takin’ advantage of?” he managed, fanning his face with a wet dishrag he had grabbed from the table.
“Raping me. Or whatever you want to call it!”
“It ain’t rape what we do!” He was so mad, spit was flying out of his mouth, but I stood my ground.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s…it’s just, you know…one of them things.” He stumbled over his words.
I stared at him in stunned disbelief. “Is that what you think you’re doing to me? I’m just ‘one of them things’? Why me, when you can do it to any of the women at Scary Mary’s house! One of them things is what they do for a living!” I said, stabbing him in his chest with my angry finger.
“’Cause I really do like you, girl,” Mr. Boatwright whimpered, not looking at me. He sounded almost like a little boy with his hand caught in a cookie jar.
“You can like me all you want, but you can’t touch me again,” I said firmly.
“You picked a fine time to start actin’ crazy,” he gasped. “I shoulda never took up with you in the first place,” he told me, shaking his head sadly.
“Look, let’s forget everything you’ve done to me. I won’t tell anybody anything. After I move to Pennsylvania—” I stopped when he interrupted me with a loud cackling laugh.
“You ain’t gwine no place,” he assured me. “Pennsylvania’ll be yor final restin’ place…” He paused and pointed his finger at me, and said, “BANG BANG!”
CHAPTER 29
I was lying across my bed on my back counting the cracks in the ceiling with my door locked when Muh’Dear got in from work around 8 P.M. The depression caused just by being in my bedroom, the room Mr. Boatwright had tainted with his presence and actions, gripped me like a vise. There were times I fantasized about blowing up the house just to destroy my bedroom, the room that had beome a Chamber of Horrors for me.
“Why you all locked up in here, girl?” she wanted to know. “Brother Boatwright say he real worried about you. He say you been delirious.”
“I didn’t want to be disturbed,” I replied, letting her into my room. She had pounded on the door so hard the room shook.
“By who? What if you had fainted and hit your head on the end of the chifforobe or somethin’? How would Brother Boatwright have got to you in time to prevent brain damage with the door locked up?”
“It won’t happen again.” I sat up in my squeaky bed with Muh’Dear, still wearing her coat, standing over me waving both arms.
“It sure enough won’t. First thing in the mornin’ I’m goin to have Brother Boatwright remove the lock from your door completely.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Now. How you feelin’?” She placed her hand on my forehead and frowned.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“I need to know who done it so I can talk to his mama.” She removed her coat and draped it over her arm.
“I told you I didn’t know.”
“How many was there?” she asked impatiently.
“I don’t remember,” I said mechanically, refusing to let her see my eyes.
“Do you mean to tell me you done fornicated so much you done lost count?”
“No. I think there were three. Or five.” I sounded like I was reading cue cards.
“Next thing you’ll be tellin’ me is you was drunk or on dope.”
“I was drunk.” My face was on fire. I had let my own mother down in the worst way. I could easily clear myself, but telling her the truth was unthinkable.
“Uh-huh. Brother Boatwright told me he smelled alcohol all over you when he found you all passed out. I got a call in to the Reverend Upshaw and Reverend Snipes.” Muh’Dear sighed. She sounded so tired and looked worse than she sounded. She had become an old woman right before my eyes.
“For what?”
“For you, girl. If I don’t get you some spiritual counselin’ now, you liable to wind up pregnant again…or on that slab in Brother Nelson’s house.” She sighed and turned to leave.
“I guess you heard about Granny Goose dying last night?” I asked. She stopped in her tracks and whirled back around to face me, walking fast back toward my bed.
“Granny Goose died? Last night? Well how is Rhoda and her family holdin’ up?” Muh’Dear wanted to know.
I shrugged. “I didn’t go to the house yet.”
“What? How long have you knowed?”
“Rhoda called me right after you left for work this mornin’.”
“Well if you was well enough to make that big mess in the kitchen I