Perfect Peace (30 page)

“Hi, baby,” Miss Mamie said, interrupting Paul’s thoughts. When he turned, she saw the tears in his eyes. “Aw, come here!” She pressed Paul’s head into the center of her bosom.

Paul liked the sweetness of her perfume and the warm, comforting feeling of her flesh. It reminded him of how he used to lie on Emma Jean as she read to him. Back when he was somebody else.

“You gon’ be all right, baby,” she said, pushing Paul away from her. “You just stick with the Lord. He gon’ bring you through. He do it every time!”

Paul wanted to ask how soon the Lord was going to do it, but he didn’t.

“You still jes’ as cute as you can be.” She pinched his cheeks. “It’s jes’ kinda hard for folks, you know, to think of you as a boy. It’ll probably take a little time, but afterwhile everything’ll be okay. At least I guess it will. I certainly hope so.” She smiled. “How’s yo’ momma?”

“Fine.”

“Well, that’s good. You be sho to tell her hello for me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t you worry none ’bout what folks say. You jes’ go ’head on and walk with the Lord. He’ll bring you through.” She swung the screen door open and walked away with an armload of groceries.

Paul wasn’t exactly clear what she was talking about. Was God on His way to save him from something?

“Let’s go,” Mister called behind him.

Paul followed and entered the lion’s den once more.

“You boys take care,” Stump said.

Mister mumbled, “Yessir,” while pulling Paul along.

“By the way,” Charles Simmons asked, “is you a boy now
for real
?”

Paul’s tears returned.

“Don’t say that to that boy!” Stump admonished. “That ain’t none o’ yo’ business. You’ll mess around and hurt his feelings.”

“Just come on,” Mister said. “Don’t pay them no mind.”

Paul wished Gus would send him away like Charles Simmons had suggested. He didn’t know where he’d go or whom he’d live with, but there had to be a place, somewhere in the world, where people loved him. Or at least liked him. He would’ve gone without Gus’s permission if he’d had the money. He didn’t need but a little. Now that he knew how to work, he convinced himself that someone would pay him for his labor. Someone in a faraway place. Not anyone near Swamp Creek. They knew too much about him. He wanted a place where all he’d ever been was a boy so no one could tease him about having been anything else. They’d look at his soft demeanor and sensitive ways, Paul thought, and think that was the way he’d always been, and no one would think twice about it. In Swamp Creek, his only friend was Eva Mae and since she was a girl, he wasn’t supposed to play with her anymore. But since no boys wanted to play with him, he started hoping that what Miss Mamie said would come true. Soon.

On Authorly’s twentieth birthday—August 23, 1949—he announced at supper, “I’m gettin’ married Sat’dey. Y’all comin’, ain’t cha?”

Gus was relieved. He didn’t care that the boy had no other life aspirations; he was simply glad he wouldn’t have to feed him anymore. Whenever Emma Jean fried chicken, she fried one for him and one for everyone else. He did his fair share of work, Gus admitted, but any child who consumed half of a man’s entire fall harvest needed his own place.

“But you ain’t got no girlfriend!” Mister said. “Ain’t you s’pose to have a girlfriend before you marry somebody?”

“You don’t know what I got! And, anyway, I do got a girlfriend and that’s why I need to get out on my own.”

Gus agreed. He didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings with expressions of jubilation, so he said, “You do what you thank you oughta do, son. You’ll be fine. I done taught you how to work, so you ain’t neva gon’ starve. Not you!”

The others laughed.

“What about me?” James Earl asked softly.

Authorly said, “You comin’ wid me.”

Everyone frowned except Emma Jean. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “That way he’ll have somethin’ to do.”

“You can live with me,” he explained. “It’ll be like us sharing a wife. Well, you can’t
have
her, if you know what I mean, but she’ll love both of us. She won’t mind. I done already asked her.”

Emma Jean touched Authorly’s shoulder in gratitude. Of course she loved her firstborn, but what was she to do with him? All he wanted in life was
Authorly’s approval, so it made sense to Emma Jean for him to stay with Authorly forever.

“I won’t get in the way,” James Earl promised. “And I’ll do whatever you say.”

“You’re fine, little brother. Don’t worry. We gon’ be just fine.”

Emma Jean hated to see Authorly go. He had been her measure of manhood around the house—the one she prayed the younger ones would emulate—and she made him promise to stop by often and talk to his younger brothers. Unlike Gus, she would miss his enormous appetite and his protective presence. In her mind, Authorly had been her man and, in some ways, she felt as if she were losing a spouse. But she couldn’t stop him. She didn’t even try.

Paul had mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was glad Authorly was leaving because another summer of his tyrannical teachings was more than Paul’s sensitive spirit could bear. He especially hated maneuvering the worms onto the fishing hook. Each time he screamed, Authorly punched his arm, until he learned to keep his fears to himself. Then, he was beaten again when it took him too long to take the flapping fish off the hook. He would’ve shot Authorly, on several occasions, had he known how to use the gun, and he convinced himself that he wouldn’t have regretted it for a moment. On the other hand, the cow milking, wood gathering, and general farm labor weren’t so bad. Actually, he was beginning to get used to it, and he had no one to thank but Authorly. Paul was forced to admit that, although he had hated Authorly at first, the transition into boyhood would’ve been impossible without him. Now Woody and Sol would have to finish the job since Gus was obviously uninvested in anything concerning Paul.

“You and Eula Faye gon’ be so happy!” Emma Jean said, smacking on a square piece of corn bread.

Authorly smiled. “Yeah, I know. Her daddy is grinnin’ from ear to ear.”

Authorly had stopped Eula Faye at Morrison’s a year earlier. He had been watching her rotund behind since he was fifteen, but had never gathered the nerve to speak. Not until she switched past him, and his left hand accidentally brushed her bottom. He knew then she’d be his wife.

“I’m mighty sorry, ma’am,” Authorly said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t mean to touch you that way.”

Eula Faye beamed. “Well, you did, and I guess I forgive you, Mr. Authorly Peace.” Reaching for a five-pound bag of sugar, she added, “And you can come keep company with me if you want to.”

Authorly hollered. “Yippee! I do want to. I do!”

He carried her groceries home, and by the time they arrived, she was his girlfriend. She loved a thick black man, she said, especially one with battered overalls, ’cause that meant he loved to work.

“I got that from my daddy. I ain’t neva seen him sleep past five, and even if he sick, he do somethin’ ’round de house.” Eula Faye laughed. Her father had told her that, if she prayed, God would send her a good black man one day. She didn’t know it would be within a week. “I likes you, Mr. Authorly Peace.”

“I likes you, too, Miss Eula Faye Cullins.”

They stood in front of her folks’ house and talked—well, Authorly talked—for the next three hours, and when he left, Eula Faye told her mother, “I’ma marry that man ’fo de month’s out.”

Authorly decided not to tell anyone about Eula Faye, afraid that if she changed her mind, he would be too embarrassed to recover. But the Friday he asked her to marry him and she said yes, he was the most confident young man in all of Conway County.

“When you wants to marry me, Mr. Authorly Peace?” she teased.

“Um . . . how ’bout a year from Saturday? That’ll give me time to make some money,” he said casually, and smiled.

Eula Faye leapt into his arms, kissed his forehead, and said, “Fine with me. I’ll be waitin’.”

Authorly hesitated.

“What is it?”

“It’s about my brother. James Earl.”

“What about him?”

“Well, I been takin’ care o’ him all his life. He kinda slow and I was wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind him comin’ to stay with us. He works real hard and he ain’t no bother.”

“Okay,” Eula Faye said. Authorly’s desperation suggested that if she was going to have the Peace she wanted, she’d have to take the Peace she didn’t. “I guess I can live with that. Two men ’round the house oughta be better’n one anyway.”

Mr. Buddy Cullins sobered up for the only wedding he’d ever attend, and he told Authorly that he and Eula Faye should have as many children as the Good Lord would allow. They obeyed, halting their reproduction only during the year of the tragedy. Twenty years later, Eula Faye awakened one morning in a battle with menopause she couldn’t hope to win. “Oh well,” she sighed.
“The Lord said be fruitful and multiply, and I done done that. Ten children oughta satisfy Him.”

During the wedding ceremony, Eula Faye almost ran away when she looked up and saw both Authorly and James Earl marching toward her in matching suits. Folks turned their heads and covered their mouths. James Earl marched alongside Authorly as though he were the bride, and Eula Faye prayed she wasn’t making the mistake of her life. Her fears were relieved once the three moved in together, and she discovered that James Earl was a better companion than Authorly. James Earl loved to listen to her rant and rave about arbitrary people or things, and his favorite pastime was rubbing her tired, aching feet. Authorly, on the other hand, loved to be listened to, and after twenty minutes of his self-absorbed babbling, she simply tuned him out and focused her attention on her second husband. He—not Authorly—made her feel special and important. James Earl was the daytime man, the one who accompanied her to the store or listened to the radio shows with her, and Authorly took the night shift, exciting her flesh and talking until the sound of his voice lulled her to sleep.

At the wedding, Paul wondered if he would ever marry. He didn’t have a girlfriend and didn’t want one, but he liked the idea of having a family. Emma Jean used to tell him, in his former life, “I can’t wait ’til your weddin’ day, honey. It’s gon’ be so wonderful. You gon’ marry the man of your dreams and you gon’ be the most beautiful bride anyone’s ever seen! Oh, it’s gonna be so great!”

Back then, Emma Jean’s joyful anticipation made Paul laugh. Now, she never mentioned marriage anymore, and Paul understood clearly that, if he did marry, he wouldn’t be the beautiful one, and that was the only reason he had wanted a wedding in the first place. Eula Faye looked pretty in her rose red dress, Paul noted, but Authorly looked like he did every day. If that was all the man was supposed to get out of the deal, then Paul decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Gus patted Authorly’s back and wished him well. Ten months later, the children started coming. They called both Authorly and James Earl Daddy. They weren’t confused. Eula Faye explained that since two men took care of them, both men deserved equal honor, so the children acted accordingly. Whenever folks asked Nicodemus, the oldest boy, “Who’s yo’ daddy?” he would say, “Authorly and James Earl Peace.” “But which one is
yo’
daddy?” “Both of them!” he’d say, nodding. The fact that some resembled James Earl
made others believe that he had fathered a few, but had they mentioned this to him, he would have stumbled away in tears.

Normal Jean was the second child. Doc Baker told Eula Faye that something was wrong during her pregnancy and that more than likely the child would be abnormal in some way. Refusing to believe him, Eula Faye started calling the baby Normal in hopes of countering Doc’s prophecy. It didn’t work. Her Down syndrome, however, didn’t make Eula Faye change the child’s name. It just made people use it more enthusiastically.

The third baby was a boy James Earl named James Earl. Eula Faye handed the child to her second husband like one presenting a child to Christ, and he never left James Earl’s side. He’d wave to Authorly as though saluting a stranger while clinging to his other daddy’s pant leg. And since his mind, like James Earl’s, was basically dysfunctional, Authorly and Eula Faye released the child unto one with whom they felt he could identify. After breast-feeding, Eula Faye would pass him back to James Earl, in whose bosom the child slept most easily. In his precious spare time, James Earl built a miniature bed and placed it next to his own, and that’s where the boy slept until his fifth birthday. The day after, James Earl dismantled both beds and built a bigger one, and the two slept there, spoon fashion, until the rainy day, twenty years later, when James Earl Sr.’s heart stopped beating and he passed away.

Throughout the wedding, Paul noticed that all the men, including Gus, were most interested in—and amazed by—Eula Faye’s voluptuous behind. Her form-fitting dress, which elicited both praise and profanity, outlined the contours of her buttocks as though someone had pasted the garment onto her skin. Men of all ages gawked in shameless awe and wonder.

“Goddamn!” one man hollered to the other menfolk. “Now dat’s what you call a ass, boys! That ain’t no butt. Nosiree. Shit, everybody got a butt. That’s a ass!”

The men laughed freely. Paul now knew what men talked about when women weren’t around. Was this the kind of man he was expected to become?