by Daniel Black
“Boys! Hurry up!”
Authorly led the pack, wondering why Gus was so anxious. Bartimaeus stopped at the edge of the porch. He, too, had never heard such enthusiasm in his father’s voice. “What is it?” he asked.
Gus flung back the tarp like one revealing a wagonload of cash. “Isn’t she a beauty?” he said.
Authorly motioned for his brothers to hold their peace. “Daddy, what are we suppose to do with that thing?”
Gus looked disappointed. “Thing? Are you kidding? This is our new coffee table!”
The boys gawked.
“Well, it wasn’t suppose to be a coffee table, but it can be. Help me get it in the house.”
The boys didn’t move until Authorly nodded. Each tried to recall when Gus’s mind had begun to slip, only to conclude that it was probably long before their time. The new coffee table was heavy, so the older brothers lifted it from the wagon like pallbearers and ushered it into the Peace living room.
Bartimaeus touched the top as it passed and knew this wasn’t a good omen.
“Sit it in front of the couch!” Gus instructed gleefully.
The boys obeyed.
“Yes, right there! That’s perfect. Now go get yo’ momma. She gon’ be so happy!”
Authorly screamed out the back door for Emma Jean. When she entered, she stumbled in shock.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t chu love it!” Gus said. “And it’s brand-new, too. Didn’t cost a dime.” His chest protruded with pride. “It’s a coffee table. At least now it is.”
Emma Jean studied Gus’s face as though he were a stranger.
“Okay! It’s a wooden coffin, but if we drape a cloth over it, nobody’ll ever know the difference! Undertaker gave it to me free. Somebody was s’pose to die who didn’t, so he told me I could have it. You been talkin’ ’bout wantin’ a coffee table, so now you got one!” He smiled.
Emma Jean trembled. Had Gus gone completely crazy?
“You don’t have to thank me. A good man provides for his family.”
Gus exited while the others stood frozen in horror. It would be several minutes before Emma Jean thawed and said, “Just throw a sheet over the damn thing. Hurry up.”
Still traumatized, Authorly laid the sheet gently, as though the coffin were too fragile to hold its weight, and the family never spoke of the matter again. A month later, Emma Jean converted the coffin into the family chest, filling it with memorabilia, especially Perfect’s childhood things, then using it as the coffee table Gus had suggested in the first place. He knew she’d come around.
A month after that, Authorly shifted the memorabilia to the foot of the coffin, and Bartimaeus began sleeping in it. Padded with one of Emma Jean’s old quilts, it would definitely be more comfortable than the floor, Authorly explained, and since Bartimaeus wasn’t troubled by it the way others would have been, he lay in it without reservation and slept there until he moved out of the house. He loved Authorly for deferring unto him a place of such comfort.
When company pointed and whispered, “Is that a . . . um . . . coffin under there?” Gus shouted, “Yeah! Ain’t that a great idea?” while the rest of the family coiled in shame.
Bartimaeus was the only brother Emma Jean trusted to be alone with Perfect. His handicap convinced Emma Jean that he was a safe companion, so she relaxed her guard and let the two do as they pleased. Sometimes they’d play hide-and-seek in the front yard—Perfect was always the seeker—but most times they’d walk the back roads of Swamp Creek with Bartimaeus holding Perfect’s narrow elbow and talking about whatever he happened to be wondering that day.
“Do fish sleep?” he posed one lazy Sunday afternoon. He had recently turned thirteen. Perfect was seven.
“I don’t know. I ain’t neva thought about it.”
“I bet they do. All living things sleep, don’t they?”
“I guess so.”
“Maybe they only need a few minutes since they don’t work or nothin’.”
“How you know they don’t work?” Perfect asked, eager to prove Bartimaeus wrong whenever she could.
“Because they don’t need money. You only work if you need money, right?”
“I guess so,” Perfect said, defeated.
“God takes care of all their needs.”
“Then why don’t God do it for people, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe He don’t like people as much as He like everything else.”
“But Reverend Lindsey say God made people in His own image, so it wouldn’t make sense for Him not to like ’em.”
“You got me on that one.” Bartimaeus smiled. Perfect did, too.
They walked farther, and Perfect saw a bull mating with a cow.
“Why’s that cow sticking her thing inside that other cow?”
Bartimaeus laughed. “That’s how they make baby cows, Daddy said. But the one with the thing is the boy. The other one’s the girl.”
“No it’s not,” Perfect contested. “The girl’s the one with the thing. Just like I got.”
Bartimaeus hollered. “What? You ain’t got no thing, girl!”
“Yes I do!” Perfect insisted.
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do!” she screamed louder.
“Okay. If you say so, then I guess you do.”
“I do,” Perfect repeated. “Girls have little things down there”—she pointed to her genitalia—“but I don’t know what boys have.”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Perfect shrugged. They walked farther.
“Something smells sweet,” Bartimaeus said, sniffing the air.
“Oh, that’s the honeysuckle bush right in front o’ you.”
“What does it look like?”
“Um . . . it’s big with little green leaves and yellow flowers. It’s real pretty.”
“I wish I could see a honeysuckle bush.” His eyes moistened as he reached forward.
“Maybe you will one day.”
“I doubt it. I won’t ever see a honeysuckle bush or anything else.”
“How you know? God might make you see one day.”
“God ain’t gon’ make me see ’cause once God do somethin’ He don’t neva change. That’s what Daddy said. He said He de same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so I ain’t gon’ neva see nothin’.”
Perfect took her brother’s hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Momma say miracles still happen. Sometimes.”
“If I could just see for a day,” he whimpered, “that would be good enough for me.”
Perfect didn’t know what to say.
“I just wanna know if I imagine things right. That’s all.”
“Well, I’d give you my eyes if I could. At least I’d give you one of ’em.”
Bartimaeus blushed. “Thanks, Perfect, but I guess God didn’t mean for me to have ’em.”
“I’ll describe the whole world to ya!” Perfect shouted. “That way, you’ll see everything everybody else see. At least sorta.”
“It don’t matter. I bet I imagine it better than it is anyway. I’d probably be disappointed if I saw the truth.”
Perfect looked around. “I don’t know. The world is beautiful. Everything’s green or purple or yellow or brown and everything changes colors from one part of the year to the next.” Perfect paused.
“Tell me more.”
“Well, the sky is real blue and birds fly all around—”
“What does blue look like?”
Perfect was dumbfounded. “I don’t know. I can’t describe it, but it’s pretty. It makes you feel warm inside.”
Bartimaeus nodded.
“And the trees are real big with leaves hanging from them. The leaves are green. They make you feel . . . well . . . excited, I guess.”
“Un-huh.”
“And the grass is green, too, but it’s a lighter green than the leaves. It feels soft and fuzzy like black people’s hair.” She pressed Bartimaeus’s hand to the earth and he
smiled. “And the flowers are all different colors and they make you wanna cry ’cause they so pretty.” She picked a honeysuckle blossom and handed it to him. “Just feel it and you can tell what it looks like.”
Bartimaeus obeyed.
“And the wind blows, but can’t nobody see it.”
“Why not? It don’t have no color?”
“I guess not.”
“I’m glad can’t nobody see it, so everybody know what it feels like to be blind. At least sometime.”
“But I ain’t blind.”
“If you can’t see de wind, you a little blind. I guess everybody is though.”
Perfect blew into her palm, straining to see what she obviously felt.
“Wow. I ain’t never thought about it like that.”
“I guess everybody’s blind to a certain extent. Some people jes’ more blind than others, but if nobody can’t see de wind, then, yeah, everybody’s a little blind.”
Perfect felt enlightened.
“There’s a bee over there.” Bartimaeus pointed to his right.
Perfect didn’t see it. “Where?”
“Right over there.” His index finger outlined a small circumference.
When the bee rose and flew away, Perfect murmured, “Wow. How’d you know there was a bee over there if you can’t see?”
“ ’Cause I can hear real good. I guess if God don’t give you one thing, He give you a whole lot more of somethin’ else.”
“What else can you hear?”
“Close yo’ eyes,” Bartimaeus said. “And keep ’em closed ’til you start hearin’ stuff.”
Perfect tried, but didn’t hear anything more than usual.
“I can hear the Jordan.”
“The river?” Perfect screeched. “We ain’t nowhere near de river!”
“But I can still hear it.”
She closed her eyes again, but heard nothing.
“And I can hear a animal walking in de woods.”
Perfect surveyed the trees, but saw nothing.
“And I can hear those birds’ wings flapping way up in the sky.”
“Way up there?”
“Yep. It’s not loud, but I can hear it. And sometimes, if I get real quiet, I can hear my own heartbeat.”
“Really?”
“Un-huh. Like I said, I guess when God takes one thing away He gives you twice as much of something else.”
The two sat at the edge of the road, one seeing, the other hearing and feeling God’s creation.
“I wanna try something,” Perfect said suddenly.
“Okay.”
She lifted Bartimaeus’s hands and pressed them against her cheeks. “Can you tell what I look like?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
He grazed her tender face slowly, nodding as the familiar image coalesced in his mind. “You real pretty,” he said. “Ain’t nothin’ too big or little. You jes’ right.” He felt her smile.
“But what about my legs? Everybody say my legs is real thick.”
“Yo’ legs is just fine, girl.”
Perfect guided his hands down to her kneecaps. “You feel ’em and see if they feel fine to you.”
“Aw, these is great legs,” he teased. “They gon’ hold you up for a long time.”
“I’m glad you like ’em!” she said, relieved. Then, she pressed his hand against her private.
Bartimaeus jerked away. “What was that?” He tumbled backward.
“I told you girls have things down there, dummy!” she chuckled.
“What was that!” Bartimaeus cried again.
From his tone, she knew something was wrong. “What did I do?”
“Oh God! What was that? What was it!” he kept asking.
“It was my—”
“You ain’t s’pose to have that!”
“Why not?”
“Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!”
“What is it?”
Her innocence calmed him.
“L-l-l-listen, Perfect. Somethin’ ain’t right. I don’t know if it’s you or me, but somethin’ ain’t right.”
“What chu talkin’ ’bout, Bartimaeus?”
He tried to still his trembling hands. “Listen to me real good, Perfect. I know you a little girl and all, I know you are, but . . . um . . .”
“But what?” She was practically in tears.
“Somethin’s wrong.”
“What chu mean?”
“I mean, you ain’t s’pose to have that! You a girl!”
Perfect was confused. “I know I’m a girl.”
“And girls is s’pose to have somethin’ else!”
“Huh?”
He rubbed his head. “Perfect, somethin’ ain’t right.”
“Why you keep sayin’ that?” She was becoming annoyed.
“Because it’s true. I . . . um . . . don’t know what it is, but somethin’s real wrong.”
“Then what is it?”
Bartimaeus knew he wasn’t making sense. “Something’s wrong,” he said again.
“What chu mean ‘wrong’?”
Bartimaeus shook his head. “This ain’t right.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this”—Bartimaeus rubbed his head in confusion—“but you ain’t no normal little girl.”
Perfect didn’t understand. Bartimaeus didn’t, either.
“Listen to me, Perfect.” He reached for her hands. “Don’t never, ever let anybody touch you down there again! Do you hear me?”
She thought of how Eva Mae tickled her thighs, although she had never touched her private parts.
“I said, do you hear me!”
“Okay! But why not?”
“Because you cain’t! Never! Don’t ever let anybody touch that again. Nobody!” Bartimaeus shivered as though naked in the snow.
“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, Bartimaeus,” she pleaded.
He reached for her hand. “I know you didn’t. I’m sorry for hollering, Perfect. You right—you didn’t do nothin’ wrong. I just want you to be careful so others don’t hurt you.”
“Why would somebody hurt me?” She still didn’t understand.
“Please, Perfect. Just do what I said. Please.”
“Okay.”
He rubbed her head soothingly, trying to ascertain what to do. Should he mention this to Gus or Emma Jean? Surely they already knew. After all, she was their daughter. Emma Jean definitely had to know. She had changed Perfect’s diapers, so of course she knew. But why hadn’t she told anyone? Didn’t the brothers deserve to know that their sister had a penis? It would be their job to protect her if others found out, but they couldn’t do that if they didn’t know. And that was a penis, wasn’t it? Of course it was. Bartimaeus knew what a penis felt like, having felt his own countless times, but he couldn’t understand why his sister had one.
“Promise me one thing,” he repeated as he released her hand.
She sniffled. “Okay. What?”
“Don’t ever tell anybody else what you got down there.”
“Why not? Every girl’s got—”
“Don’t ever say it again. Ever! They won’t understand and they might try to hurt you.”
Perfect couldn’t understand why he was saying this again.“Who are you talkin’ about?”
“Just don’t say it no more, Perfect! Ever! To nobody! Promise me!”
“All right. I won’t.”
Perfect knew Bartimaeus loved her. She didn’t see the big deal in others knowing she had what she thought every other girl had, but Bartimaeus’s reaction convinced her never to speak about it again.
Sauntering home, Perfect asked a million other questions, none of which Bartimaeus heard. He tried to blot out what he knew, even to wipe the feeling from his hand, but he couldn’t. Maybe he was mistaken, he considered again. Maybe what he had felt wasn’t a penis but a . . . a . . . what? Nothing he recalled felt remotely similar, so he
found himself unable to formulate the lie he needed so desperately.
Perfect didn’t share his trauma. She couldn’t figure out why, every few steps, he stumbled like old, drunk Sugar Baby. She thought that maybe he was hungry or fumbling over stones unseen. Yet, unable to take refuge in the material world, Bartimaeus walked in darkness, rushing to the comfort of his coffin, where he hoped God might clarify his confusion.
God didn’t. In fact, God didn’t say anything. Bartimaeus lay in total silence, waiting for God to send a vision of what he should do, but instead Bartimaeus drifted off to a vacuous sleep, only to be awakened by Mister knocking on the coffin.
“I can’t sleep,” he complained.
“Leave me alone!” Bartimaeus muttered. His voice sounded hollow and distant.
“But everybody else is ’sleep. I don’t got nobody to talk to!”
Bartimaeus opened the top slowly as though rising from the dead. “What do you want?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
Mister shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought that maybe you couldn’t sleep, neither. Daddy said you don’t know night from day.”
Bartimaeus climbed from the coffin and whispered, “Come on, boy.”
He took Mister’s hand and felt his way to the front porch. The balmy night welcomed the brothers, offering a breeze a few degrees cooler than the ninety-degree air circulating in the living room.
“What chu wanna be when you grow up?” Mister asked.
Bartimaeus was in no mood for small talk. All he could think about was Perfect and his inability to help her. “I don’t know. I ain’t thought about it much.”
“I wanna be a preacher,” Mister volunteered. “You wanna know why?”
Bartimaeus nodded.
“ ’Cause preachers get all the food they want! And they get the best of it, too. If Momma burn some o’ de fried chicken, she don’t neva give them pieces to Reverend Lindsey. She give ’em to us and give him the pretty pieces.”
Bartimaeus said, “You s’pose to love God in order to preach.”
“I do love God!” Mister said. “Plus, I like to talk. Aunt Gracie said I have the gift of gab.”
It was true. Mister could speak for hours without pausing, and most people simply walked away when they tired of listening. Whether he’d preach or not was yet to be seen, but what was certain was that, whatever the occupation, he’d have to talk. He’d die otherwise.