Perfect Peace (32 page)

“What kinda picture, ma’am?” Emma Jean’s imagination ran wild.

Miss Erma gave her the note.

Emma Jean struggled to remain calm. “I see. Somebody needs to teach those boys some manners, don’t you think?”

“Oh, absolutely! I’m going to see their folks when I leave here. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Emma Jean returned the wrinkled paper. “He’ll be fine, ma’am.”

“I’m sure he will, but maybe you should speak with him about it. You and Gus.”

“Everything’s gonna be fine.”

Miss Erma cleared her throat. “You will speak with Gus about it, won’t you?”

“I said, everything’s fine—
ma’am
. I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention this again. I’ll handle it.”

“I know this hasn’t been easy for any of you. I can only imagine the difficulty—”

“Ma’am! I said I’ll handle it.”

Miss Erma clutched her chest in surprise.

“Now have a seat and make yourself comfortable. Dinner’ll be ready in a little while if you’d like to stay.”

Miss Erma dropped the matter and returned to the living room. She sighed and asked Sol, “What are you reading?”

He held up the book.

“Oh, that’s a good one. I like Dickens.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“How have you been?”

“Fine.” He blushed.

“I’ve missed you at school.”

Sol nodded.

“You’ve still been reading consistently, I see.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I hope you’re still writing, too.”

Sol nodded vigorously.

“I wish you could come back to school, son. Of course you’ve missed a lot, but you’d catch up in a week. Maybe even a day.”

“I’ve probably missed too much, Miss Erma.”

“Certainly not. I’d be more than willing to meet you after school, if need be, to get you back on track. It wouldn’t take long at all. I’m sure of it.”

“The boy’s gotta help his father,” Emma Jean intruded, “so Paul can get a education. Sol’s been real sweet about it.”

“I understand, but couldn’t he come back for a little while? I mean, he’s so gifted!”

“I think it’s better if Paul goes, ’cause the others can work with they hands. They’re good at it and they like it.”

Sol’s eyes widened.

“Forgive me if I’m prying, Emma Jean, but I wish you and Gus would reconsider. I’ve never had a student like Sol. I mean, who reads Dickens just for the fun of it? He’s something special and he
needs
to be in school.”

“Paul is special, too,” Emma Jean said with a smirk, “and the family thinks it would be better if he got a education since he’s the baby.”

Sol closed the book and stared at the floor. He didn’t remember any such familial agreement, but he knew better than to contradict Emma Jean in front of Miss Erma.

“What is nine times eight?” she turned and asked Sol suddenly.

“Seventy-two,” he blurted loudly, much to Emma Jean’s chagrin.

“Seven times seven.”

“Forty-nine.”

“Eleven times eleven.”

“One hundred twenty-one.”

Emma Jean acted as if she wasn’t listening.

“Who were the first five presidents of the United States?”

“George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson . . .”

“My God,” Miss Erma murmured. “And have you ever heard of any colored writers?”

Sol’s brows danced. “Yes, ma’am! I have Frederick Douglass’s book right here.” He reached behind the sofa and retrieved
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
. “You ever read this one?”

Miss Erma smiled. “It’s one of my favorites.”

They chatted briefly about its contents, then Miss Erma tried one last time. “You must let this child come back to school, Emma Jean. You simply must!”

“I wanna go,” Sol said, “but—”

“That’s enough, boy,” Emma Jean snapped. “You stay in a child’s place. Ain’t I done told you ’bout showin’ out in front o’ grown folks?”

“Please,” Miss Erma pleaded, “let him come back. He’s behind, but he’ll catch up in no time. I’ve never met a more astute child in all my life.”

“I don’t need you tellin’ me ’bout my children, ma’am,” Emma Jean said, smiling nastily. “I know all of ’em. I raised ’em.”
What the hell does “astute” mean?
she wondered.

“Then you must know what education would do for this young man!”

Emma Jean spoke louder. “We can’t send but one, and it’s gon’ be my baby. Ma’am.”

Miss Erma looked at Paul, who hoped desperately that she would win the argument.

“Momma, Sol can go! I don’t mind at all! I really don’t. He’d do way better’n me anyway ’cause—”

“Shut up, boy! You don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout! You need you some education. You different from yo’ brothers. Sol can always work. He’s good in the field.”

“Emma Jean, we can’t let a youngster with his erudition—”

“Ma’am! We ain’t gon’ talk ’bout this no mo’. Yo’ big words ain’t gon’ convince me of nothin’ I ain’t already thought about. I done made up my mind, and I’d be mighty ‘bliged if you’d respect my decision.”

Obviously offended, Miss Erma sighed. “I see. Very well.”

“Paul, get yo’ homework done befo’ supper. Sol, you go milk de cow.” Emma Jean resumed cooking. “And Miss Erma, you still welcome to stay fu dinner if you’d like.”

“I thank you all the same, Emma Jean, but I think I’d better be going. I have to get to the Redfields’ before dark. Plus, I have papers to mark.”

“I understand.” Emma Jean nodded without facing her. “I thank you for all you doin’ for my baby.”

Miss Erma left, unable to understand why any mother wouldn’t send such a naturally gifted child to school. She wanted to plead further, to ask if maybe she could tutor King Solomon in the evenings free of charge, yet, afraid of Emma Jean’s wrath, she simply shook her head in dismay.

The day Emma Jean broke the news to Sol, he had wailed like Gus at the Jordan and remained inconsolable for weeks. Then, one day at supper, he wiped his last tear and said, “I’m goin’ to school one day. Somewhere, somehow, I’m goin’.” Paul asked Emma Jean to please let King Solomon go, but she wouldn’t hear of it. The hatred in Sol’s eyes was what scared Paul the most, and his subsequent guilt made him dislike school even more than he already did. Whenever he could, he rose early and escaped through the back door in order to avoid the longing in Sol’s eyes.

At the beginning of his second year, Paul whispered to Sol, “I’ll sneak you some books home if I can.”

Sol smiled derisively. Everyone knew, although no one ever announced, that he—not Paul—read Paul’s schoolbooks. Even the unassigned chapters. Whether fact or fiction, Emerson or Hughes, Sol fell asleep most nights with Paul’s books upon his chest. He completed the homework assignments, too, eager to maintain his tradition of academic excellence. Paul wasn’t the least bit ashamed to submit Sol’s work as his own, believing, in fact, that to do so
was his way of supporting Sol’s vicarious education. Emma Jean loved it. Sol’s meticulous penmanship and extraordinary analytical abilities kept Paul’s As rolling in.

Sol resented it. His only life’s passion, the thing he craved most, was knowledge, and having to fight to attain it seemed unfair. Actually, it infuriated him. Others didn’t even want it, he rationalized, so why couldn’t he have it? At twelve, he had been caught extracting a worn copy of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
from the garbage dump behind Morrison’s General Store. Old Man Morrison drawled, “Ain’t nothin’ free, boy. You want that book, you gotta sweep de floor for it.” Sol swept so well that Morrison hired him part time. He was there every day anyway, collecting pamphlets, discarded books, flyers, and whatever else he could gather to read, so Old Man Morrison said playfully, “Might as well hire you, huh?”

Sol was thrilled. “How much you gon’ pay me, sir?”

“Pay you?” Morrison screamed. “You niggers expect white folks to give y’all de whole world? Dem books you take is yo’ pay, boy, and I think that’s mighty generous of me.”

“I only take the ones in the trash, sir!”

“Well I’ll be damned! Who you think own de trash?”

Occasionally, Sol would take new books off the shelf and mar them in some way to justify taking them home. Nobody in Swamp Creek bought brand-new books anyway, he noted. Most sat on the shelf in Morrison’s the entire forty-three years it existed, having never been touched by black or white hands, so Sol felt justified in taking a few here and there, especially since he didn’t get a paycheck. On the days he was required in the field, he took a few “old friends” with him, never able to simply read one at a time. When Gus let them break for lunch, he’d read as his brothers ate, telling them that reading was a kind of nourishment for the soul. Authorly always asked, “Then can I have yo’ lunch?” Sol’s extra-lean form worried Gus until, at thirteen, the boy lifted a railroad crosstie and carried it fifty yards. Gus stopped worrying after that.

Each year when school commenced, Sol’s anger was assuaged only by the new books Paul brought home. Like an impatient fisherman awaiting the first bite of the day, he’d sit after supper and wait for Paul to pass along his satchel, anxious to encounter an unknown author or scientific concept. Paul would feign interest first, thumbing pages and nodding for Emma Jean’s sake, then he’d extend the satchel to Sol, saying simply, “Here,” and until bedtime, Sol
would sit statuesque on the sofa, devouring worksheets, spelling books, and math lessons until he had learned far more than Paul ever would. Once he began excavating texts from Morrison’s garbage, he eventually amassed his own makeshift library of discarded books, brochures, and newspapers and told Paul one evening, “You’re on your own now. I don’t need your books anymore.” He hadn’t meant to seem smug, although Paul took it that way, mumbling, “You think you’re so smart.” Paul’s real frustration was that, now, he’d have to do his own homework and he knew his efforts would never equal his brother’s. But, then again, having ridden the wings of King Solomon all those years, how could Paul complain?

A few wealthy whites, shopping at Morrison’s, noticed Sol’s insatiable thirst for knowledge and began giving him used books from their own personal libraries. Sol thanked them so enthusiastically that some dumped entire bags of books—like one slinging garbage into a Dumpster—onto Gus’s immaculate lawn. Occasionally the Peaces would return home to find books (mostly old paperback romance novels) scattered across the yard or even dangling from the limbs of the peach tree. Emma Jean would marvel, “Look, y’all! Manna from heaven! Paul, you and Sol gon’ be real smart after y’all read all dem books!” Everyone knew who read those books.
Why did Momma need to say that?
Sol wondered.

The boys would gather the books and wait for Sol’s instructions. The one three-tier bookshelf Gus built for Sol’s fourteenth birthday was filled to capacity in three months, and building another didn’t make sense to a father who failed to understand why anyone needed to read more than two or three books in a lifetime. Sol asked Emma Jean if he could store books in the kitchen cabinets, and she teased, “Sure. Why not. Much as you Negroes eat, I cain’t keep no food in ’em!” When the three cabinets filled, he began stacking books against the living room walls. Gus complained initially, then discovered, one frigid February morning, that books burn quickly and easily. When Sol caught Gus ripping pages from his only copy of
Native Son
, the boy fell to his knees and wept like the women at Jesus’ tomb. He asked Gus why in the world he was burning his books, and Gus’s innocuous response—“I was only burnin’ de ones I thought you had done already read”—made Sol chuckle in disbelief. He began delineating the books he loved from the ones he could do without, and, that way, he avoided murdering the Peace family patriarch.

After dinner, the family migrated to the living room and listened to the radio. Emma Jean never mentioned the Redfield boys or the note and, for that, Paul was grateful. Within minutes, he tuned out the family’s reverie as his mind wandered back to the days of pigtails and pocketbooks. He missed feeling beautiful, feeling special, as though his very existence was a divine gift to the world. Now, he felt ugly and unimportant. Lost in a sea of sameness among his brothers, his significance dwindled, he thought, once he became a boy, and all the manhood training in the world couldn’t erase his memory of having once been the center of everyone’s attention. He longed for those days. Why couldn’t he be a boy
and
be beautiful? Some boys were beautiful, weren’t they? Like Johnny Ray Youngblood. He was beautiful. Everyone thought so. Girls gawked whenever he approached, and boys looked away quickly as though afraid to admit what they beheld. Emma Jean had mentioned his name so many times that, now, Paul couldn’t get Johnny Ray out of his mind. As much as Gus and his brothers teased him about liking girls—and he did like girls—he didn’t like them the way they meant. His love for women was strictly platonic. That’s why he couldn’t understand when Gus beat him for playing with Eva Mae. What had he done wrong? Paul soon learned that men didn’t mean for him to
enjoy
the company of women; they meant for him to
use
them for his personal pleasure. He had never thought of women that way. Emma Jean had planted in his consciousness dreams of marriage and intimacy with men while women were understood as confidantes and gossip buddies. Now he felt confused. Eva Mae was still his best friend—he sneaked and played with her in the field of clovers whenever he could—but he couldn’t imagine marrying her. Certainly he loved her, but that tingling sensation Emma Jean said would come when he fell in love hadn’t come. Not for her. He felt it, though, whenever Johnny Ray was around. The first time it happened, he leapt excitedly, declaring, “There’s Johnny Ray, Mister! There’s Johnny Ray!” Mister grabbed his arm and spun him around forcefully. “You don’t do that, man! Is you crazy? Johnny Ray’s a boy!”
Of course he is
, Paul thought. He didn’t know then that boys couldn’t celebrate other boys. Or love them. Or welcome that tingling sensation in their presence. Had it been Gus, Paul assumed, he might’ve been beaten yet again, and this time even more severely. So Paul learned, finally, why men keep their mouths shut about everything they think and feel. That way, they never have to explain themselves.