THERE’S NOTHING LIKE SUCCESS TO BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE. LEAST that’s what Frita said after the rope swing. That made sense, only I wondered if confidence was the same thing as courage. We’d jumped off the rope swing five more times after the sixth-graders left, but I still didn’t want to go to the fifth grade. But Frita didn’t seem to notice that part. She was too excited.
“The way things are going,” Frita said, “we’ll be completely liberated by the Bicentennial.”
We were sitting in her bedroom, drawing pictures and listening to her transistor radio. It was shaped like a plastic spaceship and we had to adjust the antenna to get any music to come in. I pushed it all the way over to the side like I was working at fixing it, but really I was thinking.
“You decide which fireworks you’re going to?” I asked.
Frita gave me a look like she hardly knew what I was talking about. “Hollowell,” she said. “Where else?”
I wondered when she’d made up her mind, but I didn’t ask because that was the one I wanted her to pick.
“We gonna stay up all night in the tent afterward?” Frita asked.
I’d been waffling on that decision. Last year we’d tried to stay up all night, but I’d gotten scared on account of what had sounded like a black bear but had turned out to be a raccoon. After that I’d had to go inside and sleep with Momma.
“Maybe,” I said, and Frita put both hands on her hips.
“Gabriel King,” she said, “you got to get you some perseverance.”
I wasn’t so sure what perseverance was all about, so Frita tried to explain.
“It’s pushing on,” she said. “Toward the high mark.”
That was part of a hymn we sang in church, and I wondered if Frita really knew what perseverance meant or if she was just making it up. Then I thought about all the things I needed and how there were so many of them. Courage, integrity, faith, confidence, perseverance…Sure would be easier to sit back with my feet up and maybe eat a snack.
Frita got up and put her drawing away.
“What have you got left on your list?” she said, pulling out the special shoe box from under the bed where we kept it. I took out my list and read over everything real careful. There were a bunch of fears we hadn’t crossed off yet, but I wanted to pick the easiest one. Only this time Frita didn’t wait. She plucked the list right out of my hands.
“Let me read it,” she said, climbing onto her bed. “It’s almost done anyway.”
Then, before I could stop her, she started reading it out loud.
“Number one, fifth grade. Number two, Duke Evans. Number three, Frankie Carmen. Number four, spiders. Number five, alligators. Number six, Terrance…”
Frita stopped reading.
“Terrance?!”
I sure wished I hadn’t written that one down.
“You’re scared of Terrance?!”
“No,” I said, even though I was lying.
“You wrote it down,” she said. “Once you write something down, it’s true.”
“Is not.”
“Is too.”
“Not.”
“Too.”
“Not.”
That’s when Mrs. Wilson came in. “You kids getting along?” she asked.
I glared at Frita so she’d know she better not breathe a word of this to her momma. She paused and handed me back my list, but then she said, “Can Gabe stay for dinner?”
Mrs. Wilson nodded. She never said no when it came to feeding me because she had the idea Momma didn’t feed me enough. And Mrs. Wilson did serve more food than Momma. When Momma served dinner, there were always three things. Sometimes, it was pork chops, green beans, and applesauce, or else it was mac-n-cheese, peas, and bread, but it was always three, and one of those was always a vegetable, so that meant there were only two that counted. When Mrs. Wilson made dinner, she made about ten things. There’d be some sort of meat, and then a couple vegetables so a body could choose what was most tolerable, and then there’d be corn bread, mashed potatoes, rice and beans…Mmm, mmm, Mrs. Wilson was a good cook.
“You can stay if your mother says it’s okay,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Why don’t you go call her?”
I jumped off the bed, real excited, but then I stopped. It occurred to me there was probably a reason Frita was inviting me to dinner and it probably had to do with Terrance.
I had to weigh everything real careful.
“What are you making for dinner?” I asked. Mrs. Wilson was hanging up some of Frita’s clothes in the closet, but she stopped and turned around, surprised. I’d never asked what she was making before.
“Corned beef, some collard greens, a bit of okra, corn bread, little bit of brown rice, applesauce…oh, and I’ve made bread pudding with sweet brandy sauce for dessert. That all right with you, Gabe?” She was smiling like something was kind of funny, but she didn’t laugh.
I never could resist bread pudding.
“All right,” I said at last.
Mrs. Wilson turned back around.
“Oh, good,” she said.
“Is Terrance coming to dinner tonight?” Frita asked, real sweet.
Mrs. Wilson turned around again and put one hand on her hip. As Frita would say, it was common knowledge that everyone at the Wilson household came to dinner every night, no matter what.
“What are you two up to?” Mrs. Wilson asked, real suspicious.
“Nothing,” Frita said. Then she grabbed my arm. “Come on, Gabe. Let’s call your momma so we can go outside before dinner.”
* * *
“What are you going to do?” I asked Frita when we were outside knocking moss off the trees with two big sticks. I was nervous, so I kept missing.
“Nothing,” Frita said. “I’m just going to make sure you and Terrance get to talk. Momma always says things would be all right if black people and white people could just sit down and talk over a fine dinner.”
I stopped swiping at the moss. Huh. I sure hadn’t thought about me and Terrance as black people and white people. I’d thought about us as a big, pounding, scary person and a little wimpy person who doesn’t want to get pounded. The way Frita put it made it seem like a big deal, and that couldn’t be good.
By the time Mrs. Wilson called us in to dinner, I was wishing I’d said no, even if we were having bread pudding. Then, when we went inside to wash our hands, Terrance was already at the sink, only he wasn’t standing right next to it, so when me and Frita ran in full blast, we took his spot. Terrance narrowed his eyes.
“Twerps,” he growled. He stormed out of the bathroom. I gulped, and Frita looked over at me.
“He don’t mean anything.”
Maybe, I thought, or maybe not.
Frita went into the dining room and sat down next to her daddy, who was just taking off his tie and stretching his long legs under the table.
“Hello there, beautiful,” he said to Frita. Then he turned to me. “Gabriel,” he said, nodding as I pulled out my chair.
“Helllooo, Mrs. Wilson,” he said when Mrs. Wilson brought out the corned beef. She leaned over to put the tray down and he kissed her cheek.
She smiled and said, “Hello, Mr. Wilson,” like it was some inside joke between the two of them. Me and Frita reached for the corn bread and collard greens and started passing stuff around. We had everything all passed before Terrance even came to the table. Mrs. Wilson scowled because he was late, but she didn’t say anything.
I took a deep breath before launching into my meal and it was a good thing I did, because I forgot about the prayer. When you ate dinner at the Wilsons’, there was always a prayer and it was always a long one. Mr. Wilson started in slow at first, but then he’d get into it and his voice would start sounding like a song. Mrs. Wilson would say mmm-hmm while Mr. Wilson prayed, and the whole time we’d be holding hands round the table. I sure was glad I didn’t have to hold Terrance’s hand.
By the time the prayer was over, my mouth was watering something fierce. I took a huge bite of corned beef immediately after Mr. Wilson said “Amen.” Frita scraped her collard greens into a pile under her corn bread so it would look like she’d eaten them.
“Terrance, Gabe wants to know what your favorite color is,” Frita asked out of nowhere after we’d all been eating a bit. I nearly choked on my okra, and Terrance made a face.
“What business is it of his?”
Mr. Wilson scowled. “Terrance, tell the boy your favorite color,” he said. “Won’t hurt you to be civil.” Mrs. Wilson was shaking her head like she was some fed up.
Terrance paused, sarcastic-like, then he said, “Black. What’s yours? White?”
I paused too. “No,” I said, “it’s blue mostly, but sometimes green when I can’t make up my mind.”
Terrance laughed like I’d said something stupid, and Frita picked at her corned beef. We all went back to eating again, but not for long.
“Gabe wants to know what your hobbies are,” Frita said, as if the last question hadn’t been enough.
This time Terrance’s face twisted up like squash vine.
“Why doesn’t the twerp ask me himself?”
Mrs. Wilson glared. “Don’t you speak about our guest that way,” she said. I just sat there looking from Frita to Terrance to Mrs. Wilson. I was sinking lower and lower into my chair, and that was hard to do because the Wilsons’ chairs were the wooden kind with the straight backs. Mostly I ended up hunched over the table. I kicked Frita underneath it.
“Ouch.”
Mrs. Wilson gave the two of us the evil eye, and I knew I better hurry up and ask something quick before everyone got mad.
“Umm. Do you have your driver’s license?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but it was the only thing I could think of.
Terrance sat back in his chair. He put one arm over the empty chair next to him and eyed me real cold. He’d hardly eaten a thing.
“You want to know what I do for fun?” he asked, ignoring the question about the driver’s license. I nodded even though I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.
“I fight oppression,” Terrance said. “You know what that is, Twerp?”
The funny thing was, this time Terrance didn’t say it mean. He said it like maybe he really wanted to know if I knew what oppression was. I thought maybe I did.
“I know,” I said, nodding. “Once I found a stray dog and Pop wouldn’t let me keep him. I was real oppressed about it because I thought Pop might say yes.”
Mrs. Wilson laughed into her napkin. She was trying not to, but I could tell what she was doing. Mr. Wilson smiled too, but Terrance got real mad.
“What?” Terrance said. “What kind of a stupid answer is that?”
Mr. Wilson looked at Terrance like he was saying something serious with his eyes. Then he turned to me. “Gabe,” he said, “it’s not your fault you don’t know what oppression is. White people don’t always teach their kids about oppression, because they don’t think they have to know about it. But that’s not the case, is it? We all need to know what oppression is or else how will we fight it?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir,” I said, even though I still didn’t know what I’d gotten wrong about it. Mr. Wilson set down his fork.
“Oppression is when you’re put down,” he said. “It’s when you don’t have the freedom to be who you want to be because someone else doesn’t believe you should have that freedom. Oppression is one person keeping down another person because of the color of his skin, or the language he speaks, or the religion he practices.”
Mr. Wilson was starting to sound like a preacher again. He was getting louder and taking up a rhythm, like he did when he was praying. It was like being at church only I was getting my own personal sermon.
I listened real careful and tried to think if I knew what Mr. Wilson was talking about. At first I thought I didn’t, but then I remembered Pop’s story about Jimmy Carter and the White Citizens Council. Only this time I thought about it in a different way from how I’d thought about it the first time. This time, instead of thinking about what happened to Jimmy Carter, I thought about what it must have felt like for the black people in Plains who had a whole group forming against them. I bet they felt some oppressed, and they must have had to be real brave.
I told that to Mr. Wilson and he looked surprised.
“Gabe,” he said, “that’s exactly right.” He looked at Terrance across the table, but Terrance only snorted like he didn’t care what I’d said.
Mrs. Wilson cut me an extra piece of corn bread. “I think we’ve got ourselves another Peace Warrior,” she said, winking at Mr. Wilson.
No one had ever called me that in my whole entire life. I wondered if a chicken could really become a warrior, but Frita grinned like it was already true.
“You can join our group,” she told me, “just like me and Terrance.”
I looked at Terrance, but he didn’t look too excited about that idea. He got up from the table and took his plate into the kitchen.
“Can I be excused?” he asked, but he said it after he’d already gotten up, and then he left even though Mrs. Wilson didn’t answer. She sighed.
“Don’t mind him,” she said, dishing everyone some more corned beef.
I stared down the hallway where Terrance had disappeared, but Mr. Wilson poked me in the stomach.
“A warrior’s got to eat,” he said with his mouth full, and it was okay because I suspected Mr. Wilson was a warrior too, and sometimes warriors have to talk with their mouths full.