don’t you like him?” Miss Nipp asked. She put her hand on my shoulder and started rubbing it.
“Uh…I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s old, and I think he’s going to be…bossy.”
Miss Nipp patted my head and laughed. “Don’t be too hasty with your judgments. Your mother is not a fool. She knows what’s best for you. Give Mr. Boatwright a chance,” she advised.
The first few days living with a man in the same house were rough on me. Miss Nipp came to meet him and liked him, but I resented his presence. Mama made me stop roaming around the house in just my panties, and I couldn’t turn on the TV in the morning until he got up. When he shaved he left nappy gray hair on the bathroom sink and pee all over the toilet seat and floor that he took his time cleaning up. But by the time he got settled in, my feelings started changing. He had brought a smell with him that reminded me of Daddy. A musty, pleasant odor I had only smelled on certain men. Every time he entered the same room I was in, I thought about my daddy, and in some ways it was like I had my daddy back. Mr. Boatwright won me over when he started giving me candy and doing all the housecleaning I should have been doing.
He hugged me a lot and rubbed me in various places on my body, and it felt good. He had the same sadness in his eyes my daddy and I had. Once, after he had given me my Bible lesson, he leaned over and said, “Gimme some sugar!” I closed my eyes and smiled, expecting him to brush his lips across my cheek or forehead. My eyes flew open when I felt his dry lips on mine.
“Will you be my daddy, Mr. Boatwright?” I pleaded, licking my burning lips.
“Girl…I’m gwine to be more than a daddy,” he informed me, kissing me the same way again. He patted my behind, and I laid my head against his lumpy bosom.
Mr. Boatwright quickly made friends with Mama’s friends in the neighborhood, and he joined our church. Reverend Snipes sometimes let him sing a solo on Sunday. “And now Brother Boatwright is gwine to honor us with one of his favorite hymns,” Reverend Snipes announced proudly. Reverend Snipes was a little, reddish brown man around Mr. Boatwright’s age who reminded me of a sad dog. He had a long, narrow face with droopy eyes, a nose that turned up at the end, and shaggy gray hair that stood up around his head like Methuselah’s.
During the church services some people fell asleep, and unruly young kids, myself included, had to be restrained frequently. But when Mr. Boatwright sang, nobody could sleep through it. Some of the rowdy kids were so taken aback that they sat ramrod straight from the time he started until he stopped to keep from laughing. Mr. Boatwright would sweat and rock back and forth and from side to side. I stared and listened in horror and disbelief. Mr. Boatwright’s yip yip sounded like somebody was stepping on a cat’s tail. Every time he sang, I turned around every few seconds to look at the door, expecting a dog to start howling and scratching.
After Mr. Boatwright’s solo, people started shouting and clapping. Weeping sisters ran up to him with wet towels and wiped his face. Then we walked the two blocks back to our house, where he sometimes sang another solo just for me and Mama. Every time he did Mama got so overwhelmed she cried.
On top of being a respected church member, the man cooked like a veteran chef. He made pies and cakes, which I helped him carry to the church for the bake sales, from scratch. For me he baked tea cakes with smiling faces using chocolate drops for eyes and lips.
I didn’t know how much his disability check was each month, but he bought a lot of nice things for the house that Mama had never been able to afford. He even bought us a new television and me a brand-new tricycle.
“Oh, Mr. Boatwright—you just like Santa Claus!” I said, hugging him for buying me the tricycle. “You more than a daddy!”
“See…I told you I would be.” He tickled my armpit and looked at me long and hard with his mouth hanging open. It was a look that made me so uneasy I suddenly had to pee.
“You want me to