

“Annette, get out of the way,” he ordered. “I am tryin' to be nice about this!”

I walked up to him and boxed his head some more. All he did was close his eyes and moan. He didn't even try to defend himself. Then I kicked him in the shins. He yelled and stumbled, but he didn't fall. Lizzie jumped out of the car and ran around to help him. That was when I slammed her in the side with my elbow. She yelled and fell to the ground, but she was up again within seconds.

This time I cold punched her in the face with both of my fists at the same time. Pee Wee seemed too dazed to move or stop me from assaulting Lizzie. Right about then, Moshay, my nosy mailman, strolled over.

“Annette, you want me to call the cops?” he asked, looking amused.

“No, you don't need to call the cops!” I told him. “If you call anybody, it better be Jesus.”

Some of my neighbors came out onto their porches and into their yards, some still in housecoats, some in work clothes, looking and shaking their heads. But that didn't stop me. I was in so much pain at this point, I didn't even care if I got arrested now.

I slapped Lizzie's face so hard I almost dislocated my wrist. She yelled as tears streamed down her face. She managed to get back into the car and lock the door before I could get my hands on her throat.

Since Pee Wee was still outside of his car, I turned my attention and wrath back to him. He stood as stock-still as a lamppost when I marched back up to him. I stomped on his right foot with both of my feet, like I was trying to put out a fire. I knew that that had to hurt him because it hurt me to do it!

The bottoms of my feet felt like I'd stepped on some nine-inch nails. But he didn't utter a sound. That only made me angrier. I stomped on his feet some more. He still didn't make a sound. “You son-of-a-bitch,” I snarled. He stumbled to the driver's side of his car, wheezing and puffing as he got in, falling clumsily into the seat like a sack of flour. It looked like he had aged ten years in the last five minutes. And I felt like I'd aged twenty years since he'd dropped his bombshell on me.

“Like I said, I'll be back later to get the rest of my stuff. If you don't mind, can I go now?” he whimpered. I couldn't believe how calm he was!

“You do that! You'd better get your black ass out of my sight while you still can!” I hollered, standing by the side of his car with my arms folded.

My neighbors and my mailman were snickering like they were watching a bad movie.

“Damn right! I am sure enough leavin' this place!” Pee Wee assured me.

And that was exactly what he did.