Perfect Peace

by Daniel Black

  “Now. Step into these.” Emma Jean held open the overalls as Perfect obeyed. “Good. You’re gonna be fine.” Emma Jean buckled the straps.

  Perfect stared at her mother as though she had never seen her. Was this some sort of joke? Why was Emma Jean doing this? Perfect couldn’t be a boy for real. Not really. Could she?

  “Now. One more thing.”

  Emma Jean motioned for Perfect to sit, and, like a robotic zombie, she complied. Her tears continued to flow, but the sobbing had ceased. She gazed straight ahead as though out of touch with reality. The straps of the overalls drooped over her thin shoulders, and she still wasn’t sure why Emma Jean was doing this to her.

  After rummaging through the bag, Emma Jean removed a pair of scissors and stood behind the paralyzed child. “This hurts me more than it does you. Believe me. I wish there was another way, but there ain’t. If I didn’t do this now, you’d hate me later, and I couldn’t live with that. This way, we’ll go through everything together.” She removed the ribbons from Perfect’s hair and began to clip it away in clusters. Stray pieces fell slowly, quietly across her shoulders and onto her lap, and all Perfect could do was weep. She couldn’t imagine what she’d look like without hair, but she had a feeling others wouldn’t call her pretty anymore. “You gon’ always be my baby,” Emma Jean assured her. “Don’t make no difference if you a girl or boy.” She cut the hair as short as she could manage with a pair of scissors, then tried her best to shape it. “There. That’ll do for now.” She stepped from behind Perfect and inspected her work. “You real handsome.” She collected the clumps of hair and put them in the bag. Perfect never moved.

  Emma Jean then pulled her to her feet. “All right. This is a new beginning. You a boy now. It ain’t got to be hard ’less you make it hard. It’ll feel a little awkward at first, but, like I said, you’ll get used to it. Now wipe your face and let’s go.”

  Emma Jean was speaking jibberish for all Perfect knew. She felt like unwanted lint, picked and, tossed to the wind without a care. What would her brothers say? Wouldn’t they ask where their sister had gone?

  Every few steps, Perfect stumbled or bumped into trees as Emma Jean dragged her home. Years later, she would try to recall exactly how the transition had occurred, only to find a blank space in her memory where details should have been. All she remembered was crying and begging her mother to stop—had she actually said it or did she just think it?—but Emma Jean was determined to accomplish the mission at hand. She had decided that Perfect’s life as a girl was over, so, without warning or preamble, she ended it—just like that. That’s what she remembered. And her life was never the same again.

  Emma Jean had practiced what she would say to Gus and the boys, but when she stepped through the door, her mind went blank. Authorly was the first to notice, and his “Oh shit!” captured everyone’s attention.

  Gus turned, prepared to slap Authorly in the mouth, but froze when he saw his distorted daughter.

  “Everyone,” Emma Jean announced slowly, “ain’t no easy way to say this, so I’m just gon’ say it.” She positioned Perfect in front of her and rested her hands on Perfect’s shoulders.

  Mister’s mouth fell open. His brothers stared and waited. Gus glanced from Perfect to Emma Jean, unable to imagine why someone had done this to his baby girl. He stood slowly.

  Gus’s facial contortions ruined Emma Jean’s resolve. She had planned to tell the truth, and then to ask the men for forgiveness. Simple as that. It would be awkward, she knew, but she could endure it. She hadn’t planned for Gus to rise and gape at her like one prepared to destroy her if her explanation wasn’t sufficient.

  “When Perfect was born,” Emma Jean muttered, “I wanted a girl. Gus, you remember. I always wanted girls, but I didn’t have none. You boys was fine, but I needed a girl. Someone I could dress up and make feel pretty. You know what I mean?” She tried to smile, but no one smiled in return. “So I did . . . something I shouldn’t’ve done.” Her voice broke. Perfect had been crying the entire time. “I lied. I told y’all the child was a girl, but it wasn’t.” She dropped her head. “It was a boy.”

  Now Bartimaeus understood.

  Gus inched forward in slow motion, studying Emma Jean’s face.

  “I needed a girl!” she proclaimed. “Cain’t you understand that? Every mother wants a girl. It’s a woman’s dream.”

  “What?” Gus whispered in fury. “You did what?” He was approaching like a starving lioness before the kill.

  “Gus, listen. Please. I know this don’t make much sense to you right now, but you gotta try to understand where I was then.”

  “I ain’t understandin’ nothin’ you sayin,’ woman!” he screamed. Authorly stood beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma Jean whined. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. It just got out of hand.”

  Gus lifted Perfect’s bowed head and, for the first time, saw his own reflection, although he still didn’t believe what Emma Jean was saying.

  “You lyin’, Emma Jean. My baby girl ain’t no boy.”

  Authorly touched his father’s shoulder, but Gus jerked away violently.

  “Do you think I’d lie about something like this, man?”

  Gus looked at Perfect and said, “You my little girl. You gon’ always be my little girl, and ain’t nothin’ gon’ change that.”

  “Stop, Gus! Listen to what I’m sayin’! I lied to you, I lied to everybody when this child was born ’cause I needed a girl. I knew it couldn’t last forever, but I—”

  Gus slapped Emma Jean so hard the boys gasped and held their breaths. Authorly stepped toward him, but the look in Gus’s eyes made the boy halt.

  “I don’t know what you done done,” he whispered vehemently, “but this ain’t no boy.” His pointed finger trembled.

  Emma Jean sobbed and nodded. “Yes, it is, Gus. Yes it is. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would do this to you. I never knew you even wanted a girl.”

  “I wanted a girl when I got one!” he shouted. “Now I don’t know why you cut her hair off and I don’t know why she got on them clothes—”

  “ ’Cause he’s a boy, Gus,” Emma Jean sniffled. “He’s a boy.”

  Gus’s eyes watered and his mouth quivered. “If what you sayin’ is true, you prove it to me right now.”

  “I’m tellin’ you—”

  “Don’t tell me nothin’! I said prove it!”

  “But the only way you gon’ know for sure—”

  Suddenly he turned to Perfect. “Take them clothes off.”

  “Oh no, honey. Don’t do this. Not now. Don’t embarrass him in front o’ his brothers. He ain’t ready for nothin’ like that.”

  “I said, take them damn clothes off!”

  Emma Jean reached to assist, but Gus wouldn’t allow it.

  “Not you!” He pushed her hands away. “You,” he said to Perfect. “You do it yo’self.”

  Perfect submitted, dropping his overalls to the floor. Only his underwear remained. Gus thought he saw a bulge, but was still unsatisfied.

  “Take ’em off,” he demanded.

  “Please, Gus, don’t do this! Not in front of the boys! Take him in the room or outside, but don’t—”

  “Shut the hell up, Emma Jean!”

  Perfect’s sobbing returned as he lowered his underwear to his ankles.

  When Gus saw the miniature penis, he screamed, “No! Oh God, no!” and crumpled to his knees. Authorly embraced him.

  The brothers looked on in disbelief.

  “I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” Emma Jean repeated. “If I could do it all over again, I’d do it different.” She knelt beside Gus. “Baby, I know you upset, but please try to understand.”

  Gus lunged at her before Authorly could restrain him. He smacked Emma Jean’s face three or four times, then pinned her neck to the floor with his thick, rough hands. “What did you do this for! You ain’t got no right to do nobody like this! What the hell is wrong with you!” Emma Jean coul
dn’t breathe. “You didn’t have to do this!” He might have strangled her to death had Authorly not jumped on Gus’s back and, with Woody’s assistance, wrestled Gus’s hands away from her throat.

  Emma Jean squirmed upon the floor in breathless agony. Perfect had closed his eyes once he removed his underwear, and never knew that it was Mister who had replaced them.

  Gus sat panting in the middle of the living room floor. Emma Jean’s heavy gasping meant nothing to him. A boy? Perfect was a boy? All these years he had been kissing a boy? He thought of Perfect in his lap and shook his head. Gus had absolutely no way to comprehend what, now, he couldn’t deny—he had seen the penis himself. How had Emma Jean done it? How had she lied to him—and everyone else—without detection? Why didn’t he suspect something? He had never been clever, he admitted, but shouldn’t a father know instinctively about his own kids? Shouldn’t he at least have sensed that something was different?

  Mister escorted Perfect to the sofa and wiped his face with a ball of tissue. His quivering elicited Mister’s sympathy and caused him to whisper, “Just be still. It’s gonna be okay. Don’t say nothin’ right now. Just be quiet.”

  Perfect nodded. His uneven, partially straight, stubby hair made him look as though he had been in a brawl and lost badly. Wedged between Mister and Sol, who kept looking at him sympathetically, Perfect watched Emma Jean crawl into the bedroom and kick the door closed behind her. As the rains of ’48 began, Gus exited clumsily, tripping over the upturned edge of the battered living room rug, but never made it to the Jordan. Too angry and confused to purge, he simply escaped to the barn and shouted every curse word he knew instead of murdering the mother of his children. With no one to guide him, Bartimaeus skipped the cleansing, too, and wept openly, right in the middle of the living room, about all the ways he could have protected his family. Especially Gus. He didn’t deserve this. He was a good daddy, Bartimaeus thought, who worked hard and treated people kindly. And now Gus was devastated, all because Bartimaeus was too afraid to act.

  An hour later, Authorly gathered the brothers together in the living room. He sat in the chair opposite the sofa and, with the coffin/coffee table between them, said, “Woody, Sol, Mister, James Earl, Bartimaeus . . . we got ourselves another brother. I ain’t sho how this happened, but we all know it’s true. Can’t nobody deny that. We done seen it for ourselves. Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do about it now but accept it and keep on livin’.”

  Perfect never lifted his head. He knew he wasn’t beautiful anymore. His brothers’ energies convinced him that, now, he was ordinary, simple, common just like them. It was strange to Perfect how his world was shifting without his consent. He didn’t feel safe like he once did in his brothers’ presence. Sitting on the sofa shivering, with his head practically touching his knees, he felt his previous life ooze away as his brothers ushered him into a more harsh, less sympathetic reality. And they did this without uttering a word. Perfect sensed that if he cried now, Authorly’s normally protective gaze would be replaced with something more corrective, so Perfect trembled and covered his mouth. What he really wanted was to run and hide in Emma Jean’s bosom, but somehow he knew that wasn’t an option. Who would touch and hold him now? Usually when he cried, someone embraced him and reassured his heart, but now all hands avoided him. That’s how he knew he was different. Or no longer different. His pain was insignificant to his brothers and, for the first time in his life, he was responsible for his own healing.

  Sol dragged his heavy heart to the edge of the porch and sang sweetly, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless chiiiiild, sometimes I feel like a motherless chiiiiiild, sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a looooong way from hooooome, a loooooong way from home,” while Perfect sat transfixed in a sea of sorrow.

  Chapter 15

  Moments later, Authorly knocked on Emma Jean’s bedroom door. “Momma?” he whispered, then entered uninvited.

  Emma Jean was curled in a fetal position upon the floor. She had tried to lift herself to the bed, but simply didn’t have the strength. Gus had caught her off guard. She didn’t know he had it in him to fight, but now she knew. He would’ve killed her, she was certain, had Authorly and Woody not intervened. Now she couldn’t help but wonder what Gus might do when the rains ended.

  “You all right, Momma?”

  Her groan revealed that at least she was alive. Authorly lifted her as though carrying a new bride across a threshold and laid her gently upon the bed. He saw where Gus’s fingernails had scratched her neck, and he knew that, for a while, she’d be terrified of him. Good, Authorly thought. She deserves everything she gets.

  Emma Jean cleared her throat and massaged her neck. “Thank you, son. I’m all right.”

  Authorly walked to the window and noticed Mister talking to Perfect in the yard. “What’s wrong with you, Momma? Why would you do something like this?”

  Emma Jean sighed. “I don’t know, son. It made sense then, I guess. I’m not sayin’ it was right, but it made so much more sense then than it does now.”

  “You lied to everybody, Momma.” Authorly turned from the window. “And you made Perfect think he was somethin’ he ain’t.”

  “I know what I did, and I’m gon’ have to live with it the rest o’ my life. But I meant well.”

  “How? How could you do somethin’ like that and mean well?”

  “ ’Cause I wanted a daughter. That’s all. I know you can’t understand that, but that’s what I needed then. I didn’t mean to mess up the child’s life, and I certainly didn’t mean to cause confusion in this family.”

  “Well, you did. And I’ll never see you the same way again.”

  Emma Jean’s eyes begged for forgiveness, but Authorly refused.

  “I don’t know how he’ll ever survive this, Momma. And it’s all your fault.”

  “He gon’ survive it,” Emma Jean assured him. “We jes’ gotta help him. He’ll grow up and everything’ll be okay.”

  “Be okay? He ain’t never gon’ be okay.”

  “Sure he will. If people let him be.”

  “But they ain’t! You know that!”

  “You probably right, but still Perfect got to live. And if he’s willin’ to fight, he can live good. Anybody can live good—soon as they decide the world can kiss they ass. We jes’ gotta help him be clear about it. Me, you, yo’ brothers, Gus.”

  Authorly’s frustration overwhelmed him. “Momma, I can’t believe you did this.” His head shook continuously. “I’ll never forgive you for it.”

  “You’ll understand one day.”

  “The only thing I’ll ever understand is that you ain’t the mother I thought you was.”

  Emma Jean’s eyes moistened, but she didn’t cry.

  “And now you got the nerve to ask the rest of us to help him? After what you done did? You a piece o’ work, Momma. That’s for sure.”

  “Who you talkin’ to, boy? You ain’t grown!”

  “I ain’t tryin’ to be grown. I’m just sayin’ you don’t have no right to ask nobody for nothin’.”

  “You can’t tell me what rights I got! You ain’t nothin’ but a chile! Don’t forget who the momma is here!”

  Authorly turned away.

  “I’m sayin’ we gotta help the boy ’cause he gotta live, and right now he don’t know how to live. You de strong one ’round here, Authorly, so you could do a lot for him if you would.”

  Authorly chuckled. “I don’t believe this! You tellin’ me it’s my job to fix what you messed up?”

  “No, it ain’t yo’ job,” Emma Jean emphasized, “but I hope you do what you can. All the boys look up to you, so maybe you could teach Perfect a thing or two ’bout bein’ a man.”

  “Wow. You don’t have no shame at all, Momma, do you?”

  “You just don’t understand, son. That’s all.”

  “I ain’t tryin’ to!” He stomped angrily toward the door, then turned. “You ain’t sorry for none o’ this? You don’t feel bad ’bout nothin’ you
did?”

  Emma Jean rolled over and said, “Don’t come in here judgin’ me, boy. You don’t know what I done been through and you ain’t got no right to talk to me like that. I know you confused and all, but—”

  “Confused? I ain’t confused! I’m real clear ’bout what you done done. Real clear! And, like you always say, God don’t like ugly, so get ready.”

  “Don’t you threaten me, boy! I done spent my whole life sufferin’, so don’t you never talk to me like that again!” Emma Jean declared. “I done lost my only daughter and here you come—”

  “You didn’t have no daughter, Momma! He was a boy from the beginnin’!”

  “I know what he was!” Emma Jean screamed. “But he was still my daughter as long as he thought he was. I ain’t callin’ it right, boy, but it’s what I needed. Maybe everybody in dis house gon’ be mad at me for the rest of my life, but, goddamnit, don’t tell me I didn’t deserve it! You don’t know enough about my life to tell me nothin’! Shit!”

  Authorly left. Emma Jean was apparently referencing things he had no idea about, and, really, he didn’t care. All he knew was that his little brother’s life would be hell now, and it was all because of Emma Jean Peace.

  Authorly joined Sol on the porch. His soothing tenor calmed Authorly’s nerves. From a distance, he studied his two little brothers and wondered how in the world they’d ever get the girl out of Perfect. The haircut and overalls didn’t amend the sway of his narrow hips or harden his soft demeanor, and as Authorly recoiled with repulsion, he promised—for the sake of the family, not Emma Jean—to make a boy out of Perfect if it was the last thing he did.

  In the barn, Gus shouted, “Goddamnit! Shit! I shoulda knowed!” as he paced across scattered hay and mounds of dried mule dung, trying unsuccessfully to determine how all of this had happened right under his nose. Really, he was cursing himself for having been naïve. What a poor excuse for a father he was, he told himself. How would Authorly or the others respect him now? And what the hell was wrong with Emma Jean! What human being could think of such a thing? He had let her live, he rationalized, only because the boys needed their mother. Otherwise, he would have sent her to her grave, right behind Mae Helen.