God Don’t Like Ugly by Mary Monroe

arms like he was going to hug somebody.
    Mr. Boatwright couldn’t gather our packages fast enough. There was a shiny black Cadillac parked in front of the drugstore. The same car I’d seen in front of the undertaker’s house. Mr. Boatwright jumped in the front, all the while complaining about his leg, and I got in the back.
    “How your family doin’? Scary Mary tells me you got your hands full,” Mr. Boatwright boomed, drowning out Miles Davis coming from the tape deck.
    “Well, that woman of mine is goin’ to force me into the poorhouse. That hardheaded boy of mine is drivin’ me crazy. He and his sister fight like a cat and dog. That’s why we shipped her to her auntie this summer.”
    “How your mama? I hear she’s havin’ some health difficulties,” Mr. Boatwright grunted, looking with envy at the undertaker’s well-groomed hair.
    “Well, Alzheimer’s is pretty serious, but we manage to live with it. She’s a handful though. We can’t keep a nurse more than a few weeks. That’s why I let that crazy half brother of mine move in, so he can help look after her. And, as you probably heard, my wife is not well, or at least she doesn’t think she is. Every other day I drop off a new prescription.”
    “Well, I be seein’ your wife in the yard wrestlin’ with them rosebushes y’all got, and comin’ and goin’ with shoppin’ bags from every store in town every day. She look mighty healthy to me,” Mr. Boatwright said seriously, still staring at the undertaker’s hair, blinking fast and hard.
    “She cut her finger on a steak knife the other day and took to her bed, certain she was goin’ to get infected. Today it’s a cramp in her foot.” Mr. Nelson laughed.
    I sat in silence while Mr. Boatwright and Mr. Nelson talked. As soon as we got home, Mr. Boatwright started badmouthing Mr. Nelson.
    “We don’t eat pork,” he mimicked. “Hmmmph! I bet he’d eat pork iffen he didn’t have nothin’ else to eat. And what he need with a car that big? Iffen I had a wife like his’n, always whinin’ about a cut or a scratch or cramps, I’d slap her!”
    “Mr. Nelson seems like a real nice man,” I said casually. We were putting the meat away. I kept the pork links out so that I could eat a snack before dinner. “He doesn’t look like an undertaker,” I added thoughtfully.
    “And just what is a undertaker supposed to look like?” Mr. Boatwright sniffed, shaking a pack of chicken wings in my direction, his other hand on his hip.
    “Well…you know…grim, heavyset, spooky. The way you—” I covered my mouth with my hand. Mr. Boatwright looked at me like he wanted to slap me, but he didn’t.
    “I bet he ain’t half the man I am, iffen you know what I mean . Scary Mary say he got a balled-up sock stuffed in his crotch.” Mr. Boatwright laughed.
    “And she should know,” I said sarcastically.
    He lifted one of the links, shook it at me, and grinned. “You won’t find no balled-up sock in my shorts.” I pretended not to hear him. “Hurry up and eat your links. Then I’ll give you the real thing.”
    “Mama’ll be home soon!” I snapped, slamming the refrigerator door so hard it shook.
    “Not tonight. The judge givin’ his poker party tonight. We got plenty of time to have a good time.”
    “You mean you have a good time. I thought—” Before I could finish my sentence, Mr. Boatwright slid his knuckles along the side of my face.
    “You sassin’ me over a little poontang?”
    “I’m not sassing you. I’m sick of doing…what we do. You know it’s not right. Why can’t you get a girlfriend your own age. Somebody who wants to do it with you.”
    Mr. Boatwright looked confused. He leaned back on his legs and put his hands on his hips. “Like I said, I could get any woman I want.”
    “Then why don’t you?” I had lost my appetite. I wrapped the links back up and put the package in the refrigerator.
    A long uncomfortable moment of silence passed. “You know I could make your