Front Lines (Front Lines 1)

A white cop at the end of the street looks on tolerantly, ready—perhaps—to step in if any of the white folks turn nasty. Ready—very definitely—to step in if any of the colored folks object to being mocked.

So boys and men and some women who will soon be at war dodge flying matches and hold their dignity tight to them as the insults fly.

Frangie hesitates. The two deacons slow as she slows, following her lead. Perhaps if she comes back later the line will be shorter and she can go right inside. Or perhaps the crowd of white trash will grow bored and find something better to do.

“We can’t start trouble with them white boys,” one of the deacons advises her.

“Yes, sir, I know that,” she says.

They have come to a stop half a block away. It will be Frangie’s decision whether to go ahead. Bile rises in her throat, a barely suppressed rage at being put in this position. She doesn’t even want to do this. She’s only doing it to help her family. Why would these crackers feel they need to make it all still worse?

She’s angry too at the deacons, though she knows it’s unfair. Pastor M’Dale insisted they keep her company, but what good are they? Old black men, old men who were here when the buildings burned and black women were raped and the Tulsa police—the police!—flew a rickety plane over Greenwood throwing gasoline bombs on black businesses and homes.

Helpless then, helpless now.

“I made it here,” Frangie says, her voice tight and low in h

er throat. “You did your duties. Go tell Pastor M that I made it safely.”

“Now, Miss Frangie—”

“No. You know what happens if the three of us go stand in that line. I’m just a little thing, they won’t start trouble, not too much trouble, anyway. But if I have bodyguards . . .”

The deacons did not take too much convincing. They knew she was right, and they knew they were weak and useless in her eyes, as they were in their own.

Frangie walked the last half block. The crowd of whites noticed her immediately.

“Well, look at this, boys. It’s a sweet little colored girl come to sign up to shoot Japs.”

“Nigra bint lookin’ for a government check, more like.”

“Now I know we’re going to lose if that pickaninny is who’s fighting.”

She joins the line behind a young man who stands so stiff she wonders how he breathes. He ignores her, focusing on his own self-control.

“Hey, want a light?” One of the white men flicks a match at her. It spins, hits her shoulder, and falls extinguished. She does not look at him. Will not look at him.

“Must want to be raped by some of them Japs, yeah, that’s what she wants.”

Frangie hears it, but she’s heard that and worse. Still, it churns her insides.

“You think Japs ever tasted brown sugar?”

“Hell, Dwayne, that’s the only kind of pussy you’ve ever had.”

This remark is not taken well, and a scuffle breaks out between two of the white men that provides distraction until Frangie is safely inside.

An hour later she is Recruit Frangie Marr, of the army of the United States of America. She is to report to the bus station the following morning.

She has forgotten to pray for guidance, and now it’s too late. She has followed life’s path lit only by her own conscience, without consulting either scripture or the God that inspired it.

Her own conscience . . . and the promise of a paycheck to keep the lights on at home.

She had arrived at the enlistment center in her painful church shoes. She walks home barefoot, with her shoes in one hand. The new army boots she’d been hoping for won’t be hers until she arrives at the aptly titled “boot camp.”

She is determined not to let her parents see her fears and doubts, so just before she gets home she forces a smile and quickens her pace, bounding up the sagging steps.

Her mother is at her machine again and looks up, her face like a jittering filmstrip shifting rapidly from one emotion to the next, before settling on a resigned sadness, seeing the morning’s events in her daughter’s eyes. This is life: choices, mostly between bad and worse.