back in Florida had once been a Great Titan with the Klan. "But theyre dead now, arent they?" he asked Slim. That prompted Slim to whip out a Klan calling card: "Here Yester- day, Today, Forever! The Ku Klux Klan Is Riding! God Give Us Men!" Slim told "Perkins" that he was in luck, for there was a membership drive under way. The $10 initiation fee-the Klans sales pitch was "Do You Hate Niggers? Do You Hate Jews? Do You Have Ten Dol- lars?"-had been reduced to $8. Then there was another $10 in an- nual dues, and $15 for a hooded robe. Kennedy balked at the various fees, pretending to play hard to get, but agreed to join. Not long after, he took the Klan oath in a night- time mass initiation atop Stone Mountain. Kennedy began attending weekly Klan meetings, hurrying home afterward to write notes in a cryptic shorthand he invented. He learned the identities of the Klans local and regional leaders and deciphered the Klans hierarchy, rituals,   and language. It was Klan custom to affix a Kl to many words; thus would two Klansmen hold a Klonversation in the local Klavern. Many of the customs struck Kennedy as almost laughably childish. The secret Klan handshake, for instance, was a left-handed, limp- wristed fish wiggle. When a traveling Klansman wanted to locate brethren in a strange town, he would ask for a "Mr. Ayak"-"Ayak" being code for "Are You a Klansman?" He would hope to hear, "Yes, and I also know a Mr. Akai"-code for "A Klansman Am I." Before long, Kennedy was invited to join the Klavaliers, the Klans secret police and "flog squad." For this privilege, his wrist was slit with a jackknife so that he could take a blood oath: "Klansman, do you solemnly swear by God and the Devil never to betray secrets entrusted to you as a Klavalier of the Klan?" "I swear," Kennedy responded. "Do you swear to provide yourself with a good gun and plenty of ammunition, so as to be ready when the nigger starts trouble to give