God Don’t Like Ugly (8 page)

Once my whupping wore off, I went to sit on the front porch. Rhoda was on hers reading. She looked up and waved, then returned her attention to her reading material. Pee Wee had told me that she was one of the smartest girls in the whole school. She had taught herself how to speak Spanish. She played the piano and knew a lot of grown-up card games that her aunt Lola had taught her. Pee Wee told me that a lot of the kids were afraid of Rhoda, as petite as she was. There were several reasons. She had a ferocious big brother named Jock, who was the leader of a street gang. Terrorizing other kids was a way of life for him. He had even beaten up Pee Wee a few times.

Another reason a lot of kids feared Rhoda was because she had a crazy grandmother living in the house. A white woman. I hadn’t seen her yet, but I had heard that she chased cars up and down the street and threw rocks at people and called Black folks niggers. Still another reason kids were afraid of Rhoda was, a policeman had shot and killed her other brother while Rhoda was in his bedroom one night when she was six, and she had never gotten over it. Everybody said it made her act crazy sometimes. And finally, her daddy was an undertaker. To a lot of kids, undertakers and boogiemen were interchangeable. Nobody wanted the boogieman’s daughter as a friend.

H
istory was my worst subject. But it was the only class I had with Rhoda, so I didn’t mind going to it. Since she was everything I wanted to be and more, I even looked forward to it each day. I flunked most of the tests and arrived late two or three times a week because this was my first class after lunch. I was always one of the last ones to leave the cafeteria because I usually went back in line to get additional helpings of whatever was on the menu.

I had been in the new school for several days before I got up enough nerve to approach Rhoda without her inviting me. The cafeteria was crowded for lunch that day. Sadly, it was divided by race. Our local news covered all the racial problems Black people were having down South, especially the violence. There was an occasional fight in our school between somebody Black and somebody white. Sometimes it was over something as innocent as a comment made about somebody’s mother. The words “nigger” and “honky” eventually came up during the confrontation, and that made it a race incident. I think all that had a lot to do with people making such a big deal out of somebody’s color even in Ohio. It wasn’t a rule like down South, but we still had to deal with segregation. Property managers found ways not to rent to Blacks, jobs advertised in the paper were suddenly “filled” when a Black person attempted to apply, and the service Black folks received in some restaurants was so bad, it was better not to go there in the first place. Most of the time when I attempted to sit with white kids in the cafeteria, they gave me dirty looks and sometimes said something mean about my mama or just moved to another table. It seemed like everything was based on Black or white and a few colors in between, even lunch in a junior high school. The only Asian girl in our school was sitting with the school’s only four Hispanic kids at a table in the back of the cafeteria. Near the Black kids, Rhoda was sitting at a front table alone reading
Ebony
magazine. I was sitting at another table halfway between the white kids and us across the room by myself.

I don’t know how I got up enough nerve, but I decided to take my tray and go over to her. Most of the food on her tray had not even been touched! I didn’t know what to say to her. I took a deep breath, walked across the room to the table by the exit where she was sitting, and said, “Can I have your French fries?” I sat down across from her.

“Sure.” She smiled. She sighed and pushed her tray toward me, then returned her attention to the magazine. “Annette, right?” she asked, not looking up.

“Yep! Just like the white girl from the
Mickey Mouse Club
on TV,” I told her. She didn’t look at me again until I let out a belch that could be heard halfway across the room. “Excuse me,” I mumbled, my face burning with embarrassment. Black kids and white kids snickered and glared at me. I had eaten the French fries in record time. I was horrified at my behavior.

“Are you still hungry? If you are, I’ll go get you some more,” she told me.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “With ketchup.”

“Can I watch you eat them?” she asked softly. Our eyes met for a moment. She seemed to be studying me. Suddenly, I felt like the main attraction in a circus sideshow.

“What? Why do you want to
watch
me eat some French fries?” I wanted to know.

“I’ve never seen anybody enjoy food like you,” she said, an incredulous look on her face. “You finished those fries in less than a minute.”

“Um…did I? Uh…don’t you eat fries?” I asked.

“Every once in a while. I have to watch my weight. Besides, the fries here are sometimes so greasy I wouldn’t feed them to a hog I don’t like.”

The fries suddenly lost their appeal, as did everything else edible.

“Yeah. They are greasy. And I am kind of full,” I muttered. “But, you can go get me some candy bars, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, you like candy too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ooh. I know how to make this real good candy with molasses and peanuts. One day I’ll make you some, huh?”

“Yeah!” I tried to conceal my excitement. I was liking this girl more and more.

“I’ll go get you some M&Ms for now. You like them?”

“Oh yes. I like them a whole lot,” I admitted. “Hurry up,” I urged. To my surprise, she seemed as excited as I was! She gave me that smile again, then excused herself.

The next day I attempted to copy Rhoda’s answers on a history test. I sat one desk behind her in the next row. She saw me and rolled her eyes at me in such an evil way I shuddered. I hadn’t seen anybody roll their eyes that hard since I left Florida. I lowered my head and started tapping my pencil on my desk.

I felt pretty low by the time I arrived home that evening. Mama had left a note saying that she wouldn’t be home until after 10
P.M
. and that I’d better do anything Mr. Boatwright told me to do. Pee Wee was already in our living room with Mr. Boatwright, gossiping away.

Minutes after Pee Wee left, Mr. Boatwright was on top of me on the living-room floor. All the while I lay under him, I was thinking about Rhoda. I wondered what she was really like. The next moment, a strange feeling consumed me. I had developed my first crush: I was in love with Rhoda.

“How come you so flexible this time?” Mr. Boatwright wanted to know, grinning proudly. “Seem like you finally gettin’ the hang of things, praise the Lord.”

We had dressed, and I was helping him back to the couch.

“I had somebody on my mind,” I told him. My boldness surprised me. “Somebody who likes me…”

“Well.” He paused, and tilted his head, beaming proudly. “I guess I still got it, huh?” He let out his breath and slapped his hands on his hips.

I sat down on the arm of the couch and stared at him in disbelief. “Uh…no, not you. The pretty girl across the street. The undertaker’s daughter.” I wondered what it would be like to hug her and kiss her the way Mr. Boatwright hugged and kissed me.

“Rhoda?” A sad look appeared on his face. He was clearly disappointed.

“Uh-huh. She’s real nice to me. One time she gave me her French fries at lunch and went and bought me some M&Ms. She said me and her and Pee Wee can study sometime.”

Mr. Boatwright gasped. “What—now why would a gal like that want to hang around with a booger like you? That little heifer think she white anyway!” His comments hurt me severely.

“She’s a nice girl, and I think she likes me,” I told him. “I think she wants to be my friend.” I smiled; he frowned. “My first real girlfriend,” I added, still smiling.

The scowl on his face became so profound, his mouth looked like it had been turned upside down and his eyebrows seemed to protrude. “That whole uppity Nelson family ain’t nothin’ but a generation of vipers, girl. With they no-pork-eatin’ selves! When they shit it stink just as pooty as ours—probably worse!”

“I don’t care what you say—”

“You sassin’ me?” It was hard to believe, but the scowl on his face got even worse. He drew back to slap me.

“No sir,” I whimpered, with my head bowed submissively.

“Now. Let’s find the
TV Guide,
” he said, almost cheerfully. His scowl suddenly disappeared, and he looked like his old self, which was still bad, but not nearly as threatening.

Later that night, just before Mama got home, Mr. Boatwright came to my room and dropped his evil body onto my bed right next to me and started rocking and humming “Hush Little Baby.”

“Mr. Boatwright,” I began.

He turned to face me, still rocking my bed and humming.

“Mr. Boatwright, why do you keep doing what you do to me after all these years?” I asked. I had caught him off guard.

“What you mean?” He gasped and stood, his narrowed eyes darting from side to side.

“You know I read a lot of books.”

“And that’s another thing, you and all them books. Gibberish! Worldly! I can smell the brimstone. Everything you need to know in the Bible, girl.”

“I’ve learned a lot from books other than the Bible. Things I really need to know. I know that what you do to me is wrong,” I said calmly. I think the fact that I didn’t raise my voice or seem mad made him even angrier. If looks could kill, I’d have dropped dead on the spot right then and there. I had never seen him look at me in such a mean way.

“You mean what
we
do.”

“But I don’t want to, and you know I don’t want to,” I wailed. “You know I don’t like it. Why do you still do it?”

Suddenly, he looked at the floor and let out his breath.

Then he looked at me with a straight face, and whined, “After all I do for you, how come you so mean to me, possum?” His words made me gasp. When I didn’t respond, he lowered his head and shuffled out of my room, gently closing the door.

O
f all my classes, the one I dreaded most was P.E. I was always one of the last to be picked for any of the teams, and most of the girls I couldn’t stand, because they bullied us unpopular kids, were in this class.

Stege Junior High was only one of two junior high schools in Richland. Taking up almost a whole city block, Stege was filled with mostly upscale white kids, but there were a lot of rowdy, low-income kids from the north side of town enrolled as well. It was bad enough the kids in our school had racial problems, but there were also clashes based on economic levels. Surprisingly, how much money your family had carried more weight than race. It was more common to see rich kids, white and Black, associating with each other than with poor kids of their own race.

Being Black
and
poor, I knew better than to attempt to be part of any of the popular crowds. I hung out with a few other girls who came to school mainly to learn like I did. There were a couple of girls I often ate lunch with, but I’d never been to their homes or invited them to mine.

Now, on my way to P.E., I could not imagine what lay in store for me. I didn’t know if the girls were going to ignore me or attack me. My thoughts were interrupted when somebody tapped me on the back. I closed my eyes and expected the worse. When nothing happened after a few moments, I stopped and turned around. It was Rhoda, dressed in all white. A white ribbon hung from the side of her hair. She was dazzling.

“Hi.” She smiled. I had never been this close to her before.

“Hi,” I mumbled. Within seconds, sweat started to form on my forehead, and I started trembling. My thoughts were running amok. What could she want from me? My lunch money? My new secondhand scarf. “I’ll give you a nickel,” I told her, bowing my head submissively.

“A nickel? What would
I
do with
a nickel?
My daddy gives me a whole dollar every mornin’,” she informed me. “I just wanted to apologize to you for rollin’ my eyes at you in history class. I was havin’ a bad day.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. If I had studied, I would not have had to copy your answers. You always get A’s.” I surprised myself. It felt so natural talking to her. But I could barely stand to look into those stunning green eyes. I didn’t know if I was going to like being a lesbian and was beginning to have second thoughts about it already. What good-looking lesbian would want me? Did I really want to kiss this girl? I wasn’t even sure now.

“I study real hard, and I earn all those good grades I get,” Rhoda claimed. I knew that Rhoda was originally from down South, too, because she had a moderate Southern accent. I had worked hard over the years trying to get rid of mine, but it was still noticeable. I was proud of the fact that I had never dropped my g’s from ing words, something I’d picked up from TV and radio when we still lived in Florida. “Readin’ is my first love,” she gushed.

“Oh? Mine too. Reading and movies.” I swallowed so hard, my throat hurt. She was making me nervous, but I was glad to be talking with her. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters or friends, so I have to do something so I won’t be lonely.”

She followed as I walked on. I didn’t want to be late to this class.

“What about Pee Wee?” she asked.

“Well, he’s…um…not really a friend. He’s just the boy next door. His daddy comes to our house a lot, so Pee Wee comes, too.”

“Yeah, he comes to visit me a lot, too, but I don’t consider him a friend. He’s just…just…there.” We both laughed. “Hey! You like comic books?
Superman, Archie.
”

“Uh-huh. I read them a lot,” I replied bobbing my head up and down.

“I got a pile up to my knee if you want to borrow the ones you haven’t read yet.”

“Ooh wee. But…why? You don’t know me,” I said shyly, narrowing my eyes to see her better.

“Well,” she shrugged and cocked her head to the side, “since we live so close, my daddy said you’re a nice girl and I should be neighborly to you. He thinks I’m too grown for my age. He’s always tryin’ to get me to make friends at school with other girls.” Rhoda paused and her eyes got wide. “I know—maybe we can go to the library or the bookstore or the movies together sometime,” she said excitedly.

“Huh?” I gasped. “Me and you?”

“Sure. Don’t you want to?”

“Well…I didn’t think…you…um.” I didn’t know what I was saying.

“You don’t like me either, Annette?” she asked sadly. We stopped. Our eyes met, and I saw something that frightened me. I saw the same emptiness I felt sometimes.

I shrugged, and said, “I like you. But you…you mean you
like
me? Some of the kids don’t like me, but I don’t really care,” I said firmly.

“Well, you’re not like any of those other kids. You wouldn’t want to be like them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you want to be an imitation of somebody else, or do you want to be yourself? I don’t know you that well, but from what I do know, you’re worth five of some of those other girls.”

“I am?”

“You’re smart, and you’ve got a complexion I couldn’t beat with a stick.”

My hand went up to my face. I widened my eyes and looked at Rhoda with great suspicion. “What about my complexion? Everybody says I’m too dark.”

“Too dark for what?”

“I really don’t know,” I said thoughtfully, scratching the back of my neck.

“We’re the same shade, and I’m sure as hell not too dark for anything. God didn’t think so, or he wouldn’t have made us this color.” Rhoda paused and smiled. “Your skin reminds me of a milk chocolate candy bar. All smooth and silky and not nary a pimple, a freckle, nothin’. And look at that beauty mark!”

This was the first time the wart above my lip had been referred to as a beauty mark. “But you’ve got nice skin, too,” I stammered.

“Yeah but mine’s from the drugstore. If I didn’t do facials and didn’t wear makeup, my face would look like peanut brittle.”

“Thanks, Rhoda. No other girl has ever told me that before,” I said shyly. I inspected my ashy hands, turning them over twice.

“Oh, they are probably jealous,” Rhoda snarled. “Most of these kids are too stupid for their own good. Who needs ’em?”

“I know what you mean. I just wish they would let me go on about my business. I just want to graduate so I can go on with my life. Sometimes I get so angry I feel like dropping out of school. But I am not going to let them break me,” I said levelly.

“I see you sittin’ on your porch lookin’ by yourself all the time. Then I see you in the cafeteria, alone like me. I sit on my porch alone a lot, and I sit in the cafeteria every day alone. I don’t have any close friends either.”

“But you’re so pretty—”

“So?”

“You could probably have any boyfriend you want. I hear all the girls talking about how they wish they had your shape or your hair or your looks. Even some of the white girls,” I blurted.

“But that doesn’t mean they like me. A lot of them don’t like me on account of they are jealous because my daddy’s got a lot of money and everything and my mama’s good-lookin’. Madeline Brewster invited every girl but me in Home Ec. class to her slumber party this weekend. I’ve never been to a slumber party…” There were tears in her eyes. I was so taken aback I almost fainted.

“You want to sit on my porch with me this evening?” A lump had formed in my throat. I had a hard time getting my words out without it hurting. She was the first person I had ever invited home since Mona and Francine, the girls from my church I’d tried to be friends with. She smiled and nodded vigorously.

“You know, other than that Pee Wee and my family, my dolls are my only companions. Isn’t it odd? The kids probably hate me as much as they hate you. And you and I are as different as night and day,” Rhoda told me excitedly.

“I don’t have much of a family. Just me and Mama and this aunt in Florida. I don’t know exactly where my other folks are. Most of them are still down South somewhere. I know my daddy’s somewhere with a white woman.”

“Speakin’ of white folks, wait until you meet my uncle Johnny. Before he got religion, he robbed a bank one time with a butcher knife.” Rhoda laughed. We heard the bell ring. “We better run.”

“You’re in this class now?” I howled.

“I transferred today. Today is dodgeball. Nobody’s goin’ to pick me to be on their team,” she said sadly.

“Me neither. I hope the teacher makes the same team take us both.” I giggled.

Rhoda and I entered the locker room together. She was chattering away about having to rush home after school to help her mother take care of her grandmother and to clean her room.

Most of the girls had already dressed for class and were standing around chewing gum real loud and cussing up a storm. The ring leader was a tall, good-looking Black girl with red hair named Lena Cundiff. Her daddy was a doctor
and
a preacher, but she was one mean bitch. Lena and her gang glared at Rhoda and me.

“I gotta change my tampon. Watch my stuff,” Rhoda told me. She handed me her book bag and strutted past the girls on to the bathroom stalls. Lena snarled something under her breath, and Rhoda turned around and stopped. “Did you say somethin’, Cundiff?” Rhoda hissed. Her voice carried so much authority it didn’t surprise me when Lena bowed and shook her head. “I didn’t think you did,” Rhoda added.

As soon as Rhoda disappeared, Lena gave me another mean look. I just let out my breath and sat down on one of the benches and started to remove my shoes. I already had my gym clothes on under my street clothes. Not only did it save time, I didn’t have to get my gym basket from the cage. One of Lena’s friends was in charge of the cage. In the last gym class when I had retrieved my gym clothes, somebody had stuck a big wad of purple chewing gum in the crotch of my shorts. Before I could get my blouse off, Lena strode over and stood in front of me and folded her arms and gave me a threatening look.

“Girl, you look like somethin’ I seen swingin’ from a tree in a Tarzan movie. What you lookin’ at, Cheetah?!” she shouted at me with her nostrils flaring.

“Nothing,” I muttered. My eyes were on the floor.

“I’m surprised they make shorts big enough to fit a cow like you,” she said seriously. The other girls roared.

“They do,” I mumbled. Somehow, I managed a smile.

“And where did you get that book bag? I know for a fact your funky old mama ain’t nothin but a maid cleanin’ funky Judge Lawson’s toilets and shit. She ain’t got no money to afford nothin’ that nice. I bet you stole it.” Then, without warning and for no apparent reason, other than the fact that she just didn’t like me, Lena stomped on my bare foot.

“I don’t steal,” I told her in a weak, barely audible voice as I massaged my foot. It hurt like hell. I was sure I’d be limping for a few hours, but since I wasn’t going to be picked for any of the ball teams anyway, it didn’t matter.

“I bet you do. That’s a nylon book bag. Lemme feel it.” Lena ran her mean hand along the side of Rhoda’s book bag. Before I knew what was happening, she dug a big bugger from her nose and stuck it on Rhoda’s beautiful new book bag. I was horrified. The other girls roared even louder and harder. It sounded like thunder, but what happened next happened so fast, I don’t remember all the details. Rhoda shot across the locker-room floor, grabbed Lena by her arm, and pulled her back to the bathroom stalls. The other girls and I ran behind them. Inside the bathroom, Rhoda forced Lena’s head into an out-of-service toilet and held it there for a full minute, then she flushed it. There was sweat all over Rhoda’s pretty face. Her eyes darkened, and her face became a mask of absolute rage. Her teeth were clenched, her lips trembled. For a moment I thought that I was looking at the devil. The water from the toilet spilled out onto the floor as Lena tried desperately to get away from Rhoda.

The other girls got so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I actually found myself feeling sorry for Lena. Then Rhoda snatched Lena’s head back, pulled her up, and slammed her against the wall with so much force the lockers rattled.

“If you ever touch any of my stuff again, I am goin’ to
kill
you, Lena,” Rhoda said seriously. “Do I make myself clear?” Her voice was cold and hard, almost like a deep growl. Rhoda didn’t seem like herself anymore. I don’t know how, but I knew she meant business.

Lena was coughing and spitting up all kinds of filth from the toilet. She wiped her face with both hands, then turned to face Rhoda. “Is that a threat, Nelson?” I could not believe that Lena was brave enough to say anything that might possibly provoke Rhoda again. But most bullies I knew were not smart people anyway. She didn’t know any better.

“That’s not a threat,” Rhoda said, letting out her breath. She was so cool and calm that it was scary. By now, her voice had returned to normal. “That’s a promise.”