Perfect Peace (44 page)

“He’ll be just fine, thank you. If he get married, I expect him to honor his vows like everybody else s’pose to.”

Henrietta’s head jerked around. “How do you do it? Huh? How do you just ignore truth and create the reality you want?”

“Oh come on, Henrietta! Finish the suit!”

Henrietta shrugged and continued sewing. “I don’t get it. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t get a wink o’ sleep if I did some o’ de stuff you did.” She stared at Emma Jean. “At least I could sew. That saved my life. When I burned my medicine bag, that’s the only thing I had to fall back on. And thank God folks need clothes, ’cause otherwise me and Trish woulda starved to death.”

The mention of Trish was the break Emma Jean needed. “How is the preacher’s daughter?”

Henrietta’s flappable tongue calmed. “Trish is doin’ just fine.”

It was Emma Jean’s turn to cackle. “So! Did you ever tell her the truth?”

“Don’t start that again, Emma Jean. You know good and damn well it ain’t the same thing.”

“Well, like I said years ago, every woman gotta fight for whatever piece of
life she gon’ have. You fought for what you wanted, and so did I, so let’s just leave things be.”

“You better pray somebody don’t hurt that boy for real. He got a long, hard road in front o’ him and you know people ain’t sympathetic to boys like that.”

“Somebody done already hurt him for real and he survived, so don’t worry ’bout my child. And the next person lay a hand on him gon’ have to deal with me!”

Within the next several hours, Emma Jean watched Henrietta work magic on the mess she had created. Just before six, Henrietta said, “I’ll give you until after the dance. But from then on, I intend to see you at the crack of dawn every day.” Henrietta displayed the suit for Emma Jean’s inspection.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“Yes it is, if I must say so myself. No need for thanks. You’ll earn every penny of it. I promise you that.”

Gus and the boys were lounging at the kitchen table when Emma Jean returned.

“Where you been at, woman?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Gustavus Peace!” Emma Jean said. “I got a surprise for everybody.”

The boys stared in anticipation.

“I been workin’ on somethin’ the past couple o’ days, and now it’s complete. Paul, this is for you.” She pulled the suit from the bag.

“Oh wow,” he murmured, walking slowly toward Emma Jean. “It’s real nice, Momma. Real nice!”

“Yes it is,” she sang with a smile.

Paul touched it as though it were fragile. “Where’d you get it from?”

“I didn’t get it from nowhere. I
made
it.”

Woody and Mister gasped.

Gus said, “You made it?”

“That’s right! I had a little help, but, for the most part, I did it all by myself.”

“When did you start sewin’?”

“I
been
sewin’, man. You don’t know everything about me.”

“It looks really good, Momma,” Mister said, struggling not to be jealous.

“Thank you, son. Now, Paul, go try it on.”

Emma Jean placed the cast-iron skillet on the stove and extracted eggs from the icebox. When Paul emerged, the men moaned with admiration.

“You looks mighty fine, boy,” Gus said, nodding. “Mighty fine!”

Woody and Mister gawked in silence. Bartimaeus asked, “What does he look like, y’all?”

“He look like a handsome, black prince,” Gus said.

“Ah, Daddy. I don’t look
that
good.”

“Oh yes you do! I ain’t never seen a Peace man in a suit who didn’t look good.”

Emma Jean turned and beheld her dream. “Oh my Lord! Look at my baby.” She clasped her mouth. “It’s perfect. It’s just perfect! You look incredible, son.”

The boys surrounded Paul and whispered their praise. Gus told Emma Jean, “You outdid yo’self this time, woman.”

“Didn’t I!” Emma Jean sassed. “But, really, it wunnit nothin’. He had to have somethin’ to wear to the dance.”

Mister smiled beyond his hurt. “I hope Christina got a real pretty dress, ’cause if she don’t, you gon’ make her look bad!”

The family laughed as Mister exited to feed the chickens.

“I appreciate this, Momma,” Paul said, peering into Emma Jean’s eyes. “You didn’t have to do it.”

“Well, of course I did. You deserve it. And, anyway, it ain’t nothin’. I just want you to be happy.” She kissed Paul’s cheek and became giddy, temporarily forgetting the price she’d soon have to pay. For now, his joy was the point and that alone was her pleasure.

“Don’t get it dirty, son. We sho ain’t got no money to clean it. Take it off and go hang it back up. You’ll get to wear it soon enough.”

After obeying his mother, Paul joined the others at the kitchen table and said, “You musta sat up all night sewing.”

“Don’t you worry ’bout that. You jes’ focus on yo’ part and I’ll always make sure I take care o’ mine.”

“I didn’t even know you could sew.”

“Well, like I said, don’t you worry ’bout that. What you don’t know could make another world, chile.” She placed the scrambled eggs on the table and extracted biscuits from the oven.

Paul imagined the look on his peers’ faces when he appeared at the dance. He hadn’t been this anxious since seeing the chocolate-covered lemon cake on his eighth birthday. He couldn’t wait for Johnny Ray to see him. Maybe then he’d speak.

“Well, y’all come on and eat,” Emma Jean called, placing chipped plates and mismatched cutlery on the table. “Where did Mister go?”

“He went to feed the chickens,” Woody said.

Gus frowned. “It don’t take nobody this long to feed no chickens. Paul, go get yo’ brother and tell him to come on and let’s eat.”

Glancing around outside, Paul called for Mister but didn’t see him. Before reentering the house, he saw Mister’s shirttail disappear into the nearby forest. “Mister!” he screamed, but Mister never turned. What was he going into the woods for? Paul stood on the porch momentarily, staring at the space where Mister had vanished. He felt awkward, as though having witnessed something he shouldn’t have. He decided not to mention anything to the others and to ask Mister about it later.

“I didn’t see him,” Paul said, and took his seat at the table.

“Well, he’ll just have to eat later,” Emma Jean said. “Gus, bless the food before it gets cold.”

Mister hoped the family would ignore his absence long enough for him to do what he needed to do. At twenty-one, against everyone’s prediction, he had blossomed into the most virile, physically desirable of the Peace boys—even beyond Paul—and most agreed that his only rival was Johnny Ray Youngblood. His chiseled chest, arms, abs, and thighs caused Authorly to say, upon viewing Mister’s naked torso, “Boy, you done got fine as hell!” His entire childhood was filled with visions of leaving home and moving to a place where he had his own bed and maybe even his own room. But what would Gus and Emma Jean do without him? Woody would leave soon, he thought, and Bartimaeus was useless, for the most part. Paul would probably go to college since he had gone to high school, so Mister feared his escape would mean the starvation of his parents. Gus would always work, Mister knew, but, with a stubborn hip, he certainly couldn’t work the farm alone, and, since the fire, Emma Jean’s productivity had never quite rebounded. Yet the real reason Mister stayed, the reason churning in his soul, went far beyond the welfare of his parents, or his brothers’ future. In fact, a year or so later when Bartimaeus married and moved out, shortly after Woody, Mister cried. Not because of some fraternal longing, but because along with Bartimaeus went the cover for the truth of Mister’s stagnation. No one understood why such a handsome young man didn’t take a wife and raise countless children the way other southern black men did. But he couldn’t tell it—not if he wanted to live in Swamp Creek—for had he followed his heart, he would have announced to
the world his love for Johnny Ray Youngblood. Women—including Emma Jean—had worshiped Johnny Ray so much that, as a child, Mister wanted to be like him and, as an adult, he wanted to be with him. Maybe Emma Jean would have approved, Mister considered, happy that Johnny Ray found at least one of her children desirable, but Mister wouldn’t have dared to mention such a thing. In various sermons, Woody made the community’s position on sexuality quite clear, calling same-sex attraction a disease, an abomination, a reproach to humanity as the congregation shouted, “Amen!” The last thing Mister wanted was to be the source of familial shame. He was certain Gus knew nothing of homosexuality—he knew about sissies, but that was different—and mentioning as much would surely have incited unbridled confusion in an already mentally fragile man. So Mister hid in his parents’ house, trying frantically, on bended knees, to pray away desires that seemed only to intensify. Out of sheer desperation, he confessed his struggle to Paul the evening of the day Emma Jean unveiled the suit, believing that, if anyone would love him unconditionally, Paul would.

“Where’d you go this morning? I saw you run off in the woods.”

Mister closed his eyes. “I had to meet somebody.”

“In the woods?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Mister sighed. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay. Go ’head. What is it?”

“Well . . .”

“Just say it. You can tell me anything.”

Mister huffed and said, “I have . . . um . . . feelings for boys.”

“What!”

“Shhhhhh. Be quiet, man. I ain’t tryin’ to tell the whole world.”

Paul was lost somewhere between surprise and curiosity.

“I jes’ can’t help it. God knows I tried. I don’t know where the feelings come from and I sho don’t know how to get rid of ’em. I wish I could. I done asked God to take ’em away, but He won’t do it.”

Paul bit his fingernails.

“Say something, please. Anything.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mister.”

“Ain’t you never had no feelings for a boy? I thought that maybe you had, considerin’ everything you been through.”

“Naw, I ain’t never had no feelings for a boy. Not like
that
.” Paul hated himself for lying.

“No? Really?” Mister glanced at Paul in disbelief, then shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what to do.”

“And I don’t know what to tell you.” Why, he wondered, hadn’t he trusted Mister as much as Mister had trusted him?

“Sometimes when we sittin’ in the NAACP meetins or goin’ ’round talkin’ to folks, I can’t hardly concentrate for lookin’ at Johnny Ray.”

“Johnny Ray!” Paul shouted.

“Yeah. Johnny Ray Youngblood. You know Johnny Ray, right?”

“I know him.” Paul feared he couldn’t hide his disappointment.

“I try to get him outta my mind, but most times I can’t.”

“Johnny Ray?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothin’.”

“You actin’ like it’s somethin’.”

“Oh no. It ain’t nothin’. Really. I’m just a little surprised, I guess. He seems so . . . I don’t know . . . quiet.” Paul became dazed.

“Well, he’s the one.”

Oh no
, Paul thought.
This can’t be
.

He’d never tell anyone about his feelings for Johnny Ray now, and he assumed it wouldn’t matter anyway. Johnny Ray wanted Mister, and Paul didn’t know how to abort the contempt growing in his heart.
What does Mister have that I don’t?
he wondered.
And what is it about me that Johnny Ray doesn’t like?
His brows furrowed as he realized that the man he’d always wanted, the only one his mother might’ve approved of, loved his brother instead. He couldn’t imagine what they did out there in the woods, but he knew they must have been driven by love, for had anyone caught them, their own fathers would have hanged them.

“We can’t live this way,” Mister whispered into Johnny Ray’s mouth. They sat on the edge of a tree stump.

“I know. I know,” Johnny Ray said, caressing Mister’s thick brows with his thumbs.

“And we can’t keep meeting like this. What if somebody sees us?”

Johnny Ray sighed. “I’d just tell ’em how much I love you. And why.”

Mister stood. “This ain’t funny!”

“I ain’t makin’ no joke.”

“We can’t live like this!” Mister repeated.

“Then leave me,” Johnny Ray said matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“If you so tortured, just leave me and let’s be done with it.”

Mister resumed his seat. “I never said I was tortured.”

“Well, you act like it.”

“I’m sorry, man. I just don’t want this . . . this thing between us to get out.”

“It can’t long as we keep quiet. Anyway, if it did, we’d just have to confess our love for each other. To hell with what the rest of the world thinks. I’d even give up the organization if I had to in order to be with you.”

“It ain’t that easy, and you know it. What would your father say?”