God Don’t Like Ugly (29 page)

What he did to me and what Mr. Boatwright had done to me for years were two different things. And as far as the men from Scary Mary’s were concerned, I couldn’t even remember what sex had been like with them. It seemed so unreal when I recalled any of it, which was every day. The shame of prostitution as part of my work experience was overwhelming. He offered to teach me things, telling me, “We got all night.” I did everything he told me to do. Afterward, when I shared his joint with him, I couldn’t stop grinning. I waited until I was sure he was asleep before I climbed out of bed and ran to the living-room phone to call Rhoda.

“Do you know what time it is?” she barked.

“I know. I just wanted to tell you…Pee Wee is here and we…you know. I just wanted you to be the first to know we did it!”

“Did what?!”

“Pee Wee and I had sex.”

“
Our
Pee Wee? You have got to be kiddin’!” Rhoda screamed. She was wide-awake now.

“I am not kidding.” I laughed. “And do you know what? I liked it. Now I know why you and Otis were always sneaking off to motels.”

“This is too much,” Rhoda replied.

“Tell me about it.” I laughed again.

We got quiet for a few moments but I wasn’t ready to get off the phone. I never got tired of talking to Rhoda.

“Well, what now? Does this mean you and Pee Wee are an item or something?” Rhoda asked.

“He’s leaving in the morning to go back to the base. He’ll be discharged in a few months, then he returns to Richland to go to barber school so he can work with Caleb.” My voice was now low and hollow. My mind was whirling with confusion and a strange sense of joy. My crotch was still tingling. I had finally found out what all the fuss was about.

“I see. So this was just a one-night stand?” Rhoda said accusingly.

“I guess so,” I answered, disappointed because I was thinking the same thing.

“I figured that. You know how men are.” After Rhoda said that, I felt cheap and used. Now I was ready to get off the phone.

I felt really sad after my conversation with Rhoda. I missed Pee Wee already, and he had not even left. I went back to sleep and when I woke up, planning to fix him breakfast, he was gone. No good-bye, no nothing, just gone! I got depressed all over again. If I could have, I would have kicked my own ass for letting a man make a fool out of me the first time I let my guard down.

Within a week, things were back to normal for me. I put Pee Wee out of my mind and concentrated on my life in Erie.

For the next few weeks I didn’t call Rhoda. I felt too ashamed after what Pee Wee had done to me. When Pee Wee returned to Richland he wrote me a brief note and apologized for leaving me the way he did. I wrote him back and told him not to worry, we were still friends. We began to write to one another on an irregular basis.

About three months after I’d slept with Pee Wee, my telephone rang one Sunday night right after I had gone to bed. I figured it was Muh’Dear calling, but it was Rhoda.

“I need you.
I need you here with me real bad!”
she said as soon as I spoke. Something was dreadfully wrong. My first thought was she had confessed to Mr. Boatwright’s murder and she was calling to tell me that our gooses were cooked. My heart started beating so hard I was afraid it was going to pop out of my chest.

“Did somebody find out about Mr. Boatwright?” I hollered, out of breath. The long silence that followed scared me even more. “Rhoda, are you there?”

“My son David is dyin’,” she rasped. “He has a hole in his heart just like Muh’Dear.”

“What did you say?” She repeated herself, and her words were like a sledgehammer slamming against the side of my head. All of a sudden, my problems didn’t seem so big anymore. “I’m on my way.” I left the apartment with just the clothes on my back and my purse.

The taxi got me to the airport in record time, but the next flight to the Miami area, where Atwater was located, wasn’t for another three hours.

I arrived in Miami the next morning at 10
A.M
. after a two-hour stopover in Charlotte, North Carolina. A gypsy cab took twenty minutes to get me to Rhoda’s country place.

Even though Rhoda had told me all about her house, I didn’t know what to really expect. The cab let me out on a dirt road, then I had to walk through some woods for about five minutes to reach a clearing. Surrounded by orange trees was the cutest little white cottage I’d ever seen. A truck and a jeep were in the front yard, along with some hens and a coon dog. A young white girl of about twelve was sitting on the front porch steps crying. Sitting on her lap was a young Black boy, who was a miniature version of Rhoda’s husband, sucking his thumb. She had sent me lots of pictures of her older boy, so I knew that this was her son Julian. He whined when I reached out to touch him.

“He’s afraid of strange people,” the girl informed me.

“Is this where Rhoda and Otis live?” I asked, knowing that it had to be.

The girl gave me a suspicious look, then nodded and stood up. The boy hid behind her.

“Are you April?” I asked.

The girl nodded again and started wiping her nose with the tail of her flowered dress. She was a pretty child, with milky white skin, huge brown eyes, and a single blond braid.

“Where is Rhoda? Where is her husband?”

“Mr. Otis is in Jamaica with his daddy. They’re on the way back home now. Miss Rhoda is on the back porch with the baby. She told me to keep this boy here with me so she could tend to the little one.”

I snatched open the front screen door. Not being familiar with the house, I didn’t know where to run once I got inside. Just as I expected, Rhoda had decorated her home nicely, with wicker furniture, lush green carpets, large white lamps, an elaborate fish tank with an assortment of exotic fish, and a library in the living room that contained hundreds of books.

“I’ll show you.” April grabbed my hand and led me through the house to the kitchen. Outside on the back porch sat Rhoda in a rocking chair, holding David. Her right nipple was in his mouth, and she was rocking him and humming. Tears came to my eyes when I noticed a squirrel with a white paw like the one I had played with as a child perched in a corner on the porch looking up at Rhoda. I blinked hard to contain myself.

“Rhoda, is he going to be all right?” I asked softly, moving toward her. She looked at me with red, swollen eyes. Smiling sadly, she stopped humming and shook her head slowly. Then she looked away and started humming again.

April tugged on my arm. “Lady, he’s dead,” she whispered. “He died last night.”

S
ince I’d left Erie with nothing but my purse, I took a cab back into Miami the same day I arrived to pick up a few items I’d be needing during my stay at Rhoda’s house. The most difficult purchase was a simple black dress to wear to the baby’s funeral.

I didn’t plan to return to Erie until the weekend. I called Viola from Rhoda’s living room phone to tell her where I was and why. “Annette, don’t you worry about nothin’. I’ll call the shift supervisor right away and tell him where you at and why and that you won’t be back to work for a few days,” Viola told me.

Right after I finished my conversation with Viola I called up Muh’Dear to tell her about David’s death, but she already knew from the Nelsons. “And did Rhoda tell you about that brother of hers? That mannish boy Jock.” Muh’Dear whispered.

“What about him?”

“Since he been back from Vietnam, he’s been real strange. Shell-shocked, Mr. King called it. Chasin’ cars, spit-tin’ on folks. He went up to Scary Mary and slapped her so hard her wig flew off,” Muh’Dear told me.

“Rhoda didn’t tell me about Jock,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder. A doctor had sedated her, but she was up and about anyway.

“Well don’t bring it up at a time like this,” Muh’Dear pleaded.

“Rhoda’ll be fine. I’m going to to help her prepare dinner,” I said, glad Muh’Dear got off the phone right away.

Rhoda’s kitchen was larger than one would expect. So was her living room. The three bedrooms, all neat and brightly furnished, were small, which made them seem congested. “April keeps this place neat as a pin.” Rhoda laughed. She was standing over the sink washing collard greens when I joined her after my conversation with Muh’Dear. I was sitting at the table drinking a cup of tea. Before I could speak Otis popped into the kitchen, looking tired and beaten down. While Pee Wee had blossomed so to speak and turned into a real hunk, Otis’s good looks had started to fade already. At twenty-five, he looked ten years older.

“Hi, Otis. How are you feeling today?” I said, trying to smile. The funeral had been the day before. His eyes were still red and swollen.

“Oh, I’m getting along as well as can be expected,” he mumbled. He went to Rhoda, brushed her lightly across her face, whispered something in her ear, and then excused himself. Rhoda sighed and came to the table with a dishpan containing the greens. Without a word she handed me a knife, and we both started cutting up the greens.

“Men,” she huffed. “He’ll come back smellin’ like a beer garden and finish drivin’ me crazy.” Rhoda seemed like she was talking more to herself than she was to me.

I cleared my throat. “Um…whatever happened to your white cousins Alice Mae and Mae Alice? I was suprised they didn’t come down for the funeral,” I said.

Rhoda chuckled first. “Oh didn’t I tell you? Alice Mae ‘married’ a woman and is living with her in Detroit.” Rhoda bowed her head and looked at me with a strange expression on her face.

“She’s a lesbian?” I gasped.

“Always has been. I said I’d never tell you this, but she had the hots for you. The minute she met you when Granny Goose died, she told me and her twin. I told her not to waste her time or yours.”

I was stunned. So stunned I didn’t know how to respond to Rhoda’s news. “What about her twin? Where is she?” I was taking my time cutting up the greens. I wanted to savor my moments alone with Rhoda.

“Sellin’ pussy all over the state of Alabama like Aunt Lola did for so many years. And the killin’ things is, Aunt Lola’s the main one tryin’ to talk her into quittin’. I don’t judge anybody. I say do what you gotta do. All women use their pussy in some kind of way to get what they want. That’s how my mama kept my daddy under control. That’s what’s made Scary Mary so much money.”

“Yeah. I got a feeling that’s how me and Muh’Dear survived,” I mouthed.

“I know for a fact it is,” Rhoda said, looking directly into my eyes. “Scary Mary told me your mama used to turn a few tricks on the side when you guys were real down-and-out,” Rhoda paused and looked me in the eyes. Neither one of us blinked. “And everybody knows about your mama and Judge Lawson. They’ve had a thing goin’ on for years. Now she’s got that Buttercup restaurant man, Mr. King, in her hip pocket.” Rhoda’s voice got real low, and she looked around before continuing. “And remember those times you’d do it with Buttwright without a fuss, just to get money to go to the movies and stuff with?”

I nodded, not looking at her. “Yeah,” I muttered, looking at the floor. “But I didn’t want to do it.”

“Well I am sure no woman in her right mind wants to do it. Like I said, a woman’s got to do what she’s got to do,” Rhoda said firmly. She slammed the kitchen table with her fist for emphasis. “I’d do it if I had to, wouldn’t you?”

“I did,” I mumbled, then held my breath.

“I know you did. Buttwright—”

“Not just with him.” I almost laughed. Rhoda looked in my eyes, and we just stared at one another for so long we both got nervous. “Right after you and Otis left Ohio, I got desperate and I guess a little crazy. I needed money. I needed a lot of money to leave home with,” I confessed, trembling so hard I dropped the knife.

“Weren’t you workin’ for the phone company?” Rhoda asked.

“I quit after just a couple of weeks and…and I got involved with some of the men that go to Scary Mary’s place.”

Rhoda stared at me with an incredulous look on her face, shaking her head. “Girl, you are full of surprises. First, you call me in the middle of the night to tell me you screwed Pee Wee. Now this?”

“Well”—I shrugged—“like you said, a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do. Are you going to judge me?” I asked boldly, cutting up the greens hard and fast.

Rhoda turned away from me, stared at the floor and started talking in a slow controlled manner. “When my baby died my first thought was God’s punishin’ me for…what I did,” Rhoda whispered.

I stopped cutting the greens and moved my chair closer to hers. “I thought that same thing. I said to myself, God taking Rhoda’s baby was the payback for Mr. Boatwright’s murder.”

She looked at my face and shook her head. “Not that. I…I had an affair.” My face felt like it had frozen in time. I couldn’t react right away. “Right after I had Julian, me and Otis had some problems in the bedroom. That postpartum shit had me so depressed all I did was eat and walk around in the same musty housecoat all day long. He wouldn’t touch me with a stick, and the longer it went on, the more unattractive I felt. That’s why I did it.”

“Who was this other man? Do you still see him?” I wanted to know. Now I really felt bad thinking about all that time I spent up in Erie wishing Rhoda and Otis would break up. She looked and sounded so sad, I thought she was going to start crying.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “My husband’s best friend,” she said whispered hoarsely.

“What?”

“He was visitin’ from Jamaica for a couple of weeks,” she said slowly and so quietly I asked her to repeat it. “We were alone…one minute we’re drinkin’ beer, the next minute we’re…you know.”

“Oh my God!” I shrieked. “Rhoda, how could you? In your own house?”

She nodded. “It gets worse.” Rhoda paused and held up her hand. Before finishing her confession, she looked around again to make sure we were still alone. “His name was Bobby. David…David was his son.”

“Are you sure?” I thought I was going to go into complete shock.

“Oh there’s no doubt about it. Otis hadn’t touched me in weeks. I was already two months along—the doctor had even confirmed it—when I got Otis drunk and seduced him on the livin’-room couch. I waited just three weeks before I started droppin’ hints to him that I might be pregnant again. When David arrived seven months later, right on schedule, Otis and everybody believed me when I told him the baby was premature. Thank God David looked like me.”

I put the greens and the knife on the table and stood up to hug Rhoda’s shoulder.

“When did the affair end?” I asked.

“When he left. He moved to London and married some Englishwoman. He never knew about the baby.”

“Rhoda, why didn’t you tell me before now?” I looked at Rhoda like I was looking at her for the first time. Her lips were trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. In all the years we’d been friends, this was the first time I’d seen her without makeup. She was still beautiful, but in a more natural way.

“Lord knows you and I’ve got enough dark secrets. I didn’t want to burden you with another one,” she said. She sucked in her breath and shook her head.

“That’s something you really needed to talk to somebody about. You know you can always talk to me about anything.”

“I couldn’t even tell you before now because I was so ashamed. This makes up for the Buttwright thing, I guess. When my baby died, I knew then I couldn’t keep this secret to myself any longer. I had to tell somebody, and that somebody could only be you. I’m just glad you were able to drop everythin’ and come down here to be with me.”

I hugged Rhoda again. “Our lives our beginning to sound like soap operas,” I said. “Any other sordid secrets you want to share with me?” I asked. It did make us both laugh for a brief moment.

“That’s it for me right now. What about you?” Rhoda asked.

“Well, nothing. Oh yeah there is. That first Thanksgiving in Erie, I was so lonely and depressed I got blind drunk and was seriously thinking about jumping out of my hotel window. If you hadn’t called me when you did, I would have died that night,” I said. Rhoda gave me another incredulous look, then laughed so hard she shook. It took me a moment to realize she thought I was joking, and I left it that way. Right after that, Lola, who was planning to stay another week, returned from the graveyard where she’d gone to leave more flowers on David’s grave. After a good cry on my shoulder, Lola helped us finish preparing dinner.

After I returned to Erie, the next few weeks seemed to fly by. I did not talk to Rhoda for quite a while. When we did talk, a couple of weeks later, she told me what was happening with her brother. It was a grim situation. Apparently, Jock had become too much for her aging parents to handle. Lola did as much as she could to help out when she wasn’t working at Antonosanti’s, but that still was not enough. Uncle Johnny was still having his problems with the law and spent more time in jail than out, so he was not much help.

Otis had told Rhoda that Jock could move in with them. By living out in the country like they did, Jock running around outside naked wouldn’t be so bad.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told Pee Wee during a phone conversation.

“Why not? He’s gettin’ into all kinds of trouble in Ohio. He was in the V.A. hospital in Cleveland and roughed up an intern so bad the man had to be hospitalized. He loves Rhoda and Otis, and they’re young and strong enough to handle him better. Besides, what kind of trouble could he get in out in the country? The worst would be to set a orange tree on fire.” He snapped.

I dismissed Pee Wee’s comments. I recalled how Jock used to intimidate and beat up Pee Wee when we were kids. It was hard to believe that someone like Jock was now in the same boat with Scary Mary’s daughter Mott: mentally handicapped and totally dependent on others.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Jock was pretty crazy even when he was still sane. Now that he’s really crazy, how can they know what to expect? God I wish we were all kids again and back at home gossipin’ on the front porch,” I whined to Pee Wee, attempting to change the subject.

“Me too. I really miss you and Rhoda. And Lord knows I miss old Mr. Boatwright. What that man could do to a pot of turnip greens! I know you miss all that good home cookin’, girl.”

“Pee Wee, you don’t know the half of it,” I told him.