by Mary Monroe
I didn’t know what-all P. had told Jean about Vinnie’s actions toward her when Jean was not around. However, since Jean had told me herself about P.’s claim that Vinnie had kissed her on her mouth, that alone should have been enough to put Jean on her highest alert. Instead, here Jean was now, weeping like a widow and clinging to Vinnie like a vine, knowing how much P. had hated and feared him.
Jean’s behavior toward Vinnie disturbed me. I had heard of cases where the mothers of abused children, who knew about the abuse, chose to stay with the abuser! I had attended junior high school with a girl whose mother had kicked her out of the house for “tempting” the mother’s husband and getting pregnant by him. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the girl’s two older brothers had been fucking the hell out of her, too. What really got my goat was the fact that when the girl finally exposed her father and her brothers, a well-known businessman and two star athletes, everybody got mad at her and said that the girl herself had taken advantage of her father and brothers. Ruining her family must have been a greater crime than the abuse she had suffered, because that girl committed suicide. It was no wonder so many kids kept secrets of that nature to themselves.
I had convinced myself that the only people who understood the shame of females like me, were females like me. I was only sorry that I had not been able to reach out more to P. However, I had tried to help by making that anonymous telephone call to the Child Protective Services. But even that had not been enough to save that child.
“I think I saw P. running down the street, trying to get home,” Jean told me, talking as she licked tears and snot from her bottom lip. Her eyes were so red and swollen, she looked like she had been severely beaten. She had on the same soiled, stiff duster she had on the last time I saw her. “P.’s so slow-witted and clumsy. Runs into walls, sometimes gets lost a block away from home. She lost her way again and hasn’t made it home yet.” Turning to Vinnie, Jean added, “Honey, don’t worry. P.’ll be home soon.”
“No, she won’t, darlin’,” Vinnie sobbed, his eyes darting from side to side each time I looked in his face. The oil, or whatever it was that he wore on his hair, had dripped onto the shoulders and neck of his shirt and the sides of his face. He looked like he was melting right before my eyes. Just like that witch in The Wizard of Oz. He cleared his throat and slid his hand across the top of his head, then dabbed at the sides of his face with his sleeve.
Vinnie was nervous, but that was nothing new. He often fidgeted when he was around me. I wasn’t that much larger than Jean, so I knew it was not my size that intimidated him. I had always treated Vinnie cordially to his face, so I had to assume that he didn’t like me because of comments Jean had told him I’d made about him.
I didn’t care if Jean had told him that every time she and I were alone, I bad-mouthed him for treating Jean like a piece of property and for putting his hands, and his mouth, on her child. I was glad he knew that I had his number. I liked seeing him squirm and, in an odd way, I hoped that I would be around when he met his downfall. It all had to do with what I had experienced with Mr. Boatwright. I didn’t know whether to call it revenge or justice, as long as Vinnie got what he had coming. Even if he wasn’t the one responsible for P.’s murder, he had done enough to P. to warrant some degree of punishment.
I didn’t know what Jean and the other people I knew were thinking, but I had a strong opinion about this hellish crime: this was no ordinary rape and murder; this was a crime of passion. I was certain that P. had known her killer and that she had done or said something to push him over the edge. But what could a five-year-old child do to anger someone to the point of murder?
Through narrowed eyes, I glared at Vinnie Gambiano’s brooding face and I saw Mr. Boatwright. And I recalled the numerous threats Mr. Boatwright had made to me. If you ever tell anybody about us, I’m gwine to kill you.
I could have been wrong about Vinnie being P.’s killer. But knowing that some other child-killing monster could be on the loose in my neighborhood didn’t make me feel any better. I knew in my heart that it was a macabre thought, but I still hoped that it was Vinnie.
“What are the police saying?” I asked, directing my attention to Vinnie.
“Uh, nothin’ much. They are continuin’ their investigation,” he replied, clearing his throat and scratching the side of his hard face. His beady black eyes, baggy and cloaked with dark circles, turned as flinty as steel. His greasy ponytail, more than a foot long now, swung every time he moved his head.
“I know they’ll catch the monster who killed P. And it won’t be long,” I said bitterly. “I don’t care how careful that bastard thought he was, somebody is going to find something he overlooked.”
Vinnie shifted in his seat as sweat slid down the sides of his face. “Uh, I think Jean should get some rest now, if you don’t mind,” Vinnie said with bite in his voice. He caressed Jean’s face until she stopped moaning. He then rose from the couch and ushered me toward the door, eyeing me sharply. “You better get on home yourself before it gets any later. It ain’t safe for a woman to be roamin’ the streets by herself at night.” He added with a smirk, “Even you. Them rapists don’t care who they grab.”
“Tell me about it,” I hissed.
“Anytime,” he sneered, looking at me like he wanted to rearrange my face.
Vinnie didn’t blink as I stared into his cold eyes. It was hard to believe that this was the same individual who had sat in front of me in so many of my classes throughout my years at Richland High. I couldn’t count the times he had made me laugh with his classroom antics, tossing spitballs and making barnyard noises out the side of his mouth. He had been one of the few kids in school who had not picked on me. He had had a soul back in those days, but it had left his body a long time ago.
“Thank you for your concern, Vinnie, but I think I can take care of myself.” I let out a heavy breath.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” he said, looking me up and down with contempt, shaking his head. He slammed the door so hard and fast behind me, he caught the tail of my coat in it.
CHAPTER 56
M
y feet felt as heavy as concrete on the icy sidewalk as I dragged myself back to my own house after leaving Jean’s. Normally, I would have been slipping and sliding and even falling a few times. But I was too angry to lose my balance. And I was glad I left when I did because being in the same room with that smug Vinnie had been excruciating. There was so much I wanted to say to him and about him, but for Jean’s sake, I had to keep my feelings to myself. At least for the time being.
It seemed like the whole neighborhood was in mourning. Even though it was fairly early in the evening, houses were already dark and few people were on the street. Since P.’s murder, I had not seen a single child playing alone outside on my street or any other street in Richland. What I did see were parents walking with their children, even to the corner store, holding on to them for dear life. I knew that our little city would never be the same again. I had read in the newspaper that a lot of people had gone out and bought guns and attack dogs. The family in the house across the street from Jean’s had put their house up for sale.
“It’s a cryin’ shame that your visit to us in Florida got messed up with a funeral and now here one done ruined ours,” Daddy lamented as we all dressed to go pay our last respects that Saturday morning. Lillimae stood in front of Daddy, adjusting the stiff necktie he had fished out of his suitcase. “And for a white girl.”
Lillimae and I both gasped and glared at Daddy. “Daddy, a little girl is a little girl. And in case you forgot, the white woman in Florida who died used to be your wife,” I said evenly. I turned to Lillimae for confirmation.
She spoke with her eyes staring at the floor. “And that same woman just happened to be my mama.” Lillimae looked in my eyes and blinked; I looked away.
P.’s murder touched a lot of people. Mayor Doyle appeared on Channel 2, pleading with the perpetrator to turn himself in. Mr. Carmine Antonosanti had
put up a $20,000 reward. He stood right up on television and vowed, “I will say it again—I will not die until the monster that killed Piatra is punished!” As old, weak, and close to the grave as that old man was, everybody knew he still had a lot of power. Somebody was going to pay for P.’s murder, one way or the other. I was glad to know that so many people cared about P.
I couldn’t help but wonder if people would have reacted the same way if what happened to P. had happened to me when I was a child.
For the first time that I knew of, whole families of Black people flocked to the funeral of a white person. One good thing that came out of P.’s funeral was the fact that Muh’Dear attended. It put her in the same room with Daddy in more than thirty years. I was glad that room happened to be in a church. I was confident that there was little chance of Muh’Dear saying something offensive to Daddy there. She had already demonized him, but it seemed like she never ran out of nasty things to say whenever his name came up in a conversation. I saw Muh’Dear sneaking glances at Daddy several times, with a look in her eyes that I could not interpret. Each time, a faint smile appeared on her face.
Muh’Dear had parked her Oldsmobile in a no-parking zone. The car had been towed while we were all in the church. Muh’Dear couldn’t ride with Scary Mary in her van because the five prostitutes who worked for Scary Mary had taken up all the room. Pee Wee had come with Daddy, Lillimae, and me in my car. Muh’Dear had no choice but to ride with us to Jean’s house after we all left St. Mary’s, the Catholic Church Jean’s entire family had attended for years.
“Annette, did you see Rhoda and her husband and little girl? They sure are a good-lookin’ little family,” Muh’Dear said, sitting in the front seat of my car fanning her face with a folded handkerchief. I was glad that Pee Wee was driving my car. I didn’t think it was safe for me to drive and keep an eye on Muh’Dear and Daddy at the same time. Muh’Dear glanced back at me and said dryly, “I heard that Rhoda’s husband treats her like a queen.”
Even though it was cold enough to have the heater on in the car, Muh’Dear was sweating like a coal miner. Like me, she sweated when she was nervous, angry, or emotionally challenged. I could not imagine what she was feeling or thinking about being in the same car with Daddy and one of the children he’d had with the white woman he’d left us for.
So far, at least as far as I knew, Muh’Dear had not said one word to Daddy or Lillimae since they had arrived in Richland. And I was not surprised, but I was hopeful. Daddy and Lillimae were sitting like mutes in the backseat with me, with Daddy in the middle. It was such a tight fit with the three of us that I had to press my thighs together so close that the friction was almost unbearable. Within minutes I could already feel the skin between my thighs chafing. Even through my thick pantyhose. One sideways glance at the grimace on Lillimae’s face told me that her massive thighs were in just as much pain as mine.
Daddy’s bony hand, resting on my knee, looked like a piece of wood. He had on the same natty suit he had worn the day of Lillimae’s mother’s funeral. I could tell it was the same suit because the top button on his jacket was navy blue and all the other buttons were black.
Every few seconds Lillimae sobbed and moaned under her breath, the same way she did during the ride home from her own mother’s funeral a few months earlier. Except for a few moans and groans, Daddy remained silent all the way to Jean’s house.
“Muh’Dear, Rhoda is a lucky woman. She’s always been lucky,” I muttered thoughtfully, folding and unfolding my sweaty hands, rubbing the side of my thigh, trying to reduce my discomfort.
Rhoda had occupied a pew with her husband and her daughter across the room, offering me a brief smile as she wept on her husband’s shoulder. I had no choice but to smile back.
It was a mob scene at Jean’s house by the time we arrived. In addition to family and friends from our neighborhood and a few co-workers, the crowd included a flock of old Italian women dressed from head to toe in black, shroud-like outfits. A couple of the women even had veils partially covering their faces. One toothless old crone in a wheelchair, a thick black shawl draped around her shoulders, was Jean’s great grandmother from Naples, Italy. This old woman cried the whole time I was in Jean’s house, babbling every few minutes in Italian.
We had all delivered food to Jean’s house before the funeral.
“Other than pizza and spaghetti, what else do Italians eat?” Scary Mary had asked me that morning before the funeral.
“They are people, just like us. I’m sure they will appreciate anything we bring,” I told her.
Scary Mary played it safe. She had brought a few berry pies. I played it safe, too. I brought lasagna. Muh’Dear, so proud of her culinary talents, brought a huge bowl of collard greens, a pan of cornbread, and several sweet potato pies and an assortment of other goodies, saying, “Italians ain’t goin’ to be the only folks in Jean’s house. Black folks will want some real food up in there to sink their teeth into. Besides, almost every Italian in town eats at the Buttercup at least once a week. Them folks got the good sense to know good food when they eat it. Shoot.”
It didn’t matter what we brought. Hardly anybody was eating much, anyway. However, almost everybody was walking around like zombies, slurping wine. Even me. I needed it to help calm my nerves. I didn’t feel comfortable in the same house with Vinnie and Rhoda, the two most diabolical living people I knew.
Rhoda and Vinnie didn’t need wine, they needed the Exorcist.
CHAPTER 57
I
t was hard for me to remain civil in Jean’s house, but acting was something I was good at. Nobody could tell how disturbed I really was.
It was obvious that Vinnie was trying to avoid me. Every time I got near him, he moved to another part of the room. When he was not hovering over the table that contained the bottles of wine, he was grazing like a Clydesdale horse at the dinner table, sampling some of everything. Even with his back to me, I could tell when he was smacking and chewing on something by the way his ears wiggled.
This was the first time I had seen Vinnie in a suit since high school. And I was glad he had cut his hair. He actually looked like the Vinnie I had known in school. But no matter what he did to his outside appearance, I felt that he should have been trying to improve what he had inside. Vinnie was paying more attention to Scary Mary’s prostitutes than he was to Jean. And I was not the only one who noticed that. More than once I saw Jean’s uncle, old Mr. Antonosanti, take Vinnie by the arm and lead him to Jean.
About an hour into this tense visit, I turned around and there was Rhoda staring at me from a dim corner with her daughter standing next to her. Rhoda stepped toward me, her heels click-clacking on Jean’s hardwood floor, looking like a ray of sunshine penetrating a dungeon. Her daughter walked along beside her.
I stumbled and splashed wine on the lap of the loose-fitting navy blue dress I had chosen to wear. The black suit Rhoda had on made her look even slimmer. I didn’t remember her chest being so flat, though. As a matter of fact, she had always been so proud of her bosom; she had showed it off in tight, low-cut blouses most of the time. I assumed that her three pregnancies had taken a toll on her body, like most of the mothers I knew.
This was the first time I had ever seen Rhoda in a hat. It was a derby, or something close to it. It was also black and sat perched at an angle on the side of her head. Muh’Dear, Scary Mary, and most of the other Black women present had on hats so garish I wouldn’t wear them for Halloween. I had been avoiding hats, because that was one thing I had always associated with older women. Seeing one on Rhoda reminded me that that’s exactly what we both were now: older women.
“Hello, Annette. I’m glad you were able to make it,” Rhoda said, her eyes red from crying. She dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief that she had in her neatly manicured hand. “It’s good to see you again.” She sniffed and offered a nervous smile. “I didn’t know you and Jean knew each other.”
“Uh, yeah, we both work for the teleph
one company,” I croaked, looking for some gray hair and wrinkles on Rhoda. I didn’t see any. The wine I had wasted made my dress stick to me. But that didn’t bother me half as much as Rhoda’s sudden appearance. “It’s good to see you, too, Rhoda. You’re looking as young as ever.”
The child with Rhoda was standing as rigid and stoic as a soldier. Her eyes were the only things moving on her when she blinked. Unlike the other children in the room, with their smudged faces and disheveled clothing, this child was impeccably neat. Her long, blue-black hair looked like it had been put on her head strand by strand. Her complexion, the same shade of dark brown as Rhoda’s and mine, was as clear as glass. The girl had the same small, upturned nose as Rhoda and the same sparkling green eyes. It was like Rhoda had literally duplicated herself. At the time, I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
With my face covered excessively in makeup and my huge body hidden inside my sharp, loose-fitting dress, I reminded myself what some of the kids I’d attended school with had told me so emphatically: a baboon in makeup and a dress is still a baboon. It bothered me that after so many years and all the fuss that Jerome had made over me, my feelings of inferiority were still disturbingly strong. Even though I was now standing before the same person who had first encouraged what little self-esteem I did have. A pain that started in my head shot all the way down to my feet. I immediately started shifting my weight from one foot to the other. The bottom of my right foot was itching. The only reason I didn’t bend down and remove my shoe to scratch was because I didn’t want to act like a baboon, too. It was bad enough looking like one.
“This is my beautiful daughter, Jade.” Rhoda nudged the girl with her elbow and snatched the girl’s thumb out of her mouth. “Jade, this is Annette. When I was a girl, Annette was my best friend.”