God Still Don’t Like Ugly Page 5

  I had nothing against white people. My current closest female friend was a white woman. However, the last thing I wanted to do while I was in Florida was attend the funeral of the one who had stolen my daddy. There had been no love lost between that woman and me, but I already loved my half-sister. I had to go to the funeral because Lillimae needed my support.

  “You don’t have to go in the church with me, but I’d appreciate you sittin’ in the car waitin’ on me,” Lillimae said, as we cleared the breakfast table after we’d eaten. I had not seen her shed a single tear. However, her eyes were red and swollen and she had barely eaten since hearing the tragic news.

  “I’ll go in that church with you if you want me to,” I said, praying that Lillimae would decline my offer.

  Lillimae shook her head so hard, the hairpin she had pinned her hair up with fell to the floor along with a plate she had just washed.

  “Goodness gracious, no. I wouldn’t put you through that. You wouldn’t be welcome there. If they figure out who I am, I won’t even be welcome there neither. They won’t notice me if I stand in the back with a floppy hat or a veil hidin’ my face, but you’d stand out like a lighthouse and they’d treat you like you stole somethin’. Wait for me in the car.” Lillimae sighed before she excused herself. When she returned from her bedroom, her eyes were more red and swollen than ever.

  CHAPTER 11

  T

  he obituary for Lillimae’s mother that appeared in the newspaper didn’t even list Lillimae and her siblings among the survivors. Just the two kids her mother had by the white man she had left Daddy for. The woman who had meant so much to Daddy at one time still must have meant something to him because on the day of the funeral he cried, too. Of course there was no mention of him in the obituary, either, but he wanted to go to the funeral, too. He sent flowers to the church under a fake name. Then he agreed to wait with me in the car parked across the street, a block from the church, while Lillimae paid her respects inside.

  The church, a quaint little white clapboard building with a crooked steeple, was located in a mixed neighborhood. Seeing a few Black and Hispanic faces on the street made me feel a little more at ease.

  It amazed me how many differences there were between white folks and Black folks. At our funerals there was enough loud weeping and wailing to wake the deceased. Some of the white people I saw standing around outside the church were acting like they were at a carnival admiring a sideshow. Big-bellied, red-faced men were smoking fat cigars and grinning. A washed-out woman was holding a homely, crying baby wearing nothing but a diaper. Young kids were playing tag and throwing rocks at a stray dog.

  White folks didn’t even dress the way we did for funerals. At least not at this funeral. The men had on natty, ill-fitting suits and shoes with heels worn down to the ground. I even saw a woman in a tight red dress cut so low I could see the nipples on her long, flat breast. A molly-faced teenage boy with a ducktail hairdo was hugging a boom box and bobbing his head. The only way you could tell that this was a funeral and not a wedding was by the long black hearse sitting in front of the church.

  Lillimae had contacted her brother and sister, but neither one wanted to attend their own mother’s funeral. That saddened me. I believed that in death, even the worst person deserved some degree of respect.

  With Lillimae in the church, I was alone with Daddy in her car. I asked him the question that had almost burned a hole in my mind over the years. “Daddy, why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” He gasped. “What you talkin’ about, girl?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. How did you end up with that Edith woman in the first place? I thought you were so happy with Muh’Dear.”

  Daddy was sprawled across the backseat of Lillimae’s old car, chewing on a toothpick. Every now and then he lifted his head and glanced out the back window toward the church, shaking his head and mumbling under his breath.

  “I was happy with you and your mama…but…well…” He paused and sucked in his breath as he brushed lint off the same black suit he told me he wore to all funerals. “Edith’s daddy owned that grove I was workin’ that summer. For a redneck, he was a good old boy to me, as long as I stayed in my place. Edith, she kept at me ’til she wore me down. Bringin’ me cool lemonade drinks and sugar tits to munch on while I was pickin’ them oranges for her daddy. She even slipped me a few dollars every now and then—which I spent up on you and your mama. It was her money that paid for them sunglasses I gave you for your birthday. One evenin’ when I was in the grove by myself, she come at me, hissin’ like a big snake. Wrapped herself around me like one, too. She started kissin’ me up and down my neck, squeezin’ on me. Next thing I knew, we was wallowin’ on the ground. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was somethin’ other than a ill-educated, farm-workin’ nigger. And, it felt good.”

  A long moment of silence passed before I could reply.

  “Was that all it took? You gave us up for that?”

  “She gave up more than I did. Her family, her daddy’s money. How many white folks you think would give up the good life they got to be with a poor-ass Black man, when she could have continued livin’ like a king up in that big house her daddy owned? It got to her after a few years. Right after her nervous breakdown, she started kissin’ her daddy’s feet. Him and the rest of her kinfolks felt sorry enough for her they let her back in the family. Them schemin’ crackers even had some rascal they dug up in Texas waitin’ to marry her. A cousin of hers at that. And there I was, by myself with them three kids.”

  “At least you did the right thing by them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Daddy snapped.

  “You didn’t run off and leave them behind.” I kept my eyes on the front yard of the church, which was vacant by now.

  “Girl, I tried to find y’all. I wanted to get back with you and your mama so bad it hurt me to my heart. Don’t you think for one minute I wasn’t sufferin’, too.” Daddy paused and sniffed. “I went through things I wouldn’t wish on a dog. Like that time I carried Lillimae to the mini-mall to get her some new shoes to wear to church. She was eleven and just startin’ to act a fool, as kids do when they that age. Anyway, she threw a hissy fit ’cause I wouldn’t get her no ice cream. I mauled her head with my fist. Girl, crackers came at me from every direction, thinkin’ God knows what. I got beat down and cussed at so bad, I couldn’t work for a week. Lillimae was a grown woman before me and her went out in public together again. Every time I thought about Edith, I wanted to kill her for the hell she had put me in.”

  It took me a few moments to absorb this information. Recalling the sad look I’d seen on Edith’s face that day at the vegetable stand, I blinked hard. To give that woman the benefit of the doubt, I truly believed that if that store manager had not approached her, she would have shown her true feelings toward Lillimae. Now only God would know what Edith might have said and done. I was proud of the fact that I had a forgiving heart. Had I not, I would never have seen my daddy again.

  “Are you going to go in the church at all?” I asked Daddy, glancing at my watch.

  Daddy gasped so hard he started coughing. As soon as he cleared his throat he roared, “What’s wrong with you, girl?! Them white folks would ride me out of town on a rail if I was to show my black face up in that church! I ain’t that crazy.”

  “You were crazy enough to live with one and have three kids with her,” I scoffed. I turned to look at Daddy. The toothpick between his lips was shaking as he stared at me with tears in his eyes.

  Daddy let out a loud groan. “Girl, ain’t you never gwine to let the past go? What’s done is done. And don’t you know everything happen for a reason? Maybe me leavin’ you and your mama was the best thing ever happened to y’all. Sound like you and your mama done all right without me. I was just holdin’ y’all down from a better life. What kind of life do you think you would have had if you hadn’t moved to Ohio? What could I have given y’all?”

  �
��Your love would have been enough for me, Daddy.”

  “Girl, you always had that. I thought about you every day of my life, wishin’ I could hug you and see you grow up. I sure wish I could have been there when you got familiar with…uh, mens. That ain’t a easy thing for a girl to go through. Lillimae and Sondra told me when they, uh, done it that first time. That’s the kind of deal I had goin’ with my girls. They knew from the cradle they could talk to me about anything. Even that. I hope you didn’t jump the gun and slide off your bloomers too soon and for the wrong one.”

  “I didn’t,” I muttered. I recalled the first time I’d ever had sex in my life, with Mr. Boatwright when I was just seven years old. Just thinking about it made my crotch start aching so hard, I had to turn and sit on the side of my hipbone.

  “I didn’t think so. I can tell you too feisty to let some dude take advantage of you. Sugar, before you leave, let’s set down and kick back and you can tell me more about your life in Ohio. Hear?”

  I sighed and offered a weak smile and a nod. A great sadness suddenly consumed me. I would tell Daddy more about my life in Ohio, but I’d leave out the parts about the years of sexual abuse I had endured and my fling with prostitution.

  And the part about me having a best friend who was a murderer.

  CHAPTER 12

  B

  efore Lillimae returned from church, I spent a few minutes telling Daddy a glamorized, edited version of my life in Ohio. He beamed and nodded when I told him how well I’d done in school and how quick the telephone company had hired me. But when I started to brag about the nice big house and the fancy restaurant that Muh’Dear owned and how good my late stepfather had been to us, Daddy promptly changed the subject.

  “I think I’ll go back down to the lake and see if them bass is bitin’ later on this evenin’. I like to keep the freezer well stocked.” He grunted and let out a deep sigh. “Uh…I guess you and your mama didn’t need me after all,” he mumbled, looking at his hands like he was inspecting them.

  I gave him an exasperated look and shook my head so hard that my ears rang. “Yes, we did, Daddy. Yes, we did need you. It was not easy for Muh’Dear and me to get to where we are now. You weren’t there to see me grow up, graduate, nothing. You would have been proud of me. Do you know—”

  Holding up his hand, Daddy cut me off and said in a voice so weak I could barely hear him, “I am proud of you, child. I always was.”

  I was glad that Lillimae returned to the car before the conversation could get out of hand. She was fanning her face with the wide-brimmed black hat she had purchased for the funeral to match the black tweed suit she had on. Before she could get all the way back into her car, Daddy grabbed the back of her seat and asked, “Lillimae, you all right? Ain’t you gwine out to the cemetery to see your mama get buried?” I was surprised at how strong he sounded now.

  Lillimae mumbled something unintelligible under her breath and slapped her hat back onto her head backward. Then she said in a hoarse voice, “As far as I’m concerned, I done already done that.”

  Daddy groaned and slid back into the corner of the backseat, rubbing his head.

  Before Lillimae started the car, she glanced back at the church. I followed her gaze and watched as four grim-faced pallbearers hauled her mother’s casket out of the church and slid it into the back of a dusty hearse. As Lillimae eased her car away from the curb, a faint smile crossed her face and stayed there. We rode home in complete silence.

  Daddy only stayed in the house long enough to get out of his suit and to get his fishing equipment. He took a coal-oil lamp to the lake with him so I knew that he was planning to spend as much time fishing as possible.

  A few minutes after Daddy’s departure, Lillimae joined me on the living room couch. She was clutching a damp handkerchief, tapping her eyes and nose. She had changed into her ratty old housecoat and had removed her shoes. I was surprised to see a serene look on her face. Despite her swollen, bloodshot eyes and smeared lipstick, she looked so much better now.

  Surprisingly, I had shed a few tears myself the night before. There was something about people dying that did strange things to my emotions, even when it was somebody I didn’t really care about. Especially people who died from unnatural causes. I had even cried when my best friend, Rhoda Nelson, killed old Mr. Boatwright and that sucker had raped me. Thinking about Rhoda made a huge lump form in my throat. The lump would have been even larger if I’d known then that Rhoda was in the process of returning to my life to wreak more havoc.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, touching Lillimae’s shoulder.

  She nodded. “I am now.” She didn’t look at me as she continued speaking in a steely voice. “Mama didn’t even look like herself. She looked like a dried-up old prune. Her skin was all pasty and pale. Her neck got broke in the car crash so her face looked lopsided. They said the car looked like a train had slammed into it. The drunk that broadsided her car walked away with nothin’ but a few scratches and a few cracked bones. Him bein’ Black made it even worse. Roxanne’s husband was mumblin’ all kinds of racist shit about goin’ after that drunk. Right there in the church with Reverend Spool just a foot away! Motherfucker.”

  I released a deep, painful sigh. My head felt so heavy I could barely move it, but I managed to shake it. “So the people in the church did talk to you,” I said, my hand still on Lillimae’s shoulder.

  Lillimae shook her head so hard her teeth clicked. “Nobody said nothin’ to me. I didn’t get close enough to none of ’em for nobody to talk to me or hug up on me like they was doin’ one another. I didn’t want none of that evil racism to rub off on me,” Lillimae hissed. “I heard the folks in the pew in front of me talkin”. That’s how I know what I know. Then that cracker preacher was goin’ on and on about what a good Christian woman Mama had been and how much she had done for her family.” Lillimae let out a strange laugh. “Gnat butter! I had to hold myself back from jumpin’ up and tellin’ them devils all just how much she done for me! No woman in her right mind would turn her back on her kids.” Finally, Lillimae turned to face me. “Daddy done his job and hers because he loved his kids—”

  I stared at the floor. My eyes started to burn and itch and I could feel bile rising in my throat.

  “Shit.” Lillimae’s last comment flustered her more than it did me and she couldn’t hide it. She started blinking real hard and stroking my arm. “Now you know I didn’t mean nothin’ by that.” She rearranged herself on the couch and grabbed my wrist. “Daddy is a good man, Annette. I hope you know that now.”

  I nodded. “I know that. I always did.” I sniffed and forced myself to keep a straight face. “Uh…how did you feel being there for the first time with the rest of your family?”

  Lillimae turned away again. She blew her nose into her handkerchief with a honk so profound it seemed to bounce off of the wall. It took her a moment to compose herself. She started to talk with her eyes half closed and out of focus. “I couldn’t have felt more distant from them if I was on another planet. The other side of my family was right there a few feet away from me, cryin’ and huggin’ one another. Both of my miserable sisters are pregnant and looked like they wanted to deliver right there in the church. I couldn’t comfort them and they couldn’t comfort me. The only thing separatin’ us was blood.”

  “Black blood,” I reminded.

  CHAPTER 13

  T

  he death of Lillimae’s mother had taken a toll on Lillimae. She stumbled around the house like somebody afflicted with polio, running into the living room wall a few times and accidentally stepping on the tail of that old cat from next door. For the rest of my visit there was a look of sadness in her eyes that found its way to me. All the mascara and Visine I used to try and brighten up my eyes didn’t help.

  It seemed like every time some new sad thing happened in my life, I grieved for all the other sad things that I had already endured. The good thing was, I had enough pleasant things going on in my life now so there
was some balance. However, I was glad that I had only one more day before my departure. I was anxious to return to my job, my house, and my man.

  The day before I left Florida, Daddy insisted on taking me out to dinner at what he considered a “fancy” restaurant. He took me to Doug’s Bar-be-cue, a rib joint around the corner from his house. The deeper I traveled into Daddy’s drab neighborhood, the more sinister it looked. Unkempt, suspicious-looking men sat on the porches of a deserted house across the street from the rib joint, sharing bottles and whatever it was they were smoking. There was broken glass and discarded trash everywhere I looked. An old car that somebody had torched was sitting on the street and young kids were crawling in and out of it. Every house had bars on the windows, even the broken windows. Two boys that looked young enough to be my sons, their cheap plaid shirts hanging open, were kneeling on the sidewalk throwing dice in front of the restaurant. We had to walk around them.

  “Keep a strong grip on your pocketbook,” Daddy warned me in a loud voice. “This street is the butt-hole of Miami.”

  He led me into the restaurant with his arm around my shoulder and guided me to a booth in a corner next to the kitchen. There was so much smoke coming out of that kitchen, anybody who didn’t know any better would have thought that the place was on fire.

  A cassette player, held together with duct tape, was sitting on the counter next to the cash register. An old B.B. King song, “The Thrill Is Gone,” was playing.

  “I wish Lillimae had come with us. That gal love her some barbecue,” Daddy told me, wrapping one of the yellow plastic bibs that the restaurant supplied around his neck after we had placed our orders. “I done told her we don’t know when we’ll see you again.” He blinked and wiggled his nose, smiling faintly. “Long as it took me to get you to come down here and all.”