by Mary Monroe
I straightened my collar and brushed off my dingy smock. “I guess we could have dressed up a little,” I said with a sigh.
“We didn’t have time. I wasn’t sure I could get away from the judge, so that’s why I didn’t call you at the house earlier to tell you we was goin’ out.” Muh’Dear smiled as our waiter returned pushing a cart with a bucket on top of it. I didn’t know one bottle of champange from another. But since Muh’Dear had requested the best, I was sure this would be something good.
“Compliments of Mr. Nelson,” the waiter told us.
I gasped and turned to look toward the bar. Mr. Nelson had left, but Mr. Antonosanti and Uncle Johnny were still nursing their drinks.
After the waiter popped open the champagne, poured it into our glasses and left, Muh’Dear took a long swallow and let out a great belch. “It’s too late for me, but I hope you marry a man like Brother Nelson someday.”
I took a long swallow before I answered, frowning at the way the liquid burned my throat “I hope I do, too,” I replied, covering my mouth with my hand to silence a burp I felt coming on.
Muh’Dear refilled our glasses. “We forgot to toast.” she laughed excitedly, waving the bottle in the air. After we toasted to “nothin’ but good times in our future,” Muh’Dear set her glass on the table and fished a handkerchief out of her purse, blew her nose, and dabbed both eyes. “I guess now is the time for me to let you know just how good a man Brother Boatwright was.”
“What?” I had to finish my drink to handle whatever was coming. Muh’Dear put her handkerchief back in her purse, then pulled out a long white envelope.
She cleared her throat and blinked real hard a few times first. “This is for you from Brother Boatwright.” She opened the envelope and pulled out what I thought was a money order and slid it across the table to me.
I didn’t say anything right away because I didn’t know what to say. It was a ten-thousand-dollar cashier’s check made out to me.
“He had told me, bless his heart, if he died before me, I was to use his life insurance money to pay for his funeral and split the change fifty-fifty with you. But he told me not to give yours to you until I felt it was the time you needed it the most.”
“I…I don’t…know…know what to say,” I stuttered. I didn’t know what to say. If Muh’Dear could have read my mind, she probably would have fainted. I was thinking about all the whoring I’d done to scrape up the money I needed to finance my relocation. My hand started shaking so hard Muh’Dear got a worried look on her face and filled our glasses again.
“As soon as you get to that Erie, put it in a bank. And whatever you do, don’t go around blabbin’ to nobody about it. Folks get crazy when they know you settin’ on a gold mine. It would be just like some smooth-talkin’ con man like that Johnny yonder there at the bar to try to take it from you to drink and gamble away and spend on some other woman. Some men is like that. I know ’cause I seen ’em do it. Don’t slouch in your seat, girl. You’ll get a humpback.”
I was glad the waiter arrived with our steak and spaghetti dinners. The distraction allowed me enough time to catch my breath. I looked at the check for a full minute to make sure I was seeing right. “Ten thousand dollars?” I mouthed. “This is for ten thousand dollars!”
“I know how much it’s for. I’m the one that went to the bank to get it. Don’t buck your eyes out like that with all these white folks lookin’ at us, girl.”
“Oh what am I going to do with all this money?” I asked, waving the check in the air.
“You’re goin’ to carry it with you and save it for when you really need it. Now put it in your pocketbook before somebody come snatch it.”
Mr. King drove Muh’Dear and me to the bus station the next morning. “I’ll wait in the car,” he told us, after giving me a big hug. Muh’Dear insisted on waiting inside with me until I got checked in. He started to leave, then turned back with a silly grin on his face. “Go with God, Annette.” I just smiled and waved to him.
“I have a feelin’ I won’t see you again for a long, long time,” Muh’Dear said. She looked so tired and old, even with the makeup. Working for so many years and such long hours had taken its toll. It was only at this moment that I was truly glad she had Mr. King. “At least, not the little gal that’s gettin’ on that bus today. You ain’t goin’ to never be the same.”
“You’re right, Muh’Dear. I’ll never be the same again,” I said sadly. I promised myself that the old Annette Goode was dead. My rebirth had been a long time coming. I was leaving behind all the ugliness I had known for eighteen years.
We stood in line behind seven other travelers, and the line was moving so slow Muh’Dear and I got a chance to talk a lot.
“I knowed it. You ain’t never goin’ to be the same no more after you leave here today.”
“How did you know?”
“Oh, just a feelin’. You’ll get a fancy job workin’ for the major or a politician and eventually forget all about us little people. It happens all the time. Your Aunt Berneice’s latest old man called me the other day from New Jersey, where him and Berneice moved to work for the Piaz family and told me you’ll be home in a month beggin’ for a piece of toast, standin’ in the welfare line, or holdin’ a tin cup. Like he would know. He ain’t never even met you. What he don’t know is Berneice is on the verge of gettin’ a divorce from his sorry ass. I know you was too young then to remember, but the Piaz family the ones what had the old granny you used to set with on the porch.”
“I remember that old lady,” I said, smiling sadly. I recalled the many times the old woman and I sat on the porch throwing rocks at cars and chasing kids with switches.
“You remember old lady Piaz? You wasn’t but three,” Muh’Dear said, a surprised, amused look on her face. “You can’t remember back that far.”
“I remember a lot that happened when I was three and four years old. All that walking to get to your work, my squirrel with the white paw, that old woman that hit you with her cane, that tornado, and most of all those dreadful clodhoppers we found in a trash can that you made me wear.”
Muh’Dear gave me a strange look, and said, “You don’t remember your daddy, do you?”
“Oh yes I do. He left the morning after that tornado with a white woman in a green car. You told me a long time ago he moved to Texas and that we would never see him again,” I said, my eyes staring off to the side.
“And we won’t, I hope!” Muh’Dear snarled. “Anyway, I know you’ll do good in that Erie, Pennsylvania. Me and you, we natural-born survivors. Brother Boatwright comin’ into our lives was just the beginnin’. God ain’t though with us yet. Look what He done for us—He got Brother Boatwright still lookin’ out for us from beyond the grave…leavin’ us all that insurance money.”
“I know. I know,” I said with great sadness and my head lowered. “And I’ll show Aunt Berneice and her old man, whoever he is. Them and everybody else,” I said firmly. And I would. I just didn’t know what I was going to show people.
“You ain’t got to show me nothin’. I’m your mama. I don’t care if you make a fool out of yourself or what. I just want you to be happy. I’ll tell you one thin’. Mr. Parker at the hardware store, you remember I cleaned for his mama before Judge Lawson hired me. He told me to tell you if things don’t work out for you in that new city, he’ll give you a job behind the counter at his hardware store.”
“Tell him thanks.” We both had tears in our eyes, but somehow we both managed a smile.
“’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.”
CHAPTER 44
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.
