by Mary Monroe
Three days after my arrival, Harry James accompanied Aunt Berneice when she took me back to the bus station on the mule-wagon. Clyde had offered to drive me in his flatbed truck, but luckily the bus was scheduled to leave after dark.
I called Rhoda as soon as I got back to Erie, but she was not in. I thought about calling Muh’Dear, but feeling the way I was about the news Aunt Berneice had passed on to me, I didn’t. I knew if I mentioned Daddy, she would say something negative about him, and I didn’t want to hear it. I smiled sadly, wondering if he or my siblings would ever take it upon themselves to come to Ohio and try to find me. I wasn’t ready to talk to Viola. I had decided I wasn’t going to tell her about Levi getting married. I was hoping that by the time she found out, I’d be back in Ohio. I still had the rest of the week and the weekend before returning to work. But once I was certain that I was returning to Richland, I called Erie Manufacturing and resigned over the phone. I spent the next day hauling things from my apartment by cabs and buses to the Salvation Army. I called Muh’Dear that evening and told her I was coming home.
“I been prayin’ to hear that,” she sobbed. “I ain’t seen you in so many years, I honest to God didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I can’t wait to tell Mr. King and Judge Lawson. Scary Mary told me she had a premonition you was movin’ back here, and I called her a liar.”
“Well I’m coming home. And I’m coming home to stay,” I said eagerly.
Rhoda was home when I called her after my conversation with Muh’Dear. “When are you leavin’,” she asked when I told her. She didn’t sound the least bit surprised.
“As soon as I can get my stuff packed up.”
“Are you serious?”
“I have never been more serious about anything in my life. After I get home, you can come up and we can try and figure out what to do about that pregnant white girl. Or maybe I’ll come down to Florida before I get a job. We’ll think of something.” I tried to sound cheerful, but the seriousness and sadness in Rhoda’s voice prevented that. I didn’t have a clue as to what I could do to help Rhoda and her brother. Part of the excitement I was feeling was because I was returning to the home where I belonged, but my real excitement was knowing I had a big family after all. I planned to tell Rhoda and Muh’Dear when I felt the time was right. “When things settle, this white-girl mess I mean, maybe you and I can take Julian and go to Disneyworld. We can even bring old Pee Wee along.”
“Uh-huh. Let’s do that. I got to go now.”
Then I called Pee Wee. He was glad to hear that I was returning to Richland to live. “See there. I told everybody The Prodigal Daughter would come back home.” Pee Wee laughed. His words made me tingle with more excitement. Richland was no paradise, but I’d come to realize that paradise was just a state of mind.
I had a lease, but my landlord agreed to let me out of it when I told him a fantastic lie about a sick mother. That and the fact that I gave him most of the things I couldn’t take with me, like my TV, my clock radio, and especially my entertainment center.
Viola couldn’t have been happier for me. “You been like a daughter and I’ll miss you, child. But you do what you got to do,” she sobbed over the phone. “Me and Willie gwine to take you out to dinner before you leave for one last binge.”
After I confirmed my travel arrangements, I called Rhoda. It had been a week since my last conversation with her.
“I’ll be home in three days,” I said, unable to hide my excitement. I had decided that I would not bring up her brother and the white girl unless she did. “I hope you can come up for a visit soon.” We chatted casually for about five minutes. Just as I was about to conclude the conversation, she mumbled something I did not understand. “What did you just say?”
“I said, April’s dead,” she answered, sounding totally detached.
I had a difficult time forming words and getting them out. First, my mouth opened and closed twice and my throat tightened. “Oh no. What happened?” My heart started pounding so hard, I had to sit on my bed and rub my chest.
“You know how careless kids are. She was takin’ a bath with her radio sittin’ on the edge of the bathtub. Well, it fell in and…she got electrocuted. I saw it happen in a TV movie once.”
“Yeah, I saw that Valerie Harper movie on Channel Four, too.” There was nothing but silence for the next few moments. I cleared my throat.
“That poor little girl. Her mother must be frantic!”
“She is. I’m prayin’ for her left and right.”
“I will too,” I said. “People rarely die in freak accidents like that. Didn’t she know better?”
“I guess not. But…um…freak accidents happen all the time. My cousin Lester choked to death on a pork chop bone. Did I ever tell you about that?”
“No, you didn’t, Rhoda. Well…what’s going to happen now?” I asked.
“Um…the funeral’s day after tomorrow.”
“What about Jock? What about the baby she was carrying? Did anybody else know about it?”
“Um…no…uh…not that I know of.”
Rhoda was stumbling over her words more than she usually did when excited or disturbed. With all her family problems it was no wonder. I pitied the poor thing, but as resilient as Rhoda was, I knew she would bounce back in record time. She always did.
“Oh shit. I’m sorry to hear that the girl got herself killed, but…maybe it’s for the best. I mean, with her threatening to cause a real big stink about Jock getting her pregnant and all. Maybe this happened for a reason. Can you imagine if she had told her daddy about her and Jock and the baby? I mean so many lives would have been ruined.”
“All of us would have been destroyed,” Rhoda said in a low voice.
“Muh’Dear tells me all the time God don’t like ugly. I guess by God’s definition, April crossed that line just by making those ominous threats,” I insisted.
“Well…that’s God for you. Reverend Upshaw kept preachin’ about the mysterious ways God works in…”
“Yeah, he sure did. Every Sunday. Are you going to go to the funeral?”
“Of course! She attended my baby’s funeral. Her family wants me there, and they want me to sit with them. When I took a pie over to them, her daddy, Mr. Grand Dragon Klansman himself, even thanked me for all the time I’d let the girl hang around over here. He said I’d kept her from gettin’ in trouble like his other kids did. He gave me a bear hug and told me to my face I was a ‘do-right’ gal, meanin’ I was a good nigger.”
“Some Klansman,” I said thoughtfully. “Hugging a Black woman must have been a first for him.”
“Tell me about it. He had the nerve to kiss me on the jaw! Listen—I got to get on over there now and help ’em pick out a dress for her to…you know…be buried in. Uh, I guess I won’t get a chance to talk to you until after you get back to Richland.”
“Yeah. Listen, call me as soon as you can at my mama’s house. I’m sure we’ll all feel a whole lot better by then. You take care of yourself.” On one hand I was truly sorry about April’s death, but on the other, I felt strangely relieved. “Rhoda, I think everything’s going to be all right,” I said gently. “For both of us,” I added.
“It will be now,” she said firmly. For a reason unknown to me, after we hung up I held the phone in my hand and just stared at it for a few moments, going over everything Rhoda had just told me.
CHAPTER 53
After being gone for over ten years, I returned to Richland on Thanksgiving Day, in 1978, with a suitcase in one hand and my purse in the other. In my purse was a cashier’s check for almost two thousand dollars, the rest of the money from Mr. Boatwright’s insurance. I took a cab from the bus station to the house on Reed Street. The neighborhood had not changed much. A few of the houses had been painted, and different cars sat in some of the driveways, but other than that, things looked pretty much the same.
I found Muh’Dear, Pee Wee, Scary Mary, Caleb, and old Judge Lawson sitting in our living room waiting fo
r me. The judge was in a wheelchair. After the usual hugs and kisses, I fell onto the couch next to Muh’Dear, and she drapped her arm around my shoulder. I was surprised that she had not told me she had bought all new furniture. For the first time, everything in our living room matched, and the house smelled good. Not like mean greens and pork and mold, but like the fresh outdoors. There were even large healthy-looking plants all over the place.
Everybody looked the way I had expected them to—older, heavier, wrinkled, and gray-haired. Judge Lawson looked like he belonged in a mummy’s tomb. He was still lucid, but the life was gone from his eyes. He had lost all of his hair, and his whole body shook when he talked. Scary Mary still had on a wild reddish wig and too much makeup, and Caleb was still wearing his plaid shirts and stiff, cheap pants. Pee Wee even had a few strands of gray hair. I did, too, for that matter. There was a time when I didn’t think I would live to see the age of thirty. Now I was closer to it than I cared to admit.
In spite of a cold coming on, I felt good. It was good to be home. An old, ugly coat rack that used to sit by the front door was gone. I removed my jacket and placed it on the back of the chair Pee Wee was sitting in.
It made me a little uneasy being in the same room with Pee Wee after what we had done when he had visited me in Erie. I would never look at sex the same way again as long as I lived. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. I was ashamed to admit to myself that I wouldn’t mind doing it with him again. I still couldn’t get over how handsome he had turned out. With all the man-eating women in Richland, I was truly surprised that somebody else had not snatched him up.
“Where is Rhoda’s white uncle?” I asked. “Is he still in jail?”
“Last we heard he was. What a mess he caused owing Antonosanti money, then refusin’ to pay it back. Brother Nelson’s relationship with Antonosanti done got real shaky on account of Johnny. Smart as that undertaker is, he shoulda knowed better than to let that Johnny get too close to his best friend. Now he got to mop up Johnny’s mess if he want to stay friends with Antonosanti and his bunch. Iffen it was me, I’d beat Johnny like he stole somethin’,” Scary Mary offered, waving her beer can in my direction. “It sure enough is good to have you back home. I’m so glad Jesus sent you back here to help me keep my house clean.” She looked me over critically, resting her fish eyes on my face.
“I don’t think I’ll have time to clean your house. I’ll probably go back to the phone company,” I said quickly. I was through doing a lot of things. One thing I was not going to do much of anymore was hang around Scary Mary’s house. And I was certainly not going to clean it for her.
“My girl got good sense,” Muh’Dear bragged, screwing her lips up like a coin purse to kiss me on my neck. “She was raised right. Praise God for leadin’ Brother Boatwright to me when he did to assist me.”
“Uh…I think I should go on up to my room and start putting my things away,” I said quickly, rising. One thing I wanted behind me in every way was Mr. Boatwright. I didn’t want to think about him or hear people talking about him, especially if they were going on and on about what a saint he was.
“I done already made up your bed with fresh sheets, new blankets, a new spread, and some pillows fit for a king,” Muh’Dear informed me.
“You want me to help you with your suitcase?” Pee Wee asked, rising from his seat. He had been unusually quiet so far. I had a feeling he was just as uneasy as I was.
“Oh no. It’s not heavy. I’m all right.” I smiled. For a moment our eyes met, and we held the gaze. Without warning, I experienced a hot flash. I couldn’t get upstairs fast enough.
Before I entered my old room, I stopped in front of the room that Mr. Boatwright had lived and died in. A great sadness came over me. I set my suitcase on the floor and gently opened the door.
He had come and gone, and there was nothing in the room to indicate that he had ever existed. Everything that had belonged to him was gone, even his smell, which had lingered for weeks after his murder. Muh’Dear had painted the walls from beige to bright baby blue. One of the windows was opened by a few inches, and a cool breeze made the colorful new drapes flutter. I smiled when I saw a red robin sitting on the windowsill looking at me. It was quite a difference from the owl I’d seen so many years ago on the windowsill in the shack in Florida the day after Daddy left with that woman. I had to blink real hard to keep from crying as I pictured him in that green car. I swallowed and took a few deep breaths before I turned to leave.
Across the hall, I opened the door to my old room. Gone was that haunting bed where I had endured most of Mr. Boatwright’s abuse. The old chifforobe, the wobbly nightstand, and the goosenecked lamp were all gone. The walls were still the warm beige I liked, and there was a new four-poster, a dresser with a mirror, and a bookcase containing the hundreds of books that I had left behind in boxes. Not sure what to do first, I sat down cautiously on the bed and just stared at the walls. I was not aware of the time, but I had been sitting for a while when Scary Mary barged in.
“Girl, we thought maybe you had come up here and fainted in the middle of the floor. Why you just settin’ here lookin’ like you seen a haint? We got us a Thanksgivin’ feast spread out on the kitchen table fit for a king, with a turkey with meat so tender it’s ’bout to slide off the bone.”
“I…I was just resting,” I explained. “I’m not that hungry now anyway.”
“Uh-huh. Well from the looks of you, you don’t look like you done missed no meals lately. Heh heh heh.”
“Oh, I ate dinner with some friends before I left Erie.” In my honor, Viola and Willie had celebrated the holiday a day early. I’d eaten as much as my excited stomach allowed me to.
The old madam strutted arrogantly across the floor and stood in front of me with her arms folded, eyeing me suspiciously. Her cheap stockings had started to roll down her legs, revealing knobby knees covered with hair.
“I couldn’t wait to get you by yourself to ask you, you get into any monkey business over there in that Pennsylvania? Bein’ that close to New York, I bet the money is real good over there, ain’t it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked wearily.
“You know what I mean, girl.” Scary Mary cocked her head to one side and glared at me out of the corner of her bloodshot eye.
“I do?”
“Don’t play games with me, Annette.”
I finally sighed and gave Scary Mary a look that let her know she’d won. “Well…” I began, not quite sure what I was going to tell her
“Speak up, girl.” Scary Mary narrowed her eyes and gave me an even harder meaner look. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Trickin’.” I could feel and smell her foul breath on my face.
“Tricking?”
“I heard about what you done with some of my customers before you left town. Every last one of ’em told me. Heh heh heh. Girl, I didn’t know you had it in you.” Scary Mary started patting her chest, all the while grinning in my face.
I looked at her with my lips pressed close together for a few moments, knowing and liking the fact that my behavior was aggravating her. “You didn’t think I could get a bunch of men to pay me to fuck, did you?” I said boldly. I was still pissed off because she had turned me down for a job when I had approached her, and instead made me clean her house and baby-sit her idiot daughter, Mott.
“Oh, child. Looks ain’t got nothin’ to do with trickin’. Most men would pester a baboon if they could. To them, tail is tail.”
“You didn’t say that when I tried to work for you,” I reminded. “You laughed at me.”
“I didn’t want you takin’ away all my regular girls’ business, then runnin’ off to God knows where. You bein’ all young and all then, my girls would have died. I can’t afford no uproars like that in my house. I’m a businesswoman. When I heard you done it anyway, the only thing that pissed me off was you got to keep all the money and cheated me out of a cut. After all, them was my men friends.” She paused and let out a short shar
p chuckle.
I looked toward the door, then back to Scary Mary, who was still standing over me with a scowl on her face. I could hear Muh’Dear and the others talking downstairs.
“Are you still…in the same business?” I asked.
“Of course I’m still in the same business. What else would I be doin’ at my age after all these years, girl?” she gasped. “Business is better than ever. Shit.”
“Does my mama know…about me and some of you customers?” I asked gently.
“Naw.” Scary Mary shrugged. “I ain’t got no reason to tell her. What she don’t know won’t hurt her. Even if she did know, she ain’t got no room to talk. Every woman I ever met done turned a trick or two. Your mama wasn’t no different. Especially in the old days back in Florida. I ain’t gwine to tell her on you. I ain’t never told nobody on her yet. One thing about me, I can carry a secret with me to the grave. I ain’t goin’ to tell nobody what you done.”
“You’re right. What Muh’Dear doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” I was thinking to myself how my mother would never have to endure the pain and shame of knowing what Mr. Boatwright had done to me. I’d endured enough for us both.
“I’m glad to hear that. Muh’Dear doesn’t need to know any of that. Besides, it’s all behind me. I want to get on with my life. Rhoda’s coming up here so we can make plans to go to Disneyworld before I start looking for a job.”
Scary Mary closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. She sat down on the bed and draped her arm around my shoulder and leaned over so close to my face I got scared.
“Yep. I am so glad the good Lord sent you and Florence on back here so y’all can help me keep my house clean.”