by Mary Monroe
Afterward, while he was peeing in an empty Styrofoam coffee cup, he asked, “You would do anything for money, huh?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, rearranging my clothes. He had ripped my panties to shreds trying to remove them so fast. It didn’t make any sense for me to put them back on. I slid the panties into my purse along with the fifty dollars he had just handed me.
The trick slapped his hairy hands on his hips and gave me a critical look, screwing up his face like he didn’t like what he saw. “I can’t get none of them other gals to come to me, I have to go to them. And they particular about what motels I carry them to. I got a heap of money in the bank and a wife that won’t let me touch her with a stick. I thought I was gwine to have to beat my meat. I guess you’ll have to do for tonight. You just don’t care about nothin’,” he remarked. Waving his hand dramatically, he looked me up and down with a fierce scowl on his plain face. “No shame, no rules, no nothin’ long as you get paid. Like a Gypsy. I guess you ain’t got them highfalutin standards, huh?”
“I guess not,” I said sadly. I promised myself right then and there that he would be the last one. I couldn’t stand to degrade myself any longer for any amount of money. It was already difficult for me to look at myself in the mirror; this had just made it that much harder. Especially after the verbal beating I had just received.
With the money I had saved from a brief job working as a switchboard operator for the telephone company and the money from the men, I made plans to relocate to Erie, Pennsylvania. I had never been to Erie and I didn’t know anybody there, but Pee Wee was from Erie. He had me convinced that it was a small city filled with “good peoples.”
It sounded like the perfect place to start a new life.
CHAPTER 16
I
was apprehensive about leaving Muh’Dear alone after all we had been through together. Even though she had a lot of friends now, there was no special man in her life. And there hadn’t been since Daddy’s departure, fourteen years earlier.
Before I could finalize my plans to flee Richland, Muh’Dear got involved with a new man, a lonely old widower named Albert King. Not one of the horny old geezers that Scary Mary had tried to dump off on her, but a dignified man that everybody loved and respected. However, a big red flag went up in my mind right away, because Mr. Boatwright had been the same way at first. As pessimistic as I was, I didn’t believe that lightning could strike twice in the same place.
However, I still approached Muh’Dear’s new man with extreme caution. Especially since she had met Mr. King through Reverend Snipes, the same meddlesome old preacher who had cursed us with Mr. Boatwright! That alone was enough to make me keep my distance.
Mr. King was nothing like Mr. Boatwright. He wasn’t some one-legged old man with nowhere to go, like Mr. Boatwright. Mr. King was the owner of the Buttercup restaurant and he had enough money to live a comfortable life. He owned his own home, so I didn’t have to worry about him moving in with us. He didn’t have any family left, but he had a lot of friends. He had severed a two-year relationship with another woman so he could be with my mother. I avoided being alone with Mr. King. When he came to the house while Muh’Dear was out, I hid behind the curtains and refused to open the door. When I couldn’t avoid being alone with him, I remained distant and suspicious.
Mr. King had called the house for Muh’Dear one day and I’d been sharp with him. I had hollered at him the way I did those annoying people who called up on the telephone trying to sell something or asking nosy questions for a survey.
“Annette, you don’t like me, do you?” he asked in a whiny voice. He was breathing through his mouth, groaning, hissing and making low whistling noises that I knew he couldn’t help. As annoyed as I was, I felt sorry for this old man.
I waited for Mr. King’s breathing to return to normal. Then I sucked in my breath, hoping I didn’t sound like I belonged in a barnyard myself like he sounded. “I don’t know you well enough to hate you,” I told him coldly. “I’ll tell Muh’Dear you called,” I added with impatience. I wondered what made Muh’Dear take up with a man who had obviously started falling apart. With all his wheezing and breathing difficulties, it seemed like he was one step away from his grave.
With a low, weak voice he said, “Well, I hope you do get to know me soon. I love your mama and I think she loves me. Me and Gussie Mae get along real good, so I’m gwine to be comin’ around yonder to see your mama whether you like it or not. So you can stop all your foolishness right now!” Mr. King stunned me by being so direct.
But I didn’t back down. “What you and my mother do is none of my business,” I snapped. “If my mama wants to make a fool of herself, I can’t stop her.”
I heard him gasp and suck on his teeth. “One thing your mama ain’t, is a fool.”
“Well, I’m not, either. Now if you don’t mind, I’m watching American Bandstand right now.”
He sighed and mumbled something unintelligible before he spoke again. “Look, girl. I would never do nothin’ to harm you.” He paused and steadied his voice. “I cut my teeth on God.”
“So did Satan,” I reminded.
“What you say?”
“Nothing,” I muttered. I rarely sassed old people and I wasn’t proud of myself for doing it now. I cleared my throat and softened my voice. “Uh…I’ll tell Muh’Dear you called,” I said sheepishly.
Mr. King let out another sigh, this one longer and deeper. “Child, I know you was real fond of Brother Boatwright. Everybody was. Even me.” He paused and laughed. “Even though he departed here owin’ me several hundred dollars. Bless his heart.” Mr. King paused again and cleared his throat. “Anyway, your mama done told me all about the special joy he brought to your life.” His last comment almost made me choke on my own tongue. “But I ain’t the type to get too close to young people. It breeds contempt. Matter of fact, I don’t really like to keep company with women that still got kids livin’ at home. Especially gals. They can get a man in a heap of trouble.”
I absorbed this information and listened with interest now. Clutching the telephone with both hands, I cleared my throat and asked, “What…what do you mean by that?”
“Well, the reason I broke up with Sadie Watson was because of her teenager daughters. Them some fast girls and they out to cause trouble. Both of ’em got babies and not a man in sight to help raise them kids. Naturally, they ripe to start up some devilment so they won’t be the only ones miserable. That Betty Jean was always tryin’ to provoke me. Sittin’ on my lap, huggin’ on me, beggin’ me for money. That youngest one, Sarah Louise, was even worse. Kissin’ me on my jaw every chance she got.” He sighed again. “I’m too old to be gettin’ caught up in somethin’…uh…unholy. I got too much to lose.”
I suddenly felt more at ease. “Well, I’m too old to let one of my mother’s men get caught up in something unholy with me,” I said stiffly, scratching myself between my thighs. It had been weeks since I’d turned my last trick, but I still felt unclean, no matter how much I bathed and scrubbed myself. After each bath, I sprayed my crotch with whatever smell-goods were available. Now I had to deal with an irritating inflammation that my excessive use of the sprays had caused.
“Look, girl. I ain’t got no kids of my own. I ain’t a young man no more, so I doubt if I ever will have any. But I still love kids. I helped my use-to-be business partner raise all five of his young’uns. Then, after he passed, I helped send all of ’em to college. Even though they don’t even call me or send me a card, unless they wantin’ money, I still care about them kids. I want to see all kids succeed in life. Black kids especially. Now the Lord done blessed me. I got a few bucks in the bank and I can’t take none of it with me when I lay my burdens down and go to meet my Maker. I want to enjoy life while I still can. All I want to do is make somebody happy. Right now that somebody is your mama…and you. If I ever say or do somethin’ you don’t like, you seem like the kind of gal would put me in my place. Your mama didn’t raise no
fool. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” I said contritely. My head felt heavy as I bowed it. While I was between thoughts, I noticed some faint, inch-long, slightly crooked black lines on the kitchen wall I was facing. I rubbed my fingers across the lines until I realized they were the markings that Mr. Boatwright had made with a pencil to measure my height over the years. I snatched my hand back like I’d been burned. With my heart pounding against the inside of my chest, I realized Mr. Boatwright still had some control over me.
Even from his grave.
Before I could speak again, Mr. King did and I was glad. I wasn’t sure what was going to come out of my mouth anyway. Especially with additional thoughts of Mr. Boatwright, even more potent than the ones I’d had a few moments earlier, dancing around in the front of my mind.
“And you got too nice a voice to be soundin’ all grumpy anyway.” He laughed. “You ought to be singin’ in the choir. I’ll mention that to Pastor Jenkins.”
I was glad to know that Mr. King and I were on the same page. I knew that I was not the only girl in Richland to have had the kind of trouble I’d had with one of Muh’Dear’s men friends. Thank God Mr. King was bold enough to stand his ground.
That conversation broke the ice enough for me to accept Mr. King in my life. I regretted my behavior and wanted to retract my remarks but it was too late. However, it was not too late for me to change my attitude toward him. So I did, right then and there.
“Uh…I’ll tell Muh’Dear you called. And…Mr. King, you have a nice evening.”
Now that I was comfortable with Mr. King, I encouraged Muh’Dear to secure her relationship with him. It eased my mind to know that she would not be lonely when I did move away. Even though I didn’t know a soul in Pennsylvania, she surprised me by encouraging me to go.
I was bowled over when she surprised me with a ten-thousand-dollar cash gift from an insurance policy that Mr. Boatwright, of all people, had left for us. Now I felt even worse about selling my body. The money I had collected from all those horny men was pocket change compared to the ten thousand dollars. I was even more anxious to get away from the scene of my crimes now. I had to leave Ohio. Even if I had to flee on foot.
I left on a Greyhound bus, crying and waving to Muh’Dear until the bus turned the corner.
CHAPTER 17
S
o much happened to me during the years I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was hard for me to keep the events in order when I allowed myself to think about them. I slid in and out of meaningless relationships with meaningless men and had a fairly active social life, but I continued to have nightmares about Mr. Boatwright. Some mornings I woke up on the floor, tangled up in my bedcovers from trying to hide from Mr. Boatwright’s ghost.
I joined a church and I got a job working on an assembly line in a factory, but I was not happy. I still missed Rhoda and Pee Wee. They had saved me in so many ways, so many times. In fact, it was a telephone call from Rhoda that had stopped me from throwing myself out of the window of a dingy hotel, during one of my many moments of despair.
Pee Wee was special in other ways. He had been the only boy that Mr. Boatwright had felt was sexless and harmless enough to be around me, not that any other boys had tried to get into my pants. The nights that Pee Wee had been allowed to sleep over at my house during our early teens, volunteering to sleep on our living room floor in his sleeping bag, Mr. Boatwright had insisted that Pee Wee sleep on a pallet on my bedroom floor instead.
Unlike some of the other boys from Richland who had been snatched up by Uncle Sam and dispatched to go fight a senseless war in a place a lot of us had never even heard of before, Pee Wee returned from Vietnam intact. I was pleasantly surprised when he paid me a surprise visit one night when he came to Pennsylvania to visit relatives.
I had several reasons for climbing into my bed with Pee Wee. His appearance was one. The army had recycled him. He was no longer the skinny, loud-mouthed, sissified little boy I had grown up with. He was at least four inches taller and had packed on more than sixty pounds. His long, narrow face had filled out and he had a sexy mustache. A pair of slightly slanted black eyes that I had never paid much attention to before now sparkled like diamonds. He was gorgeous. Especially naked.
He stood over me as I lay on my bed, naked, too, feeling as big as a banana boat. But my size didn’t bother him, so I didn’t care what I looked like as long as he liked what he saw.
I didn’t jump up and shout like I wanted to, though. I just gasped. When Pee Wee gave me an amused look, I pretended like I was reacting to the scorpion tattoo on his chest. I was already weak, so even without that bottle of wine we consumed, I couldn’t help myself.
After all the unfulfilling sex I had had with Mr. Boatwright and the other men, I never expected to know any physical pleasure, other than feeding my face. But Pee Wee was a wonderful lover. He even taught me a few tricks that he had picked up from the whores he had spent time with in Vietnamese brothels that he claimed he’d been “dragged” to.
Sex was such a mystery to me. It seemed strange that something that good could also be bad if done with the wrong person. Despite old Mr. Boatwright’s belief that I enjoyed his lovemaking, it had felt like hell to me. Here I was doing the same thing with Pee Wee, but it felt like heaven. Especially when I had an orgasm. It was the first one in my life and that made Pee Wee even more special to me. It was almost as sacred as sharing my virginity, a prize that Mr. Boatwright had helped himself to.
I felt like a big fool doing some of the things I did with Pee Wee that night. And I knew I probably looked like a big ox in some of the positions I let myself get coaxed into. I was like a dope fiend, devouring Pee Wee for the next few hours like he was a drug. I licked and humped like I was getting paid to do it. He laughed when I humped him with so much vigor he fell off the bed.
“Just relax, girl,” he told me, jumping back on top of me, stabbing deep inside of me with his finger. We spent a whole night wallowing in each other’s arms.
By the time Pee Wee rolled off me, I was practically delirious. But my rapture was temporary. He left the next morning before I even woke up. I was alone again, except for the bruises on my body and the fear of Mr. Boatwright’s ghost coming back to haunt me some more.
Not long after my passionate rendezvous with Pee Wee, another man eased his way into my bed, one I thought was just as ready to get married and settle down as I was. I was half right. Levi Hardy up and married another woman while he was still involved with me. I was devastated. I felt like the woman men avoided in public, but could tolerate enough to use for their own selfish needs. I felt like a urinal, just another place for men to dangle their dicks. I didn’t know what was so wrong with me that only Rhoda could see the beauty in me on an ongoing basis. That’s why it had always been so easy for her to control me.
During a visit to Florida to comfort Rhoda when the younger of her two sons died, I found myself missing my father more than ever before. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was in Florida, just a few miles away from Rhoda’s house. If I had reunited with him then, I know now that I would have avoided some of the other pain that was waiting to consume me.
I cried until I almost lost my voice during the very next telephone conversation with Rhoda. Not over Pee Wee running out on me or that other man dumping me for another woman, but over a royal mess that Rhoda’s older brother Jock had slid into.
Jock Nelson, his mind half gone after injuries he had sustained in Vietnam, had impregnated the teenage daughter of a Klansman. The girl wanted Jock to marry her and she wanted money for her and Jock to run away with. If she didn’t get her way, she threatened to go to her daddy and claim that Jock had raped her.
Rhoda was on fire and predicted what she called a “bloodbath” if the girl carried out her threat. I had not witnessed that level of anger from Rhoda since I told her about Mr. Boatwright. That anger didn’t last long because a few weeks later that white girl died in a freak bathtub accident and Rhoda was
her old self again.
“See, God really don’t like ugly,” Rhoda told me in an unusually calm voice. “That white bitch got what she had comin’.”
I didn’t know why, but I sat looking at the telephone, long after Rhoda had hung up. I suddenly became profoundly uneasy. Something that I could not even bring myself to think about kept trying to creep into my mind, but I wouldn’t let it. I knew in my heart that there was more to the story involving that white girl than Rhoda had told me. I told myself that if it was meant for me to hear the whole story, someday I would.
With the news of the white girl’s death, the stunt that Pee Wee had pulled on me, and the fact that I had not gotten over Levi dumping me to marry another woman, I decided it was time to run away from my problems again.
During a brief visit to my aunt Berniece in New Jersey, I learned from her that my father was in Miami and that I had two half-sisters and a half-brother. At that point, my desire to “find” myself took on a new meaning.
When I returned to Pennsylvania I was too restless to remain there much longer. Even though Ohio had once repelled me like a snakepit, without giving it much thought, I decided it was time for me go back there to deal with the demons that had tormented me throughout my youth.