Читать книгу God Don't Play - Mary Monroe - Страница 9

I stumbled to the telephone. I felt like I was already drunk, even though I had not drunk even a beer. But I would—and I wouldn’t stop with just one beer! In the meantime, I needed to talk to somebody about the very strange piece of mail that I had just received.

My life story would have made a good made-for-cable television movie. It had all of the necessary sensational elements: rape, murder, prostitution, poverty, betrayal, and even more. I had survived it all. People were always telling me how strong I was. I guess it was hard for anybody to believe that somebody as big as an ox could be weak. My size didn’t matter when it came to feeling pain or anything else that I considered negative. Receiving a nasty piece of hate mail was the worst thing that had happened to me in a long time. All I wanted was a normal, peaceful, and happy life, and I thought I had finally achieved that. I resented the fact that somebody else had decided that I didn’t deserve what I had.

“Damn, Pee Wee, I wish you were here,” I said, talking to the wall. As soon as I got those words out, I was glad that my husband was not with me. He was my best friend, but there were a lot of things that I couldn’t share with him. The same was true of my elderly parents. But there was nothing I couldn’t share with Rhoda Nelson O’Toole.

She was more than my best female friend. She’d been my lifeline for over thirty-two years. She could not have known me better had she been able to read my mind. She was half my size but twice as strong. We shared some secrets that were so complicated you needed a pie chart to explain them. And so serious they could have put us both in prison for a very long time. But I’ll get to that later.

Other than the police, the ambulance, and the fire department, Rhoda’s number was the only other one I had on speed dial. My mother would have made a huge fuss about that if I’d been stupid enough to tell her. Not that I cared more about Rhoda than I did my own blood, but, well, there was no way I could explain what Rhoda meant to me. Not to my mother, my husband, or anybody I knew. When I thought about how important Rhoda was to me, I recalled some lyrics from an old Curtis Mayfield tune called “Pusherman”: I’m your mama, I’m your daddy, I’m that nigger in the alley… That old song, which the local R&B radio station still played on their oldies-but-goodies hours, was referring to a drug dealer. Right now Rhoda was the fix that I needed. I pressed the buttons for her number so hard on the telephone in my living room that the ball of my index finger throbbed.

“Woman, please be home,” I chanted. “Please be home. I need to talk to you.”

I had never meant to hurt anybody before in my life, but apparently I had done something that had pissed off at least one person. The innocent-looking envelope that had entered my life so calmly had struck me like a torpedo. I whipped my head around and looked toward the front door, wondering where the sender was at the moment, hoping that he or she did not occupy a residence too close to mine.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that the note had to have been sent as a joke. That had to be it! What else could it be? Like the black plastic snake in a gift-wrapped box addressed to me, which somebody had left on my desk at work a few days ago. I had laughed about that, and so had my co-workers. I still didn’t know who had sent that to me. Now I had to wonder if the blacksnake and the nasty note were related.

“Hello,” Rhoda answered on the third ring.

I was having trouble responding. I opened my mouth and my lips and tongue moved, but nothing came out but a few drops of dribble, sliding down my chin like poison.

“I said, hello!” Rhoda snapped. “Is anybody there?”

“Hi, it’s me. Can I come over? I have something to show you,” I muttered in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a timid child.

There was a moment of silence before Rhoda replied. “I was on my way out the door,” she said softly. “You don’t sound too good, girl. Is somethin’ wrong?”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, still sounding like a timid child. My heart had not thumped half as hard and loud during my phone sex session with Pee Wee as it did now. And there was no telling when I’d make it to the nail shop now. But the claws on my hands were the least of my worries.

“Well, why don’t I just come over there instead?” Rhoda asked, her slight southern accent sounding more prominent.

“Okay, but hurry up,” I said, breathing hard and loud. I didn’t realize I was sweating, too, until a few drops fell off my face onto my ashy hand.

There was a long pause before Rhoda spoke again. “You sound serious. Don’t you want to tell me what this is about?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing, but I think I’ve pissed somebody off,” I said in a flat voice, making a mental note to put some lotion on my hands.

“Well, you are pissin’ me off by bein’ so mysterious. Exactly what are we talkin’ about here?”

“I just received something in the mail,” I stated, sucking in my breath. I had to clear my throat before continuing. “And it’s not very nice. As a matter of fact, it’s downright mean. Maybe you can convince me that it’s nothing to worry about.”