Perfect Peace (41 page)

That evening, Mister told Johnny Ray what had happened and, together, they solicited a few other bold young souls for the creation of the Swamp Creek NAACP. Most said it was a good idea, but they didn’t want any part of it. Including Gus and Emma Jean. Things weren’t equal, everyone admitted,
but they were equal
enough
to keep food on the table and clothes on children’s backs.

“But you have a right to everything you earn!” Mister preached at the church picnic. “We can’t keep lettin’ white folks steal our crops and our land. We gotta stand up for ourselves!”

People listened to Mister simply out of courtesy. Even the few who genuinely supported him were distracted by the smell of fried chicken and sweet potato pie.

“What cha’ll think ’bout them folks down in Montgomery?” W. C. asked a gathering of deacons lounging in fold-up chairs beneath the huge churchyard tree.

“I think it’s good,” one said. “It’s ’bout time colored folks do somethin’ ’bout the way we treated.”

“Well, I don’t know ’bout that,” another one said. “ ’Cause, now, they walkin’ to work instead o’ ridin’. That mean they gotta get up earlier and they get home later, and by the time they get to work, they tired already. I mean, I understand fightin’ for what’s right and all, but seem like to me, the way they fightin’ make life harder for theyselves.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” W. C. said. “It’s gotta be a better way than that.”

“Then what is it?” Mister asked. The deacons hadn’t noticed him listening. They fell silent. “If somebody got a better idea than what they doin’, I’d sho love to hear it.”

“All we sayin’,” W. C. defended, “is that if you gon’ fight, make sho you winnin’ on every level.”

“But we cain’t win on every level at first. We gotta start somewhere, Mr. W. C.”

“That’s true, son, that’s true.”

No one else said anything. They simply waited for Mister to leave. When he did, W. C. said, “Young folks think they know everything. That’s why that NAAST or whatever the hell it is ain’t gon’ ‘mount to much, ’cause he and that Youngblood boy think they know everything.”

The other deacons agreed.

Mister and Johnny Ray searched the crowd for eligible, unregistered voters. Assuaging their people’s fear of white retaliation was far more difficult than either young man had the patience for, and, in a few instances, Mister told folks, “Just forget about it!” and moved on. Johnny Ray was more diplomatic
and, therefore, a bit more successful in convincing others to visit the polls during the next election. Whites might try to intimidate, he admitted, but collectively Negroes had the upper hand. People liked his delivery. Yet, in a leader, they preferred Mister’s fortitude.

Paul begged Emma Jean to let him join the NAACP, but Emma Jean wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s too dangerous,” she said the night before the picnic. “Ain’t no tellin’ what might happen to them folks, goin’ ’round tryin’ to get colored people to fight. I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t right; I’m jes’ sayin’ you ain’t gon’ do it.”

“Come on, Momma. I ain’t a kid no more. I’m sixteen! And what about Mister? He leadin’ it! You ain’t worried ’bout him?”

“He’s grown, boy!”

“But so what! If it’s dangerous, it’s dangerous for him, too!”

“Well, when you get grown, you can do what you want to. ’Til then, you gon’ do what I say, and I say you ain’t joinin’ that group. Not yet you ain’t. You gon’ finish school and make somethin’ outta yo’self.”

At the picnic, Paul told Eva Mae and Caroline that Emma Jean wouldn’t let him join the NAACP as they had planned. Caroline couldn’t join, either. Eva Mae didn’t respond.

“What’s wrong, Eva Mae?” Paul asked.

“My momma said I cain’t go to school no more.”

“Why not? You only got one more year!”

“My brother left home so she said I gotta work now. We need the money. She said don’t make no sense wastin’ education on somebody don’t nobody want anyway, so I might as well go to work.”

“I want you,” Paul said. The words hadn’t sounded strange in his head, but when he spoke them, they sounded sensual. Caroline frowned. Paul opened his mouth to explain, but Eva Mae saved him the trouble.

“Thanks, Paul,” she said. Walking away, she whispered intensely, “You still my Perfect Peace!”

Caroline felt invisible. In that moment, Eva Mae and Paul alone populated the world as Caroline looked on, trying to find a category into which she could place this bizarre relationship. Paul didn’t know that, as children, once he and Eva Mae began their intimate exchange beneath the house, Eva Mae had told Caroline that Paul—Perfect back then—was
her
best friend, implying, Caroline understood, something exclusive between them that she was not invited to share. She had watched them several times, from a distance,
look about nervously and disappear beneath the house, then exit in an aura of pleasure. Afraid to question their interim activity, Caroline often paced the front yard in their younger years, wallowing in jealousy and feelings of abandonment. Fear of Eva Mae kept her from peeking under the house although her curiosity never subsided. The day she asked Paul, “So what you and Eva Mae be doin’ down there?” she implored him not to tell Eva Mae she had asked, and Paul promised he wouldn’t. In fact, he forgot all about it.

After Eva Mae left, Caroline mumbled from the side of her mouth, “Why Christina keep lookin’ over here?”

Paul looked back and smiled. “I don’t know.”

“She likes you, huh?”

“Who? Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“I doubt it. She’s real sweet though. I thought about askin’ her to the dance.”

“Really? You like Christina?”

“Yup. Well, a little bit.”

“How you gon’ ask her?”

“I don’t know. I ain’t neva asked a girl out before. But I know her folks, so it oughta be okay.”

“What Miss Emma Jean gon’ say? You know she can’t stand Miss Mamie.”

“I know, but I wanna go to the dance, and I need a date. Everybody’s gon’ be there.”

Caroline nodded.

“What about you? Who you goin’ with?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s asked me yet. I don’t think anybody’s going to.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could go with Johnny Ray?” Paul said dreamily.

“Yeah, but he’s goin’ with Violet. If he go at all. You know how he is, quiet and all.”

“Yeah, I know, but he’s real handsome, huh?”

“Oh my God. He’s the cutest boy I’ve ever seen.”

He sho is!
Paul wanted to say. “You never know. Somebody cute might ask you to the dance.”

“Maybe.”

“Is there somebody else cute you’d
like
to go with? You know . . . somebody
you
like?”

Caroline snickered and covered her mouth. “Yeah, but I can’t tell you ’cause you gon’ laugh.”

“No I won’t!”

“Yes you will!”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you, but you gotta promise not to laugh.”

“I promise!” Paul was laughing already.

“Okay. It’s yo’ brother. Bartimaeus.”

“What!”

“Shhh!” Caroline hissed.

“Girl, are you serious?”

“Yes I’m serious. He’s so cute to me.”

“He’s definitely
nice
, but . . .”

“And I don’t care that he’s blind. I mean, that don’t matter to me.”

Paul had never considered Bartimaeus’s sex appeal. “Wow. Well, you should ask him to the dance.”

“What if he says no?”

“He won’t say no.”

“I don’t care about no stupid dance anyway.”

“I thought you wanted somebody to take you?”

Caroline shrugged.

“Aw, come on. You gotta go. If you don’t go, who I’m gon’ talk to?”

“Eva Mae.” Caroline smirked.

“She said she might not come.”

“Then you can talk to Johnny Ray, I guess.”

“Huh?”

“I see how you be lookin’ at him.”

“Shut up, girl!”

“Oh, don’t get mad. It’s all right. I won’t tell nobody. I know how people are.”

Paul sighed. “I can’t help it sometimes, Caroline. I’ll look up and there he is and I just can’t stop starin’ at him.”

“I know, I know. Jes’ be careful.”

“I will.”

Miss Mamie hollered, “Everybody come eat!”

“If yo’ brother don’t ask me, I sho ain’t goin’ wit’ none of these knuckle-heads.” She surveyed the church grounds. The truth was that, like everyone
else, she dreamed of going with Johnny Ray, but weighing 325 pounds, she feared her chances were even worse than Paul’s, for although she shared Johnny Ray’s butternut complexion, Swamp Creek residents made it clear that no one—man or woman—found her excess flesh attractive. But she couldn’t help it, she said. She had tried everything from starvation to no sweets, and she never lost more than a pound or two. Her expansion started during puberty and never stopped. At sixteen, her full cheeks and deep dimples caused people to say, “You sho is a pretty girl—
in the face
!” but they never let her forget the liability of her weight. Eating was all she could think to do after her father pushed himself off of her. It made sense to Caroline to satisfy herself internally since her father desecrated her externally. And since food kept Caroline appeased, her mother cooked as much as the child could hold, which increased each year until, by high school, Caroline ate more than her parents and siblings combined. She wanted to tell Paul and Eva Mae about the abuse, but her father convinced her that no one would believe her since no man in his right mind would ever touch her. So she kept eating and hoping that, somehow, miraculously, someone would kill the bastard.

“Christina’s lookin’ at you again,” Caroline murmured.

“I know. Don’t look, girl. I don’t want her thinkin’ I’m desperate.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I do like her, but I don’t want her thinkin’ I just gotta have her.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause Daddy said when a woman think you gotta have her, she treat you like shit.”

“Oh.”

Mamie began screaming, “Come and get it, I said!” No one heard her mumble, “You greedy-ass niggas.”

“Come on,” Paul said. “We’ll talk some more after we eat. You can walk me home if you want to.” He leaned into Caroline’s ear and teased, “So you can see Bartimaeus.”

Her sheepish grin made Paul laugh. They sauntered to the long picnic tables covered with more food than the crowd would ever eat. Caroline sat between him and Bartimaeus, dreaming about the day he had spoken to her. He hadn’t said anything particularly profound, just “Hello, sweet Caroline.” That was all. But the way he said it made her feel special. She froze, and he repeated the greeting. Again, she said nothing and Bartimaeus chuckled.

“Am I
that
ugly?” he had said.

“Oh no, no. Not at all.” She almost said he was the most beautiful man in the world.

“Well, let me try it again.”

“No,” she fumbled. “Um . . . hello.” And she ran away.

Bartimaeus smiled. He loved her sweet, lemony scent, like the smell of fresh spring flowers. He sat in the porch rocker and planned how he’d ask her daddy to keep company with her.

Caroline then ate like never before. Food had always been her hiding place, but now it became her personal, private confidant. She gorged as she determined that what she loved about Bartimaeus, or, rather, what she
would
love about him, was his indifference to physical things. She convinced herself that he could love her precisely because he couldn’t see her, and that made her feel enormously blessed. She was relieved that someone wouldn’t—in fact, couldn’t—be repulsed by her enormity, and excited that at least one man in the world might experience her heart. Except for propriety, she would have asked Bartimaeus to marry her, but she didn’t want to seem fast.

A week after the picnic, with Mister guiding his steps, Bartimaeus finally conjured the courage to ask Caroline’s father if he could take up with her. “Would you please?” the man shouted. Every evening thereafter, Bartimaeus found his way to Caroline’s porch and, far into the night, the two giggled like anxious children. Caroline was relieved that he had never tried to touch her and, in fact, wondered if they could live that way forever. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be touched; she wanted it desperately. She just feared he might measure her beauty by what his hands felt instead of what his heart knew, then they would be no more. Hand-holding was the most Caroline relented to, but each time Bartimaeus caressed her fingers, her thighs moistened and she imagined him somewhere between them.

When he asked Mr. Burden if he could take Caroline to the dance, she practically fainted. Having decided to go alone, she never imagined she’d actually have a date. Now, she’d have to skip a few meals to fit into her one good dress.

At the Cunninghams’, the next day, Paul was even more timid than Bartimaeus had been. He stood at the door for ten minutes, trying to gather the nerve to knock, and when he did, he tapped lightly as though the door might collapse. Christina acted surprised to see him.