by Mary Monroe
“I made a whole dollar yesterday,” Pee Wee added. I was mad enough to slap him.
“Well now.” Mama turned to me. Her look said it all. The next morning I went to pick beans. That was my first and last day in the bean fields, thanks to Mr. Boatwright. A lot of mannish boys worked in the bean fields. Some of them had already fathered a baby or two.
When old Mr. Jones stopped in front of our house to let me out at the end of the day, one of those boys slapped me on the butt as I was getting out of the car. Mr. Boatwright was on our front-porch glider sitting straight-backed and stone-faced, with his hands on his knees like a sphinx. He saw what that boy did to me and hopped in the house before I could get up on the front porch.
Before I could get in the door, Mr. Boatwright had grabbed me by my arm and snatched me the rest of the way in. He was filled with rage. I honestly thought that he was going to kill me or at least make me wish I was dead.
“You fat horny pig!” he roared. He shoved me so hard I stumbled all the way across the room and hit the wall so hard a picture of Jesus fell to the floor.
“What?” I cried.
“You heifer! You wench! I seen what was goin’ on in that car!” He waved his finger in my face. “Get a switch!”
“For what?” I had done nothing that warranted a whupping.
“For what? What you mean for what? I seen what just happened. Like you ain’t got no shame atall!”
“I didn’t do anything. Robert felt on my butt—”
“Get a switch!”
While Mr. Boatwright was whupping me, we fell to the living-room floor with him landing on top of me. Suddenly, he stopped swinging the switch. He gave me a thoughtful look, forced my legs open, snatched my panties down far enough, and satisfied himself with just one violent thrust.
When Mama got home, Mr. Boatwright told her how I’d flirted with a boy from the bean-picking crew who had already made two other girls pregnant.
“You ain’t goin’ to pick beans no more, girl,” Mama informed me. “There is too many boys in them fields. The fields is where I got myself ruined by that bean-pickin’ daddy of yours, and look what he done to us! Make friends with some of them girls at the church or when you start your new school. Forget about boys.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I promised. I attempted to make friends with a couple of girls my age at church but failed.
Mona Mack, who was thin and considered plain, kept reminding me I was overweight. “You should always wear dark colors, girl, and stay away from stripes and plaids,” she told me. I stored away all of my bright-colored clothes and gave my striped and plaid outfits to a secondhand store.
“Ash Hat Shoppe got some new wigs, and you sure ought to get one to cover your head,” Mona told me on another occasion.
She enjoyed putting me down, especially in front of other kids. When I realized that, I dropped her.
Being friends with another girl, Francine Bryant, a plump, dark-skinned girl who was already wearing wigs, didn’t work out either. She borrowed money from me that she never paid back.
Mama gave me a dollar every week, and I earned a lot by running errands for Scary Mary. But most of my spending money came from Mr. Boatwright. Almost every time after sex, he’d toss me a few dollars. Though I resisted and avoided him as much as I possibly could, sadly I approached him from time to time when I needed money. Once I even went to his room and sat on his bed. “Um…Mr. Boatwright, I want to go to the movies with Francine, but we need money for the bus and popcorn and stuff.” I trembled.
Mr. Boatwright was lying on his side looking at me with a straight face. He didn’t react until I stroked his arm. “I see,” he growled. He pulled ten dollars out of his pants pocket and handed it to me, then he reached for me.
“Um…the movie starts real soon,” I said, rising from his bed. He sighed with exasperation, then waved me away with his hand.
Once Francine and I got to the movies, she left me to go sit with some of her other friends. While I was in a bathroom stall I overheard her tell another girl, “Annette, so stupid! Watch me get a camera out of her for my birthday next month.”
Francine’s words crushed me. I never told her what I overheard, but I broke off the “friendship” immediately.
“You’ll meet other girls when school starts this September,” Mama told me when I told her about Mona and Francine.
“I hope so, Mama,” I replied.
I still spoke to Mona and Francine when I saw them at church, but turned down their invitations to go swimming or the movies. When Francine sent me an invitation to attend her birthday party, I declined immediately. I was lonely and had low self-esteem but I did have some pride. I didn’t need friends bad enough to put up with those two.
The first time I saw Rhoda Nelson, the uppity undertaker’s only daughter, my heart almost stopped beating.
A week before school started, Pee Wee and I were sitting on my front-porch steps when this long black airport limousine crawled around the corner and stopped in front of the undertaker’s house. The driver got out and ran to open one of the back doors.
“Oh oh,” Pee Wee started. I knew this was going to be something good from his reaction. He stood up and placed his hands on his hips. Rhoda slid out and stretched. “Where you been, Miss Hollywood? Europe again, I bet!” Pee Wee hollered in his sweetest voice.
The girl smiled and waved. “Just the Bahamas,” she replied casually.
I stood up and shaded my eyes to see her better. “Pee Wee, who is that girl?” I mouthed. Before he could answer, the girl beckoned for us to join her. I followed Pee Wee across the street as she tipped the driver. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was the prettiest Black girl I had ever seen in my life. She was dark like me. She was regally slim and had a rope of thick black hair that almost reached her waist. Lord, let that hair be a wig, I said under my breath. The most striking thing about her was her eyes. They were huge and bright green. She had a heart-shaped face, a small nose, full pouty lips, and teeth that looked too perfect to be real, though I knew they were.
“I thought you was down South for the summer visitin’ your white aunt,” Pee Wee said to the girl.
“I was. But about two weeks ago, Aunt Lola got mad at her boyfriend and wanted to teach him a lesson. While he was at work we sneaked to the Bahamas and stayed until it was time for me to come back home,” Rhoda replied.
Pee Wee looked at me, and said, “Miss Thing here went to Paris last summer.”
“Paris, France?” I gasped. The girl was so intimidating I could feel knots forming in my stomach.
“Oui, oui.” Pee Wee laughed, snapping his fingers.
“I’m Rhoda,” Miss Thing said warmly. She smiled at me and extended her small hand. She had long slender fingers with neatly polished and manicured nails. Compared to hers, mine looked like the Monkey’s Paw.
“I’m Annette. We moved to this street in June,” I croaked. Rhoda had on a blue-silk dress, matching pumps, and was carrying a baby blue leather shoulder bag. The dull brown, thrift-shop flannel smock I had on had taken on a life of its own. No matter how hard I cleaned and pressed it, it curled up at the hem and changed colors every time I washed it.
“Where did you live before?” she asked me.
“Over by the city dump,” Pee Wee told her, wiggling his nose.
“Oh,” Rhoda said, moving back a step. “Well, I hope you’ll like it over here.” She smiled. “What grade are you in?” She tossed her hair back off her face.
“Oh we all in the same grade. Eighth,” Pee Wee volunteered.
“Good. After school starts, maybe the three of us can get together and study sometime,” she suggested. “Listen, I’m a little tired…”
“Girl, as soon as you get settled in, I’ll come over and give you all the lowdown on what’s been happenin’. I got all kinds of news. Startin’ with that loutish white uncle of yours,” Pee Wee cried, snapping his neck.
Rhoda rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I heard about poor
Uncle Johnny and that dead woman. I’m sure he was drunk…” I could tell that she was embarrassed. This white man I kept hearing about was her favorite relative, Pee Wee had told me.
“Well, I got a lot of other juicy stuff to tell you,” Pee Wee continued.
“I figured that.” Rhoda grinned. I was just standing there, glued to my spot. She then gave me a serious look. “It was nice meetin’ you, Nannette.”
“Annette,” I corrected. She excused herself and started walking toward her house. Mr. Nelson came out on the front porch with his arms stretched out to greet Rhoda. He noticed Pee Wee and me and waved to us.
Pee Wee and I returned to my porch steps, where he spent the next two hours giving me all the details on Rhoda. That gorgeous mane on her head was her real hair. Other than Pee Wee, she had no close friends. She and her family belonged to the same church Mama, Mr. Boatwright, and I had joined since our move. We still attended Reverend Snipes’s church occasionally so Mr. Boatwright could continue singing his solos, but we were now members of the Second Baptist Church. Only because it was so much closer Mama told Reverend Snipes. I was convinced it was a prestige thing. All the Black folks with money attended Second Baptist Church on Patterson Street.
Other than Pee Wee, she had very little to do with the rest of the kids.
I had never seen anybody as fascinating as Rhoda Nelson. Not even on TV. She was so intriguing I found myself thinking about her the next day while Mr. Boatwright was on top of me. Pretending that I was her made it a little easier for me to tolerate this beast without going crazy.
I couldn’t understand why any man would want to take advantage of me with beauties like Rhoda roaming around. I believed that part of a pretty girl’s burden was to have to put up with a lot of unwanted attention. All my life I’d watch men smile and wink at my pretty mother. Judge Lawson was spending more time than ever with Mama in our living room, with his hand rubbing her knee, saying things like, “The house all right, Gussie Mae? You need anything? I’ll send my man over to cut the grass. Anything else you need done, let me know and I’ll fix it.” I couldn’t tell if Mama really liked spending so much of her free time entertaining the judge. But she never discussed her actions with me, and I didn’t ask.
School started a week after Rhoda’s return. I had not talked to her since we had met, but I’d seen her climbing out of cabs with big shopping bags almost every day. I spied on her from the largest window in my bedroom, my front window. When I could avoid that irritating Pee Wee, I waited until I saw Rhoda leave for school so that I could trail behind her. Her beauty was so overwhelming, I actually felt beautiful just being near her.
“Oink, oink. Mornin’, Pig Face,” Mr. Boatwright greeted me one schoolday morning as I passed him on my way out the door.
“Same to you, butt breath,” I yelled back. I sassed him from time to time when Mama or no other grown person was around. It usually got me a whupping from him, but it was worth it. He ran after me and grabbed me by my coat collar.
“Who you sassin’?” He released me, then stood up straight and looked me over critically, long and hard. He screwed up his face like he was in pain. “Get on out my sight!” he said tiredly. “You more trouble than you worth.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand.
I had started wearing ribbons in my hair like Rhoda and a little makeup. This particular day I had even put on some pierced earrings that one of Scary Mary’s women had given to me. Mr. Boatwright looked at my hair, my face, and my ears, and shook his head with pity.
“What?” I groaned.
“According to the Scriptures—oh never mind.” I thought he was done talking, so I started to walk away. “Makeup, earbobs, and all them hair frills. Don’t you know by now, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, let alone the whole sow. I don’t know what I see in you.” He sighed. “You look so much better without that makeup and them ribbons,” he said seriously.
“You think so?” I said sadly, crushed and confused.
“I know so. You go to that schoolhouse tryin’ to be somethin’ you ain’t, them kids really goin’ to let you have it. You follow the Scriptures, you’ll be all right. You know the Bible almost well as I do by now, so I know you ain’t forgot that lesson on Lot’s wife.” He gave me an affectionate pat on my head and turned and walked away.
I dragged myself back to my room and snatched the ribbons from my hair and kicked them halfway across the room. Before I could remove the makeup, Mr. Boatwright was in my room with a familiar look on his face.
“That’s much better.” He grinned, as he unzipped his pants.
“Mr. Boatwright, I’m on my period,” I lied.
He rushed out of the room, cussing under his breath.
It took me a while to get my hair under control again. Rhoda was long gone by then, and it ruined my day. I was late for class and had to do detention after school. When I got home, Mr. Boatwright gave me a whupping for getting detention.
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.
CHAPTER 10
History 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 f
ront 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?”