God Don't Like Ugly. Mary Monroe

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      The fish were not biting much, so Daddy and I left the lake after he had caught only two catfish. Mama cleaned them, fried them, and we feasted on the fish, some pork, and yams and greens from a garden Mama had around the side of our house. It had started raining, and the wind was stronger. Our little house was shaking and rattling so much our table wouldn’t stay still.

      “It’s a good thing I didn’t hang out them clothes like I had planned.” Mama sighed, looking toward the kitchen window. Mama frowned at me and let out her breath. “Annette, stop chewin’ so loud.” She paused for a moment, then turned to Daddy. He seemed to be worried about something. He was eating real slow and staring at the wall. I just figured he was concerned about the storm. When it rained too much, he couldn’t work in the fields. And when he didn’t work, he didn’t get paid. Less money meant less of everything, and we were already on the poverty level. “What’s wrong with you, Mr. Goode?” Mama asked. Daddy’s first name was Frank, but I only heard her use it when she was mad at him or when she was serious. Daddy didn’t answer right away, he just kept staring at that wall.

      “Maybe the cat got his tongue,” I suggested. Not only did I get a cold, hard stare from both of them but Mama shoved a pig foot into my mouth. That’s what they usually did when they wanted to silence me. It was no wonder food became my “drug” of choice.

      Before Daddy could respond, Mama felt his forehead. “You want a dose of cod liver oil or some homebrew?” she asked.

      Daddy just shook his head, and said, “No, I’m all right. We’ll talk after the storm.” He was talking to Mama but looking at me. My first thought was Daddy was going to talk to Mama about another move.

      He pushed his plate away, then got up from the table and went to sit on a footstool in the living room and started looking out the window.

      “What’s the matter with him?” I wanted to know.

      Daddy was a strong man. Not just physically, but he had a strong personality. Unlike some of the Black men I knew, Daddy didn’t back down from white folks. I used to see men bigger than he was cowering nervously and keeping their eyes on the ground when talking to white folks. Daddy looked white folks straight in the eye when he talked to them, and when white folks called him “uncle” or “boy” he corrected them, and said firmly, “My name is Mr. Goode.”

      “Hush up,” Mama said to me. Like an afterthought, she grabbed another pig foot and aimed it at my mouth. When she saw I was still gnawing on the first one, she pressed her lips together, shrugged, and put the pig foot back in the bowl in the middle of the table.

      The rain was really coming down by then, and it was dark enough for Mama to light the lamp so she could sit in the living room and sew. She occupied the couch, and I sat on the floor next to Daddy on his footstool. Just a few minutes later, the tornado came roaring at us like a runaway train.

      Nobody said anything, but we all knew what to do. Mama blew out the lamp, grabbed me by the arm, and we followed Daddy into the bedroom, where we all crawled under the blanket on the mattress and waited. The hardest part was not knowing if we were waiting to live or waiting to die. Tornadoes were tricky. One could destroy everything in its path including people’s lives and dreams, it could tease then move on to another area or it could suddenly cease. This storm was a teaser. Our house shook violently one moment, then was still the next. The window on the side of the bed exploded, and most of the glass ended up on the mattress with us. Mama prayed, Daddy cussed. I didn’t do anything but lie there and cling to my daddy. He had one arm around me and one around Mama. The storm gave the house a real hard jolt, so hard Daddy stopped cussing and started praying along with Mama. God must have been listening because not long after that the storm ceased. By then it was morning.

      The next morning we cleaned up the glass, then checked to see how much damage we had to deal with. Miraculously, our house was still intact. But our backyard outhouse was gone. We found out later that a shack occupied by an old Seminole Indian man had been relocated to a field in the next county with the old man still in it, dead.

      Somebody’s frantic and confused hog ended up in our backyard, but ran into the woods as soon as it saw our faces.

      Daddy put on his work clothes, and Mama fixed breakfast like it was just another day. But it was not just another day. He said he didn’t have time to eat. Instead he started walking around the living room like he was nervous and glancing out the window every few minutes. He looked at me a long time standing in the middle of the floor watching him. Suddenly Daddy left the room and returned a few minutes later holding one of our shopping bags in one hand and a lunch bag bulging with baloney sandwiches in the other. “Annette, you better be good,” he said in a low voice. He started walking toward the door but turned around and ran over and kissed me on the forehead.

      “Daddy, what’s the matter?” I wanted to know. I was puzzled and afraid when Daddy didn’t answer me. Mama followed him out the door, and I heard them arguing on the front porch. I couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but both of them were cussing.

      I ducked back into the kitchen, grabbed a biscuit, then ran to the living-room door in time to see a white woman in a dusty green car drive down the hill toward our house. Daddy jumped in the car while it was still moving. I stood on the front porch next to Mama, watching the car turn around and shoot back up the hill.

      “Mama, who was that white woman? Is she giving Daddy a ride to work today?” I asked with my mouth full.

      “Finish your biscuit, girl,” Mama said tiredly. Then she went to the kitchen and started sweeping and crying. We spent most of the day cleaning up the mess the tornado had left behind. She kept sweeping, wiping, and cleaning the same spots over and over, and yelling at me every time I tried to get her to tell me why she was crying. “You ain’t nothin’ but a child! You don’t know nothin’ about nothin’!” she insisted. “Get that broom yonder and get busy.”

      I did so much sweeping that day my arms got sore. Later, Mama started sewing on a quilt she was making for a lady at church. When she ran out of things to do, she went to the mattress and fell facedown and cried some more.

      The days seemed so long when Mama and I didn’t go to her work. With no friends and hardly any toys, there was not much for me to do but eat. I left the bedroom and went to the kitchen to finish off a blackberry pie. After I felt good and stuffed, I went back to the bedroom.

      “Mama, what’s the matter?” I asked again. I sat on the edge of the mattress and patted Mama’s trembling leg. The only other times I had seen her cry was when we were running from the Klan. “The Kluxes coming again?”

      “Go to the yard and see if the storm messed up my garden,” she ordered. Her eyes were red and so swollen she looked like she had been beaten. “Lickety-split!” She dismissed me with a wave toward the door. I ran to check on the garden and returned to the bedroom within minutes.

      “It’s got a bunch of nasty old water in it, and the onions popped up out the ground. The greens and everything else look all right though,” I reported.

      “Good. We’ll still have somethin’ to nibble. Least ’til I can figure out what to do,” she sniffed, smoothing her hair back with her hand. She had cried so much there was a spot on the bed that was soaked with her tears.

      “Mama, what’s the matter? We moving again?” I attempted to rejoin her on the mattress, but she pushed me away with her ashy bare foot.

      “Go in the room yonder СКАЧАТЬ