Perfect Peace (36 page)

“I’m sorry,” Walter said outside. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Sol thanked him.

“I hope we’ll meet again someday.”

“Hope so.”

“I gotta go now. Good luck.” They shook hands.

Overcome with grief, Sol tossed the boxes of books into a nearby trash receptacle, then collapsed and wept beneath a small tree. Watching students and parents haul luggage into various buildings only increased his sorrow and made him curse Emma Jean for refusing him education. Paul didn’t know how lucky he was, Sol thought, to be on his way to a high school diploma. He’d have everything he needed to succeed in life and, now, Sol had nothing. Paul didn’t even want an education! Sol had wanted it worse than anything he could imagine, but still Emma Jean wouldn’t relent. “Damn,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me, young fella,” Sol heard a voice call. He turned and faced President Johnson.

“Yessir?”

“Come with me.”

Sol jumped and followed President Johnson into the dining hall.

“Mr. Peace, this is Mr. Pace. He runs our dining facilities.” They shook. “Mr. Pace, this young man needs a job. Can you put him to work?”

“I’m sure I can find something for him to do, Dr. Johnson,” Mr. Pace teased.

“Well, good. He can start right away. Is that right, Mr. Peace?”

“Oh, yessir!” Sol shouted, military style. He wanted to hug Dr. Johnson, but restrained himself.

“Now. I don’t do this very often, but I’ma take a chance on you.” He dismissed Mr. Pace and pulled King Solomon aside. “You can work in the dining hall to pay for your room and board. I want you to take these classes.” He handed Sol a slip of paper. “You won’t get any credit for them because you’re not officially enrolled, but if you perform well, and I mean
well
, I’ll consider admitting you next semester.”

“Yes!” Sol jerked his hand vigorously. “I’ll do well, sir! You’ll see!”

Dr. Johnson laughed. “You’d better. Chances like this come once in a lifetime.”

Sol returned to the Dumpster and scavenged for his books. The stench and filth didn’t bother him at all. He then entered the dining hall with more joy than he had ever known.

During supper, Walter gasped to see him mopping the kitchen floor.

“Hey, man! I thought you left. What happened?”

Sol told him, and Walter said, “Aw, wow! That’s great, man! I’ll help you with your homework if you need it.”

Within a week, they were roommates. School was harder than Sol had imagined. Reading was no problem, but algebra kept him up late at night. Walter explained what he could, but much of it Sol simply didn’t get. Sometimes Professor Everett tutored him after class until he had to report to the dining hall. He used his lunch break for studying, and Mr. Pace declared, “Son, you ’bout de hardest workin’ somebody I ever knowed! You gon’ make it.” In a letter to his folks, he reported that he was in college and doing all right. He hoped he hadn’t lied.

Dr. Johnson summoned Sol to his office at the end of the semester.

“Have a seat, son.”

Sol sat uneasily. Dr. Johnson’s tone unnerved him.

“I took a chance on you back at the beginning of the school year. Is that right?”

“Yessir.”

“What was our agreement?”

Sol shuddered. “Our agreement was that I had to get really good grades from my classes in order to go here officially.”

“That’s right. How do you think you did?”

“Um . . . I don’t know, sir. I studied really hard and I think I did okay. My math class was really hard though.”

Dr. Johnson reclined in his seat. “Well, I asked all your teachers to report your final grades directly to me. Here they are.” He extended a folded sheet of paper.

Before Sol looked, he repeated, “I worked really hard, Dr. Johnson. I swear I did. Mr. Pace’ll tell you—”

Dr. Johnson was unmoved. “Look for yourself.”

Sol unfolded the paper and saw three As and one B.

Dr. Johnson smiled and stood. “Congratulations, Mr. King Solomon Peace. You are now officially a student at Howard University.”

Sol grabbed his head like James Earl and screamed, “Oh my God! Are you serious? Oh my God! Yes! Yes!” He leapt around Dr. Johnson’s office, shouting, “Yes! Yes!” until the secretary peeked through the door, wondering what all the noise was about. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m just so excited!”

Dr. Johnson laughed. “You’ve done well, son. Your folks would be proud. You’re a credit to your people, and I have no doubt you’ll go on to do great things.”

“Yessir!” Sol was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

“Now one more thing. I’m recommending you for the university scholarship. It’ll cover your room, board, and tuition until you graduate, provided you keep your grades up.”

“What? Are you for real, Dr. Johnson?”

“Of course I’m for real, son. I don’t play about education.”

Sol shook his head in disbelief. “I’m gon’ make you proud, Dr. Johnson. I promise I will.”

“You already have, son. You might have grown up poor, but somebody taught you enough about hard work to make sure you’d survive anywhere in the world. That’s the greatest gift a parent can give a child.”

Sol thought about Gus. “Yessir.”

“Then it’s settled. You have a merry Christmas and I’ll see you next semester.”

Sol found Walter and jumped all over him.

“What’s wrong with you, man?”

“I’m in! I’m in! Look!”

Walter glanced at the paper. “All right, man!” he cried, and tossed his arms around King Solomon.

The two remained roommates until 1957 when Walter graduated and went on to medical school. Sol finished the following year, summa cum laude, and pursued a graduate degree in psychology. It had been his favorite subject. He loved learning why people do what they do, and he yearned earnestly to comprehend the mind-set of people like Emma Jean Peace.

Gus wanted to attend the graduation but couldn’t afford to. Three dollars and forty-eight cents—the total in the coffer—would barely get him to Little Rock, much less Washington, D.C. The rains were recently past anyway, so he knew his crops would soon need his attention.

Emma Jean never considered going—what kind of hypocrite would she have been?—but she wanted to do something, so she emptied the coffer into Authorly’s hands, added her own personal money from selling hen eggs, and told him what to do. After traveling all day and night, Authorly pressed his way to the commencement ceremony and screamed, “Yeah, Sol! We love you,
man!” when King Solomon received his degree. Sol turned abruptly, searching the massive audience for the familiar voice. When their eyes met, he ran from the stage as Authorly plowed his way through the crowd, crying for the first time in his life. Too overwhelmed to speak, Sol leapt into his big brother’s arms and they wept together until Sol’s soul was made whole again.

King Solomon’s graduation confirmed to Woody, somehow, that God had called him to preach. He had been reading the Bible for months
just because
, he said, and something about Sol’s commencement invitation corroborated that he was supposed to be in the pulpit.

“I have an announcement to make, church,” Reverend Lindsey said the Sunday after Sol graduated. “I know everyone remembers Sol Peace, the real smart one o’ de Peace bunch, who left here years ago on his way to college.”

Some murmured that they didn’t know he had left. Others nodded merely as protocol.

“Well, I’m glad to announce that he has just graduated from Howard University at the top of his class.”

The congregation cheered.

“I understand that he’s pursuing a graduate degree in psychology, is that right?”

Emma Jean stood and nodded.

“Well, bless the Lord!” the Reverend said. “I always knew one of these children ’round here was gon’ make us proud.” Miss Mamie gave Emma Jean the fakest smile she could muster.

“There’s another surprise from the Peace family.” He motioned for Woody to join him on the pulpit. “I’m proud to announce that Woody here has been called to the ministry.”

Thunderous applause echoed throughout the sanctuary. Gus and Emma Jean beamed. They had suspected as much, wondering why Woody had been reading the Bible all of a sudden.

At his trial sermon a week later, Woody opened with “There was a black man who had lived a righteous life, so God told him he could have anything he desired. Well, he asked God if he could have a highway to heaven. God frowned and told him that that would be kinda difficult, since a highway to heaven would have to float in midair, so He asked the man to think of something a bit more reasonable. The man sat awhile and then said, ‘Oh yeah, God! I got somethin’. How ’bout You explain to me why white folks treat Negroes the way they do. I always wondered that.’ God nodded to the man and said, ‘Two lanes or four?’ ”

People’s laughter reverberated throughout the church. Woody even laughed at himself.

Then, without transition, text, topic, or introduction, he told his neighbors about the power of the blood. “It cleanses the sin-sick soul, ha! It makes the wounded whole, ha! It sets the captives free, ha! It gives slaves liberty, ha! It destroys what the devil, ha, I said the devil, ha, thought he had established!”

Congregants shouted in emotional ecstasy. Woody abandoned the pulpit and walked the aisles.

“Without the blood, there is no remission of sins, ha! Without the blood, ha, we’d all be doomed to the burnin’ hellfire, ha! It was the blood of Jesus, ha, streamin’ down that old rugged cross, ha, that gives us everlastin’ life, ha!”

“Yes, Lord!”

Folks drooled, screamed, shouted, and fainted as Woody discovered the alluring power of the black church pulpit. He had never experienced anything like it. Not even the Laughins in the front yard. Paul and Eva Mae sat mesmerized, smiling at Woody who, just days ago, didn’t mean much, but now stood as the messenger of God. He would get married soon, Paul assumed, since he had never met an unmarried preacher, and he hoped that, as a heavenly representative, Woody could answer a few of the zillion questions he had about God and the Bible. Like why God made some people strange and some people regular. Or why He let people have kids who didn’t want them. Yes, he’d ask Woody about that later. For now, he was proud that his brother’s oratorical skills were being used for something other than mannish clowning.

“Lawd, that boy sho did preach, didn’t he!” Miss Mamie said after the benediction. “Who woulda thought that one o’ de Peace boys would ever preach de Word? De Lawd shonuff works in mysterious ways, don’t He?”

At home that evening, Paul declared, “Wow, Woody! Man! You was real good at church today. Real good.”

Woody grinned. “It wunnit me, praise the Lord! It was the God in me.”

“Everybody was hollerin’ and stuff, and me and Eva Mae was clappin’ the whole time. I ain’t neva seen church on fire like that!”

“Well, that’s what happens when you let de Lawd use you. He’ll use you, too, if you let Him. It might not be in the pulpit, but He’ll shonuff use you.”

Paul didn’t want to be used by anyone. “I wanna ask you somethin’.”

“Okay. Go ’head.”

Paul wasn’t sure why he hesitated. “Why does God make some people different from everybody else?”

Woody shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s a mysterious God. His ways ain’t our ways, and His thoughts ain’t our thoughts. You just gotta trust Him. And believe on Him. He’ll bring you through every time. I’m a livin’ witness!”

Paul grimaced. Had Woody answered his question somewhere in the midst of all that useless verbiage? He tried again.

“But why don’t God just make everybody the same so nobody can make fun of nobody else?”

“You can’t question God, Paul. You just gotta accept Him in yo’ heart and let Him change yo’ life. Weepin’ may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Don’t never forget that.”

Huh?

“You got any more questions?”

“Yeah.” Paul swallowed. “How you get saved?”

“You confess with yo’ mouth that Jesus was raised from the dead and believe it in your heart.”

“But how would I know if Jesus was raised from the dead?”

“ ’Cause the Bible says so.”

“I ain’t never read the Bible.”

“You don’t have to. Just believe it. It’s in there. I promise.”

“What’ll happen if I don’t get saved? Ain’t there some people who don’t gotta be saved? And what is you
saved
from?”

“From burnin’ in hell! That’s what you saved from!”

Reverend Lindsey had preached countless sermons about a place where people burn forever because they don’t believe—although Paul never knew precisely what they were supposed to have believed—and now the fire in Woody’s eyes frightened Paul even more than Reverend Lindsey’s brimstone.

“You just need to pray, boy. God’ll answer all yo’ questions.”

God’s voice had proven difficult for Paul to hear. “Cain’t you answer ’em?”

“No, I cain’t, ’cause you askin’ carnal stuff, and I’m a holy man. You sound like a fool, but I know you mean well.” Woody stood to leave.