by Mary Monroe
Pee Wee confirmed this information with a nod.
“So true,” I said levelly, looking Mr. Boatwright straight in the eye.
He turned away immediately. “Pee Wee, go turn on the TV. The wrestlin’ matches is about to come on,” Mr. Boatwright said.
I was curious as to how Rhoda had reacted to the policeman’s death. I didn’t even finish dinner. As soon as Mr. Boatwright and Pee Wee left the kitchen, I jumped up from the table and ran to the phone on the wall and dialed her number.
“Uh…hi, Uncle Johnny. Um…Pee Wee just told us about that policeman that killed your nephew getting himself killed,” I said.
“And may he burn in hell!” Uncle Johnny roared.
“Can I speak to Rhoda?” Rhoda must have been sitting on Uncle Johnny’s lap because she got on the phone seconds later. “I just heard about that policeman that killed your brother getting killed,” I told her.
“Uh…huh.” She sounded disembodied. I could still hear her uncle in the background cussing the dead policeman’s soul.
“Are you OK? You don’t sound like yourself,” I said. Even though I was using the phone in the kitchen, I had to talk loud. Pee Wee and Mr. Boatwright were in the living room in front of the TV yelling at the screen.
“I’m fine. I’m just havin’ a hard time absorbin’ this news,” Rhoda admitted.
“I bet.” I let out a long, deep breath. “I’m surprised your daddy is handling the body. The man did kill his firstborn son.”
“My folks forgave him. They’re even goin’ to attend his funeral.” Rhoda sighed with disgust. “But Muh’Dear’s all depressed about it anyway. She’s been in the bed on the verge of a nervous breakdown ever since we heard the news. I’m goin’ to help Daddy prepare the body because Uncle Johnny won’t help. He’s still mad about what happened to David.”
“Rhoda, have you forgiven that man for killing your brother?” I asked.
“I’ll never forgive him,” Rhoda hissed. I heard some muffled sounds on her end, and then she excused herself.
Martin Luther King was assassinated the same day as the policeman’s funeral. I was glad they closed the schools for two days to honor Dr. King because his death hit me hard, and I got so depressed I couldn’t eat. I removed a picture of him from my bedroom wall because I cried every time I looked at it. I had no way of knowing, but I was sure that wherever my daddy was, he was crushed. Long before I’d heard of Dr. King, I’d heard Daddy make public speeches similar to the ones Dr. King had made.
“Nobody is going to fight as hard for civil rights as Dr. King did,” I said to Mr. Boatwright on the couch, watching the TV’s coverage of the shooting.
“As if colored folks ain’t got enough of a cross to bear,” Mr. Boatwright commented. He sat next to me fanning his face with a rolled-up copy of Ebony magazine. He had actually shed a few tears. “We fightin’ in them wars white folks started and still can’t eat and live where we want to. It wasn’t enough devilment for them white devils to blow up that church in Birmin’ham and kill them four little colored gals and lynchin’, beatin’, shootin’ at, and turnin’ dogs loose on them civil rights workers down South every time I look up. If killin’ Dr. King don’t satisfy ’em, nothin’ will.” He wiped tears from his face with his sleeve.
His words moved me. He was showing a side I’d never seen before.
“You want me to get you a beer?” I asked, patting his shoulder.
He shook his head and rose. I watched until he disappeared up the stairs.
A minor riot broke out in Richland. By the end of the third day after the assassination, two local Blacks had been killed and several people had been arrested for looting.
Muh’Dear still had to work, but because of the racial uproar we were experiencing, the cabs stopped running at 6 P.M., and the bus she normally took stopped running for a few days. When Judge Lawson was unable to provide transportation, she had to walk to work, leaving the house two hours earlier to get across town and getting home two hours later.
It was a few minutes before 10 P.M. four days after the assassination, when Mr. Boatwright hopped into my room and jumped into my bed and started kissing up and down my neck. I had been in bed since 7 P.M., but I was still wide-awake. I was still mildly depressed. In addition to the assassination, there was so much on my mind: the policeman’s mysterious death, the riot, my uncertain future, and my relationship with Mr. Boatwright. “How could you be thinking about sex at a time like this?” I asked. I sat up and pushed him away as hard as I could. When I was younger, smaller, and weaker he used to get real mad and threaten to whup me when I resisted him. Now when I did it, he still got mad, but his age and failing health had slowed him down tremendously. I was as strong as he was now, maybe even stronger. I had pushed him so hard he almost rolled off the bed.
“You tryin’ to kill me or what?” he asked, more startled than angry. He sighed with exasperation and slid off the bed, struggling with the bedpost to balance himself.
“Get the hell out of here!” I ordered. “Martin Luther King might not have meant much to you, but I cared about him.” I stood up next to my bed and put my hand on my hip, facing him angrily.
There was a look of absolute astonishment on his face. “Don’t flatter yourself. Who said I came in here to pester you? I’m upset over Dr. King, too. The whole mess got me feelin’ real befuddled. Just like that Kennedy thing. All I wanted was a hug from somebody,” he whined.
I looked at his pleading eyes for a long time. In my confusion, I leaned over, wrapped my arm around his shoulder, and patted him. Then, surprisingly, he let out a long sigh and left my room without another word. I don’t know how much time passed, but I had dozed off when he returned to my room later and shook me awake. “Slide over,” he ordered. “I done run out of condoms,” he complained, crawling back into my bed.
“I…can’t wait until I get out of school so I can leave this town and get away from you,” I said tiredly, trying to push him away with no success.
He didn’t say anything else until after he had entered me. “You ain’t…gwine no place,” he muttered between thrusts. “You do, you…you might…not never see your mama alive again…”
I was wide-awake by the time he had satisfied himself. He left the room without a word. I put on my housecoat and went downstairs to the kitchen and dialed Rhoda’s number. Uncle Johnny answered and yelled at me for calling so late, but he called Rhoda to the phone.
“He did it to me without a condom,” I blurted. “I hope I don’t get pregnant again.” I stared at the phone for a moment, waiting for Rhoda to respond.
“Did you hear me, Rhoda?”
“I heard you.” She sounded as detached as she did when I talked to her about the policeman’s death.
“He didn’t say it, but I think he was tellin’ me he would do somethin’ to my mama if I leave home. Besides, after we do graduate, I’d still have to get a job and save enough money to leave home with. That could take another year.” I moaned. “I can’t go through this for another year. I’ve had it, Rhoda. I was still a little depressed, and he knew it but still did me,” I wailed.
Rhoda cussed under her breath, and I could hear her shifting around in her seat.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“He went to bed. Can you come over? I wouldn’t be surprised if he came at me again before Muh’Dear comes home. I can’t ever let him touch me again.”
“He won’t,” Rhoda said calmly.
I heard her let out a long sigh first. Then she told me, “As soon as I finish helpin’ my daddy and Uncle Johnny clean up the mortuary, I’ll come over. But first I have to help Aunt Lola unpack. She got back up here a little while ago. She’s here to stay.”
“For good?”
“Uh-huh. In David’s room. She’s much happier here, and Uncle Carmine said he’ll give her a job waitressing at Antonosanti’s.” Rhoda paused and sucked in her breath. “I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
She arrived ten minut
es after we got off the phone. “Buttwright still got that gun?” she asked, before I even closed the door behind her.
“As far as I know,” I told her. “Why?”
“Nothin’,” she replied, making herself comfortable on the living-room couch. She placed her coat on the back of the couch. I sat down next to her, and we didn’t talk for five minutes. Instead, we watched more TV news reports about Martin Luther King’s assassination.
“So you think he’s still got that gun, huh?” She spoke without taking her eyes off the screen.
“Yeah. But he hasn’t had to show it to me in a long time.”
I could feel Rhoda staring at the side of my face. “I see,” she said hoarsely.
We didn’t talk for another five minutes, and I’m glad we didn’t. A portion of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was being broadcast. I didn’t have to look, but I knew she was crying just like I was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her wipe away her tears.
“Muh’Dear loves to hear that speech,” I managed, blinking hard.
“I think everybody does,” she said stiffly.
We got quiet for another few minutes. Suddenly, Rhoda tapped my shoulder, and I turned to face her. “Y’all got any herbal tea?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I told her. I stood up and started backing out of the room.
“I’ll get it. You want a cup?” she said, rising. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the couch and pushed me down.
“Yeah,” I muttered, puzzled. Rhoda liked to be waited on when she visited. It was not like her to volunteer to do anything when there were no grown folks around for her to impress. I didn’t question her. I was still overwhelmed by what we had just seen and heard on TV. Besides, I was tired and didn’t want to be running back and forth to get refreshments anyway. I was glad she offered to do it.
She was gone for at least twenty minutes. The kitchen was less than a minute away, and the tea was the instant kind. All she had to do was heat some water. Just as I was about to go look for her, she returned, holding a tray with two cups of steaming tea.
“What took you so long? I was getting scared,” I told her, as she handed me my cup.
Instead of answering, she just shrugged and set the tray on the coffee table, then started drinking her tea. We sat in silence for another two minutes watching TV.
“He’s dead. He is actually and truly dead,” Rhoda whispered. I assumed she was talking about Martin Luther King. I patted her knee and watched as she stared at her cup. “Dead, dead, dead,” she chanted.
“I was planning to do my next book report on him,” I said in a hollow voice.
“I meant Buttwright,” she informed me. “He’s gone.”
“What did you say?” I turned my head so fast and hard my neck cracked, and I spilled tea on my lap. I had never seen such coldness in Rhoda’s eyes before, not even the day she saw the former policeman in the restaurant. I got a chill, and a sharp pain shot through my chest like a blazing sword. “What do you mean by that? Mr. Boatwright’s gone where?”
Rhoda nodded slowly. With a strange look on her face, she told me, “He’s…he’s finally gone to hell.”
I set my cup on the coffee table, wiped my lips with the back of my hand, and stood up. “What are you talking about?” I hollered. I could still hear the television, but I couldn’t understand anything being said. It was like my mind had drifted into another dimension. “Mr. Boatwright’s dead?”
Rhoda stood up too and looked me straight in the eyes, and told me, “Yep. I-just-killed-Buttwright.” I couldn’t believe my ears. We just stood there staring in one another’s eyes. Neither one of us even blinked.
Suddenly, I ran from the living room toward the stairs, with her close behind still holding her cup of tea. Mr. Boatwright’s door was closed. I knocked so hard my knuckles hurt.
“Oh, he won’t answer,” Rhoda told me casually. She gently pushed me aside and opened the door and we went in. “See there. I told you so.” She motioned with her head toward Mr. Boatwright on his bed.
He lay on his back with the bedcovers pulled up to his neck. He appeared to be asleep, but he was not snoring like he always did. Nor did I see any movement. Suddenly his eyes opened.
“See—he’s alive! He opened his eyes! Mr. Boatwright, get up!” I hollered with relief, and shook him so hard he almost rolled to the floor.
“That’s just a reflex,” Rhoda informed me, waving her hand like she was dismissing the whole situation. “One time a dead man sat up on the slab even after he had been dead for two days. I saw it with my own eyes,” she added.
I looked from Mr. Boatwright to her, then back to him.
“How do you know he’s really dead?” I mouthed, trembling. I shook Mr. Boatwright again. He still did not move.
“My daddy’s the undertaker, girl. Remember? I know a dead person when I see one,” she said evenly.
I shook Mr. Boatwright until my arms got tired. There was no doubt about it. The man was dead.
I stood up straight and sucked in my breath, turned to Rhoda, and said, “Girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”
CHAPTER 34
“Rhoda, Mr. Boatwright is dead!” I hollered. Not only was the room ominously quiet, there was nothing going on outside on the street like it usually was particularly at this hour. No loud cars, no voices, no barking dogs, nothing. It was like Rhoda and I were the only things making a sound in the night.
“See. I told you,” Rhoda mouthed.
“And you killed him?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded slowly, closing her eyes for a moment.
“How?”
“I put that pillow there over his face and held it down,” she confessed.
My ears were ringing. The fact that Rhoda was so casual was making me sick. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I moved a few feet away from her, but she moved so close to me I could feel her breath on my face.
“Why, Rhoda? Why did you kill Mr. Boatwright?” I gasped.
“Why? What do you mean why? Because of what he was doin’ to you, that’s why,” she exclaimed.
“But did you have to kill him?” I waved my arms to keep from grabbing her and shaking her.
“What else could I do?” she asked with an incredulous look.
“Oh God! What are we going to do? Oh God…oh God!” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and looked around the room. “We better call the police. We’ll tell them it was self-defense, but you’re going to go to jail for a little while no matter what—”
“For what?” Rhoda gasped. She leaned back and looked at me with her eyes stretched open.
“For what? What—girl—you just killed a man! You killed Mr. Boatwright.”
“Did you see me kill him?” Rhoda drank more of her tea.
“You told me—”
“He was probably drunk. You can still smell that cheap wine on him. Maybe he got tangled up in his blankets and smothered accidentally. I heard about a drunk man that died ’cause he choked on his own tongue. Freak accidents happen all the time. I just happened to come say good night to the man and found him…like this.” Rhoda made a sweeping gesture with her hand. We looked at one another for a brief moment.
“Is that what happened? Please tell me that’s what really happened,” I pleaded.
“It could have,” she shrugged. “I could say that’s the way it happened.”
“But it’s not the way it happened, is it, Rhoda? You did kill Mr. Boatwright, didn’t you?”
She didn’t hesitate, she just shrugged and nodded. I was surprised when a sad look suddenly appeared on her face.
“Oh no…no,” I moaned. I covered my face with my hand because I didn’t want to look at her at that moment. I was startled when she pulled my hand away from my face.
“You can’t tell anybody what happened, Annette.”
“Well…what do we do now?” I asked feebly, wringing my sweaty hands.
“Nothin’.”
“Nothing?
” I wailed. I couldn’t even feel my feet or my legs. But I was sweating from head to toe.
Rhoda looked around the cluttered bedroom and shook her head, then went back downstairs. I looked at Mr. Boatwright again. I shook him one last time and got no response. Finally, I closed his eyes with my fingers.
I went to his bedroom window and looked up at the sky. My head was throbbing so hard I could hear bells ringing that were not there. “God, you listen here…You know what happened here tonight…So You know…I didn’t have anything to do with it,” I whispered. “Don’t chastise me for something I didn’t do,” I prayed.
I returned to the living room and sat next to Rhoda on the couch. For five minutes we did not talk; we just stared at the TV screen. Every time I heard a car I ran to the window and snatched the curtains back. Each time, I reluctantly returned to sit next to Rhoda, making sure not to touch her. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that I didn’t want to touch a person who had just committed murder.
“Stop shakin’ so hard. People get murdered all the time, girl,” Rhoda said firmly, rubbing the side of my arm.
“Yeah, but not in my own house.”
We watched TV in silence for another ten minutes.
I could not focus on anything but Mr. Boatwright. “Rhoda, I don’t know if I can go through with this…not tell anybody what you did.” I heard a car door slam, and I jumped off the couch and stood in front of her.
Rhoda stood up with her face close to mine. I moved away so we wouldn’t have to touch.
“But you can’t tell anybody, now can you? He was old. Real old. He was goin’ to die soon anyway, I bet.” The way Rhoda stumbled over her words, I think she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince me.
“Well what do we do now? We have to call somebody.” I could not stop shaking no matter how hard I tried.
