by Mary Monroe
Rhoda and I were sharing the couch when Muh’Dear got home around 9 P.M. She was so tired, I had to help her remove her coat.
“Did Brother Boatwright cook them oxtails I left on the counter this mornin’?” she asked.
“No, Ma’am. I cooked them when I got home from school,” I said.
“I guess I’ll eat me some oxtails, then crawl in the bed myself. Brother Boatwright doin’ any better?” Muh’Dear wanted to know. “It’s strange I ain’t talked to him in days or seen him.”
“He must really be sick,” Rhoda said quickly. “Maybe he needs a doctor…”
“Except for his foot doctor, he don’t believe in doctors,” Muh’Dear replied, walking out of the room headed for the kitchen.
“Maybe he can’t get out the bed. My uncle Henry in Alabama had a stroke one time and couldn’t budge. He laid in his bed for three days before somebody went to his house to check on him.” Rhoda looked at me. “You remember me tellin’ you about that, don’t you, Annette?”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed. I had no idea what Rhoda was talking about.
“I’m so tired. Annette, you and Rhoda go take a look-see at Brother Boatwright,” Muh’Dear suggested. “And listen here, don’t y’all leave his room ’til you get a reaction out of him. Hear?”
“Maybe he’s playin’ possum,” Rhoda said.
“For three days?” I shouted. Muh’Dear laughed and dismissed us with a wave of her hand and disappeared into the kitchen.
Rhoda and I rushed to Mr. Boatwright’s bedroom.
“I can smell him now,” I gasped, standing in the middle of the floor. The foul odor of his body wastes and death overwhelmed. The insides of my nostrils felt like they were on fire. I almost vomited.
“I can smell him, too.” Rhoda coughed. Holding her nose, she moved closer to the bed. “My daddy gonna have a mess on his hands with this toad. I hope it’s a closed-casket funeral…”
We stayed in the room for just a minute before we went running back to Muh’Dear in the kitchen.
“Sister Goode—he’s not movin’!” Rhoda shouted.
Muh’Dear didn’t say a word. She whirled around, dropping the lid to the pot containing the oxtails and ran upstairs with a plate in her hand and us behind her. As soon as we reached Mr. Boatwright’s room, she handed me the plate and leaned over and shook him.
“Brother Boatwright! Say somethin’…anythin’, Brother Boatwright!” She stopped after a minute, then stood up straight with her hand covering her mouth.
“What’s wrong, Muh’Dear?” I shouted. I grabbed her arm and shook it. “Is he all right?”
“The man’s dead,” she whispered.
“The poor thing died in his sleep.” I heard Muh’Dear telling somebody on the kitchen telephone the next morning. “Brother Nelson from ’cross the street got the body, and the funeral is pendin’.”
Mr. Boatwright had no family that we knew of. Even Reverend Snipes didn’t know of any, and none of us knew exactly where he came from or why he’d come to Richland. According to Reverend Snipes, Mr. Boatwright just showed up at one of his tent revivals one night babbling about how lost he was since he had strayed from his church. The preacher took Mr. Boatwright to the seedy Richland Rescue Mission behind the police department downtown, where he stayed for about six months. With his fake leg and other ailments, taking care of him got to be too big a chore for the people at the mission. That’s why we’d ended up with him.
A day after Mr. Nelson and Uncle Johnny had carried Mr. Boatwright from our house to the morturary, around 5 P.M. I entered our living room from upstairs just as Mr. Nelson, Lola, and Rhoda walked up on our front porch. People had come and gone all day to drop off food. Our kitchen table and counter were covered. We expected a huge crowd later that night.
Judge Lawson had given Muh’Dear a week off with pay. He decided to eat his breakfast and lunch at Antonosanti’s and dinner at our house until she returned to work. Lola had agreed to clean the judge’s house for that week.
“Hi,” I said, opening the door. Mr. Nelson smiled and tipped his hat. Lola touched my shoulder. Rhoda refused to look at me. Mr. Nelson, his arm around her shoulder, led Rhoda to the living room, where Muh’Dear was on the couch dabbing her swollen red eyes with a handkerchief. Lola walked alongside me, sobbing softly.
“Have you decided what he should wear?” Mr. Nelson asked Muh’Dear.
Her eyes got wide as if she had forgotten we had to provide a burial outfit for Mr. Boatwright. “Uh…I hadn’t decided,” she trembled, looking at me.
“Well, did he have a favorite suit?” Lola asked, moving to the couch. She sat down and placed her hand on Muh’Dear’s shoulder.
“That white fleecy one,” Rhoda offered, glancing at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Nelson and Lola look at one another and frown at the same time. “He told me that was his favorite suit,” Rhoda said.
“Well”—Muh’Dear began looking from face to face—“he did just have it dry cleaned a few days before he…passed.” She sniffed, wiped her nose, and turned to me. “Annette, go to his room and get his white suit.”
Without a word I went upstairs and removed the suit I hated so much from a coat hanger in his closet. They hadn’t asked, but I assumed he would need shoes and undergarments. It took me five minutes to gather everything and slide them into a shopping bag sitting on the floor by the door. The living room was deathly quiet when I returned. I immediately handed the bag to Lola.
“I’ll be goin’, Sister Goode. I can see you’re tired and need to be left alone. Mrs. Nelson and I, and the rest of the family, will see you and Annette later tonight.” Mr. Nelson paused and lifted the shopping bag and gently shook it. “We can work out the rest of the details tomorrow.” He gave Muh’Dear a big smile, then squeezed her shoulder. “Lola and Rhoda are going to stay here to help you and Annette handle your guests.”
Rhoda looked at me with a blank expression on her face, then she watched her daddy until he was out the door.
It was an uncomfortable evening. With the exception of the Nelsons’ white relatives from Alabama, the same people came who had attended the gathering for Granny Goose, but I guess they didn’t stay as long because we didn’t have any alcohol. Rhoda, offering me weak smiles, stayed close to her mother most of the evening. Even though there was a mountain of food in the kitchen, I never saw Rhoda with a plate.
Several people stood around in the living room making glowing remarks about Mr. Boatwright like they did for everybody, even deceased pimps and dope dealers.
“I’ll never forget the times me and him shared a cab or he drove me to Judge Lawson’s poker parties,” Uncle Johnny managed. This was one of the few times I’d seen him sober.
“I used to like to go to church just to hear him sing,” Pee Wee muttered, smiling sadly, toying with a chicken wing on his plate.
“I’m sure enough goin’ to miss settin’ with him on the front porch shootin’ the breeze,” Caleb wailed, rubbing the bullet spot on his head.
“We done lost us a good man,” Scary Mary whined plaintively. She had had a few drinks before coming over, accompanied by several of her current and former whores. The women with Scary Mary were all dressed like they were going to a nightclub. I had never seen so many tight, short dresses and spiked high heels in my life.
“I was supposed to cut and shape his hair yestiddy,” Caleb said. “What little bit he had left.”
“I never understood Mr. Boatwright. He was a complicated man,” Florence said thoughtfully.
“The next poker party will be in his honor,” Judge Lawson announced, forcing himself to laugh, “He would have wanted it that way.” Almost everybody in the room agreed with him.
“Rhoda’s goin’ to help Annette pack up Brother Boatwright’s stuff for Johnny to take to the Salvation Army.” Rhoda’s mother coughed. Rhoda glanced at me, and our eyes locked. People kept saying good things about Mr. Boatwright, but Rhoda kept her eyes on me. After a few moments more, I went t
o the kitchen. I wasn’t there a minute before Lola entered.
“Imagine Scary Mary lettin’ all them strumpets come over here advertisin’ at a time like this,” Lola complained, sitting down hard at the table. I was in front of the kitchen window with my back to her. I turned just enough to see her with a huge plate in front of her on the table. “When I was in the business I didn’t even dress that slutty when I was workin’.” Lola sucked on a piece of meat, her eyes on me.
I just smiled and shrugged.
“When I was a workin’ girl, things were different. Of course bein’ down South, things were different anyway.” Lola gave me a thoughful look. “Look at me now,” she said sadly.
“You look fine, Miss Lola. I heard you got a job working at Antonosanti’s.” I sniffed. I was glad it was she who had come into the kitchen and not Uncle Johnny or Pee Wee.
“I’d rather still be in the sportin’ business,” Lola admitted with a wink. It had been a while since I’d seen somebody eat as fast as she was. She was getting as much food on her as in her.
“Ma’am? You mean you’d rather be a prostitute instead of a waitress?” I asked.
“Annette, I’m a lot older than you, so I know a lot more. Take it from me, when it comes to us women, pussy is the best card we got left to play. Ask any successful woman.” Lola let out a short chuckle and got up to leave with her plate in her hand. As soon as she was out of the kitchen I turned back around and started staring out the window again. I remained in that position for ten more minutes. When I finally turned around, Rhoda was standing in the doorway with a look on her face I will never forget. Her eyes were fixed on me, and her lips were quivering like she was in a trance.
“How long have you been standing there?” I gasped. I was so startled I stumbled and fell against the wall.
“Since Aunt Lola left,” she said evenly.
“Do you want to go upstairs so we can talk or something? I don’t think I could stand that crowd anymore,” I said, still standing in my spot.
“I really came to say good night,” Rhoda told me.
“Good night, Rhoda,” I responded. Then she left.
Mr. Boatwright had left his life insurance policy made out to Muh’Dear. She never told me how much it was for, but she used some of it to cover his funeral expenses.
I didn’t go to the calling hours the next day. After the gathering at our house, I didn’t think I could stand a wake and a funeral for Mr. Boatwright, too. “It won’t look right if you ain’t there. Everybody thought of him as part of our family,” Muh’Dear said when I told her I wasn’t going. “I know, but these cramps are killing me,” I lied, feigning a moan.
That Saturday there was a brief funeral service in Reverend Snipes’s church with the same grief-stricken crowd.
It was hard to look at Mr. Boatwright lying in that coffin with his paws resting on his chest, looking like somebody’s harmless old grandfather. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had abused me for so many years.
The night before the funeral I had dreamed that Mr. Boatwright had come into my room, stood over my bed, and told me, “I’m sorry, possum.” For reasons I didn’t understand, I forgave him in the dream.
Now I was scared to death that somebody would find out that Rhoda had smothered Mr. Boatwright with one of his own pillows and that I knew all about it. Both of us could go to jail.
I didn’t know how, but I had to keep this mess a secret until I died. My conscience was what I was worried about. How long would it be before I broke down and spilled everything? How long would I be able to continue attending church and facing our preacher and Muh’Dear knowing what I knew? What if Rhoda snapped one day and thought that I’d tell. Would she kill me, too?
CHAPTER 37
Rhoda wasn’t available to help me pack up Mr. Boatwright’s stuff until three days after the funeral. She finally called and came over around six that evening.
“Let’s get this stuff boxed up as fast as we can,” she suggested with a deep sigh. We were drinking tea in the kitchen while Muh’Dear was visiting Scary Mary.
I didn’t like Rhoda’s tone of voice or the fact that she had taken three days to come over again. “You know you really don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,” I whined even though I was terrified of being in Mr. Boatwright’s room alone with his things still there. “Florence said she would help me. And I bet Pee Wee would, too, if I asked him.”
“I never go back on my promise, and I did promise your mama and my folks I would help you.” She smiled, but I questioned her sincerity.
“You should be the main person who would really want to get this thing over and done with,” I said angrily, giving her a hard look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she gasped. Her mouth remained opened after she had finished talking.
“You’re the reason he’s dead!” I snapped, shaking my cup in her face.
“No, honey! You are the reason he’s dead.” Her voice was hard and even. She spoke stabbing me in the chest with her finger and shaking her head so hard her curls fell from the side of her face to the front, almost covering her mean eyes.
“What?”
“You should have told somebody on him.”
“Is that what you would have done?”
“Hell yes! The first time he put his hands on me I’d have gone straight to my mama.”
A great sadness came over me, and suddenly it was hard for me to speak but I did. “I was scared of what he would do to me,” I rasped, staring at my empty teacup.
“Well, he can’t do anythin’ to you now. How come you won’t tell your mama now? She’s got a right to know. Maybe if she did, she and everybody else would stop goin’ around talkin’ about him like he was some saint. The man was a rapist, and he didn’t deserve havin’ all these people around here feelin’ the way they did about him,” Rhoda snarled.
“I can’t hurt my mama by telling her what I went through. What good would it do now? She would die of guilt for putting me in that position in the first place. She would never get over it. I want her to be happy. And you know how people treat rape victims. What about that girl you told me about down South that ended up killing herself because people blamed her for getting raped? Who would believe some man would rape somebody that looks like me?”
“Rape is not about the way you look, Annette. You know that.”
“Well, I am not going to have people whispering behind my back blaming me for it. Mr. Boatwright said I brought it all on myself. If he believed that, Lord knows what everybody else will think. Let’s get this stuff packed up, girl.”
We picked up large boxes Muh’Dear had left in the upstairs hallway and went to the bedroom Mr. Boatwright had occupied, leaving the door open after we got inside. The room smelled worse than it smelled when he was in it alive.
Rhoda stood behind me as I pulled back the bedcovers. I almost fainted from the stench.
“Shit!” I growled. He had soiled the bed.
“I forgot to tell you, that’s one of the first things a dead person does when they die. They shit,” Rhoda informed me. “All their butt muscles relax.”
“Muh’Dear said we can throw his bed things in the trash,” I said, frowning as I looked over the bedding. “Burn them.”
“If you ask me, I say burn everythin’ in here,” Rhoda said angrily, kicking the side of the bed.
“We’re giving the good stuff to the Salvation Army.”
“What good stuff?” Rhoda gasped, giving me an incredulous look.
“Well, the stuff somebody might be able to use, I guess.” I shrugged.
“And who would want any of this shit?” Rhoda snarled. She held up one of Mr. Boatwright’s shirts. There were pins up and down the sleeves and buttons missing.
I shrugged again.
“What if they decide to dig him up later and do an autopsy?” I asked, hugging myself. I was shivering hard, even though the room was not cold. “These Ohio detectives get awful suspicious
.”
“My God, girl. Since when do these detectives care about old Black men enough to dig one up just to see if they can find some foul play?” Rhoda marched over to me and stood with her hands on her hips. “What reason would anybody want to kill Buttwright? He didn’t have any money to speak of. No enemies. No nothin’. Why would a detective busy with real criminals start investigatin’ Buttwright’s death?”
“They might think Muh’Dear did it for his insurance money, like the women who kill their husbands in those old murder movies, Rhoda.”
“Those women usually have handsome young lovers lined up to help ’em spend the insurance money. Your mama used Buttwright’s insurance money to bury his black ass. Besides, your mama got old Judge Lawson’s nose open so wide, she could get every dime he got. Why would she need to kill anybody to collect a few insurance dollars. And another thing. I bet Judge Lawson loses more money playin’ poker in one night than Buttwright’s whole insurance policy must be worth.”
“I guess you’re right.” I sighed with resignation. The smell in the room was getting worse by the minute to me. The insides of my nostrils felt like they were on fire.
“Now like I said, let’s get this shit boxed up,” Rhoda ordered.
We started grabbing clothes from the floor and out of the drawers that we hurriedly stuffed into the boxes. Every time I looked toward the bed I tried to imagine Rhoda holding the pillow over Mr. Boatwright’s face.
“Don’t you feel something for him?” I asked her.
“I don’t know…do you?” Her mouth remained open.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I really hated him. I hated what he was doing to me.”
Rhoda sighed. “Well, I did feel kind of bad right after I did it, but now that he’s in the ground, I don’t know. I would have rather talked to him and made him stop by threatenin’ to tell the po’lice, but he threatened to kill you. At least that’s what you told me.”
“Yeah. He did.”