Читать книгу God Still Don't Like Ugly - Mary Monroe - Страница 18

The death of Lillimae’s mother had taken a toll on Lillimae. She stumbled around the house like somebody afflicted with polio, running into the living room wall a few times and accidentally stepping on the tail of that old cat from next door. For the rest of my visit there was a look of sadness in her eyes that found its way to me. All the mascara and Visine I used to try and brighten up my eyes didn’t help.

It seemed like every time some new sad thing happened in my life, I grieved for all the other sad things that I had already endured. The good thing was, I had enough pleasant things going on in my life now so there was some balance. However, I was glad that I had only one more day before my departure. I was anxious to return to my job, my house, and my man.

The day before I left Florida, Daddy insisted on taking me out to dinner at what he considered a “fancy” restaurant. He took me to Doug’s Bar-be-cue, a rib joint around the corner from his house. The deeper I traveled into Daddy’s drab neighborhood, the more sinister it looked. Unkempt, suspicious-looking men sat on the porches of a deserted house across the street from the rib joint, sharing bottles and whatever it was they were smoking. There was broken glass and discarded trash everywhere I looked. An old car that somebody had torched was sitting on the street and young kids were crawling in and out of it. Every house had bars on the windows, even the broken windows. Two boys that looked young enough to be my sons, their cheap plaid shirts hanging open, were kneeling on the sidewalk throwing dice in front of the restaurant. We had to walk around them.

“Keep a strong grip on your pocketbook,” Daddy warned me in a loud voice. “This street is the butt-hole of Miami.”

He led me into the restaurant with his arm around my shoulder and guided me to a booth in a corner next to the kitchen. There was so much smoke coming out of that kitchen, anybody who didn’t know any better would have thought that the place was on fire.

A cassette player, held together with duct tape, was sitting on the counter next to the cash register. An old B.B. King song, “The Thrill Is Gone,” was playing.

“I wish Lillimae had come with us. That gal love her some barbecue,” Daddy told me, wrapping one of the yellow plastic bibs that the restaurant supplied around his neck after we had placed our orders. “I done told her we don’t know when we’ll see you again.” He blinked and wiggled his nose, smiling faintly. “Long as it took me to get you to come down here and all.”

“I’ll just be a phone call away, Daddy,” I said, drinking ice-cold water from a huge plastic glass.

Our food was delivered a few minutes later. I wasn’t that hungry but I managed to eat most of the rib sandwich that I had ordered. For Doug’s to be as popular as Daddy claimed it was, I was surprised to see that we were the only patrons.

Daddy sniffed and rubbed his eyes. “It’s a good thing we got here early. You can’t get in this place after six o’clock. You want a plate to carry with you on the plane?” Daddy asked, grinning with greasy sauce shining on his lips like lip gloss. The barbecue sauce was so spicy and hot, it made our eyes water.

“They’ll feed me on the plane, Daddy,” I said, sniffling and cracking a thin smile at the same time. Daddy leaned across the table and wiped my eyes with his napkin. It wasn’t just the barbecue sauce that had me shedding tears. It saddened me to know that I would soon leave my daddy. All of the pain that he had caused me didn’t matter anymore.

Before we finished our dinner, Daddy called every employee in the place over to our table to meet me. Four grinning men, shiny with sweat, black rubber aprons covering their big bellies, lined up in front of our booth and inspected me like I was a hog on an auction block. “This is my girl by my first wife. Ain’t she fine?” Daddy patted the top of my head and beamed like a lighthouse.

It annoyed me when the elderly cook tried to flirt with me and it must have annoyed Daddy, too, because he gave the man a threatening look. “Old nigger, you lay a hand on my child and I will beat your brains out,” Daddy snarled. He looked at me and winked. “I’ll kill any nigger that try to take advantage of you, girl. I ain’t gwine to let nobody damage you.”

I wanted to tell Daddy that he was too late. After being raped by Mr. Boatwright for ten years, I was way past being just damaged. But I had survived that ordeal. Just like I had survived the ordeal of confronting my daddy. Now that I finally felt at peace, I was more than ready to go back to Ohio.

I wish now that I had refused Lillimae’s offer to take me back to the airport the next morning. We had to stop twice on the way at gas stations for Daddy to use the bathroom. Each time, he made it by the skin of his teeth. Another stop and I would have missed my flight back to Ohio.

My suitcase was several pounds heavier than when I’d arrived in Miami. A hefty skycap had to use two hands to wrestle it from the trunk of Lillimae’s car.

“Annette, I slid some smoked hamhocks and some smoked ham steaks into your suitcase that I fished out the freezer. Ain’t no use in me lyin’—that freezer got way too much meat in it for just me and Daddy,” Lillimae volunteered between sobs, offering a long hug and wetting my shoulder with fresh tears and my cheek with sloppy kisses. The well-worn beach sandals she had on kept sliding back and forth on her feet. One slipped completely off as she and I embraced. People stared at us as I leaned down to retrieve my sister’s shoe and return it to her foot. In my mind, I imagined that the looky-loos assumed I was Lillimae’s maid, even though I had on a sharp white blouse and new-looking slacks and she had on a faded, voluminous muumuu and a scarf carelessly looped around her damp blond hair. I was sick and tired of caring about what other people thought. I hauled off and kissed Lillimae on her cheek.

Standing next to Lillimae on the sidewalk in front of the airport wearing a shirt so freshly starched it looked like his suspenders were glued to it, Daddy blinked hard to hold back his own tears. But I had already heard him sniffling in the backseat of Lillimae’s car throughout the ride to the airport. He’d blamed his discomfort on his mandatory, frequent visits to bathrooms, but I knew better. “Uh…I hope I see you again real soon, Annette,” Daddy managed, mopping his face with a large white handkerchief. He blinked some more and cleared his throat so hard he started coughing, using the same handkerchief to swipe his mouth.

“You will, Daddy. I’ll make sure of that,” I said, fanning my face.

I was not going to miss that blazing Florida sun. Putting on makeup that morning had been a waste of time. Mixed with my sweat, it was now sliding down my cheeks like butter. Lillimae dabbed my wet lips with her thick finger. There was still a great heaviness in my heart, but I felt better than I’d felt in more than thirty years. I didn’t know what to expect before I got back to Florida, especially since I had left Ohio with so many mixed emotions. My anger had dissipated, but I had to wonder how my recycled feelings were going to affect my mother.

After I got settled on the plane, I tried to read a few chapters from Roots, a book I had already read twice. But my mind kept wandering to other things. Like my own roots. My reunion with Daddy had given me a certain level of peace but there was still a lot to my own past that I had to sort out. I needed to recall as much as I could so that I could prepare myself for my uncertain future.

Flying first class was a new experience for me. I would have taken a train to Florida, but it was Daddy who had insisted on paying for my first-class accommodations. That hadn’t impressed Muh’Dear at all. “Whatever that mangy dog payin’ for them first-class tickets ain’t puttin’ a dent in all the back child support he owe!” she had snapped when I told her. In the long run I was glad to be traveling in style. There was a lot more room and other advantages that allowed me to relax. I deserved and needed the huge glass of wine a flight attendant handed to me. As soon as the buzz kicked in, my thoughts wandered back in time.

To when my real pain started.