Perfect Peace (33 page)

His feelings for Johnny Ray didn’t matter anyway, Paul thought. Johnny Ray barely waved at him, so what difference did it make? Nobody would ever
marry someone like him. Every day Woody or Gus reminded him to “Unfold yo’ arms, boy! You ain’t no girl.” Or “Stop all dat damn drama! Men don’t do that.” Or “Put yo’ hands down! Men don’t swing their hands in the air like that!” There was simply too much about him that needed altering, he was made to believe, and Paul couldn’t foresee a refined, polished, masculine product. He’d probably be alone the rest of his life, he told himself, but at least he’d have Eva Mae.

Paul’s girlhood faded into memory as the years passed. People still looked at him funny—and talked about him like a dog—but he’d learned to ignore them, for the most part. The day after his twelfth birthday, he met Eva Mae in the field of clovers.

“I can’t stay long,” Paul said. “Daddy’d kill me if he knew I was here.”

“You mean if he knew you was here
with me
.”

Paul didn’t lie. “Yeah.”

“Then I guess you better go,” Eva Mae said.

“I don’t wanna go. I like being here with you.”

“I like being here with you, too.”

They sat on the stump.

“Can I tell you something?” Eva Mae asked.

“Sure.”

“Sometimes I still think of you as Perfect. I mean, I know you a boy and all. Everybody know it now, but you still Perfect. To me. At first I thought the name was kinda strange, but after we became friends, I started likin’ it. And you just as perfect to me now as you always been.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I call you Perfect sometimes?”

Paul grimaced. “I don’t think so. Perfect’s a girl’s name.”

“Not really. I don’t know nobody named Perfect, girl or boy. Do you?”

“No.”

“So do you mind?”

Paul shrugged. “I don’t care. But you can’t call me that anywhere but here. If somebody else hear us, we gon’ be in trouble.”

“Okay. I won’t forget.” Eva Mae rubbed Paul’s hand. Then she stood. “I got a idea!”

“What?”

“Let’s look for four-leaf clovers!”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause Momma said whoever finds a four-leaf clover is gonna find somebody to love them forever.” Eva Mae pulled Paul from the stump.

He thought of Johnny Ray. “Okay.”

“You gotta look real close. They’re rare and hard to find, but I bet it’s one out here somewhere.”

She bent to her knees and Paul followed. Together, they split the grass with their hands, tickling each blade until it shivered between their maneuvering forefingers. Abandoning clover after useless clover, they began to uproot them for being despicably ordinary. It became a ritual, this malicious displacement, until dead sprouts lay all about them. “I don’t want you!” Eva Mae declared, jerking a fragile seedling from the earth. “Or you!” She jerked another. “Or you, you, or you!”

Paul wasn’t as demonstrative—he had learned not to be—but he was certainly as disappointed. “Come on,” he growled. “There’s gotta be one.”

Eva Mae became incensed. “There”—she yanked a plant with each word—“must . . . be . . . love . . . somewhere . . . in . . . this . . . field!” Like a demolition team, the two moved upon their hands and knees, destroying the ordinary in search of the extraordinary. They wanted difference, originality, uniqueness, and they were determined to find it. Each three-leafed reject heightened their disdain for normalcy as the playmates searched for what seemed nonexistent.

Eva Mae’s declarations deteriorated into vulgarity. “Where the fuck are you, four-leaf clover!” she bellowed. “You cain’t hide forever!”

Paul looked at her and scowled. How would she ever get a man, he thought, talking like that?

“Oh come on! There’s gotta be a four-leaf clover somewhere in this whole entire field! Shit!”

“Girls ain’t s’pose to say that, Eva Mae. It ain’t ladylike.”

“Why not? It’s just me and you here, and you’re my friend.”

“I know, but you a girl.”

You used to be one, too!
Eva Mae almost said, but didn’t. “Momma didn’t say it’d take a whole day just to find one!”

They paused and huffed in harmony. “I guess love is like that,” Paul said. “Sometimes, you look for it a long time before you find it.”

“Or you never find it at all.”

Paul didn’t like that possibility. He wasn’t sure he believed in the myth, but he knew he wanted someone to love, so he looked again. Emma Jean had spoken of romance too many times for him to relinquish the hope. He recalled the story she’d told about the girl who, with six brothers, was so beautiful every young boy around sought her attention. He’d loved that story. Emma Jean’s theatrical delivery had been priceless. Twirling and dancing across the floor, she had declared Perfect the most beautiful girl in all the land, and Perfect laughed as her self-esteem blossomed. She knew she was the story’s protagonist and often closed her eyes and swayed as Emma Jean dramatized the fairy tale. In her mind’s eye, she could see the chifforobe of colorful dresses but could only vaguely imagine what a canopy bed looked like. Her mother tried to explain, having seen one in a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, but Perfect couldn’t understand why anyone would have a huge piece of cloth suspended in midair above their bed. Was it to block the sun or catch mosquitoes? But that wouldn’t make sense, she reasoned, since beds aren’t outside.

She’d also imagined quite clearly the tall, handsome suitor in the story. Emma Jean had said, “Just look at your father—then imagine the opposite!” The story led to Emma Jean and Perfect whispering about every young boy they encountered. “Is he one of them?” Perfect would murmur. Usually, Emma Jean rolled her eyes and frowned. “Ugh! Hell naw!” Only occasionally did she affirm, “Now that one’s got potential,” until Perfect sculpted an image of what the perfect man might look like.

Paul hadn’t heard the story in years. He’d never hear it again now. No one had composed any narrative for him as a boy, and he decided that, if he was going to survive, he’d have to create his own story, complete with a fairytale ending even he couldn’t imagine. So that day in the field of clovers, he began to mentally construct a self-conceived, self-affirming tale that would take him a lifetime to complete.

“I’m gonna find one,” he told Eva Mae, resuming the search. “I’m gonna find me a four-leaf clover, and I’m gonna find it today.”

His determination was contagious.

“It’s probably just some dumb old story grown people tell kids. You know what I mean?” Eva Mae resumed the search.

Paul didn’t care. His hope was far greater than his doubt. He wanted a guaranteed love, and he was willing to search the world over for proof that he’d have it.

“Ah, come on,” Eva Mae huffed. “I know you’re here.” Her face was only centimeters from the grass. “Just let me find you. I’ll take care of you. I promise. Come on, four-leaf clover. You’re in here somewhere. I know you are. You have to be. There’s got to be at least one of you. At least one.” Moments later, she reclined in the grass and said, “Just forget about it. I don’t even care anymore.”

Paul wasn’t so easily discouraged. “Where are you, Mr. Clover?” he murmured. “I have to find you. I have to. Come on, now. Don’t hide from me. I need you.” He was now thirty yards from where Eva Mae lay basking in the late afternoon sun. Behind herself, she left a trail of discarded foliage as though knowingly blazing a path others would have to tread. For the next hour or so, Paul ignored the retreating sun, determined to find tangible evidence that, against what Gus believed, he really was perfect, and someone, somewhere, someday would fall in love with him.

“Here’s one!” he shouted at dusk. “Oh my God! I found it! Here it is! And it’s bigger than the other ones.” Paul cupped his hands around it, but didn’t pick it. “Come look, Eva Mae!”

Casually, she strolled to where he was kneeling. “Let me see,” she mumbled, and knelt.

“Here it is!”

“I see it! You ain’t gotta yell,” Eva Mae screamed back.

Paul lowered his voice, though only slightly. “Ain’t this great? I found a four-leaf clover!” He clapped like a toddler. “This means someone’s gonna love me forever, right?”

“That’s what they say. I don’t know how true it is though.”

Eva Mae’s skepticism didn’t dampen Paul’s spirit.

“We’d better be gettin’ home. It’s late,” she said.

Paul looked around and sighed. “Yeah, it is.” He plucked the clover from the earth, shoved it in his pocket, and began to run.

“See ya,” Eva Mae yelled, sprinting in the opposite direction.

Just as Paul arrived home, the sun vanished. Gus met him on the road.

“Where you been, boy?” he said, shifting his weight to his good hip.

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I just forgot what time it was.”

“That ain’t what I asked you.”

Paul hesitated.

Gus thought to slap him, but instead said, “Get in that barn and get yo’ chores done.” Then he hobbled away.

Paul thanked a sovereign God. As he carried the cows their portion of hay, then slopped the hogs, he dreamed of the love that was now promised. After returning the slop bucket to its resting place, he waltzed across the barn floor, lost in the arms of an imaginary lover. Twisting and twirling to the silent music, Paul envisioned someone bowing before him, declaring their everlasting love. That’s what the clover promised, right? Then, all those mean people in Swamp Creek would have to take back all the ugly things they’d said about him because he’d be lovable and desirable like any other handsome young man.

Suddenly, he conceived an idea. There was no one present, so there would be no harm done. He’d just do it for a moment. Just to remember or, maybe, foresee what his future beheld. Paul glanced around to ensure that he was alone, then extracted old garments of Emma Jean’s from the bag in the loft. It was a silly idea, he knew, since he was a boy now, but it couldn’t hurt anything. He simply needed a reminder that he was still special. And beautiful.

He slipped the floral-print summer dress over his head and let it fall across his shoulders. It was too big, of course. Emma Jean was a good fourteen on any day, and Paul was barely a four. But it didn’t matter. This was all make-believe. It didn’t have to be perfect, he thought. It was just a moment. He excavated an old, wrinkled hat from the bag and sat it atop his narrow head. Then he slid his feet into a dusty pair of black heels, which fit better than any of the other items. He laughed at himself. He felt a freedom he had almost forgotten. Returning to the dance floor, he performed a solo waltz, as if a crowd of viewers were watching and applauding. The dress swayed and ballooned with each turn until Paul found himself lost in a mythical world. His steps were constrained and awkward, limited by stilettos he had never worn, but his imagination dwarfed his reality. He was the precious one, at least momentarily, the one whom others admired and desired. He was Perfect Peace again—the child his mother had waited for.

When the barn door flew open, Paul gasped, “Oh!”

Gus stared in bewilderment. “What the hell?” he whispered, closing the barn door behind himself.

Paul tried to make light of the moment. “I was just . . . um . . . Just . . . playing.”

Gus shuffled toward him in slow motion.

“It ain’t no big deal, Daddy. I was just thinkin’ about . . .” He stepped out of the shoes and removed the hat. “It was just a joke—”

Slap!

“A joke? Just a joke? You call this”—he pointed to each item—“a damn joke?”

Paul tried to remove the dress, but his trembling hands couldn’t get it over his head. Gus began ripping it from the boy’s shivering frame.

“You ain’t no punk, boy! I done taught you better! Boys don’t wear no woman’s clothes!” With each word, Gus ripped the dress until it lay in shreds across the barn floor. Paul covered his naked chest with his arms and prayed Gus wouldn’t kill him.

“Is you just determined to be a sissy the rest o’ yo’ life? Huh!”

“No, sir,” Paul mumbled, lying upon mounds of loose hay.

“Then why you keep doin’ this stuff?” Gus slapped him again.

“I don’t know. I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean what?” Gus screamed, huffing with rage.

Paul sniffled, but didn’t answer.

“Answer me, boy!”

“I wasn’t tryin’ to be no girl. I was just thinkin’ about . . . um . . . different stuff.” He almost mentioned the clover and its promise, but he knew it wouldn’t make sense to Gus.

“I done told you I ain’t gon’ have no son like that in my house!”

“Yessir.”

Gus grabbed the shoes and slung them against the wall. “Awwwwwww! You gon’ be a man, boy! If I have to kill you first, you gon’ be a man!”

Paul whimpered, “Yessir.”

Gus’s nostrils flared and deflated as Paul awaited his fate.

“Get up off that floor. Now!”

Paul rose, quivering. Gus snatched his arm forcefully. “I better not ever catch you doin’ nothin’ like this again! Do you hear me?”

“Yessir.”

“You ain’t no faggot, boy! You ain’t!”