Sugar Doll's Hurricane Blues Read Free Page B

will take that child back, look at you dressed like a whore with your white man. See I never disowned none of my own children and I am not going to start today but I pray for your very soul Mona. If your father was alive he’d shoot you dead rather than see you living like this.”
    “Mrs. Jones please know that I am taking very good care of your daughter.” Tony smiled smoothly.
    “Oh really? So much good care that she have to abandon her own child? Probably yours too from the looks of her. Mark my words you reap what you sow boy. White or not you will burn in a living hell.” Big Ma turned toward the house angrily.
    “Well Momma, I’ll just have to burn in hell because I’m going back to New Orleans and I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.” Mona turned on her heel and was forced to jump a puddle of water.
    “One day you’ll be sorry and you’ll need this girl. I pray to God that she can forgive you.” Big Ma went into her cool house to sit down. She was so angry that her blood pressure had gone up and she needed to sit. “That girl, that girl.” She cried to herself.
    Tony and Mona drove off onto the gravel highway and headed back to the city.

Chapter Three
     
    “Sugar Doll, now I know that your momma had you in them Catholic schools up in the city but down here we Baptist.” Sugar Doll liked the warm Baptist church they attended better than the stuffy and formal Catholic Church.
    “Big Ma when the choir rises to sing I feel so good.” Church was a celebration. Living with Big Ma was a comforting thing for the lost child nicknamed Sugar Doll. She grew up on fried chicken and Jesus. She took Sugar Doll out of her Catholic girl clothes and put her into long skirts and head coverings for the Baptist church. Sugar Doll surprised everyone when she joined the choir and sang in a powerful, soulful voice. Sugar Doll was a frail girl with long brown ponytails but her voice had the depth of a thirty year old woman.
    “Sugar Doll, you’ve got to always use that voice for Jesus. The Lord gave you that talent and he can take it away. Don’t you get no ideas about singing in those sinful bands like on Soul Train.” Big Ma told Sugar Doll one day after church. “Aw Big Ma, I’m not ever going to get on Soul Train anyway. I’m only seven now anyway.”
    “You ain’t fooling me, Michael Jackson’s about the same age as you and look at him out there twirling around and singing like a man. Mark my words if that boy don’t have problemswhen he grows up.” Big Ma went to the refrigerator and took out a bag of coffee. She kept it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh.
    “Now I’m going to make us some chicory coffee and some short bread and we gonna talk about that choir trip ya’ll going on next week. I wasn’t tough enough on your momma. I thought she was too young to hear about men and things like that. Lord have mercy! The book of Proverbs states it plain, ‘As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.’ You gonna be different Sugar Doll. You gonna hear the word of the Lord and you are going to be in the church and maybe one day marry yourself a nice man.”
    Sunday morning’s service was jam packed. The reverend gave a talk about vocations. He was so loud that it was difficult to nod off but after two hours Sugar Doll was sleepy. As they were walking home the familiar church van pulled alongside them.
    “We are forming up a children’s choir and we wondered if you would like to try out?” The pastor said through the window his lovely suit crisp with starch. Sugar Doll looked at Big Ma who wore a blank expression.
    “Well, I love to sing Pastor but I do it mostly to myself.”
    “Bertrand says that you really can sing. I’d like to see that. He’s got a good ear. There’s a competition coming up in the fall and we’d like to have our kids ready by then. Ya’ll think about it.” The Pastor drove off. Sugar Doll braced herself for the lecture about the evils of men and their low down ways,