God Don’t Like Ugly (26 page)

“’Course you could always go back to the phone company if you have to move back to Richland. Everybody always tellin’ me what a nice proper voice you got. Like the girls on TV.” Muh’Dear grinned proudly.

The line moved forward a little. I pushed my luggage along with my foot.

“I wish Brother Boatwright was alive. Things would be so different.”

I stiffened. “They sure would be,” I snapped. Muh’Dear gave me a surprised look, then she straightened the collar on my tweed coat and brushed the sleeves. Even though he was dead, I didn’t have the nerve to tell Muh’Dear about Mr. Boatwright abusing me. I didn’t know if she would believe me. And if she did, would she blame me? I knew that if I ever did tell her, our relationship would never be the same again, and I liked it the way it was.

“Brother Boatwright was right proud of you. Everythin’ he advised me on was for your benefit. His real concern was keepin’ you in line ’til we got you a husband. So many girls in Richland had to give up their dreams to raise babies alone. Brother Boatwright’s the one that persuaded me—”

“Let’s not talk about him anymore.”

“It’s too painful, ain’t it?” Muh’Dear sighed.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed, looking around.

“What I wouldn’t do to be young again so I can do better with my life,” Muh’Dear commented, giving me a thoughtful look.

“What would you do differently?” I asked, looking in her sad face.

“There’s somethin’ I’d
never
do if I had it to do over again. I had men usin’ me like they had paid for me by the pound. Don’t never let no man use you…for money. It ain’t worth it. There’s always a better way. I am so proud you ain’t the type to end up doin’…what I done, what the girls in Scary Mary’s house do…” Muh’Dear shook her head as hard as she could. “It’s the worst thing a woman can do to her body.”

“I know it is, and I’ll never do it,” I said, nodding and deliberately looking away so she couldn’t see my lying eyes.

We didn’t talk for a few moments.

“Did I tell you Judge Lawson’s havin’ a little birthday celebration for me next Friday before his poker party?”

“No, Ma’am. You didn’t tell me.”

“Well he just told me day ’fore yestiddy.” Muh’Dear paused and chuckled softly. “Poor thin’. Dyin’ right before my eyes, but he still havin’ his parties and guzzlin’ his highballs. See how good God’ll be to you when you do right by God? That’s the one thin’ I hope you never forget.”

I nodded. “I’ll call you for sure to wish you happy birthday.”

“Fifty-two.” Muh’Dear sighed. “Sometime it feel like a hundred and fifty-two.”

“Fifty-three,” I corrected with a chuckle.

Muh’Dear shrugged and shook her head. “Fifty-somethin’ years old and the white folks
still
call me
girl
.” Muh’Dear paused and looked me up and down. “Don’t you forget that.” Her eyes watered.

“What?”

“To the white folks you’ll always be a girl. You can’t never sass none of ’em, don’t care what they do to you. I’ll never get over the way we used to have to hide from the Klan ’cause your daddy was the outspoken kind always sassin’ white folks back in Florida. Lord, the way he took off with that white woman that mornin’ was suicide. I bet they didn’t make it two miles. I bet his carcass layin’ rotten in the Everglades with a rope ’round his neck right as we speak.” Muh’Dear sobbed, then fished her handkerchief from her bosom and wiped away a tear and blew her nose.

I don’t know why I said what I said next. “Muh’Dear, the way things were for you, did you ever wish you’d never been born? Or that you were dead?”

“Never in my life.” She closed her eyes for just a moment, and her lips curled up at the corners. “I’m glad I was born. And I sure ain’t ready to lay down and die. At least not until I get to see the Bahamas,” she said longingly.

“And get that restaurant,” I added.

“And get that restaurant.” She smiled, and with a mischievious glint in her eye, added, “Just like Mr. King’s.”

I
arrived in Erie on a gloomy morning just before noon. The trip had taken a little more than two and a half hours, with several stops along the way.

I stumbled off the bus, retrieved my luggage, and crawled into the backseat of the first available yellow cab.

“Is there a cheap but nice motel close to the downtown area you can take me to?” I asked the middle-aged East Indian driver.

“There is many cheap motel, hotel.”

“Well, can you take me to one? As long as it is near the downtown area. The nearest Travelodge will do,” I instructed.

Erie looked a lot like Richland. The bus station was located in a fairly nice-looking area, but once we drove across some train tracks the houses and everything else started looking pretty shabby. One street we drove down reminded me of the street in Richland we had lived on before moving to the nice house on Reed Street. Boisterous, disheveled people looking bitter and tortured were standing on street corners drinking alcohol straight out of the bottle. “Did you have to go
this
way to get to a downtown Travelodge?” I asked.

“I take best route!” the man snapped, waving his hand impatiently.

I had taken a lot of cabs to get from one place to another in Richland. I knew how some greedy cab drivers purposely drove people out of the way so the meter would go higher.

“Well, I’ve only got ten dollars,” I lied. The meter was already up to eight dollars and sixty cents. The driver didn’t say anything. He just let out a long sigh.

We passed some of the same factories and the same grocery stores a second time. Then, miraculously, two blocks over was the Travelodge. The meter was up to nine dollars and eighty cents. I grabbed my two suitcases and got out as fast as I could. The driver made no attempt to get out to help me. I handed him a ten, and said, “Keep the change.” He looked at the crumpled bill, rolled his eyes at me, then sped off.

I had never stayed in a motel or hotel before in my life. This one reminded me of most of the shacks we had lived in in Florida. The room was small and dark, but it was clean. I had a decent bathroom with plenty of fluffy white towels, a mini refrigerator, and a color TV. Before I even took off my coat, I called Muh’Dear and was glad she didn’t answer. I needed time to gather my thoughts and continue to try and come up with a plan. Caleb had offered to give me some phone numbers of some of his relatives, but I didn’t take them. After some of the things I’d heard about his relatives from Pee Wee, they didn’t sound like the type of people I wanted as new friends. Some had prison records, and some were violent and couldn’t be trusted he had told me.

Walking two blocks I discovered a decent-looking restaurant near the motel. I ate a roast beef dinner and picked up a newspaper on my way back to my room. I was not impressed with the
Erie Review
want ads. Most of the office jobs required some college and experience, and the restaurants wanted waitresses with experience. I couldn’t drive that well, so the ad for cab drivers was useless. There were two types of positions listed that I was qualified for: housekeeper and factory worker. Well, I was not wild about becoming a housekeeper. I had come too far for that. Even though I knew that Muh’Dear loved cooking and cleaning and raising other folks’ kids, I didn’t. I circled an ad for the Erie Manu-factoring Company, where they assembled garage-door openers, and a place called Bolton’s, where they assembled airplane-engine parts.

I waited another hour before I called Muh’Dear again. This time Mr. King answered the phone. “It’s me. I just wanted to let Muh’Dear…and you know I made it all right. Is my mama there?”

“She in the shower,” Mr. King told me. “But I’ll sure and tell her you called.” I chatted with him for a few minutes, then hung up.

I guess I was more tired than I realized. I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until noon the next day. I could survive without working for a few months if I lived cheaply with the money I had. I picked up the newspaper again and turned to the section advertising places for rent. Even though Erie didn’t look too much better than Richland, the rents were surprisingly high. I didn’t see a single ad for a studio for less than a hundred dollars. In Richland you could rent a fully furnished studio in a fairly nice neighborhood for fifty dollars or less, and that would include utilities! My Travelodge room was fifteen dollars a day, and I had no cooking facilities. After looking through the want ads, I wasn’t sure I would find an affordable place and a job in one week. I pulled out the yellow pages and called a dozen more downtown motels looking for cheaper ones, or at least one with a kitchenette. Seven of the dozen charged ten dollars a day but none of them had cooking facilities. Five told me I’d be allowed to use a hot plate and I could store perishable items in the office refrigerator. They were all located on the same downtown area street. I was told that all I had to do was come with enough money and sign in.

I called a cab and had him drop me off at one of the seven motels I had called. Since they were all offering pretty much the same things, I figured I’d just check into the first one on the list.

The cab left me in front of the Prince Street Motel, next to a large sign advertising vacancies. I took my time looking around the immediate area. It was a tree-lined, clean, and busy street. From where I stood I could see the few office buildings that made up downtown Erie. There were bus stops on both sides of Prince Street, but downtown was within walking distance. It was a bright dog day but chilly like Richland the day I left which was why I put on my fall coat instead of packing it. It was my favorite time of the year. During this time of the year the leaves on the trees in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania turn all different shades of brown, gold, and yellow and fall to the ground, covering it like snow. When I was very young, before Rhoda entered my life, Mr. Boatwright used to rake up the leaves from the trees in our yard. He would shape them into mounds or sometimes pyramids as tall as I was and I would play in them for hours.

My plan was to check into the new motel and stay there until I found an apartment. In the meantime, I planned to apply for every job I was qualified for.

Not counting our run-ins with the Klan in Florida, my experience with motels in Erie, Pennsylvania, was my first real dose of blatant racism. It was the in-your-face kind that would make anybody want to get violent.

As soon as I entered the Prince Street Motel office the clerk, a teenage white boy with red freckles all over his face, neck and arms, ran. He disappeared into a back room and was gone for five minutes before he returned with a tall, ponytailed man who looked enough like him to be his father. “Yes—what can I do for you?” the man asked. His deep voice was gruff and impatient. His eyes were so cold I felt a chill. He shifted his weight to one side and folded his arms.

“I called this morning about renting a room,” I said, offering my biggest, fakest smile.

“We don’t have any vacancies,” the man mouthed, his eyes shifted briefly from one side to the other.

“I called this morning and left my name. Your sign even says—”

“We don’t have any vacancies,” the man repeated. “The sign’s out of order.”

“I see,” I mumbled. The scene was repeated in all the rest of the motels I had called the same morning. There were other motels along the way that I had called, but they were more expensive. I didn’t even bother to check with them. My head was reeling, and I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t think clearly. I just kept walking down Prince Street toward town. After ten minutes an empty cab stopped at the light I was waiting for. The young white driver smiled and yelled, “Do you need a cab, Miss?” I was just a few more blocks from the Travelodge, but I think the real reason I got into the cab was because the driver seemed so nice. And after what I had just experienced with white folks, his friendliness went a long way with me. “Where to?” he asked. He started whistling along with a tune coming from a small transistor radio on the dashboard.

“The Travelodge on Noble Street next to the Shell station,” I told him. The cab shot off like a bullet.

“Think we’re gonna have another one of those killer winters like we did last year?” the driver asked. He had his arm hanging out the window and was bobbing his head as he continued whistling.

“I’m from Ohio,” I said quietly. “Richland. I just got here yesterday.”

“The Buckeye State. Mmmm huh,” he nodded. “Well we share the same kind of weather. I lived in Cleveland for a few years when I was around your age. Cleveland’s a nice city. But Erie’s about as big a city I want to deal with. It’s clean, low crime rate, and some pretty nice folks.”

“I don’t know about all that. Nice folks I mean. I just tried to get a room in seven different motels on Prince Street, and they all told me they were full. I had called every single one of them just this morning and was told that they had vacancies,” I said angrily.

I looked up at the rearview mirror. The driver was looking through it at me with pity in his eyes. “Well, some of us still refuse to accept certain changes. I know of two Black restaurants on Liberty Street that suddenly run out of everything I want every time I try to eat there. Assholes come in all colors.” We both laughed. “How long do you need a room for?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe a week or two. I need a place near public transportation that’s cheaper than the place I’m in now until I find a job and an apartment.” I sighed. Like this stranger cared. I was wrong; he did care.

“My brother-in-law manages a place downtown right next to the police station. It’s cheap, clean, and you’d certainly be safe there.”

“Will they let me use a hot plate there? Do they have a refrigerator in the main office or in any of the rooms?” I asked with renewed eagerness. My hands were gripping the back of the driver’s seat as I leaned forward.

“Well, all the rooms I’ve been in have little kitchenettes. This is not a motel but one of those residential hotels run by the state,” the driver explained. He seemed as excited as I was.

“Do you know if they have any rooms available? Do you have their phone number—never mind. I’ve had enough for one day after that ‘no room at the inn’ drama I just went through.”

“Well if they have a vacancy, and if you’ve got the money, they will rent to you. A lot of the residents are Black. Mostly single mothers, new people in town—like yourself.”

“Can you take me there now?” I begged.

The hotel the cab driver took me to was called the Richland Hotel. The name being the same as the city I had grown up in had to mean something. Muh’Dear and even Mr. Boatwright would insist, “God tryin’ to tell you somethin’.” It was a large, tight, brooding gray building with well-worn gray carpets. The minute I stepped into the lobby I could hear kids yelling and screaming and radios blaring in the background. But it looked clean, there was a security guard in the lobby, and I was not turned away. I paid two weeks rent at the Richland and checked out of the Travelodge all within an hour.

My room at the end of a long dark narrow spooky hallway on the tenth floor was not impressive. The brown furniture was plain and musty, and you could see through the plastic curtains. I hung up the few clothes I had brought with me and took a long, hot bath in a tub that could barely accommodate my body. The hotel had a restaurant on the second floor, where I ordered a fried chicken dinner. The chicken was greasy, overcooked on the outside and raw on the inside, but I ate the sorry mess, knowing I wouldn’t have to eat it again unless I wanted to. I didn’t even touch the plastic-looking vegetables that had come with it. I ate the French bread, drank the Coke, then left. “Come again,” the waitress yelled after me, smiling at the fifteen percent tip I had left on the table.

There was a convenience store across the street from the hotel. With a kitchenette, I could do my own cooking. I was actually humming when I returned to my room and dialed Rhoda’s number. I gave her a brief description of my bus ride and the hotel room. “What’s it like down there in…”

“Atwater,” she answered. “Miami is only a few minutes away by car, the weather’s fabulous and—oh I just love it here,” she squealed.

“I’m happy for you,” I lied, speaking in a weak voice. From the day she met Otis, I’d wanted their relationship to fail so that she would have more time for me like she used to.

“Our nearest neighbors, the Fergusons, are five minutes away,” Rhoda continued. “They’re white, white trash I might add, and most of the family members are not very friendly.” She paused, then added in a whisper, “Klan.”

“Oh no,” I lamented. Suddenly my sadness turned to concern for her safety.

“Oh don’t worry. Uncle Johnny used to be in the Klan before he got religion. That’s when he realized how generous his Black half brother was. But even when he was in the Klan Uncle Johnny was pretty harmless he claims. I think this crew is pretty harmless, too,” she assured me. “Otis’s grandpa just hired one of ’em. Now a Klansman willin’ to work for a Black can’t be too threatenin’,” Rhoda laughed.

“Uncle Johnny’s not smart or sober long enough to be threatening. You and I both know how dangerous the Klan can be if you step on their toes. They threw a firebomb in our house one time when I was a little girl.”

“Well we’re mindin’ our own business, so they have no reason to fuck with us. The wife, Betty Lou Ferguson, is real friendly. She’s in her mid-thirties and already has eight kids. The youngest, the only girl, is this cute little thing named April who follows me around like a shadow. She’s more anxious for me to have the baby than I am. Hey! When are you goin’ to find a job?”

“Soon. But I’ve got enough money to last for a while.”

“Well, if the goin’ gets rough, you need a little money or somethin’, just let me know.”

“I will.” I desperately wanted to tell her about the money I had inherited from Mr. Boatwright but saw no point in doing so. Even though I had eagerly accepted it and planned to spend every penny, I felt somewhat hypocritical. Besides, I couldn’t have come up with an acceptable excuse not to accept the money.

“Just put aside enough money for a one-way ticket back to Richland, just in case,” she instructed. “I have.” She brought me up to date on what was happening with her family, and we had a few laughs over Uncle Johnny and how he was borrowing money like mad from Mr. Antonosanti to play poker at Judge Lawson’s house. After we hung up, I sat there looking around the room for about ten minutes before my eyes returned to the phone. I took a deep breath, then I called Muh’Dear.