by K L Going
“Why don’t you stay back with me?” I suggested, but Frita wrinkled her nose and pretended like I hadn’t said that.
“You’ll love the fifth grade. Just try it,” she said instead, using her whiniest, most pleading voice.
But I thought about Duke and Frankie and I knew Frita was wrong. I’d broken my pinky swear because of them.
I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I’ll just get beat up on every day, so I might as well stay back. I’d rather be alive in the fourth grade than dead in the fifth.”
Frita stomped her foot. “They won’t get you,” she said. “I promise.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “How you going to promise that? You’d have to pay them all the money in the world…”
Frita stuck her stuff under one arm and grabbed my elbow.
“No, I won’t,” she said. “C’mon.”
My stomach twisted into a knot. “What are you going to do? Are you going to tell Ms. Murray? Don’t you think we should find my pop first?”
But Frita wasn’t listening. Sometimes she’s like a locomotive—there’s no stopping her until she wants to be stopped. She dragged me to where the punch and cookies were set up and it didn’t make a lick of difference that I was trying to run the other way.
“I’m going to do what Terrance taught me,” Frita said. “And don’t worry about getting in trouble—this is justified on account of what they did to you.”
Justified? I wondered if justified was anything like terrified. Probably was if it was something Frita had learned from her older brother. Terrance was eighteen, and when it came to pounding, he was the expert. He kept five different punching bags in the basement of their house. There were big ones as tall as he was, tiny ones the size of someone’s head, and there was one in the corner that was exactly my size.
One time me and Frita snuck down there when we thought no one was home. Only then we’d heard Terrance’s feet coming down the steps—clunk, clunk, clunk. He didn’t see us at first and started punching that little bag a hundred times a second. I breathed in real sharp by accident and that’s when he turned around and saw us under the stairwell. First I screamed, then Frita screamed. Then Terrance chased us clean out of the house. I hadn’t gone into her basement since.
So if Frita was going to pull something she’d learned from Terrance that could only mean one thing. Trouble.
“You know my momma will be wondering where I am,” I said, right quick. “We better find her before we do anything else…”
I searched the crowd, but right then Frita caught sight of Duke, and that’s when things got crazy.
“Just see if anyone picks on you again after this,” Frita said.
She let go of my arm, marched straight up to Duke, drew back her fist, and before anyone could take a breath she punched him smack in the nose. Duke toppled back, knocking over the punch bowl, and Frita dove after him. She was rearing back to punch him again when Frankie tackled her from the side. All around me people were gathering in, pushing and yelling, but I was frozen solid.
“Fight! Fight!”
“Get her…”
“You kids stop that!”
Everything was happening at once, and before I could blink, there was a slew of adults pulling everyone apart and my pop was one of them. He dragged Frita off Duke, but it took two other guys to help because she kept swinging her arms like cyclones. Duke got to his feet and stood next to his pop. His nose was dripping blood and his clothes were all soaked in fruit punch and he was sniffling real hard, like he was trying not to cry.
Then his pop yelled, “You got beat up by a nigger girl?”
The whole crowd went silent soon as he said that. Even Frita stopped swinging and her eyes popped. My breath came out like someone had punched me in the gut, and I looked around to see who would yell at Mr. Evans for saying that, but all the adults were looking at the ground, shuffling their feet.
Then Pop stepped up.
“You best not be using that word,” Pop said. He said it steady and quiet, like he says just about everything, but I could tell he meant business.
“You talking to me?” Mr. Evans asked, looking down. Pop is short like me—he’s shorter than all the other adults—but he didn’t back away.
“Yes, I am.”
Mr. Evans moved like he might put up his fists, but he looked around at all the faces in the crowd and then he spat on the ground instead. It was hot and dry, so that spit sat at Pop’s feet like a challenge. Then Mr. Evans grabbed Duke by the elbow.
“Come on,” he said, real gruff.
He nodded into the crowd to Frankie’s pop and they took off. Our teacher, Ms. Murray, was trying to say something to them about their boys fighting, but they didn’t even stop to listen. Only Duke stopped long enough to look back over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and there was so much hate in them, I could read exactly what his mind was saying.
I’m gonna get you. Just you wait.
Chapter 4
TEN TIMES WORSE
I KNOW FRITA WAS TRYING TO HELP, BUT REALLY SHE’D MADE THINGS ten times worse. I’d be a dead man if I went to the fifth grade now. Might as well call me a walking corpse.
Frita stared after Mr. Evans and I’d never seen such a strange expression on her face. Looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Pop dusted off her dress. “You okay?” he asked.
Frita looked back one more time, then she shrugged and looked real tough again. “I could have taken them if you adults hadn’t interfered,” she said.
Pop chuckled. “I suspect you could have.”
“No suspect about it,” Frita muttered, but she said it low, so maybe just I heard.
Pop reached down and picked up Frita’s certificate and class picture from the dust. They were all trampled, and you could see where there was a hole right in the center of the picture.
He handed it back to Frita and she tried to look like it was no big deal, but her tough look faded again and her lower lip quivered just a little bit. I was going to say she could have mine soon as I got it, but that’s when our teacher came over.
“I need to speak to your parents about you fighting, Frita Wilson,” Ms. Murray said. “Is your father here this morning?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frita said, brushing a line of dirt off her certificate. “He’s probably around by the stage, talking to people.”
Frita’s daddy was always talking to people—partly because he was a preacher, so folks felt inclined to tell him their troubles, and partly because he was involved in politics, so folks felt inclined to tell him the answers to other people’s troubles. Least that’s what Frita’s momma said.
Ms. Murray shook her head. “Guess we’ll have to go find him then, won’t we?” She tried to look mad, but it was no secret Ms. Murray liked Frita a whole lot, so really she just sighed.
“Yes, ma’am,” Frita said, kicking at a pebble. She turned to me. “Guess I better go.”
“Yup,” I said. “Guess so.”
I wanted to say thanks for the liberatin’ and all, even if she had made things worse, but Frita took off behind Ms. Murray and that left me and Pop.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Pop asked.
I looked down at my feet, but I didn’t say anything. How do you explain to your pop that you got tied up under a picnic table?
“Your momma is not very happy about you missing the ceremony, and I don’t blame her.”
I shrugged. “Don’t matter,” I said, “because I’m not going to the fifth grade anyway.”
Pop gave me that look that said I better not be a smart aleck, but I wasn’t being smart, I was dead serious.
“And don’t try to talk me out of it, because I’ve made up my mind.”
Pop looked like he might try to talk me out of it anyway, but he didn’t have a chance because that’s when Momma caught up to us and it was like getting caught up to by a tornado. Her hands were on her hips, her blond hair was flying out of its ponytail,
and she was coming up fast.
“Made up your mind about what?” she said.
“Fifth grade,” I said. “I ain’t going.”
“Oh, is that what you think?” Momma asked, only she wasn’t really asking because she didn’t wait for an answer. Her hands shot up to her mouth. “What happened to your pants?”
I looked behind me and sure enough, there was red clay all over my butt. Probably from being pushed onto the ground by Duke.
“Did Frita Wilson put you up to this?” Momma asked. “Was she the one who was fighting?”
“No,” I said, super quick. Then I said, “Well, yes,” but Momma didn’t seem to be listening.
“Your father took overtime down at the peanut mill so I could buy you those pants, and no one even got to see you wear them. When the principal called your name I’d never been so proud in my entire life, and then…”
Tears started to leak out of Momma’s eyes. My eyes were starting to leak now too, on account of how the day had turned into such a mess. Pop looked at both of us and took a deep breath.
“Let’s talk about this at home,” he said.
* * *
Momma didn’t say a word the whole ride back to the trailer park where we live, but when we got inside, she said, “Take off those pants right now so I can wash them.”
She said it real cold, so I said, “Fine.”
Pop set his truck keys on the counter and shook his head.
“I suspect Gabe feels bad, darlin’,” Pop said, and he was right. Bad didn’t begin to cover it.
“Well, good,” said Momma. “He can feel bad straight through until next year. Straight through until he goes to the fifth grade and that’s that.”
She was half crying and half mad, and that made me feel just about the same.
“I won’t do it!” I said, and then I burst into tears. Frita says I’m a crybaby, but I can’t help it. Soon as I get upset, the waterworks turn on and there’s no shutting them off.
“You will!” said Momma.
“Enough,” said Pop, standing between us. “Gabe, go to your room so your momma and I can talk.”
I knew they were going to talk about me, and that felt like being caught red-handed. “Fine,” I said. “I won’t ever come out. Especially not for the fifth grade.”
Pop gave me that look that said, Not another word, so I stomped through the kitchen to my bedroom. I slammed the door shut and tore off my pants, then I pulled on my oldest, dirtiest overalls. I flung myself facedown on the bed and gave it up for good.
Terrance called me a wimp once because he says boys aren’t supposed to cry, but Frita doesn’t mind and Momma doesn’t mind and usually Pop doesn’t say nothing either. I heaved and coughed until my pillow got all wet and all the bad stuff came out through my nose.
I thought about Momma and Frita and how I’d disappointed them. Then I thought about Duke and Frankie and how it was all their fault. Part of me wanted to go back out and tell Momma and Pop what had really happened, but if I told Momma, she was sure to call Mr. Evans and Mr. Carmen and then Duke and Frankie would have even more reason to kill me. What was a man to do?
Life was grim. The future did not look good, and let me tell you, it was pressing in.
Chapter 5
AT THE CATFISH POND
JUST ABOUT THE MOMENT I’D DECIDED TO RUN AWAY FROM HOME AND change my name so no one would ever find me, there was a knock on my door.
“Gabe,” Pop said, “we’re going for a walk.”
Pop didn’t wait for me to say yes or no. He just turned and headed toward the door. We live in the smallest trailer in the Hollowell Trailer Park, so he didn’t have to go far. The inside is tight, but Momma decorated it nice with orange curtains and thick brown carpet. The outside paint is flaking off the shutters, and Pop always says he’s going to fix that someday, but he never does. When I got outside, Pop was chipping away some dirty brown paint with his finger, but he stopped when I walked out.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Georgia is mighty hot in the summer when the sun is high and there ain’t no clouds, so Pop and I walked real slow. I knew we were headed toward the catfish pond because that’s the only place anyone headed when it was hot like this. But first you had to walk to the far end of the trailer park, and that meant going past the Evans trailer.
I might live in the smallest trailer in the Hollowell Trailer Park, but Duke Evans lived in the scariest. It was all torn apart, with boards hanging off the windows and parts of cars all over the front yard. Plus, no one knew for certain if Duke’s momma was alive or not. Erin Morgan said she was perfectly fine and mean as a whip, but Duane Patterson said you could smell her corpse when the wind was right.
I sniffed at the air as we got closer and sure enough, I thought I caught a whiff.
“Let’s cut through over here,” I said to Pop. He gave me a look, but he didn’t say nothing, so we took the secret path me and Frita had cut out behind one of the other trailers. I kept looking back over my shoulder though, and picked up the pace.
Me and Pop crossed the old dirt road and walked through the tall pine trees toward the cotton field. We stepped across the line where the stretched-out shadows of the pine trees reached over the cotton field. Pop’s big old work boots snapped the brown stalks and the white cotton balls before we crossed into the woods.
Pop put one rough hand on my head.
“I suspect it wasn’t entirely your fault that you missed Moving-Up Day,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt your momma’s feelings.” He paused. “The thing is, you haven’t got much choice about the fifth grade. Sometimes we’ve got to do things whether we like them or not. Understand?”
I nodded, but I was still thinking about Duke and his pop.
“Pop?” I said.
“Mmm?”
“How come Mr. Evans called Frita that name?”
I was used to kids at school calling Frita names when she wasn’t around to punch their lights out, but they called me names too—like Shrimp and Shorty. I’d always figured that was just about the same thing. Only there sure weren’t any adults calling me Shrimp.
Pop thought things over.
“Well,” he said at last, “some folks don’t care for black people.”
“How come?” I asked.
Pop frowned. “Don’t know for certain. I suspect they see the world as having only so much of the good things in life, and they’re afraid of sharing because then there will be less for them. That other person might get something they want.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
“No,” said Pop. “That’s not how I see it. I suspect there’s enough good to go around.”
We walked real quiet again until we reached the pond. It was deserted today and I was glad there weren’t any sixth-graders hanging out by the rope swing to yell things at me when my pop was around. Since the coast was clear, I sat right under the big old cypress tree, where the edge dropped down, and slipped off my sneakers so I could dunk in my feet. The water was muddy and warm.
Pop didn’t take off his work boots, but he knelt down and stuck one hand in. He stared for a long time, like he was thinking what to say next.
“Gabe,” he said after a little while, “you and Frita have to watch yourselves. You know that, right?”
I wasn’t sure exactly what Pop meant, but I had an idea—like when Frita used big words. Made my stomach feel funny. Pop studied me careful.
“I’m not telling you to fight, but sometimes a person has to stand up for himself. You can’t live your life being afraid of boys like Duke.”
I didn’t say anything—just swished my feet around.
“Your momma was some disappointed not to see you walk across that stage today. Now you’ll never have another chance. I know there were reasons you didn’t make it, but you got to think to yourself…Do I want to let someone take something from me that I can never get back again?”
I stopped swishing.
“Li
ke Moving-Up Day?”
Pop nodded.
“And the fifth grade?”
He nodded again. “You think things over,” he told me, “and I’ll go back and talk with your momma. When you’re ready, you come home and tell her you’re sorry. All right?”
I looked around the empty pond. What if the sixth-graders showed up? What if Duke was with them?
“I’ll go home with you, Pop,” I said, but Pop shook his head.
“You’re fine,” he told me, but what he meant was, You’re staying put until you figure some things out.
“Yes, sir,” I said, but I said it extra miserable so he might change his mind.
Pop reached over and ruffled my hair. He stood up, then headed back the way we’d come. I watched him get smaller and smaller. Long as he was in sight, things felt okay, but the minute he disappeared, the world shrank in. All the trees got closer and the cypress roots looked like giant tentacles reaching up to grab me. The rope swing hung like a gallows, and without meaning to, my mind pictured what it would feel like to swing through the air, then plunge far below, turning over and over in the muddy water.
Everything I’d eaten churned in my stomach until I thought I might be sick. I heard a snap and thought for sure it was either an alligator or a sixth-grader sneaking up on me, and I sure as heck wanted to light out of there.
But then I thought over what Pop had said about not letting people take stuff from me. Maybe he meant something like this, a summer afternoon when I had the whole catfish pond to myself. But how could I just decide not to let other people take things? Seemed to me I was too chicken to stop ’em.
Now how was I going to change that?
Chapter 6
INTO TOWN
A MAN CAN DO A LOT OF THINKING AND STILL COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION. Best to stay put where life is decent. Of course, Frita still hadn’t offered to stay behind with me, but I guessed she’d come around once she discovered how serious I was about staying back. I figured I’d ask her again eventually, but eventually snuck up on me real quick.