God Don’t Like Ugly Read online

  “I was on the phone with Florence—”

  “Again?”

  “Well yes—”

  “I squatted down on your dusty, musty back porch on my knees in a pair of twelve-dollar tights waitin’ for you and you were on the phone talkin’ gibberish with that Florence?”

  “Stop it, Rhoda! She hasn’t done a thing wrong for you and Mr. Boatwright to talk about her so bad every time I mention her name. You’re beginning to sound just like him! She’s always telling me to say ‘hi’ to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rhoda said contritely, bowing her head “I truly am sorry. I don’t mean to trash the girl. She is a sweet person. I don’t even know her that well.” Rhoda blinked hard and took another swallow. “God knows I don’t want to sound like Buttwright.”

  “Florence can’t help being blind. No more than I can help…being the way I am,” I mumbled.

  “When you see Florence…tell her I said ‘hi.’” Rhoda smiled. She put her arm around my shoulder, and we walked upstairs to the bathroom next door to Mr. Boatwright’s room.

  “How long will it take?” I asked between gulps of whiskey as I sat naked in a bathtub full of hot water. Rhoda had brought over a whole bottle of her daddy’s best whiskey. As expensive as it was, it tasted awful. It took me the longest time to get it all down without throwing up, and I got drunk as hell. I could not imagine what the cheap whiskey tasted like.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. She was standing over the bathtub, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t even remove her coat. I figured she wanted to be prepared to run if something real bad happened.

  I don’t remember much. All I remember is Rhoda helping me from the bathtub and into my gown and saying, “Gee, I hope you don’t get alcohol poisonin’.”

  I woke up in the city hospital two days later. Muh’Dear, looking like she had not slept in a week, and a blank-faced Mr. Boatwright were standing over me.

  “Who done it?” Muh’Dear whispered, glancing over her shoulder toward the door and wringing her hands.

  I closed my eyes and groaned. Now was as good a time as any to pretend I was too sick to speak.

  Muh’Dear asked me over and over, “Who done it? Who done it?”

  Mr. Boatwright was frighteningly silent. He looked away every time I looked in his direction. He looked at the floor most of the time, twitching and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He cleared his throat and in a low, meek voice, told me, “Annette, I’m prayin’ for you. With God’s help, we gwine to pull through this mess unscathed.”

  I was not in that much pain but I was weak and disoriented. All I could do was remain still and listen. Finally, I spoke, “I don’t know who got me pregnant,” I said. What else could I say?

  Muh’Dear gasped and threw up her arms. She fell back against Mr. Boatwright, almost knocking him down. “Lord, it’s worse than we thought, Brother Boatwright. The girl done fooled around with so many, she don’t know which one got her in this mess.” Muh’Dear had to fan her face and catch her breath before continuing. Her face had become a mask of rage. “Bride of Satan!” she shrieked.

  “Sister Goode, we just gwine to keep a tighter hold on the girl, that’s all. She runnin’ with the wrong kind of kids,” Mr. Boatwright added, humbly.

  I saw red. I pulled myself up and glared at him. There was a burning sensation in my nostrils, and my flesh crawled. “I don’t care what you do to me, I am not going to stop being friends with Rhoda,” I said evenly. Muh’Dear was stunned. She threw her arms around Mr. Boatwright.

  “The girl ain’t responsible. It’s all that medication,” he mouthed, fumbling with his shirt pocket, reaching for his handkerchief so he could fan his sweaty face.

  “Rhoda is my best friend. The only friend I’ve got.” I started to cry. The hospital room was cold and impersonal, but I was glad I was in it and not in my room, where I’d probably conceived Mr. Boatwright’s baby.

  Muh’Dear let out a weak sigh and looked at her watch. “I got to get my tail to work. Judge Lawson will think I skipped out on him.” She paused and looked at me, shaking her head so hard her scarf came untied. “Where did I go wrong? I’ll tend to you when you come home,” she said, as they prepared to leave.

  I was propped up in bed watching TV when Rhoda arrived and handed me a get well card later that day.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “It’s from Florence.”

  “Oh.” I set the card on the nightstand without reading it. I wanted to read it, but not in front of Rhoda.

  “She gave it to Pee Wee to give to me,” she informed me. “Are you OK?” She smiled.

  “I guess so.” I nodded. “That baby is gone. I’m sorry I had to do that to a poor little innocent baby.” I truly was sorry. Even though Mr. Boatwright was the father, I was still the child’s mother.

  “Girl, it wasn’t a real baby. We’re talkin’ about a Rosemary’s Baby. How could you love a child like that?” Rhoda said, waving her arms.

  “You’re probably right,” I said thoughtfully, nodding. “I probably would have ended up mistreating it or deserting it or something.”

  “Well, it’s over with now.” Rhoda moved closer to the bed. She leaned over and felt my forehead. It was colder in the room than it was before, but I felt hot. There was even sweat on my face. “How’d your mama take it?”

  I just frowned and shrugged. “Well, you know my mama. She’s just a country woman. She’s not sophisticated like your mama. There’s no telling how she’s going to behave toward me after I get home. They’ll probably make me memorize the whole Bible.”

  “I bet they do,” Rhoda agreed.

  “And you should have heard that son of a bitch Mr. Boatwright.”

  Rhoda started talking with her eyes looking at the floor. “We have got to do somethin’ about him. Real soon.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “Everybody thinks you have the flu,” Rhoda informed me the next evening. I was home alone, so I could talk freely on the kitchen wall phone. I had been released from the hospital just two hours earlier. “Even Florence.”

  “You’ve been talking to her?” I asked, unable to hide the fact that I was surprised.

  “Well, no, not really. She’s been talkin’ to Pee Wee. He’s been talkin’ to me.”

  “What about that loudmouth Pee Wee? You don’t think he’ll go around and blab, do you?”

  “He doesn’t know anything about you bein’ pregnant. Not unless he’s pyschic. I sure as hell didn’t tell him,” Rhoda answered. My fear was that Mr. Boatwright would get drunk and start running his big mouth at Scary Mary’s one day or while he was with Uncle Johnny, and of course Uncle Johnny would blab. Rhoda and I were quiet for a moment. “What are you thinkin’?” she finally asked.

  “Rhoda, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to leave home as soon as we graduate. Erie, Pennsylvania, sounds like a nice place to start a new life. I am not going to wait around like I figured I would.”

  “That’s not such a bad idea. What about your mama? She won’t like that at all.”

  “She can’t stop me.”

  “Well what about lover-boy? Do you honestly think Buttwright’s goin’ to just sit back and let you walk out of his life? Especially to move to Pennsylvania, a state so close to—as Buttwright would probably call it—a Babylon like New York.”

  “Well, once I turn eighteen, nobody will be able to tell me what to do. Not Muh’Dear. Not Mr. Boatwright. I think I’ve suffered enough. I don’t see things changing if I stay here. The only thing I can change is myself, and I can’t do that here as long as that motherfucker is alive.” I paused, expecting Rhoda to agree with my last comment. She remained quiet too long for me. “Hello.”

  “I’m still here.” She sighed. “I tell you what. As soon as you feel well enough to talk to that old asshole, casually mention to him about movin’ to Pennsylvania right after we finish school and tell me how he reacts.”

  “Well, he knows I want to g
et a real good office job. He must know that office jobs don’t pay much here in Richland, Ohio. All his talk about doing something to make me sorry if I leave home, I think is just a bluff. I am just going to have to call him on it.”

  “Yeah. He probably is just bluffin’. As stupid as he is, even he must be smart enough to know he couldn’t get away with doin’ somethin’ crazy like shootin’ you or your mama. Unless…”

  “Unless he does something and makes it look like an accident? What if he tells people he was cleaning his gun and it went off? They would all probably believe anything he’d tell them,” I wailed. “And I bet Judge Lawson would make sure he didn’t go to jail.”

  “All I can say is, if we don’t do somethin’ drastic and soon, you’ll end up in that nuthouse where Scary Mary sent Mott that time.”

  “You said we. Are you really going to help me come up with a plan to get Mr. Boatwright off my back?” I couldn’t imagine what we could do to scare him enough so that he would let me alone.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sounded so funny just now, Rhoda. Is there something in your throat?”

  “No. I’m just cookin’ up a plan.”

  “OK. Well let me know what it is real soon. I’ll mention to him tomorrow right after Muh’Dear leaves for work about me moving to Erie, and I’ll make it clear he can’t stop me. OK?”

  “OK.”

  “I’ll let him know that I am leaving after graduation, and only death is going to stop me. Hear?”

  “Yeah.”

  The next morning, I was all set to tell Mr. Boatwright about my vague plans. Muh’Dear had just left for work. Before I could even get dressed and out of my room, that son of a bitch yelled from across the hall for me to join him in his room. Before I reached his room, all ready to cuss him out and fight him if I had to, the phone rang. I ignored the one in the hallway upstairs and ran to the kitchen. I heard Mr. Boatwright laugh then cuss all the way from his room upstairs when he heard me run to answer the phone before coming to his room.

  “Why are you crying, Rhoda?” I asked.

  “My…my grandma died last night,” she sobbed with a trembling voice.

  “Oh I’m so sorry to hear that. Did she die in her sleep?”

  “Um…no.” Rhoda paused and cleared her throat.

  “Did she fall and hit her head on something?” I asked.

  “Um…yeah. Uncle Johnny forgot to lock her bedroom door, and she got up durin’ the middle of the night, wandered out to the hallway, stumbled and fell down the stairs and…broke her neck,” Rhoda choked.

  “Oh no,” I breathed. I wasn’t too crazy about the mean old white woman, but I was sorry to hear about her accident. “Do you want me to come over?” I moved to the refrigerator and removed a carton of buttermilk and filled a large glass. Then I snatched a piece of toast from a plate Mr. Boatwright had set on top of the stove.

  “Uh-huh. Our white folks from Alabama are on their way up here. They are all in an uproar. They’ll be in an even bigger one when they find out Granny Goose left all her insurance money to Daddy.”

  “I bet they will,” I said boldly. “Well, like I said, I can help get the house ready. It’s already spic-and-span, and I know there is not much to be done, but whatever you need me to do, I’ll be there, Rhoda.”

  “Um…I think we’re goin’ away for a couple of weeks right after the funeral.”

  “Who? You and Otis?”

  “Oh no, he’s not goin’. Just me and my family. As soon as we get Granny Goose laid to rest and everything settled, we’re goin’ to the Bahamas. We’ve been plannin’ to do this for a long time. But…Granny Goose was such a burden, we couldn’t take her with us and we couldn’t leave her here by herself or with a nurse. None of her white family wanted to be bothered with her, not even for two weeks.”

  “Well, she was kind of mean, but you can’t blame her. Old age does strange things to people’s minds,” I said, trying to imagine Mr. Boatwright twenty years down the road.

  “I know,” Rhoda admitted.

  “I’ll call my mama at her work and tell her what happened, and I’ll let her know I’m going to be at your house.” I hung up. I turned around and there was Mr. Boatwright standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips, his housecoat open so I could see his naked body.

  “You ain’t gwine no place, least of all to that cesspool across the street,” he informed me.

  “But Granny Goose died—”

  “Goosey Loosey! Your mama told me not to let you out my sight ’til you heal. Here you is volunteerin’ to go over there and clean somebody else’s house and your own house lookin’ like a crime scene. Wash them dishes, mop this kitchen floor, and save me some of that buttermilk yonder. When you done, meet me in my room.”

  “Rhoda’s grandmother just died,” I gasped, talking, drinking my buttermilk, and chewing the bacon at the same time. “How in the world can you be thinking about sex at a time like this? I just had a miscarriage, too! I’m going to Rhoda’s house.”

  “You ain’t gwine over there right after gettin’ over that baby mess with that boy Jock settin’ around waitin’ on you like a spider—”

  “Jock already left for the army, and what’s he got to do with me getting pregnant? You’re the only one who has ever done anything to me!”

  “In a pig’s eye! What little bit of sap I got left wouldn’t get a flea pregnant, let alone a big old strappin’ ox like you. I know how Jock is, and I know how weak you is!”

  I was horrified by his comments.

  “I’ve never looked at a boy that way. I’ve never been with a boy in my life, and you know it,” I snapped. I couldn’t believe that he believed I would let some boy do to me what he did. Before I knew it, Mr. Boatwright hobbled up to me and slapped me so hard across the face, I almost dropped my glass of buttermilk. I set the glass on the counter and we wrestled for a few moments. I kicked his peg leg, and he lost his balance. He had me by my arm, so when he fell, I fell to the floor with him. Somehow, I got up and left him lying on his back, wheezing and shaking like he was having a spasm. I leaned over and helped him up and led him to a chair at the kitchen table. He was sweating so profusely my clothes got wet.

  “You all right, Mr. Boatwright?” I asked, genuinely concerned. I’d have a lot of explaining to do if he’d been hurt enough to require medical attention. “Can I get you something?”

  “Get a switch!” he rasped, fanning his face, blinking fast and hard.

  I said as calmly as I could, “I am not getting any switch for you to whup me with. Not this time or any other time ever again,” As common as whuppings were among Black kids, they usually ceased around eleven or twelve years of age. At my age, I felt it was time for Muh’Dear and Mr. Boatwright to stop sending me to a tree to get a switch. I sucked in my breath and continued, still using as calm a voice as I could. “Mr. Boatwright, this thing we do, it’s got to end right here and now. I am not a scared little girl anymore. I’m almost a grown woman. How long do you think I am going to let you continue abusing me?” I was standing over him with my arms folded.

  “I ain’t never abused nobody before in my life!” he mumbled. He attempted to stand but was so shaky he had to sit back down.

  “You’re taking advantage of me—”

  “I ain’t never took advantage of nobody! What you think you got I want to be takin’ advantage of?” he managed, fanning his face with a wet dishrag he had grabbed from the table.

  “Raping me. Or whatever you want to call it!”

  “It ain’t rape what we do!” He was so mad, spit was flying out of his mouth, but I stood my ground.

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s…it’s just, you know…one of them things.” He stumbled over his words.

  I stared at him in stunned disbelief. “Is that what you think you’re doing to me? I’m just ‘one of them things’? Why me, when you can do it to any of the women at Scary Mary’s house! One of them things is what they do for a living!” I sa
id, stabbing him in his chest with my angry finger.

  “’Cause I really do like you, girl,” Mr. Boatwright whimpered, not looking at me. He sounded almost like a little boy with his hand caught in a cookie jar.

  “You can like me all you want, but you can’t touch me again,” I said firmly.

  “You picked a fine time to start actin’ crazy,” he gasped. “I shoulda never took up with you in the first place,” he told me, shaking his head sadly.

  “Look, let’s forget everything you’ve done to me. I won’t tell anybody anything. After I move to Pennsylvania—” I stopped when he interrupted me with a loud cackling laugh.

  “You ain’t gwine no place,” he assured me. “Pennsylvania’ll be yor final restin’ place…” He paused and pointed his finger at me, and said, “BANG BANG!”

  CHAPTER 29

  I was lying across my bed on my back counting the cracks in the ceiling with my door locked when Muh’Dear got in from work around 8 P.M. The depression caused just by being in my bedroom, the room Mr. Boatwright had tainted with his presence and actions, gripped me like a vise. There were times I fantasized about blowing up the house just to destroy my bedroom, the room that had beome a Chamber of Horrors for me.

  “Why you all locked up in here, girl?” she wanted to know. “Brother Boatwright say he real worried about you. He say you been delirious.”

  “I didn’t want to be disturbed,” I replied, letting her into my room. She had pounded on the door so hard the room shook.

  “By who? What if you had fainted and hit your head on the end of the chifforobe or somethin’? How would Brother Boatwright have got to you in time to prevent brain damage with the door locked up?”

  “It won’t happen again.” I sat up in my squeaky bed with Muh’Dear, still wearing her coat, standing over me waving both arms.

  “It sure enough won’t. First thing in the mornin’ I’m goin to have Brother Boatwright remove the lock from your door completely.”