Chapter 1
liberate (lib-er-at): to set free; release from control
Frita once told me that before you die your entire life flashes
before your eyes. Well, I can tell you for certain this just isn’t
so. I didn’t die, but I sure thought I was gonna, and for
me it was just one summer that came rushing back, and that was
because I kept wondering how I’d ever gotten in such a serious
bad spot. If you’d asked me three months earlier if I thought
I might end up sitting in Harper McCormack’s boarded-up
old trailer waiting for his dead corpse of a grandmamma to take
me away, I’d have said you were crazy with a capital C.
If you could count on anything it was that I, Gabriel Allen King,
didn’t do anything scary. I didn’t climb out too far
on the branches of the pecan trees or ride my bike on the same
dirt road the truckers used. I didn’t pick up ugly looking
bugs that might have pinchers or walk too close to the cotton
fields if anyone even hinted that the cows might be loose. The
way I figured it, most things were best left alone, and that included
creepy old trailers, especially ones with corpses in them . .
.
But that was before Frita made up her mind that Harper McCormack
needed liberating, and before she decided I needed to pave the
way by overcoming all my fears. That was before I started growing
up for real and gained me some perspective. It was before a lot
of things, and I guess if I’m going to tell you about them
I best start at the beginning.
*
The truth is, I never would have thought about Harper McCormack,
his old boarded-up trailer, or his dead corpse of a grandmamma
if Frita hadn’t brought them up. Thinking about Harper McCormack
was kind of scary and as I said, I made it a practice to avoid
scary things. But Frita didn’t, and apparently she’d
been thinking about him because she found my hiding place under
the picnic table in back of the school on the day of our third
grade Moving-Up day. That was the day she decided Harper McCormack
needed liberating.
That might seem like a big word (even for a third grade graduate),
but that’s how Frita talked. Her daddy was a preacher so
she picked up all sorts of words and then she sprung ‘em
on me when I was least expecting it.
Sometimes I could figure them out by how she was talking. Other
times I just pretended to know and sooner or later she’d
let slip with a couple shorter ones that meant the same thing.
Liberate was a word I should’ve known because she’d
said it before. Except I couldn’t remember. At least I couldn’t
figure out what it might have to do with Harper McCormack, so
I just nodded and made room for her under the picnic table. She
crawled underneath and put a napkin full of sprinkly cookies on
the ground between us.
“Yup,” she said. “I got to thinking about Harper
on account of you missing such a fine ceremony.” She said
it casual-like, but Frita never said anything casual. What she
meant was, why you hiding out here under the picnic table?
I shrugged. Right then it didn’t seem like me and Harper
had anything to do with each other.
Frita took a bite of a sprinkly cookie and it crumbled all over
her chin. Frita’s got dark chocolate skin so only the cookie
crumbs stood out. The chocolate sprinkles blended right in. She
didn’t wipe her face – just went right on talking.
“They called your name,” she said. “Twice.”
I shrugged again.
“Did they call Harper’s name?”
This time Frita shook her head. “Nope,” she said.
“Guess that means he’s not moving up.” She fixed
me with a stern look.
“They’re not going to let you stay back,” she
told me, shaking her head as if it was kind of sad that I didn’t
know the truth. “Once they read your name it’s official,
even if you don’t pick up your certificate. Erin Morgan
is sick and the principal said they’d be mailing hers to
her house. I bet you get yours in the mail on Monday.”
Now why’d she have to go and say that?
“You should’ve planned it out different,” she
said. “Failed this year or something. You ought to have
had some forethought.”
There was another one of them words. If forethought meant planning
it out different, then Frita was right. I should have thought
about everything way back at the beginning of the year - then
I could’ve flunked some tests or something. But I hadn’t.
Back then third grade might have lasted forever, so what was there
to worry about?
Frita pulled our class picture out from inside the choir robe
the school had given us for the ceremony. The picture was all
folded up even though she’d just gotten it. She lay it flat
on the ground and tried to smooth out the creases. It said 1976
on top in big gold letters. I loved that it said that because
1976 was the best year ever. It was the 200th birthday of the
United States – the bicentennial people called it –
and there were going to be big celebrations on July 4th. The Olympics
were this summer, and we were going to win lots of gold medals.
I just knew it.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, the Governor of Georgia
was running for President. That meant come November, we might
have a President who grew up not far from Hollowell. A President
from Georgia for the bi-cen-ten-ial. Sure was a good year. Except
for my having to leave the third grade. This was the only year
I’d tolerated out of all my educating, and that was because
we were the biggest kids in the East Wing. But next year we moved
to the West Wing with the fifth graders, and I sure was scared
of fifth graders. Plus, this year I had Ms. Murray and she was
super nice, but next year I’d have Ms. Julian and she was
the meanest teacher in Hollowell Elementary. Everyone said it,
so you knew it was true.
I scowled, thinking how there was no way I’d be attending
fourth grade. There were some things a man could not be forced
to endure. But Frita didn’t notice all my scowlin’
because she was studying our class picture real hard.
“There’s you,” she said, pointing far below
the numbers.
The picture wasn’t very good. I looked like a fourth-grader.
I’m the shortest boy in our whole class so they always put
me in front, and that day I’d forgotten about picture day
and worn my tattered overalls with the broken strap. My hair looked
kind of crazy, like a rat’s nest, and if you looked close
enough you could tell my hands were dirty.
“Here’s me,” Frita said.
Her finger slid up two rows. She didn’t need to point herself
out because she’s the only black person in our class. Plus,
she wears her hair in two thick buns that stick out from the top
of her head, and half the time she’s got the craziest ribbons
this side of Georgia. In the picture she’s got floofy red
ones and she’s smiling real huge. Frita does not look like
a first-grader. She’s bigger than me and she can whup any
boy in the entire elementary school. You don’t want to get
on Frita’s bad side. No sir.
I was pretty lucky because Frita picked me as her best friend
during the second week of kindergarten. That’s when the
Wilson’s first moved to Hollowell, Georgia. Her daddy got
assigned to the big ol’ Baptist church in Rockford just
one town over, and she might have gone to Rockford Elementary
but Mr. Wilson got wind of the fact that there weren’t no
black kids in Hollowell schools and he thought Frita ought to
do some integrating. I thought integrating meant visiting, but
Frita and I looked it up in the dictionary and it really means
to make something whole again. Putting the parts back together.
That makes pretty good sense because before Frita came it was
like we had a piece missing. We didn’t know it yet, but
there was a Frita-sized hole right next to me. And the funny thing?
The funny thing is that me and Frita might never have been friends
at all except for my last name. I’m called Gabriel Allen
King, Gabe for short, and when Frita first heard my last name
she latched right on to me and wouldn’t let go no matter
how hard I tried to shake her. Turns out she thought I was related
to Martin Luther King, Jr. She didn’t tell me that’s
what she was thinking, but one day she stood up in front of the
whole class and declared me kin to Mr. King. Guess she hadn’t
noticed my being white and all. I teased her about it once and
she got all put out and said she’d noticed but figured I
was a real distant relation. Then she threatened to sock
me in the jaw so after that we didn’t talk about it none
. . . I guess she was attached to me though, because we kept right
on being friends despite the misunderstanding.
I was thinking about that day as we sat there under the picnic
table. Sure seemed like a long time ago. I wondered if me and
Frita would be friends forever or if things would change once
she moved up. Fourth and fifth grade girls were giggly and only
talked to other girls. Yuk. I made another face, but Frita
still didn’t notice. I wondered what she was thinking about,
but I didn’t have to wait long. Frita wasn’t the type
to keep you waiting. She buttoned down her eyebrows, stuck out
her bottom lip, and came out with it.
“This picture is nooo good,” she said. I suspected
I knew what she meant, but I played along anyhow.
“How come?” I asked.
Frita waved the picture in front of my nose.
“Not everyone’s in it. It’s not a real class
picture if everyone isn’t in it.” I tried hard to
look but she was waving it around too much. Seemed to me most
people were in it, but I knew she was looking for Harper.
“Yeah,” I said, “but how would they get everyone
in? Gary Snyder moved away, Leroy Frye was sick, and Harper McCormack
. . .”
Well, truth was, we didn’t know just where Harper McCormack
was. He’d stopped going to school four weeks ago and all
the adults said he’d gone to foster care, but we kids suspected
different. James Merin said he’d seen people moving around
inside Harper’s trailer, and Lucy Adams said she’d
heard voices. Frankie Carmen, who was in the fourth grade, said
there wasn’t any foster care in Hollowell, and really all
the adults were covering up the fact that Harper was stuck in
his trailer with his crazy old grandmamma, too scared to come
out. He said they’d be there forever and ever and eventually
they’d die and rot.
That gave me the shivers and I didn’t believe him at first,
but then Frankie showed us the phone book and sure enough there
wasn’t a single listing for foster care. Frankie also said
if you got too close to the trailer, Harper’s grandmamma
would suck you in when you weren’t looking. Then you’d
be stuck in there, too, just waiting for your life to flash before
your eyes. Well, that sure wasn’t going to happen to me.
Except I did feel a bit guilty over it. Me and Frita weren’t
exactly friends with Harper, but we weren’t exactly not
friends. I suspect we were all linked together in people’s
minds. Harper was slow so the fifth graders called him a retard
which wasn’t very nice but just went to prove how rotten
fifth graders were. I was the shortest kid in the whole school
except for the kindergarteners so they always called me shrimp,
and Frita was black, so sometimes kids called her rotten names
too, although not that often because Frita sure could pound a
body when she was mad. So we were like a set, the three of us.
Sure wasn’t fair, but that’s the way it was. And now
Harper’d gone and disappeared, so it was just Frita and
me, and we hadn’t done a thing about it.
“You think he’s still alive?” I asked. Frita
shrugged.
“I bet,” she said. “I bet his grandmamma’s
dead though. That’s for sure.”
I thought about Harper’s old grandmamma and shuddered. Before
Harper stopped going to school she used to come get him every
day. She was a bony old woman who smelled like talcum powder,
and she only wore knitted stuff even though it’s always
a hundred degrees in Georgia. Plus, she had a bad leg that dragged
behind her. We’d hear her stepping and sliding down the
hall every afternoon. Clomp, ffffff, clomp, ffffff.
Harper’s grandmamma had to come get him on account of the
crying. Just about the time we’d arrive at school Harper
would start crying and it’d get louder and louder until
the teacher put his desk outside in the hall. She’d shut
the door tight and we’d still hear him wailing away out
there. Then the teacher across the hall would yell “Hush
up!”
The teachers said Harper cried all the time because he’d
been born different. Momma said if we lived in a big town Harper
might have gone to a special school, but Hollowell is just about
as small as you can get – we don’t even have a traffic
light - so he was stuck with us and I guess he didn’t much
like it. Can’t say I blamed him. I didn’t much like
it either. In fact, I suspected Harper wasn’t as slow as
everyone said. Seemed to me he was smarter than the rest of us
because he got to sit outside all day while we figured out problems
on the blackboard and got pelted in dodge ball. Seemed to me like
Harper had it made.
Except, of course, when he disappeared.
I figured we’d seen the last of Harper McCormack, and even
though I felt bad about it, I sure wasn’t going to go poking
around risking my very life to find out where he was. Only Frita
had other plans.
“Gabe,” she said, “it’s time we do some
liberating.”
I swallowed hard.
“Liberating?”
“Yup,” said Frita. “I thought it over during
the ceremony and I think we can do it. If Harper McCormack is
in that trailer, then me and you had best take care of it.”
Frita nodded hard. “Yup,” she said again. “Time
to do some liberatin’.”
Now it was official. I was sunk. I could tell Frita’d gone
and got this in her head, and when Frita Wilson gets something
in her head, you’d better watch out because it is by God
going to happen.
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