The school year officially started with the first football game of the season. For ten years, West Hill High School had won the Negro League title. No wonder the bleachers were packed with students and parents.
Two minutes remained on the clock, and West Hill was down by three points. It was now or never.
Frank saw the opposing team’s tight end fumble at the forty-yard line. He hurtled forward and scooped up the football. The ball bounced up, slipped from his right hand, bounced again. Frank caught it, gripped the leather, and it held. He heard the roar from the stands as the cheerleaders led the crowd in chanting his name.
“Frank, Frank, he’s our man. If he can’t do it, no one can!
“Go, team!”
Elbows in tight, flanked by a linebacker, he crossed the goal line for a touchdown, giving his team the first win of the new season. Lifting the ball above his head, his legs spread wide, he looked around for Dedra. He knew she’d led his chant. Each cheerleader was assigned a player, and she had his name. The team surrounded him, lifted him, and carried him off the field. His teammates put him down in front of the coach.
“Frank! Your papa would be proud!”
“Thank you, Coach.”
Frank wished his father could have seen that play. He had taught Frank to grip the ball with fingers split and not on the point. Grip and hold, elbow in, forearm up. He could almost hear his father’s voice: “That way, the ball can roll against your chest when you run.”
With both hands on Frank’s shoulders, Coach said, “You recovered that fumble like a pro. We won that game because of you. Too bad the Southern University scout wasn’t here today.”
“Do you know when he’s coming?”
“End of October, I hope. If you keep playing like you did today, you have a long future ahead, with football leading the way. Times are changing, Frank; professional football teams are starting to integrate. You can do what I couldn’t.”
The locker room might have provided an escape from the throngs of spectators but not from Frank’s teammates. Between punches on the shoulder and towel snapping, Frank was taking more hits than he had on the field.
“Hey, Frank,” Willy said. “That cheerleader Dedra’s been waiting for you to come out.”
The room erupted into a high-pitched chorus of “Frankie! Oh, Frankie!”
But Frank didn’t care. Dedra was student council president, smart, beautiful, and a cheerleader. He finished changing and promised to meet his teammates later to celebrate the win.
There she was, talking to her friends. Dedra still wore her cheerleader uniform, which showed how great her legs were. She walked away from the chattering group to meet him.
“Frank Woods! Been waiting on you! Are you coming to the church hall? Reverend Wilford is letting us use it to celebrate.”
“Yes, I’m coming. But I have something to do first, and then I have to stop home. I’ll be there later.”
Disappointment flashed across her face. “Later? But you’re the reason we’re celebrating, and my daddy is letting me stay out, but only till ten o’clock.”
Frank didn’t think the day could get any better and took a chance. “Can you walk with me? My mother won’t mind if you stop in—in fact, she’d like it. She thinks you’re a good influence. My sister is a freshman and wants to be a cheerleader like you.”
Dedra hesitated, and he thought she was going to give him an excuse. Why would she want to walk to his house and then over to the church hall? Even if she did come, she would see the stop he had to make. No one knew what he did every day on his way home.
“Sure, I can walk with you. And I can help your sister when cheerleading tryouts come along. Sissy is her name, right? Hmm, I like that big smile of yours.”
Frank could feel his grin stretch across his face as they walked off together. Dedra was easy to talk to, and before he realized it, they were at the intersection. He needed to tell her now.
“Can we turn here? I have to stop two streets over. It won’t take long.”
Frank led Dedra to the old horse-and-tractor barn that his father had rented years earlier. The hand-painted sign on the cinder-block wall still announced SHELTON’S AUTO REPAIR.
Dedra looked around. “Was this your dad’s place?”
“Yes. I come by most days.”
Located on a corner of the farm owned by Penelope Woods, Shelton’s great-aunt, it was well situated. Cars and trucks passed through the intersection of the two-lane road leading into town and the main road out of town. But all that passing traffic meant that trash accumulated in unsightly clumps.
Frank picked up a dented soda can hidden in the scrub grass.
“What are you doing?” Dedra asked.
“Part of the agreement my dad had with Auntie Penelope was to keep the corner clean of trash.”
“But, Frank …” Dedra frowned.
He knew why she was confused: his father had passed three years earlier. She didn’t remember or had never known that local white businessmen hadn’t liked the fact that Shelton had been the treasurer for the local NAACP. The trouble started after he opened his car and truck repair shop on nights and weekends. The black community preferred him to the local white establishment.
“Auntie was getting on in years and couldn’t keep up the place. My dad promised to keep an eye on the property and do general cleanup.”
“Do you still use the land?”
“No, but it was my job to check this corner on my way home each day. Sometimes I skipped it. I didn’t come the day of the fire. Why should I pick up stuff folks just toss out the window?”
Frank stopped and took a deep breath. This wasn’t a good idea. He could feel the emotion building behind his eyes. Dedra put her hand on his arm. He couldn’t cry in front of her. He bent over to pick up some candy wrappers.
“You didn’t come that day,” she said, “so you come now.”
She seemed to understand something that Frank had never admitted to anyone, something that haunted him. Because if he’d come that day like he’d been supposed to, maybe he could have stopped what had happened and his father would be alive.
Dedra handed him another soda can. The lump in Frank’s throat loosened.
Frank walked around the house to enter through the kitchen door. He was late after walking Dedra home following the celebration at the church hall.
“Franklin Delano Woods, I hear you sneaking in. Come say good night to your mama.”
He should have known she’d be up. She was hanging the last of the shirts she ironed for white ladies who expected them the next morning.
“Good night, Mama. Time for you to sleep too.”
Heart pounding, Frank ran as fast as he could toward the heat. Flames shot above the trees. The fire was close to the garage. Someone rolled across the grass. Rolling, rolling to smother the fire engulfing the body. Frank pulled off his shirt, ready to swat the flames. Other people were running, shouting, “Stand back!” Someone shoved him aside. The man on the ground wore his father’s blue jacket.
His knees buckled under him as he heard the burning man scream.
One of the men commanded, “No! Now, you be strong, son. Get your mama!”
But how could Frank tell his mother? He could hear her voice as if she were next to him. He saw her collapse to the floor, but he knew she was blocks away. He stood there as men placed his father in the back of a pickup truck and drove toward the infirmary on the army base.
Still in shock, Frank saw his father’s shoe—black leather cracked from the heat—and bent to get it. A silver glint flashed next to the shoe. Frank picked it up: a small metal object with initials engraved on one side. He put it in his pocket and heard his mother calling his name.
His mother’s cool hand stroked his cheek. “Frank, Frank! I heard you shout. Hush, now, hush. You were only dreaming.”