Perfect Peace (34 page)

Paul nodded.

“I done taught you how to be a man, me and your brothers, so ain’t no excuse for this shit!”

Paul continued nodding.

“I’ll break yo’ neck if I ever catch you doin’ somethin’ like this again. Do you understand me?”

“Yessir.”

“I said, do you understand me, boy!”

“Yessir!”

Gus pushed Paul away from him. “Now clean up this crap and get in the house. And I don’t wanna hear nothin’ more about it.” Gus hobbled away heavily.

Paul gathered the shredded dress, shoes, and hat and returned the bag to the loft. He couldn’t figure out why Gus hadn’t beaten him. That’s what he deserved, didn’t he? Unaware of the contract Gus had signed with God that night in the yard, Paul gave thanks that he hadn’t met his end. He saw the rage in Gus’s eyes. Maybe the unmerited grace was God’s way of assuring Paul’s life, he considered, so the myth of the clover might be fulfilled.

By thirteen, Paul’s masculine aura, especially in front of men, was beginning to take shape. His walk had transformed from a sway to a swagger, and his voice had lost its soprano edge. The farm labor was defining his shoulders and arms, and he’d learned not to gawk at Johnny Ray as though desiring to consume him. The tingling sensation still came any time Johnny Ray was around, but he’d learned to conceal it. Even women noted the evolution, remarking that Paul was finally developing into a “handsome ole country boy.” The only problem was that he couldn’t make himself like girls the way men said he should. At least not yet. But he wasn’t through trying.

In the spring of 1954, Paul contracted a fever that threatened to kill him. Covered in sweat from head to toe, he lay semiconscious for nearly a week. Doc Harris came by every evening with a different potion, hoping that something medicinal would break the spell, but nothing helped. Gus watched from a distance until Bartimaeus said, “Help him, Daddy.”

“I ain’t no doctor, son,” Gus slurred.

“I know, but there’s gotta be somethin’ you can do. It’s just gotta be.”

Gus recalled the fever of 1912. He’d only been a boy, but he remembered
how people were dying faster than the undertaker could bury them. His mother, Momma Lucy, died from the fever and Gus never forget how helpless he felt, watching her sweat and drift away. Chester Sr. tried everything, from boiling roots to prayer, but nothing broke the spell. Gus sat next to her bed the day she expired, and wept far into the night. He never forgave himself for not trying to save her.

“I don’t know nothin’ to do, son,” he said, and collapsed onto the sofa.

Bartimaeus felt his way behind him. “Well, folks say Miss Liza Redfield could heal people. I know she dead now, but maybe some of her folks remember somethin’. It’s worth a try, Daddy.”

Gus didn’t hesitate. “Tell yo’ momma I’ll be back.”

When Gus returned, he told Woody to boil a pot. Then, from the chest pocket of his overalls he retrieved something that looked like dirt and poured it from his palm into the steaming water.

“What’s that?” Emma Jean asked. “Smell like you cookin’ chicken shit.”

“Just be quiet, woman. I’m tryin’ to save my son.”

He scooped a ladle of the concoction, poured it into a bowl, and went to Paul.

“I need you to sip this, boy,” he said as tears streaked his cheeks. “It’s hot, but you gotta take it.”

Paul shook his head and mumbled, “I ain’t hungry, Daddy.”

“Don’t make no difference. You gotta get some o’ this in you. It’ll break the fever.”

Paul turned away.

“Do what Daddy say, Paul,” Bartimaeus encouraged. “You cain’t die. You cain’t.”

Woody supported Paul’s head as he struggled to sit up. Gus spoon-fed the broth into Paul’s mouth.

“It’s too hot,” Paul complained.

“I know it’s hot, but you gotta drink it like this. It’s the only way it’s gon’ work.”

Emma Jean massaged his forehead and promised God she’d serve Him forever if He’d spare her baby. She had some nerve, she knew, asking God for a favor after what she’d done, but she had nowhere else to turn. The fire had left her shamefaced and brutally aware that she had no friends in Swamp Creek. Even Gracie had cursed her and stopped coming around once she
learned the truth about Paul. So Emma Jean sneaked into the master bedroom and, in a moment she’d live to regret, ransomed her life in exchange for Paul’s. “Do whatever You wanna do with me, Lord,” she said. “Just let my baby live. If somebody’s gotta die, let it be me.” She returned to the living room to see what God decided.

Gus was pouring spoonfuls of the rancid drink into the small opening of Paul’s mouth. “Just two more sips, son, and I think it’ll be enough.”

Paul wanted to vomit, but didn’t have the strength. Gus set the cup aside and waited with Emma Jean to see if their efforts would prove fruitful.

At some point during the night, Gus thought about the prospect of burying his baby boy and he couldn’t hold his heart any longer. For the first time, he looked beyond what others thought and saw Paul for what he was. Gus also feared that, if the boy died, he’d have to answer to God for having treated him so badly, so Gus took Paul’s limp hand and said, “Don’t die, boy. Please.” He had the same feeling he had the night his mother died. Maybe this was his chance to do something different, he thought. Then his mother’s spirit wouldn’t trouble him anymore.

Emma Jean stirred in a nearby chair, unable to sleep.

“When you was a baby, I used to sit you on my lap and let you play with my beard. I liked the way you giggled. You was such a pretty baby.”

Paul opened his eyes, but didn’t move. The room was pitch-black.

“Then yo’ momma messed everything up. I never did hate you though. I really didn’t. I just couldn’t believe you was no boy. You was s’pose to be my baby girl and that’s how I saw you, so when I saw yo’ thang, I almost lost it.” He shook his head. “I ain’t neva heard o’ nobody experiencin’ nothin’ like that. I couldn’t believe what yo’ momma had done done to you.”

Emma Jean wanted to explain again, but she didn’t.

“My daddy taught me that ain’t nothin’ worse than a sissified man, and I didn’t want you to be one. I still don’t. I guess I been too embarrassed to talk to you directly. Folks’ whisperin’ made me nervous. You know how I am.”

Gus scratched the top of his bald head. If Paul died, at least he had said what he needed to.

“I guess this ain’t been easy for you, either, huh? I know the kids pro’bly tease you at school and stuff.” He paused. “And I’m sorry for beatin’ you the way I did that day. When I saw you comin’ down the road, you was twistin’ like a girl, and I got so mad I couldn’t see straight. But I didn’t mean to kick you. I even told God I didn’t and God told me to tell you, but I never did. I was
too ’shamed, I guess. Now you layin’ here, and I might not never get a chance to tell you to yo’ face. But at least I’m tellin’ yo’ spirit.”

Gus leaned back for a long while, then leaned forward again. “After Momma died, I couldn’t seem to stop cryin’. Daddy and Chester poked fun at me and said I was gon’ be a sissy when I grew up. I told them I wasn’t. They said I was weak and didn’t have no backbone ’cause ain’t no boy s’pose to cry all the time. But I couldn’t help it. I loved my momma and she loved me, and when she died, I felt like I was in the world all by myself. That’s a bad feelin’, son—to feel like you all by yo’self. I guess you know what that feels like though, huh?”

Do I!
Paul wanted to say.

“And I ain’t been no help. I knowed this wasn’t yo’ fault from the start, but I been makin’ you pay like it was. I’m sho sorry, boy. I promise to do better if you’ll just get well.”

When Gus woke at five, Paul was sitting up staring at him. Gus almost burst into tears.

“I didn’t die, Daddy. I’m alive. And I’m strong.”

Gus patted Paul’s head and smiled. “I guess you is, boy. Kinda like yo’ old man.”

Gus swiveled, grimacing from the pain in his hip, and shouted, “Hallelujah!” as though celebrating Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb. Emma Jean raised her hands, as high as she could, and thanked God for answering her prayer.

Then the rains came. Assisted by a homemade walking cane, Gus hobbled toward the Jordan when the first droplets fell, so once again Bartimaeus had to find his own way. The tone of Gus’s wailing was lighter than usual, almost falsetto, and people knew that something must have been different. What they didn’t know was that, instead of releasing hurt, he was giving praise to a God Who had spared his baby boy. Had they listened closely, they would have discerned phrases like “thank Ya” and “I love Ya” muddled in the midst of dissonant belting, but since no one other than Sugar Baby understood the full purpose of the annual cleansings, most were simply glad when they came and when they ended.

Having found his way for years now, Bartimaeus didn’t even need to touch the barbed-wire fence along the way. He could tell, by the sound of the river, how close he was, and when his father’s voice sent chills across his body, he knew to turn right with outstretched hands until Gus paused his lamentation
and said simply, “Come.” Then he waded into the moving water until the pat on his head confirmed that he needn’t go any farther. Without preamble, he lent his voice and, together, father and son extracted from the universe the healing—or, rather, now, the thanksgiving—necessary for their souls’ redemption. With Gus screeching alto, the river took the tenor part, and, for the sake of balanced harmony, Bartimaeus cried the soprano. Emma Jean stood on the porch and said, “Goddamnit! Sound like a bunch o’ women hollerin’!” She knew someone would ask her about the shift in tone, and she didn’t know how she’d explain it. Their annual presence at the river never bothered her—everyone had long accepted Gus’s and Bartimaeus’s irregularity—but at least in years past they had sounded like men crying out in battle.
Men!
Now, folks might be wondering if Emma Jean had joined them.

Oblivious to and uninterested in others’ assessment, Gus wept and screamed exultations to God, Who had done exactly as he had requested. Relinquishing his staff, he shuffled waist deep into the Jordan, pounding his chest and arms as though self-flagellation intensified his praise. Bartimaeus moved his small hands across the water’s surface, trying hard to sustain the C above middle C while asking God to protect Paul in the future. He had convinced Gus to help Paul, and now he felt better about things. Of course life for all the Peaces might have been different had he told what he knew, but that was in the past now. His hope at the Jordan was that God would build a fortress around his little brother if he’d purge completely, so Bartimaeus took a step forward, filled his diaphragm with air, and hollered, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!” until he felt certain that God would honor his plea.

The two were home by dark. When they entered, Gus retired his cane to the corner, smiled, and said, “It is finished.” Woody retrieved dry clothes and, after father and son changed, they joined the family in the living room and the cleansing of 1954 was history.

Gus decided to love Paul just because he was a Peace. The boy had proven himself strong, like Lucy, and that was all Gus had been worried about. Paul even looked like her, Gus thought, lying on the cot, sweating and fighting for his life, and Gus admitted that if he lost Paul or any of his boys, he’d never be right again. Even the rains couldn’t have fixed his heart if that had happened. So, for now, Gus was glad that the broth or Emma Jean’s prayer or maybe both had worked the necessary magic. He didn’t care what people said anymore.
Paul was his son, and if he was a little effeminate, then, hell, that’s simply what he was.

He relaxed his guard in the boy’s presence and never hit him again. He’d thought all weak men were sissies, and maybe they were, but Paul had shown him that not all sissies were weak. Now Gus liked him. He didn’t know what would become of the boy, but he felt sure that, from now on, Paul could take care of himself.

King Solomon rose before dawn on August 30, 1954, determined to keep his promise. Tears blurred his vision as he scurried about the living room, packing books he couldn’t bear to leave, and bagging the few clothing items he owned. Dressed in a black and green flannel shirt and his good overalls, he stopped suddenly and surveyed the room. What if he failed? What if he was forced to return, days later, to face Emma Jean’s doubtful eyes? What if Miss Erma’s clandestine tutoring—which would have pissed Emma Jean off had she known—hadn’t been enough? No, that couldn’t be. It had to be enough. Sol
had
to succeed. If he didn’t, he’d die by the roadside, he swore, before he gave Emma Jean the satisfaction of believing he couldn’t make it without her.

Paul rolled over and looked into Sol’s almond-shaped, weepy eyes. If he hadn’t been so dark, he would definitely have been the best looking of all the Peace boys, people said. Standing six foot two, he had a lean, muscular physique that made women lust privately for the comfort of his arms, especially when, in his unusually articulate way, he murmured, “Good afternoon.” With teeth white as snow and straight as the spikes in a comb, his smile increased his allure and convinced mothers that some girl would be mighty lucky to get that smart, black Peace boy.

Sol stared at Paul and said, “I gotta go, man. I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Where you goin’?”

Mister yawned and shook the sleep from his head.