Scary Mary done already told me, I can stretch out on a pallet on her livin’-room floor, you can sleep with Mott, Brother Boatwright can pile up on her livin’-room couch ’til we find a place.”
It was never discussed, but I knew that Mama was tired of having to fall back on Scary Mary so often. I sure was. Scary Mary was the type of person who would eventually call her favors in. Whenever she wanted Mama to come and help entertain her male friends, Mama got kicking and screaming mad, but she went. “Blackmail. Scary Mary blackmailin’ me,” Mama said under her breath to herself one day after getting off the phone with Scary Mary.
“What did you say, Mama?” I had entered the kitchen just in time to hear her.
“Nothin’!” She then sucked in her breath, and told me, “Go lay me out some clean step-ins that ain’t got no holes or ravels, go to my bureau and dig out my black brassiere, and iron my red dress.”
“That red dress you said was too short and tight?” I gasped, worried about what I had heard her say about Scary Mary blackmailing her.
Mama looked away from me as she spoke. “Uh…it ain’t that short and tight,” she said, her voice cracking.
Scary Mary now lived across the tracks in a huge green-shingled house in a neighborhood with nothing but nice houses. With all the women working for her, and the money the rich dead husband had left her, she could afford to. She had moved there several years earlier. It was the same neighborhood where our only Black undertaker, our only Black doctor, and one of the only two Black barbers lived. The rest of the neighborhood was white. I liked Scary Mary’s house, but I didn’t want to stay there even for a few days. I didn’t want to live in that big nice comfortable place, then have to give it up and go back to living in another falling-down shack like the ones we always rented.
With just five days left for us to vacate, Mama came rushing into the house after Judge Lawson had dropped her off. “Annette, Brother Boatwright, y’all come quick!” I ran from the kitchen to the living room where Mama was, wringing her hands and hopping around like she had to pee.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” I gasped. Her hair was askew, her lipstick was smeared, and her dress was buttoned wrong. It looked like she had just been mauled.
“What’s gwine on?” Mr. Boatwright yelled, hobbling into the room from upstairs.
“Y’all know that big house with the white aluminum sidin’ on Reed Street direct across from that colored undertaker, one block over from Scary Mary?” Mama shouted.
“Yeah. The house with the buckeye tree settin’ in the front yard.” Mr. Boatwright, arms folded, nodded. “What about it?”
“The tenants moved out a few days ago, and it’s up for rent!” Mama said, waving her arms like she was directing a 747. I had never seen Mama this excited before. There was a big smile on her face, and she was sweating.
“The rent must be three or four times what we pay here, Mama,” I said evenly. “We can’t afford to live in a place like that.”
“Oh yes we can afford it! I just found out it’s one of Judge Lawson’s properties! My Judge Lawson. I told him about our predicament and right off he said he wouldn’t stand by and let us get set out on the ground long as he livin’.” Mama paused and scratched her head, then continued. “After all these years, the judge decided he didn’t like the people livin’ there. They was too hard to get along with and was always complainin’ about one thing or another. He say we can move in right away with no deposit, and we can rent it for the same rent we pay here.”
“Praise the Lord!” Mr. Boatwright was so overwhelmed he started shaking and sweating so hard he had to sit down and compose himself. He snatched a handkerchief from his pocket and started fanning and wiping his face.
“Judge Lawson’s got one foot in the grave, Mama. What if he dies next month?” I asked.
“Well, Miss Smarty, that’s already been considered. The judge promised me first thing in the mornin’ he would have his lawyer revise his will sayin’ me and mine can live in the Reed Street house, rent to never increase, for as long as we want!” Mama yelled. She dropped her tattered coat to the floor and started dancing like a tribeswoman around a ceremonial fire.
“Oh,” was all I could say as I rolled this information around in my head. I sat on the couch and started smiling. It sounded too good to be true. “Why would Judge Lawson do all that for us? What’s in it for him?” I wanted to know.
Mama stopped dancing her jig, and a strange, faraway look appeared on her face. “God told him to do it I bet.” She sighed. “It ain’t no wonder with the way we all been prayin’.”
Mr. Boatwright and I agreed with her, but I knew there was more to it than that. I’d seen Judge Lawson look at Mama the same way Mr. Boatwright often looked at me, like he’d just bought me by the pound.
In June of that year, 1963, we moved across town to the house on Reed Street. It was a bigger place and much nicer than any we had ever lived in. The front porch had a glider that came with the house. Not only was there a big buckeye tree in the spacious front yard, but there was also a gigantic weeping willow directly across the cobblestone walkway opposite the buckeye tree. I felt like we’d just moved to Norman Rockwell’s neighborhood. The floors in our new house had nice dark brown shaggy carpets. In the bright yellow kitchen there was a stove we could turn on without using pliers like we had to do with our old one, a refrigerator that defrosted itself, and linoleum that shone like new money on the floor. Our old neighborhood had lots of bars, and I saw drunk people staggering about and peeing on the ground in broad daylight. Our new neighborhood had only one bar, and my new school was only a ten-minute walk from our house.
Scary Mary’s house was right behind ours on the next street over. Our backyards connected. She had a cherry tree, an apple tree, and a buckeye tree in her part of the yard. From my back bedroom window, I counted dozens of grinning, well-dressed (most of them white) men in and out of her back door. Just like when we lived with her.
Our new house had four bedrooms. Mama took the largest one, which was the one downstairs. Mr. Boatwright took the one upstairs across from mine. And the fourth bedroom, right at the end of a long hallway, was to be used to store things, Mama said, like the brand-new sewing machine Judge Lawson had ordered from Sears and Roebuck. I felt warm and secure in my new room even though all I had in it was my lumpy bed, a big old, chipped chifforobe, and a nightstand with a goosenecked lamp on it leaning over my bed like a sentinel.
I livened up my room with colored pictures of stars from my movie magazines and dandelions I picked from our front yard.
It didn’t take me long to get used to our new neighborhood. It was cleaner, quieter, and safer than the one we had just moved from. For weeks, Mr. Boatwright didn’t bother me for sex. I thought that he had gotten tired of me or, because of his age, his sex drive had run its course. I was wrong.
For the upcoming Fourth of July, we planned a trip to a slaughterhouse to get some ribs, pork links, and chicken parts for him to barbecue. Before going to the meat market, he took me to the Mt. Pilot movie theater to see a new Steve McQueen movie. After the movie, we ate at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.
“Hurry up and finish eatin’ so we can get to the market and back home before Perry Mason come on the TV,” Mr. Boatwright urged, chewing so hard he bit his tongue. There was grease on his lips and chin, and bits of chicken were lodged between his front teeth.
“OK. After we watch Perry Mason, I’ll help you marinate the ribs,” I told him. I was halfway through my second three-piece dinner meal. Every time I put on a pound, I recalled Mama’s prediction when I was four about how God was going to curse me with a body the size of a moose. At 210 pounds I didn’t have too far to go. Though he seemed to enjoy it, Mr. Boatwright told me all the time how much he hated my bloated body. I made myself believe that eventually I’d be so fat he wouldn’t touch me anymore. “Mr. Boatwright, can I get some more chicken?”
The slaughterhouse was a big brooding gray building