Gus was grateful others didn't ask why he cried, because he couldn't have explained it. Whether it lasted for hours or even a day, no one expected his return to normalcy until the showers subsided.

So every spring since his tenth birthday, when the scent of moisture filled his nose he escaped to the Jordan River and stood amid the rain, wailing away pain like a woman in labor. He'd convinced himself that the sky, like him, was cursed with a heavy heart that required annual purging. What ever the connection, Gus always wept along with the rains. Maybe it was their steady flow that eroded his makeshift stoicism and caused water to gush from his eyes as if from a geyser. He learned instead to hide whenever he felt their approach.

But as he grew, he never learned to control his tears. The indelible imprint of Chester Sr.'s inordinately large hand on Gus's tender face whenever he wept never bothered the boy who, in his heart, wanted nothing more desperately than to emulate his father. loved to remind him-as though his genitalia didn't-and tears didn't speak well for one who would, one day, become a man. After all, he was a boy, Chester Peace Sr. Something about the melody soothed his somber soul and allowed him to cry without fear of his father's reprisal. As a child, he lay in bed listening to the thunderous polyrhythms they drummed into the rusted tin rooftop. That year, the stubborn rains prolonged the daily sojourn Gus and the boys took to the river and back-locals called it the Jordan-carrying five-gallon buckets of water for both their own and the sprouts' survival. Usually the rains came between March and April, freeing him to hunt or fish the latter part of spring while cabbage, collard, and tomato sprouts strengthened in the moistened earth. It was May 17, 1940, and Gus's wilted crops made him wonder if, somehow, he had angered Mother Nature. They should have come by now, he noted, glancing at the battered Motley Funeral Home calendar hanging from a nail on the wall. Gus stood beside the living room window, waiting for the annual spring rains.

Perfect peace novel by daniel black