God Still Don’t Like Ugly

by Mary Monroe

  With my big toe throbbing, I got on the phone to start calling people to tell them that the wedding was off. I planned to offer a brief and vague explanation that Jerome and I had decided to see other people. I started with the most difficult person I knew.

  “Was it another woman?” Scary Mary asked as soon as I got the words out. “Was Jerome the jealous type? I bet he was.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” It was a good thing I was sitting down now because I was so weak and wobbly, I felt like I needed a cane.

  “Was he generous?”

  “No, ma’am. He was a cheapskate, too.”

  “Holy moly! Then you done the right thing. My second husband was jealous and cheap, too. He tried to choke me one day because he got it in his head that I was creepin’ around with a preacher from Jacksonville. Well, him chokin’ me was the biggest mistake he made in his life. You don’t clown a Black woman when she got a hot skillet in her hands. Mine happened to have some corn in it that I was frying. I let him have that corn, right upside his head. He been baldheaded ever since.” Scary Mary would have rattled on for hours if I had not cut the conversation short. “Before you get off the telephone, I got one more thing to say: I’ll pray for you, child.”

  I waited a few moments before I dialed Muh’Dear’s number. I was surprised that she reacted so calmly. “I was suspicious of that Cunningham family anyway. That mama of Jerome’s was jealous about Judge Lawson leaving us that house. Don’t you worry, baby. You’ll get through this. I had a bad feeling about this night when Jerome’s mama came by to pick up them rolls. As old as that lazy heifer is, she ought to know how to cook her own rolls by now.”

  It was well past midnight by the time I called up Pee Wee.

  “Jerome and I broke up tonight. I know it’s late, but I don’t need to be alone right now. Can you come over?” I held my breath and waited.

  Without hesitation, Pee Wee said, “I’m on my way.”

  Even after I had neglected him for years to be with Jerome, Pee Wee hopped out of his bed and rushed over to my house, with an overcoat over his pajamas. Just like a trained puppy.

  “What he do to you?” Pee Wee asked as soon as he got in my door. He rushed over to my coffee table and poured wine into two glasses that I had already brought from the kitchen. “You want me to kick his ass? You want me to slash the tires on his car and put some sugar in his tank? Oh, I’ll fix him up real good.”

  I shook my head and held up my hand. “Before we go any further, I need to tell you some things about me that you don’t know,” I said evenly.

  “So, what’s up?” Pee Wee handed me a glass of wine and sat down on the couch while I stood in the middle of the floor, pacing like a tiger.

  “I am no angel,” I began, gulping a huge dose of wine.

  For a moment, he just stared at me with a blank expression on his face. Then he covered his mouth with his hand. He threw back his head and guffawed so hard, he started choking. When he straightened up, he had tears in his eyes. His lips were quivering like he was gearing up to laugh some more. “I could have told you that. And guess what? I ain’t no angel myself. What’s your point?” He pressed his lips together and laughed under his breath, taking quick sips of wine.

  “You stop that!” I slapped the side of my thigh and that made Pee Wee get serious. He sniffed and blinked, looking at me like he was looking at me for the first time. “Pee Wee, what I’m about to say is hard enough. Now you just sit there and listen for a minute,” I ordered, drinking some more.

  Pee Wee drank from his glass as I talked. He was so anxious he couldn’t sit still. He kept crossing and uncrossing his legs and caressing his goatee.

  I cleared my throat. But my mouth was still dry and my throat hurt so, it was painful for me to talk. “When Rhoda got married and moved away and when you went to the army, I turned a few tricks with some of Scary Mary’s customers. I needed to scrape up enough money to leave home with.” I tilted my head. Out of the corner of my eye I stared at Pee Wee in a fever of anticipation. I didn’t know what I expected him to say or do, but I was surprised by his mild response.

  “Go on.” Pee Wee nodded and waved his glass at me.

  “That’s it. I was a prostitute.”

  “Well, ain’t you a dark horse.” Pee Wee gave me an amused look and shook his head, saluting me with his wineglass. “You just full of surprises, girl.”

  I held up my hand and said quickly, “It was just for a minute, but Jerome found out about it and he broke up with me. His Uncle Willie from Columbus was my last trick. He blabbed.”

  “Is that all? Girl, I thought you was goin’ to tell me you did somethin’ real crazy.” Pee Wee paused and grinned as I continued.

  “Jerome got real violent with me,” I said flatly, sighing heavily.

  Pee Wee froze and an evil look crossed his face. “Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I beat the dog-shit out of him.” We both laughed. “Pee Wee, do you still want to be my friend?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” my dear friend said gently, giving me an affectionate look.

  I didn’t know what I had done to deserve a friend like Pee Wee.

  “What about me…doing what I did with those men?” I asked in a meek voice.

  Pee Wee let out a deep sigh and shrugged. “So what? What about it? I mean, what do you want me to say?”

  “You can say whatever you want to say. How does what I did make you feel toward me now? Do you realize what I just told you? Do you know what it means?”

  Pee Wee sniffed and rubbed his thigh. He finished the wine in his glass and poured some more, shaking his head as he spoke. “I guess I done run up one hell of a tab.”

  “What do you mean?” I turned my head to the side and gazed at him from the corner of my burning eye.

  Pee Wee snapped his fingers. “I mean what I just said. As many times as we hooked up, I must owe you everything I got but my citizenship.”

  “Is that all you have to say about…this thing I just told you?”

  Pee Wee shook his head. “Just one more thing. I hope them other tricks gave you some big money, “cause you got some damn good pussy.”

  “You nasty thing, you!” As hard as I tried not to, I laughed anyway.

  Pee Wee slapped his knee and clicked his teeth. “Aw shit, girl. I got too much invested in your black ass to be runnin’ out on you over some shit like that. I ain’t Jerome.” Pee Wee shook his head and exhaled before he looked at me again, giving me a thoughtful look. “What happens when Jerome cools off?”

  “Nothing.” For emphasis, I shook my head vigorously and narrowed my eyes. “I never want to see him again as long as I live.”

  “Well, that’s the best news I done heard all year.” Pee Wee rose and held out his hand to me and nodded toward the steps leading to my bedroom. “Come on, girl. Let’s go upstairs. We got a lot of catchin’ up to do.”

  I sighed. “What the hell,” I said, rising.

  I locked my front door and propped a chair up against it—in case Jerome decided to come back. I smiled at Pee Wee, feeling warmer and more comfortable than I had felt in a long time.

  Then I took his hand and led him upstairs to my bedroom.

  CHAPTER 46

  I

  n a town as small as Richland, it was hard to avoid Jerome and other members of his family. A few days after our violent breakup, I ran into one of his brothers at the mall. He turned as red as a tomato and looked at me like I had leprosy.

  A week later I ran into Jerome’s mother at Miss Rachel’s, the upscale hair salon that catered to Black women. Marlene ignored me completely as I sat there getting my hair rebraided, while she got her hair dyed in the seat right next to mine.

  Even Jerome’s sister Nadine shunned me when I saw her shopping for groceries at Kroger’s the following Saturday afternoon. She left the market before I did and when I went out to my car, she was leaning on her car, looking at me and shaking her head.

  When I did see Jero
me, it was at the movies. I was with Pee Wee, Jerome was with a stout, dark-skinned woman I’d never seen before. He gave me one of the meanest looks anybody ever gave me.

  Ironically, Jerome’s Uncle Willie was not the only one of my former customers I saw. On two separate occasions I ran into other men that I had slept with for money. Either they didn’t recognize me or they didn’t remember me because they ignored me. But it didn’t bother me one bit. I really had nothing else to lose now.

  I cheered myself up by spending as much time as I could with Pee Wee. When he developed a cold and didn’t want to leave his house, I went over there. Before we could find a spot with enough room for us to fuck, I had to clean up his living room. He had a couch that let out into a bed, so that was good enough, once I removed all the fast-food containers and dirty clothes.

  “And don’t think I’m going to let you kiss me. I don’t want to catch your cold,” I told Pee Wee, glaring at him stretched out on his couch-bed in a sleeping bag, waiting to clamber back on top of me.

  “You just better hurry up and get out your clothes before my dick go back to sleep,” he told me in a weak voice. Even sick with a cold, Pee Wee gave me more pleasure than Jerome ever did. I was just as weak as he was by the time we finished. I limped home, feeling like a different woman. And I was. I felt like I had just come back from the dead.

  I stuffed all of the clothes, cassette tapes, and other things in my house that belonged to Jerome into old grocery bags. A few days later, when Pee Wee was feeling better, he drove me to Jerome’s apartment. He waited in his car when I went to knock on Jerome’s door.

  “What the hell do you want?” Jerome roared, standing in his doorway in a pair of boxer shorts. “If you thinking about crawling back to me—”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, nigger. It’d be a cold day in hell before I crawl for you or any other man,” I snarled.

  Jerome gasped and stared at me with a look on his face so harsh my flesh crawled.

  “Look, woman—”

  “No, you look.” I pointed to Pee Wee’s car. “I got the shit you left in my house out here. If you want it, you better bring your sorry yellow ass out here to get it.”

  Jerome gasped and stretched his eyes open as wide as he could. “Woman, who in the hell do you think you are to be bringing that black-ass nigger over here?” Jerome shouted, shaking his finger in my face.

  “Do you want your shit or not? And you better hurry up because I got more important things to do with my time—with that black-ass nigger I brought over here with me,” I said, folding my arms.

  Jerome gave me a hot look and then he slammed the door in my face. I returned to Pee Wee’s car and told him to drive to the city dump. Whistling and puffing on a joint, Pee Wee helped me toss Jerome’s belongings onto a mountain of other debris.

  Back in the car, Pee Wee leaned over and kissed me. “You feel better now?” he asked, caressing my chin.

  I took a deep breath and let it out before I replied. “Better than I’ve felt in years,” I said. “Take me home so I can call up my daddy.”

  Daddy was disappointed about not being able to visit Ohio and see me get married. But he wanted to see me anyway.

  “I might go see Daddy again for a few days,” I told Muh’Dear the next day.

  “I see.” Muh’Dear sniffed and cleared her throat. “Why don’t you make your daddy come up here? It ain’t fair for you to go down there every time.” Muh’Dear’s suggestion stunned me. Her change of heart startled Daddy so hard, he had to take a pill when I called to tell him.

  “You sure your mama ain’t layin’ in wait for me, ready to bounce a fryin’ pan off my head?” He laughed as he chewed on an aspirin.

  “No, Daddy. I think she’s ready to see you again anyway.” I laughed, too.

  I was glad that I had something to keep me from thinking about Jerome. Daddy’s upcoming visit was like an elixir for my morale.

  CHAPTER 47

  A

  lot of people assume that women my size love to go grocery shopping. I was one big woman who would rather get a whupping than shop for groceries. That’s why I ate out as much as I did. I spent a great deal of my paycheck on expensive restaurants—McDonald’s, Burger King, and every place in between.

  My meals at the Buttercup were free, but I had to limit my visits there to two or three times a week because of Muh’Dear. It didn’t matter to her if I’d come in with Pee Wee and Jean in tow; Muh’Dear still took me aside to badger me with a siege of perfunctory questions and comments. “Did you find a new boyfriend yet? I don’t want you to be alone at your age. You keepin’ that house clean? Cleanliness is next to godliness. You payin’ your bills on time? You don’t want to mess up your credit.”

  Shopping for groceries brought back too many painful memories. Throughout my youth, when Mr. Boatwright was still alive, he used to drag me all over town to gather up the foods he enjoyed cooking. During those days, we’d purchased most of our food at a discount market called The Food Bucket, where the quality of the food was low and the service was even lower. We had to stand in long lines behind people taking their good old time to locate food stamps and checks they couldn’t cash at any other place. The clerks were rude and the other patrons were even ruder. They jumped ahead of other people already in a checkout line; they knocked over displays, and shoplifted in plain view. Mr. Hood, a bowlegged, elderly security guard, had been at The Food Bucket ever since I could remember. I had never seen Mr. Hood do anything but hold customers hostage, boring them to exasperation with long-winded updates of his health.

  Now that I shopped alone and paid for my purchases with my own money, I bought my groceries at Kroger’s or the A&P, which were both considered upscale compared to The Food Bucket.

  I still hated shopping for groceries, even at the nice stores. This particular Saturday evening was no different. I only grabbed what I needed and rushed back to my car and headed for home.

  I didn’t like cold weather but I had to admit that I liked the way Ohio looked in the wintertime. A fresh blanket of fluffy snow covered the ground and houses and the city snow trucks had come out earlier and cleared the streets. I took my time driving home, admiring how the trees looked with their branches heavy with thick wands of snow and ice. Almost every yard had a snowman and that brought back some painful memories. Mr. Boatwright used to play with me in the snow when I was a child. Before he had started abusing me, he used to help me build snowmen. After he started putting his hands on me, the snowmen became snow women, complete with scarves and aprons. “I just love me some females,” he told me with a look in his eyes that told me what was coming next: a trip to bed. I was glad that none of the snow people I saw now in the yards along my way were feminine.

  The backseat of my car was covered with assorted fresh meat and several bunches of greens. This was part of the food I planned to cook for Daddy and Lillimae. They were due in later that night from Miami.

  It was the first week in January. I was glad that Christmas had come and gone. It had been a dark day for me. Instead of marrying Jerome on Christmas Day like I had planned, I had spent the day with Muh’Dear and Pee Wee. Later that night, I had talked on the telephone with Lillimae and Daddy for over an hour, anticipating their first visit to Ohio.

  Driving home from Kroger’s, I stopped my car so abruptly at the stop sign across from Jean’s house, my head lurched forward. My neck muscles got so tight I was afraid they’d snap. There was a thin film of snow on my windshield so I had to turn the wipers on to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. At first I thought I was seeing some kind of an illusion. I blinked hard and rubbed my eyes. Unfortunately, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. Standing in Jean’s front yard, along with her brooding boyfriend Vinnie and her young daughter P., was an older white man I didn’t see in public that often anymore, Carmine Antonosanti. He owned Antonosanti’s, the most expensive restaurant in town. I had first met him when I was thirteen, the same year I met Rhoda Nelson. Mr. Anton
osanti had been so close to Rhoda’s family that she called him Uncle Carmine. Rhoda was the one who had introduced me to him at her house one day after school.

  According to Rhoda, this old Italian man and her daddy had served in the army together. Rhoda’s daddy had saved Mr. Antonosanti’s life on a battlefield somewhere in Germany and because of that, Mr. Antonosanti had become one of Rhoda’s family’s most important friends. Standing between Jean and Mr. Antonosanti—a walking cane in each of his gnarled hands—was Rhoda Nelson. Even though Rhoda had married Otis O’Toole, I still thought of her by her maiden name. I kept thinking her name over and over in my mind as I blinked my eyes so hard they started to ache.

  Seeing Rhoda at the mall and the Red Rose nightclub had traumatized me enough. Seeing her this close to my own house with my friend Jean was excruciating. I could no longer ignore the fact that Rhoda was back in Richland, Ohio, and I had to find out why and what she was up to. But the most important thing about her return was how it would involve me.

  Rhoda was living proof that Mother Nature had her favorites. My former friend was as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. At thirty-five, she still had the face of a cover girl. Her long black hair hung down her back like a silk scarf. After having three children, she was still a size four, a size I couldn’t even fathom. As hard as it was to believe, there actually were women who looked like Barbie dolls and Rhoda was one of them.

  I had not talked to Rhoda since the week of Thanksgiving in 1978, the night she had confessed to me that in addition to murdering Mr. Boatwright, she had murdered three other people. That was the night I had told her I could no longer be friends with her. Not long after that night, the rest of Rhoda’s family moved away. Their empty house, which included the mortuary her father had owned and Rhoda’s life-size dollhouse, had all mysteriously burned to the ground.

  I had often wondered about what had happened to Rhoda’s handsome father and her beautiful mother. I had even asked Scary Mary, but even she didn’t know. After a while, I stopped asking. Seeing Rhoda now was like seeing a ghost and, in a way, it was.