The Liberation of Gabriel King (11 page)

Me and Frita watched them for a while, then Frita stood up. She narrowed her eyes and jutted out her chin.

“Gabe,” she said at last, “I’m going.”

Then it was just like the rope swing. One minute Frita was standing next to me in the twilight, and the next minute she was walking straight toward Mr. Evans. I didn’t know whether I ought to stay put or go with her, but suddenly I wondered if I hadn’t thought things through. Maybe it was the way Mr. Evans and Mr. Carmen looked just like Duke and Frankie, or maybe it was the way Frita’d been acting all night, but I started to wonder if this was such a great idea after all. Except now it was too late.

I got up and walked closer, but I stopped a little ways away while Frita pushed her way in. She slid up next to Mr. Evans.

“Mr. Evans,” I heard her say, and her voice sounded real little. At first no one noticed Frita. She stood there waiting, then she looked at me and shrugged. She had a real funny look on her face, and I got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach—real sour, like before you get a stomachache. I motioned for her to come back.

“Forget it,” I said, but the words didn’t come out. I thought of my dream and the Mr. Evans spider waiting to pounce.

“Mr. Evans,” Frita said again, and this time he looked down.

It was strange the way everything happened right then.
Mr. Evans looked at Frita, and then he said something to Mr. Carmen. Frita looked confused. My stomach was tightening and tightening and I wondered if I ought to run and get Pop, but I couldn’t leave Frita. Then Mr. Evans smiled and leaned in like he was whispering something special to her.

That’s when Frita’s eyes went big as full moons and she took two steps backward real quick. She tripped over Mr. Evans’s foot even though Frita never hardly trips. He laughed like it was funny, and all the other men laughed too. Then she was scrambling up and running toward me so fast, you would have thought there was a ghost on her heels.

“What happened?” I said when she got close, but Frita didn’t stop. She kept right on going.

That’s when the fireworks started—a few at first, then more and more. They were loud, cracking and popping over our heads, but Frita didn’t look up. She went straight to my pop and stood next to him.

I mouthed the words
What did he say
? a hundred times, but Frita just shook her head. She took Pop’s hand and squeezed it hard. Pop looked down, surprised, but I saw him squeeze back.

“Pretty amazing,” he said, squatting down so he was nearer to us. “Don’t you think?”

I hadn’t even looked up yet.

“Look at that one!” Momma said, pointing up. She laughed and pulled me close. “Isn’t it great to live in America?”
she said, kissing the top of my head. “Just imagine—someday you’ll tell your children you were alive for the Bicentennial!”

I looked over at Frita. “Yup,” I said, “sure is great.” But really I was thinking how no one better have said anything mean to my best friend.

Momma held me tight and Pop grinned up at the sky, and right then the biggest starburst of red, white, and blue exploded over our heads. The crowd said, “Oooh!” and “Aaah!” like it was magical, but Frita Wilson didn’t make a sound.

I
T WAS LATE BY THE TIME WE GOT HOME
. W
E WERE SUPPOSED TO
sleep outside in the tent and stay awake until the sun came up, but Frita didn’t say a word the whole walk back. I wasn’t so keen on sleeping outdoors anymore, but the tent was already up and Pop had laid out our sleeping bags.

“Get all your stuff together before you go out to the tent,” Momma said. “I don’t want you kids running through the house all night. Don’t forget your flashlights. And Gabe, make sure you use the bathroom this time—”

“Mom
ma
!”

Momma gave me that look that said,
Well, remember last time
? but I ignored her. Frita brushed her teeth like a robot, staring straight ahead. She spit out her toothpaste extra quick and went in the other room to get on her pajamas. Then we walked outdoors real solemn and zipped ourselves up inside the tent. We sat on our sleeping bags, and I looked at Frita. No one was talking, so I cleared my throat the way I’d seen Pop do when things got strained.

“So,” I said at last, “what’d he say?”

Frita picked at a string on her sleeping bag. “Who?” she asked.

“Mr. Evans!” I practically yelled. “What’d he whisper?”

Frita’s face went blank, like she had no idea what I was talking about.

“Oh, that,” Frita said. “I couldn’t hear him on account of all the noise. Too bad, huh?”

That was a lie and I knew it, but I nodded real slow. “Yup,” I said. “Too bad.”

Frita lay down on top of her sleeping bag and took out her flashlight.

“Let’s have a flashlight war,” she said. We pretended our light beams were swords and whooshed them all around. Frita won every time.

“Want to eat marshmallows?” I asked. Frita nodded, and we pulled out the bag Momma had given us to eat in the tent. We ate a whole bunch of them and they were good, but the fun was missing.

“Want to tell ghost stories?” I asked at last. “To celebrate how brave we are now?” Truth was, I wasn’t so crazy about ghost stories, but Frita loved them.

“Umm, okay, I guess,” Frita said. She reached up and tried to touch the top of the tent with her toes.

“Don’t you want to?” I asked.

“I want to,” Frita said. She’d stuck one leg so high in the air, it touched the top, then she let it fall with a whoosh onto
her sleeping bag. She sat up and pulled her legs under her. “I’ll go first, okay?” she said.

“Okay,” I said, a little nervous. Frita seemed real serious.

“Want to hear a real one?” she asked.

I was sure I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

“Well,” said Frita, “it has to do with the number-one thing on my list.”

Now I sat up real straight. I turned my flashlight off so only Frita’s flashlight was shining in the middle of the tent. Then I pulled my legs in cross-legged and leaned my elbows on my knees.

“Tell me,” I whispered.

Frita leaned forward. Every now and then she’d glance at the zippered-up door of the tent just to make sure no one was out there.

“Well,” she said in a whisper, “when me and Terrance were living in Alabama, and I was just a baby, Daddy and Momma were working with Martin Luther King to change the laws that kept black people segregated. There were lots of white people who didn’t like this, and one night, some of them snuck onto our lawn. They were part of the Ku Klux Klan.”

My eyes popped. “No!”

“Yup,” Frita said. “Terrance told me all about it. Usually he won’t talk about it none, but this one time I asked how come he’s so angry at white people all the time, so he told me.

“He said it was an extra-hot night, just like this one, and Momma was rocking me to sleep. Daddy was helping Terrance with his reading when they heard a sound, like animals in the yard, so they went to see what it was. Daddy and Terrance were laughing about skunks, but when they opened the door, there was a ring of men all around our yard. They had on white sheets and pointy hats with only the eyeholes cut out, and they lit a cross on fire right outside our front door. Terrance said it smelled like ash and he couldn’t breathe, staring at all those ghosts.

“One of them started calling Daddy bad names. He yelled, ‘Come out and we’ll let your family go,’ and Terrance said right then Daddy’s face crumpled like paper burning in a flame. That’s exactly how he described it.”

Frita’s eyes were real serious.

All the spit had dried out of my mouth. “What happened? Did he go out?” I asked, but it was hardly a croak.

Frita shook her head. “Terrance said that’s when Momma came flying down the stairs. She had me pressed to her chest, and she slammed that door shut and held on to Daddy real tight. Then she grabbed Terrance’s arm so hard it hurt and dragged him into her bedroom. She made him climb into the clothes hamper even though he could barely fit in it. Then she handed me in.

“‘
Promise
,’ she whispered to Terrance, ‘
that you won’t come out until your daddy or I say it’s all right. Promise you’ll keep your sister silent. Promise
,’ Momma said. She said it
over and over again until he’d promised lots of times. Then she and Daddy were gone so long, Terrance thought they were dead, and the whole time he sat in the clothes hamper and prayed. He prayed, ‘Dear God, please keep Momma and Daddy safe,’ and he whispered it in my ear like he was telling me a story, so I never made a sound.”

I could feel my eyes brimming up. “Then what happened?” I asked.

“They stayed a long time,” Frita said. “Then around one o’clock in the morning the cross burned out and those ghosts left our yard. The next day, Daddy got all the pastors from the different churches together—white and black—and they went to visit each of the people who’d been dressed up in the white sheets.”

“What’d he do that for?” I asked. “How’d he know who they were if they were wearing sheets? What happened once they saw him?” All my questions were running into one another.

Frita held the flashlight tight.

“Daddy says everyone knows who’s in the Ku Klux Klan. He says even though they keep themselves hidden, a man can’t keep his views hidden in real life, and it’s not hard to figure out who they really are.”

“Wasn’t he afraid?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Frita, “but Daddy says he wanted everyone to know that he knew who they were. He said people will do things they wouldn’t do otherwise if they think no one can
see them. After that, he figured the Ku Klux Klan would either kill him or leave him be. I guess we were pretty lucky, because they let him be.”

I could feel the sweat dripping down my neck and it wasn’t just because it was hot out.

“We got the Ku Klux Klan around here, don’t we?” I asked, even though I mostly knew the answer. But I didn’t want to believe it.

Frita nodded. “I know for sure we do,” she said.

“How do you know?” I asked, and Frita looked at me real steady.

“Because Mr. Evans told me so.”

“He did?” I croaked.

Frita nodded. “Want to know what he said?”

This time I nodded.

“He said if me and you weren’t careful, the Klan might pay us a visit someday.”

I stood up so quick, my feet barely made it under me. “I’m telling Pop!” I said, but Frita’s eyes went wide and she pulled so hard on my sleeve, I fell right back down again.

“Don’t!” she said. “Your pop will tell my daddy and I’ll get in trouble something fierce. Daddy told me I wasn’t ever to go around men like Mr. Evans, and if he finds out, he’ll be so mad…”

“But what if they come after us? What if they’re out there dressing up right now?”

Frita glanced at the door of the tent. “They wouldn’t,” she said, but then she shivered. Then I shivered. Then I got to thinking how we were all alone. At night. Just me and Frita.

“You hear something?” I asked, and my voice got high and squeaky like it does when I get scared.

“No,” said Frita, real quick. “Did you?”

“No,” I said, but just at that moment I
did
hear something. Sounded like a twig snapping outside the tent. I looked at Frita and I could tell from her face she’d heard it too. We sat real still.

“What was that?” Frita whispered so soft, I could barely hear.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back, but my mind sure thought it knew. I was picturing a whole line of white ghosts coming out of the woods. Maybe they were sneaking around the tent this very minute, waiting to grab us.

Frita grabbed my hand and she squeezed so tight, I thought she might squeeze it straight off.

“What are we going to do?” Frita asked, and I knew she was picturing exactly what I was picturing. And she was asking
me
what to do.

“Think my momma and pop would hear us if we screamed?”

Frita looked like she might cry. “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. She squeezed my hand again and this time I squeezed back real tight.

“They will,” I said, making up my mind. “Momma hears everything, and Pop is a real good fighter. I promise I won’t let go of you, no matter what.”

“Okay,” Frita whispered. “On the count of three. One…two…”

We screamed louder than we’d ever screamed before. We both stood up at once and started to run, only we forgot to unzip the tent. Since I’d promised I wouldn’t let go of Frita’s hand, we both had only one hand to work with and we sure couldn’t get that zipper unzipped. The whole tent fell down on top of us, only it felt like maybe someone pushed it down. We kept screaming and running and pulling that tent along with us even though we couldn’t see which way we were headed. We were just one big bundle of tent and screaming people.

Then two huge arms were coming down over us and I thought we were goners until I heard Pop’s voice shouting above all our screaming.

It took a long, long time, but finally Pop got that zipper undone and me and Frita tumbled out. I still wasn’t letting go of her hand and she still wasn’t letting go of mine, and we were both trying to talk at the same time, only neither of us had any breath left from all the screaming. I looked around, wondering how many Ku Klux Klan people were there, but the yard was empty. Pop was in his pajamas and Momma was in her nightgown with her hair curlers in. They looked tired and wide-awake all at the same time.

“What’s wrong?” Pop kept asking. “What happened?”

Once I looked around and saw there weren’t any Ku Klux Klan guys waiting, I thought Momma and Pop would be mad for sure. We’d woken them up and knocked down the tent, and all the neighbors’ lights were on. But they didn’t get mad.

Pop was holding Frita by the shoulders, and Frita was holding my hand tight. Then she started choking out the whole story even though she’d said she wasn’t going to tell. She told Pop all about the Ku Klux Klan and what happened to her daddy and about Mr. Evans and how we thought there might be Klan people outside the tent and just like that, without a lick of warning, Pop’s eyes overflowed.

Never in my entire life had I seen Pop cry, but he grabbed Frita up like she was his own child and he held her tight and kissed the top of her head. He kept whispering, “
child, child
,” like there was nothing else to say. And the funny thing was, Frita didn’t seem to mind. My best friend, Frita, who was supposed to be almost liberated from all her fears, let my pop rock her back and forth like she was a little, little kid.