God Ain't Through Yet

by Mary Monroe

  Lizzie perked up, obviously interested in another job opportunity.

  “Uh, Henry, you got here just a few minutes too late. Lizzie is, uh, going to work for my husband,” I sputtered. Lizzie looked as surprised as I was by what I’d just said. I reached across the table and patted her hand. “Pee Wee’s going to be offering manicures in his barbershop now and Lizzie is going to be doing them.” I meant to sniff, but it ended up coming out sounding more like a snort. I shifted in my seat; then I sat up straighter, hoping that that made me look more poised and confident. “Lizzie, I was just about to tell you that the salary is negotiable, but I can assure you that you’ll be pleased with whatever we decide to settle on.” I winked at Lizzie. You would have thought that she’d just won a lottery jackpot. She looked just that happy. I assumed it didn’t take much to make a woman happy whose main interests included bingo and taking Sunday drives in her used station wagon.

  “Hmmm. Is that right?” Henry mouthed, caressing his lopsided chin. “Well, you tell Pee Wee I said hello, Annette. And tell him a few people have been askin’ about him on the basketball court at the Y. But I understand, see. I know he’s gettin’ on in years, so I can understand him slowin’ down a bit.”

  “I’ll tell him what you said, Henry,” I responded. “Now you have a blessed day,” I added, giving him a dismissive wave.

  As soon as he left, strolling across the floor like he was some proper British gentleman, Lizzie gasped and leaned across the table.

  “You’re going to give me that job?” she asked, with her eyes stretched open so wide it looked like her eyelids had disappeared into her forehead.

  I looked toward the exit. Henry was still in the doorway, hugging on a cute Hispanic woman in her mid-twenties, which was around his age.

  “If you still want it,” I said, turning to Lizzie. “I think you’ll make my husband very happy.”

  CHAPTER 21

  After Lizzie and I finished eating our lunch, we spent a few more minutes reminiscing about high school. She brought up things that had happened to me that had been so painful I had forgotten them.

  “Remember that time JoAnn Springer and Judy Sharpe jumped on you in the girls’ bathroom and tried to make you eat dog food?” she asked with a pinched look on her face.

  It took me a few moments to recall that incident. And when I did, it made my stomach turn. “Uh-huh. JoAnn’s on death row in Texas for killing her husband. And Judy got killed while trying to rob a bank in Cincinnati to get money to buy heroin,” I reported, feeling a sense of triumph. Almost every other person who had bullied or abused me at some point was now either dead or in prison.

  Lizzie shook her head, but she didn’t look like she felt sorry about what had happened to our former classmates. “That just goes to show that God don’t like ugly. You always get what you have coming to you.”

  I was pleased to see that there was a philosophical side to her. I knew that if I really made an effort to get to know her better, it would benefit us both. I’d have somebody to fall back on when Rhoda wasn’t available, and Lizzie would have somebody to talk to and do things with other than her parents, her cross-eyed cousin, and that bingo-playing crowd.

  We reluctantly ended our meeting, but on a high note. Lizzie admired the black leather boots I had on and squealed with delight when I told her that they were still available at half price at a boutique just two blocks from where she lived. Once she stood up, I got a chance to see what she had on her feet. It was not a pretty sight. She had on a pair of round-toed, black vinyl shoes with snaps in the place of shoestrings. I didn’t know enough about her leg to know if she had some special requirements when it came to foot-wear. But if that was the case, why did she want to know where to buy a pair of boots? I didn’t have to wonder about that long.

  “I wear these shoes because of the ice on the ground. But I also like to wear heels and boots. People don’t realize that my affliction, if you want to call it that, is with my leg, not my foot. I could even wear stiletto heels if I wanted to.”

  “I’m glad to hear that because I always know where the good shoe sales are,” I said. Lizzie squealed with delight again. “Well, I’ll be in touch,” I added as we exited the café. She limped down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. I watched until she was out of sight. Suddenly, a great sadness came over me. And I wasn’t sure why. Lizzie was obviously a well-adjusted person. She didn’t need my pity.

  But she did need a job.

  I didn’t like calling Pee Wee at work right after the lunch hour because that was when the men who worked night shifts came by to get haircuts and shaves. It was a busy time in the shop and very hard for Pee Wee to carry on telephone conversations, especially personal calls. But this time was an exception. I called him as soon as I got back to my office. I was anxious to tell him about my interview with Lizzie and how she had impressed me.

  I wanted to promptly wrap up the situation with her, in case she ran into Henry again. He was the type of person who would do things just to piss off his competition. When he was dealing drugs from the front yard of the house that he lived in with his mama, he used to barbeque ribs at the same time. If somebody didn’t come by looking to purchase drugs, they almost always ended up buying a rib sandwich. And from what I’d heard, everybody who purchased barbeque from Henry eventually ended up buying some drugs, too.

  Henry had customers streaming in and out of his front yard like ants. And it wasn’t just the ghetto folks from the armpits of Richland. His customers included rich yuppies and buppies from the suburbs. That drove the other local drug dealers crazy, especially the veterans and the OGs, who had opened the doors to the drug trade in the first place for the newcomers. Henry had been physically attacked a few times, and one night somebody riddled the front of his mother’s house with bullets from an assault rifle.

  If somebody had not ratted Henry out to the cops, he probably would not have lived much longer. I didn’t wish for anything bad to happen to anybody, but I didn’t want Henry in my life in any way. I didn’t like the idea that a man like him was now one of my husband’s biggest worries. Now that he knew Pee Wee was interested in hiring Lizzie, he might pull a fast one and hire her first, just to get back at Pee Wee. I didn’t know if she was desperate enough to accept a job as a cleaning woman in Henry’s shop, but I didn’t want to take that chance.

  “Annette, are you crazy?” Pee Wee screamed as soon as I told him why I was calling. “Hold on, baby!” He left me hanging on the telephone for several minutes. I could hear him fussing at somebody in the background about a steamed towel being too hot. “I can’t be settin’ myself up for no lawsuit!” Then he dropped the phone on something hard before he spoke again. “I’m sorry for leavin’ you on hold so long, baby. This place is a madhouse today! Everybody wants to look good for that charity banquet comin’ up at the country club in a few days. I swear to God, people just don’t take pride in their work no more. Bobby just slapped a towel around Deacon Carter’s face that was hot enough to steam a lobster.”

  “Why don’t I call you back later today when things are not as hectic,” I suggested.

  “Things will be hectic the rest of this day. We had a power outage a couple of hours ago, so we are a little behind. I swear to God, with all the money the utility company charges us, you would think that they’d have their act together so we wouldn’t be havin’ no power outages at all in this day and age.” I waited for him to take a few deep breaths. I was going to conclude the call and talk to him about Lizzie later that evening at home, but before I could do that he spoke again. “Now back to what you just told me—are you crazy?”

  “No, I’m not crazy, Pee Wee.”

  “Well, you must be! You want me to hire a retarded woman?” He laughed. A moment later, I heard him mumbling something to somebody in the background; then they laughed with him.

  “I wish you’d be more serious. I am trying to help you. We’ve discussed this and I thought this was what you wanted,” I complained.


  “Look, baby. If this is your idea of a joke, it ain’t nowhere near funny. I got politicians and pimps—that’ll get real ugly if I don’t please them—comin’ here to get shaves and haircuts, and they might want a manicure. I can’t have no retarded woman choppin’ up their nails. What’s wrong with you, Annette? Can you see Mayor Banks sittin’ in my shop with that woman buffin’ his nails and droolin’ all over his Italian-made shoes? Now go do somethin’ constructive today. Go shoppin’, go get a facial, or go get that mammogram you been puttin’ off, and let me get back to work. Shit.” He snickered. “You got some nerve callin’ me up to tell me you offered that woman a job in my shop.”

  “Look, that woman is named Lizzie. And she is not retarded,” I said, speaking through clenched teeth.

  He muttered something under his breath; then he laughed some more.

  “And I don’t appreciate you making fun of my efforts. I am only trying to help you.” I paused and let out a disgusted sigh for his benefit. “Well, if you’re not interested, she can go work for Henry….”

  I heard him release a muffled growl. “I doubt that. That nasty young punk wouldn’t have nobody like Lizzie workin’ in his shop. You know what a snob he is.”

  “Suit yourself. I think you’re making a mistake by not hiring Lizzie, so I’ll set up a few more interviews. Maybe I’ll have them meet me in your shop so you can sit in on the interviews.”

  “I already told you that I ain’t got time to be interviewin’ nobody. You volunteered to do it for me, and I hope you find somebody soon. I heard this mornin’ that two more of my regulars been seen comin’ out of Henry’s place.”

  “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll keep looking for you, and I will find somebody soon. The way I’m doing it is not working out, though. I ran that ad in the paper, but I think it would have been better for me to call one of those employment agencies. That’s what I’ll do next.”

  “Good! Get on it,” Pee Wee advised.

  “I’d better call Lizzie and tell her to go ahead and accept that job with Henry that he offered her today….”

  Pee Wee’s silence told me I had pushed the right button. “Oh? Henry Boykin offered Lizzie Stovall a job doin’ manicures in his shop?”

  “Yep, he offered her a job in his barbershop.” I was telling half of the truth. If Pee Wee ever found out that the job Henry offered to Lizzie was a cleaning position, he wouldn’t hear it from me if I could help it.

  “You know, now that I think about it, wasn’t she in one of them special ed classes back in school? She wasn’t really retarded, was she?”

  “Pee Wee, you and I attended a regular school. There were some special classes for the kids who were a little slow, but there were no retarded kids in our school.”

  “So she’s more like a Forrest Gump type? Like the slow dude that my man Tom Hanks played in the movie. Like him, she’s slow, but she’s too smart to be called retarded?”

  “You’re the only one who is calling her retarded,” I snapped. “And I don’t know why you are doing that, because it’s not true.”

  “If I am goin’ to hire somebody to work for me, I need to know if I got to be worried about them burnin’ my place down, or havin’ some kind of fit or somethin’. Now, didn’t this Lizzie woman ride in that short orange school bus with that flat-headed boy who used to spit on kids?”

  As Pee Wee talked on about Lizzie, my heart sank because the more I thought about her, the more I wanted to help her.

  “I don’t know anything about all that,” I said sharply. “All I know is Lizzie Stovall does good work and she’s available. And when I talked to her this morning, she didn’t seem retarded or even slightly slow to me. As a matter of fact, she seemed real smart. She came to the interview with a copy of the Wall Street Journal sticking out of her purse. Does that sound like a retarded person to you?”

  “She could have been usin’ that newpaper as a fan. That’s all I use it for. Or she might have been usin’ it to make a paper hat for all you know. You didn’t see her readin’ it, did you?”

  “Look, Muh’Dear swears by her. The way she and Daddy went on and on about Lizzie, you would have thought that she’d worked in the White House. I’ve interviewed a few people. So far Lizzie is the best candidate. And she’s the only one who said she’s willing to work for minimum wage and tips only. The others wanted that, plus two weeks’ vacation every year, starting with the first year. They wanted bonuses, employee discounts for their relatives, and one even had the nerve to say that she wanted you to provide all of her equipment and supplies.”

  “Well, I can’t say I don’t blame them. They want the best they can get, and so do I.”

  “Then take my advice. Listen to me,” I insisted.

  “I am listenin’,” Pee Wee said, his impatience coming through loud and clear.

  “Let Lizzie Stovall come work for you. Now that Henry knows you are upgrading your shop, he’ll find another way to try and upstage you. I know you’ll be glad you hired Lizzie.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Baby, if I want to keep up with Henry, I have to maintain a certain image,” Pee Wee told me. I could not believe that after all I’d just said, he was still being resistant.

  “That’s what I am trying to help you do,” I insisted.

  “If I take your advice and hire Lizzie, people might get the wrong impression about me.”

  “And what the hell do you mean by that? You’re running a barbershop, not the Playboy Mansion.”

  “Look, I have to be honest with you. Now, I didn’t want to bring this up, but since you won’t let up on me, I need to put this out there. I want to say this in a nice way…” Apparently, Pee Wee didn’t know how to say what was on his mind, because it was taking him a long time to get the words out of his mouth.

  “Pee Wee, I don’t know about you, but I have to get back to work soon. Can you move your lips a little faster?” I said.

  Once I said that, he couldn’t speak fast enough. The words seemed to roll out of his mouth like rocks rolling down the side of a mountain during an avalanche. “There’s another thing I’m concerned about with this Lizzie woman. Ain’t she kind of…ugly?”

  I had to organize my thoughts before I could address what he’d just said. The last thing I wanted to do was come off sounding just as off-the-wall as he did. “I wouldn’t call Lizzie ugly,” I mumbled.

  I was glad that nobody could hear my end of this conversation. For one thing, it brought back some painful memories. I knew first-hand how some people discriminated against plain people. I’d been in Lizzie’s shoes too many times myself. I knew for a fact that I’d missed out on some jobs because at the time I was too fat and too ugly. And to some people, I was also too black. Now here I was trying to do the opposite. I was trying to hire somebody mainly because she was plain, and it was not working! I didn’t know what the world was coming to.

  “Well, if she ain’t straight-up ugly, I don’t know who is.”

  Had I known that it was going to be this hard for me to help Pee Wee hire somebody, I never would have volunteered to help. But I was not about to let all my hard work go to waste. Somebody was going to benefit from it, and I had no trouble with that somebody being me. With Lizzie’s determination and drive, and the fact that she needed a job, if he didn’t want her, maybe I could find something for her on my team. I was going to bring that up next if I had to.

  “I will admit that I think she is a little on the plain side,” I said, beginning to sound and feel tired. This conversation and this subject had begun to wear me out. “So what? You’re no Denzel…”

  “You ain’t funny. People want to leave my place lookin’ good. They see a homely woman up in here, floppin’ around with one leg lookin’ like a mop handle, they might get nervous. You know how black folks are when it comes to handicapped folks. Even though they got enough sense to know that thinkin’ like that don’t make no sense.”

  “I know what you mean. With all of the gay black people in
the world, you’d think black folks would lighten up on them some.”

  “I know where you goin’ with this conversation and I’m tellin’ you now, I ain’t goin’ into no argument about gay people again. I was just tryin’ to make a point.”

  “If you don’t like the way some black folks look down on handicapped people, you need to check yourself.”

  “Now you stop right there! I never said nothin’ about not likin’ handicapped folks. I got a cousin in Erie who’s been in a wheel-chair all his life, and he’s one of my best friends. A lot of my other friends is handicapped, too. Since I was a kid I always treated those people with respect. Other than you, what kid in our neighborhood was as nice to old one-legged Mr. Boatwright who used to live with you and your mama?”

  “Oh, I am really ready to end this call,” I said hotly, bile coating the inside of my mouth. “I am not in the mood to glorify the man who raped me throughout my entire childhood.” I choked back a sob.

  “Oh, shit. Baby, you know I’m sorry to bring up old Boatwright and them bad memories about what he did to you.” Pee Wee sounded so contrite I thought he was going to sob, too.

  “Let’s get back on the subject. The one I called you about. Now, do you want the woman to work for you or not? She’s got another interview lined up with a shop in Canton. I am sure that if she doesn’t take that job, she’ll take the one with Henry.”

  Pee Wee wasted no time responding. “All right! But if she makes a fool out of me and my customers, or steals somethin’ or breaks any of my equipment, I am goin’ to hold you responsible!” he told me in a threatening manner.

  As soon as I got off the telephone with him, I called up Lizzie. Despite all I had said to her in the café, she was surprised to hear from me. “Annette, what’s this about? That was my stepdaddy who answered the phone. He said you needed to talk to me right away.”