God Still Don't Like Ugly by Mary Monroe Read Free Book Online Page B

I won’t even be welcome there neither. They won’t notice me if I stand in the back GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY
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    with a floppy hat or a veil hidin’ my face, but you’d stand out like a lighthouse and they’d treat you like you stole somethin’. Wait for me in the car.” Lillimae sighed before she excused herself. When she returned from her bedroom, her eyes were more red and swollen than ever.
    CHAPTER 11
    The obituary for Lillimae’s mother that appeared in the newspaper didn’t even list Lillimae and her siblings among the survivors.
    Just the two kids her mother had by the white man she had left Daddy for. The woman who had meant so much to Daddy at one time still must have meant something to him because on the day of the funeral he cried, too. Of course there was no mention of him in the obituary, either, but he wanted to go to the funeral, too. He sent flowers to the church under a fake name. Then he agreed to wait with me in the car parked across the street, a block from the church, while Lillimae paid her respects inside.
    The church, a quaint little white clapboard building with a crooked steeple, was located in a mixed neighborhood. Seeing a few Black and Hispanic faces on the street made me feel a little more at ease.
    It amazed me how many differences there were between white folks and Black folks. At our funerals there was enough loud weeping and wailing to wake the deceased. Some of the white people I saw standing around outside the church were acting like they were at a carnival admiring a sideshow. Big-bellied, red-faced men were smoking fat cigars and grinning. A washed-out woman was holding a homely, crying baby wearing nothing but a diaper. Young kids were playing tag and throwing rocks at a stray dog.
    White folks didn’t even dress the way we did for funerals. At least GOD STILL DON’T LIKE UGLY
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    not at this funeral. The men had on natty, ill-fitting suits and shoes with heels worn down to the ground. I even saw a woman in a tight red dress cut so low I could see the nipples on her long, flat breast. A molly-faced teenage boy with a ducktail hairdo was hugging a boom box and bobbing his head. The only way you could tell that this was a funeral and not a wedding was by the long black hearse sitting in front of the church.
    Lillimae had contacted her brother and sister, but neither one wanted to attend their own mother’s funeral. That saddened me. I believed that in death, even the worst person deserved some degree of respect.
    With Lillimae in the church, I was alone with Daddy in her car. I asked him the question that had almost burned a hole in my mind over the years. “Daddy, why did you do it?”
    “Do what?” He gasped. “What you talkin’ about, girl?”
    “You know what I’m talking about. How did you end up with that Edith woman in the first place? I thought you were so happy with Muh’Dear.”
    Daddy was sprawled across the backseat of Lillimae’s old car, chewing on a toothpick. Every now and then he lifted his head and glanced out the back window toward the church, shaking his head and mumbling under his breath.
    “I was happy with you and your mama . . . but . . . well . . .” He paused and sucked in his breath as he brushed lint off the same black suit he told me he wore to all funerals. “Edith’s daddy owned that grove I was workin’ that summer. For a redneck, he was a good old boy to me, as long as I stayed in my place. Edith, she kept at me ’til she wore me down. Bringin’ me cool lemonade drinks and sugar tits to munch on while I was pickin’ them oranges for her daddy. She even slipped me a few dollars every now and then—which I spent up on you and your mama. It was her money that paid for them sunglasses I gave you for your birthday. One evenin’ when I was in the grove by myself, she come at me, hissin’ like a big snake. Wrapped herself around me like one, too. She started kissin’ me up and down my neck, squeezin’ on me. Next thing I