Perfect Peace (31 page)

What should’ve been an exciting first day of school for Paul began with immeasurable anxiety. He’d hoped that, like his brothers, he could avoid the drudgery of academic work, but when Gus told him he was going to school, Paul realized his personal desires meant nothing. Too afraid to protest, he simply nodded and hoped he’d do well. His prayer had been that his parents would continue to let Sol go since he was the one who loved knowledge, but Emma Jean had another plan.

“Get your satchel, Paul,” she called cheerfully after clearing the morning dishes. “And don’t forget your lunch.”

Sol came in from feeding the hogs just as Paul was lacing his good shoes. To avoid the pain in his brother’s eyes, Paul hurried through the door and dashed down the road. Sol was left staring his contempt at Emma Jean.

“I’m sorry, honey, but he needs it worse than you. You can read all you want. I’ll even buy you a book the next time I’m at Morrison’s.”

Emma Jean’s words didn’t diminish Sol’s fury. He would never forgive her for what she’d done. Never. And, unfortunately for her, the day would come when she’d need his forgiveness worse than anything she could imagine.

Eva Mae sat at the desk to Paul’s right, surveying their classmates as though daring anyone to bother him. Most of the students were kids he knew, mainly from church, and most of them couldn’t stop staring. The Chambers twins at least smiled when they looked—that smile that lets you know something’s wrong with you—and Christina, Miss Mamie’s granddaughter, waved softly. She was prettier now, Paul thought, than she had been at his birthday party,
and maybe, outside of Emma Jean’s and Miss Mamie’s purview, they could be friends.

Then there was Johnny Ray Youngblood. Eva Mae said he was the cutest boy in Swamp Creek. She had spoken of him incessantly throughout the summer, and Paul remembered Emma Jean teasing him about marrying a Youngblood one day. That was back when he was Perfect. Now he was a boy and he knew that boys weren’t supposed to call other boys cute. Or even think of them that way. Yet throughout the day he found himself looking at Johnny Ray, like most of the other kids, hoping he’d look back. He planned to tell Eva Mae on the way home that she had been right—he
was
the cutest boy in Swamp Creek. Maybe even the whole world. Paul hoped he and Johnny Ray could be best friends, too, like he and Eva Mae were. She wouldn’t mind. Maybe the three of them could play together sometimes, he thought, after they finished their chores. Paul didn’t really care what they did. He just wanted Johnny Ray’s company. Maybe then kids would like him, too.

Miss Erma, the teacher, was a short, stout woman with an unusually small waistline. Women envied her figure while men dreamed of touching it. She was known for her stern disposition, and to be out of line at school guaranteed any child a firm ass whipping. Parents loved it. Whatever Miss Erma said happened is precisely what happened, as far as they were concerned, and a second beating was guaranteed if a first had been necessary. Paul feared her worse than he feared Gus.

“Good morning, class,” she began at seven thirty sharp.

“Good morning, Miss Erma,” the students responded.

“We have several new students with us this term, and I want you to welcome all of them.”

Paul’s nerves began to fray. He hoped Miss Erma wouldn’t call his name aloud.

“I’m going to introduce each new pupil and the rest of you will greet them accordingly.”

Oh no!

The Redfield boys, Swamp Creek’s resident rascals, looked at Paul and began to snicker.

“I’ll have none of that!” Miss Erma declared. She stared at all three of them, and they immediately fell silent. Paul wished he could run away. He knew what those boys were saying about him. He hadn’t heard them, but he
knew, and he couldn’t imagine how he’d survive the ridicule without Authorly or somebody there to protect him. Caroline flashed a big, warm smile, and Eva Mae leaned and touched his shoulder lovingly. “You’ll be okay,” she whispered.

Miss Erma called name after name until finally she said, “And we have with us this year another Peace boy. His name is Paul, class, and I want you to welcome him.”

Everyone hung their heads, but said nothing.

“I said
welcome
him!” Miss Erma admonished, and the class returned a pitiable “Hello.” She studied each face angrily. “I don’t know what you’ve heard or what you think about this young man, but in this classroom, he will be respected. Am I understood?”

A few murmured, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Am I understood!”

“Yes, ma’am!” the children returned, louder.

“We are here to learn, young people. Education is the most precious gift a person can receive, and you must take it seriously. It’s the key to Negro progress and freedom. We do
not
have time for vain foolishness.”

Paul began to like Miss Erma. She had stood up for him and that made him want to please her.

“Furthermore, if Paul is anything like his brother Sol, we have ourselves a genius in the making.” Miss Erma winked at him. Paul knew he was nothing like Sol, but he was determined to try.

For the next several weeks, Paul practiced his ABCs and learned how to spell his name. School wasn’t so bad after all, he decided, although he still would’ve preferred manual labor. Miss Erma had whacked him across his fingers a time or two for sloppy penmanship and all he’d wanted to do was go home. But once his letters began to take shape and he could write his name legibly, Miss Erma praised his efforts and he forgave her strict demeanor.

One day in early November, eleven-year-old Lee Anthony, the second oldest of the Redfield boys, whispered to Paul, “Ain’t you s’pose to be a girl?”

“No, I’m not. I’m a boy,” Paul whined, and began to shiver.

“Leave him alone!” Eva Mae screeched.

“I ain’t talkin’ to you. I’m talkin’ to
her
.”

“He ain’t no
her
! He’s my friend and you better be quiet before I sock you in your big fat mouth!”

Paul wanted to speak for himself, but didn’t have the courage.

“What’s going on up there, Eva Mae?” Miss Erma called from the back of the room.

“Nothin’, ma’am.”

“Then why are you talking?”

Eva Mae lowered her head and whispered to Paul, “Don’t pay him no mind. He’s dumb and stupid like all of his brothers.” But ignoring the Redfield boys was impossible, especially when, later, Lee Anthony said, “Hey you.”

Instinctively, Paul looked up, and Lee Anthony winked at him. His brothers howled.

“If I have to tell you boys one more time to be quiet and do your work, I’m going to set your butts on fire! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they snickered, and hushed.

Eva Mae tried to kick Lee Anthony under the desk, but her leg wouldn’t reach. She gave him the evil eye.

After the commotion subsided, Lee Anthony slid a note onto Paul’s desk. He opened it reluctantly. Though he was unable to read the words, he certainly understood the image.

P
AUL
P
EACE IS A FAGGOT
!
A
ND A FREAK
!

The picture was a stick-figured young girl with long, straightened hair that curled upward at the ends. She wore a mid-length dress and a smile that suggested contentment. What broke Paul’s heart was his discovery of the penis behind the frills of the dress. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but when he looked closer, he saw the thing dangling in midair. His hands began to tremble. The more he studied the image, the more uncomfortable he became. The penis looked awkward and out of place, like a tumor growing straight out of the child’s stomach. A bad taste formed in his mouth. Then, as though taking on a life of its own, it seemed to grow the more he stared at it. He closed his eyes momentarily, then looked again. This time it was huge and undeniable. Now he hated the little girl in the picture. She didn’t seem human anymore. She seemed like a monster or a beast—something that needed to be destroyed. So he crumpled the paper angrily and bit his bottom lip to keep from crying. His breathing grew more rapid. Had he once looked like that . . . that . . . thing? He leapt from his desk and dashed out the back door with Caroline chasing after him.

“What is it? What happened?” Miss Erma called.

Eva Mae snatched the note from Paul’s desk, looked at it, and covered her mouth in shame. “Look at what Lee Anthony did, Miss Erma!” She extended the note and smirked to Lee Anthony. “You gon’ get it now!”

Miss Erma unfolded the paper and beheld the image. She blinked several times saying, “Get out of my classroom, you vile, nasty heathens! All three of you! Get out right now!”

Lee Anthony and his brothers exited shamelessly.

The other children waited. They had never heard Miss Erma use such words or seen her mouth quiver that way. She followed the Redfield boys out the back door and found Paul weeping on Caroline’s shoulder.

“Listen, son,” she said, kneeling before him. “I’m not going to baby you through this. That wouldn’t make you strong, and you need to be strong. You can’t let those boys get to you. They need a good beating and I hope they get it tonight when I speak to their folks. But even then, there’s no promise others won’t tease you again in the future. I’m not going to let anyone harm you in my classroom, but you can’t live there forever. You must learn to ignore ignorance, Paul. No one can save you from it. But you can’t run out of the room every time another child teases you. Okay?”

Paul nodded and wiped snot onto his sleeves.

“Good. Now let’s get back to the business of education. We have a lot to learn today, don’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caroline said.

Paul sat motionless the remainder of the day. Miss Erma’s voice seemed far away, as though echoing from a distant mountain. Christina tried to cheer him by drawing a smiley face on his paper, but Paul’s hurt was unreachable. He couldn’t erase the image from his mind. The picture looked like a woman and a man—all in one—and he knew that wasn’t normal. Now he knew why others were laughing at him, not just the old men in front of the store, but everyone in Swamp Creek. Folks must have discussed him at their dinner tables and in their private prayers. Children were probably told to leave him alone by parents who understood no more than they did. How would he ever survive this? All he knew to do was hope for Johnny Ray’s company as Eva Mae plotted revenge on the Redfield boys.

Sol was the first to see Miss Erma approaching. He hoped she was coming to plead with Emma Jean on his behalf. If Emma Jean let him return to school, he’d speak to her again, but if she didn’t, he swore he’d ignore her the rest of his life.

His absence from school deteriorated Miss Erma’s desire to teach. He had been her hope, her shining star, the only real reason she hadn’t quit. Now, she questioned the worth of her sacrifice, wondering whether lesson plans, for instance, weren’t simply a waste of time for poor Negro kids, few of whom attended school regularly. Having dreamed of an idyllic life as a Negro teacher in the South, she wished someone had informed her that colored children in Swamp Creek picked cotton better than they read, and only one or two had ever written anything. That way, she wouldn’t have taken their poor final grades so personally. But she learned better. No use teaching about the wonders of the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal, she told herself, when most of her pupils would never leave the county, much less the country. So, after Sol’s abrupt disappearance, she abandoned her initial dream and taught mostly basic arithmetic and reading—the life skills country kids might actually use—sharing extraneous knowledge on occasion with Eva Mae Free and Napoleon Travis, the only two who shared even a fraction of Sol’s remarkable genius.

He was reading Dickens’s
A Tale of Two Cities
when Miss Erma and Paul entered.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Miss Erma said, following Paul into the living room.

“Oh my Lord!” Emma Jean screeched. “Come on in, ma’am! I didn’t know you was comin’. This house is a mess!”

“Oh no, it’s fine. Really. I wish you’d come clean mine.”

Emma Jean smiled.

“I don’t know how you do it with seven children, especially after the fire. And boys at that!”

“Do what? You know this house ain’t clean! I do’s—I mean, does—the best I can though.” She offered Miss Erma a seat. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“No, thank you, Emma Jean. I’m fine.”

“Dinner’ll be ready in a half hour or so. I wish you’d stay and join us.”

“Thank you. I just might do that.”

“Well, jes’ make yo’self at home,” Emma Jean shouted, having nothing more to say. “I’ll let you and Paul do . . . um . . . whatever y’all need to do.” She returned to the kitchen.

Miss Erma followed. “I came by, Emma Jean, to tell you what happened at school today.”

“Oh? Is everything all right?”

“Well, yes it is, but there was a little incident I think you should know about.”

Paul turned away.

“What happened?”

Miss Erma swallowed hard. “Well, one of the Redfield boys drew a picture and gave it to Paul. It really hurt his feelings. I think he’s okay though. I wouldn’t worry. I just thought you and Gus should know about it.”