House of Blues

be a maid if
you transgress somehow or other. I did somethin' he didn't like—oh,
hell, you know what I did? When I look back on it now, I just can't
believe I was so dumb, some of the things I put up with. What I did
wrong, I didn't wear the right kind of perfume when it was my turn to
go to bed with him."
    Skip started. "Your turn? Do all the women have
to go to bed with him?"
    "Oh, no. Inst the ones he wants. Guys too. He
makes some of them do it too. And he's married! That's the worst
part—he makes his wife get people ready for him—baths with
special scents, nightgowns and shit, perfume. Shit! It wasn't even my
fault about the perfume, it was Tourmaline's—that's his wife. She
was supposed to know what kind of damn perfume he wanted. See, she
has this back problem and can't have sex—tha's what he says—and
he says a man has to have certain things and it's our duty to see
that he's satisfied."
    " So he got mad at you and made you be his maid."
    "Not his maid, exactly. The church's. Like what
I did yesterday. Servin' tea for dignitaries; that kind of shit."
    "Speaking of that, how did he happen to know so
much about me?"
    She looked surprised. "I don't know. I just got
a message to be over there at two-thirty, dressed in white and
lookin' like a nice church lady. I used to be a stripper, you know. I
was doin' fine—a lot better than before I met Daddy—but my
boyfriend beat me up real bad and I couldn't dance, and then he
kicked me out of the apartment, and by then I didn't have a penny and
I was homeless.
    " I had this girlfriend, Carla; her cousin was in
the church; and she made a phone call and they said they'd take me
in." She shrugged. "Simple as that. They took care of me
while I healed, and then I was part of the church family. Tha's what
they called it. Church family!" She stopped and thought about
it. "Yeah. Incest is best."
    Skip winced, but Pigeon emitted peals of wild, sharp
laughter, evidently letting off steam.
    "I bought it. I really did buy it for a while. I
thought it was great to be a part of this community, you know? I
never was a part of anything, never, you know, like worked toward
anything. This was—you know, holy work. Cool. Me. Doin' holy work.
I thought I was hot shit. Brought my sister's kids to church and
everything. Tanya, she always said there was somethin' wrong—but I
didn't see it. Said Daddy gave her the creeps.
    "Then yesterday after you left, he called a
house meeting—about fifty people were there—he called it for the
sole purpose of humiliating me. (Look at this girl! The white honky
po-lice come, and she make us look like we ain't even out of the
trees yet. There we are tryin' to look good in front of the community
and Miss Nikki Pigeon pours hot tea all over 'em, jus' like she was
drunk.'
    "Then he falls in love with that one. He goes,
‘Nikki, I b'leeve you were drunk. Were you drunk, Nikki? You were
prob'ly on dope, weren't you? And now the whole community's gon' have
to suffer for it. Everybody here's gon' have to do sixteen hours of
work this week.
    "'Those who're employed.
    " 'Those who aren't, you gon' do sixteen hours
over what you normally do'—most of us do about forty-five. Either
that, he says, or put in two hundred dollars. 'That's gon' be pretty
hard on some of y'all, idn't it? Nikki Pigeon, I want you to be
aware—l want you to be aware of the havoc you've caused.'
    "And tha's when he slap me.
    "In front of all those people—can you believe
it? Even Joel, my ex-boyfriend who beat me up, never did it in front
of nobody. And he say, you gon' have to wear sackcloth, like in the
Bible, all week to atone for your sins.
    " 'Wha's sackcloth, Daddy?' I say, and he say,
'Burlap, girl. And it's gon' hurt you. It's gon' make you itch real
bad. And what's more, you gon' have to make your garments. I herewith
order you to make yourself a pair o' underpants, one of those—you
know, chemise things'—camisoles, somebody in the audience say, and
he say, yeah, camisoles, and a burlap dress to go over it. Somebody
say, ‘Whoo, tha's gon' be hot,' and Daddy, he say, 'Yeah, gon' be
hot. Hot and itchy too. Miss Nikki's gon' be sorry she ever disobey
her daddy,' and I say, ‘But Daddy, I didn't disobey; it was a
accident,' and he slap me again.
    "Well, I went back to my room and I just lay
down on my bed and cried and cried, feelin' like the lowest worm in
the world, thinkin' it wadn't fair, wadn't fair at all. Then I
remembered pore Evie. And I thought, 'I