The Warriors (10 page)

Then, from the roof tops, on a level with and alongside the station, a line of punky tots stuck their heads above the roof balustrade and began to sound them all up and down, cursing them in Spanish and English making sheep-sounds. The kids made drum and bugle sounds with their mouths and then began to fling lit firecrackers at them, using the overhand grenade-throwing swing. Everyone began to curse them out but, safe across about fifteen feet of four-story drop, the kids gave better than they got. And now, the mob behind the Family, driven by the firecrackers, began to close up and push harder.

The Family was driven around. They shouldered and high-elbowed with Lunkface pointing the wedge. They began to drive through faster, holding on to one another, finding comfort from the feel of one another, merged into a hard oneness among the wild particles of the Other that beat against them. They caught up the Simp, the Professor, and the Duchess in front of them and plowed them along for a few feet. Everyone was beginning to noise it now. The Simp's eyes were wider, more moronic; his hat flopped around his head without falling off and he threw himself all around, grinning more and more as he hit out. The Simp hit into the Professor who was still nibbling on his sandwich which jammed into his face. The Professor began a long speech in a krauty accent, crumbs yelling out of his mouth. The Simp hit against Lunkface who tried to hit back but couldn't swing his hands free. The Dominator drive carried only about four feet and they piled into a solid reef of people, clogged, cackling for
no reason at all. Pushed, the Other screamed and laughed angrily. Excitement kept passing along like a wave coming by, up, and behind them and the whole line rammed forward and smashed up against their backs. The Junior, who was in back, tried to turn with Bimbo to face the pressure but, caught sideways, was almost thrown down. Hinton, helpless, was lofted and carried for a moment, his legs dangling, useless. Even Lunkface became scared. As they all got nearer to the doors of the station house, it began to get wilder and wilder.

They were all jammed up in the station house; free hands waved; the roar was deafening. Everyone had to file between the change booth and a railing to get a transfer, unless they just wanted to cut out. But nobody was going to leave without that pass. And now, his hour come round, an old change-booth man, wearing a celluloid eyeshade, his head thrown back, looked down out of the bottoms of his eyes as if considering which of the hands clawing in at him through the space under the grill was worthy, and then doled out transfers with disdainful and deliberate jabs, safe in his cage, impervious to the screaming faces stuck against the grill.

The Simp's face was completely twisted now; a little drool ran down the side of his chin. He had gotten his hand around the Duchess somehow and she was whooping. The stubbled face of the Professor was splayed out and he was saying something which sounded like, “Let us behave like human beings. Let us have a little dignity. Let us have a little reason,” while the roar inside the station house beat all around and that calm old man behind the grill, who to show he had control, not only of the situation, but of himself, didn't hear the curses screamed at him, and didn't bother to smile in triumph.

Hector saw that it was almost pointless to try for transfers. They were all crazy; it was too frightening. He yelled for his children to turn off and not to bother with the change booth. But
they almost couldn't free themselves. Panicky Lunkface beat a space around himself with his fists and got them out and they were through the turnstiles and past the doors and clattering down the stairs faster and faster, pushing people aside, running away from the roaring scream behind them. An indignant voice said, “God-damned J.D.s.”

There was a big line in the street being filtered slowly into the buses which were there to take the passengers to where the trains resumed running. A few soldiers leaned against a candy-store newsstand, laughing at the coolie mob scene. They saw the men come off and from the way their faces immediately chilled, the Family could see that they were alerting: the enemy on their turf. There were only three soldiers, so they didn't make trouble, but one of them took off casually, strolled a few steps, cut fast into the darkness and was out of sight. Hector knew what that meant: reinforcements. The other two stayed edgy, but cool, showing heart.

They didn't know where they were. They didn't know whose country they were in, but they knew they were in trouble. By now every truce in the whole city was off and they had been spotted because they were uniformed and they wore their insignia.

Hector called up The Junior and asked, “Man, where do we go?”

“I don't know.”

“You were supposed to be watching the stations.”

“I didn't know we'd stop like that.”

“Which way do we go?”

“I don't know.”

“I'll deal with you later.” Hector decided they would move out and follow down along the line of the tracks. They couldn't wait for the bus because they would have to hang around that block-long line with those wild Other. Who knew what would happen before they got away. Soldiers were probably moving up. The thing to do, Hector decided, was to parley for safe passage.

It was hotter, here in the street. The buildings cut off the air from the sides and the tracks of the elevated closed in above. Firecracker strings were being shot off all around; the noise came down to them from the dark side streets; now and then heavier stuff went off. The two soldiers standing in front of the candy store were looking jazzed-up, wearing pegged pants and bright, striped shirts; their high, cloth-front shoes were held together with pearl buttons; they wore wide-brimmed, straw plantation-owner hats set low over their faces so they had to tilt their heads back to look down on anyone they talked to. You could just tell, Hector thought, they were practically off the plane from the mother-island. Hector hoped they spoke English well enough because he, Bimbo, and Lunkface didn't talk Spanish
too well; they'd been born here and knew better than to wear pegged pants.

“A bunch of Juanny-come-lately
miras,
” Hector whispered to his men. The
miras
were giving them the cold look because the Dominator uniforms were raggedy now because they'd been through a hard battle. The
indigenos
gave them the stare—as if to say who were these rag-bag outsiders to come invading their turf without proper permits and parley. They faced each other up and down, but everyone was careful to keep his face grave; Bimbo watched Lunkface to see that he didn't make trouble, but even Lunkface knew enough not to show he had more heart than sense—not here, not now. The Other, on the breadline, didn't notice anything at all, sheeping into the waiting buses.

As they were looking each other over, a girl came out of the candy store and joined the two
miras.
She was wearing a white pleated skirt that hung only halfway between her knees and that promised land, dark stockings, brass-buckled, red-leather shoes, covering her ankles with spiky heels that muscled her calves. She was wearing a short-waisted, sleeveless paradise flowered blouse that left her trim brown waist bare. Her face was painted; her eyes big, rimmed with whorish black stuff, the lips smeared with shiny, white lipstick, eyebrows penciled high into arcs of perpetual amusement, and fluttering big eyelashes, probably fake, Hector thought, because there was make-up crusted on them. Though her skin was brown, her eyes were gray; the Family could feel, almost at once, that stirring, but they took care to keep their faces smooth. Her hair was up in big rollers and loosely covered with a white kerchief titled M
EMORIES OF
P
UERTO
R
ICO
.

Hector advanced alone to parley. The smaller of the
miras
pushed himself loose from the wooden newsstand as if it required great effort. A cigarillo dangled from his lips; his thumbs were hooked in his belt, shoulders hunched, elbows crooked a
little forward. He ambled up to meet Hector halfway between the Family and the candy store. They looked at each other's uniform and thought the other showed nothing, but they kept grave masks. Hector started to talk; he couldn't afford to play the waiting game to see who lost prestige by starting first. After all, they were in hostile country. Hector explained: they had been forced off the train by the construction; they were going
through
to Brooklyn; there was no matter of dispute here at all. Dominators were coming home from the Big Meeting—everyone knew about Ismael's assembly. They asked permission to march through the turf to the next train, wherever that was, as a peace party. After all, there was a city-wide cool on, wasn't there? Hector didn't say that his men were unarmed.

The other puffed his cigarillo hard and gave Hector the narrow-eyed and steady look while he considered it, his face wise behind the rising smoke. Hector noticed he had long sideburns. The
mira
said, thick-accented, he knew nothing of a city truce; he knew nothing of any Big Meeting of the gangs. If such a thing had happened, why weren't his men, the Borinquen Blazers, invited? Didn't the leaders think that his men had enough
machissmo?
Hector realized he had made a mistake in talking about the meeting. He told the Borinqueno that everyone had heard of the Blazers, but such arrangements hadn't been up to them in the first place, and things turned out wrong in the second place. Behind the little leader, the girl was giving The Dominators the up and down, trying to decide how much men they were. Even though her face, those legs, that flash of bare middle excited Hector, he recognized the old trouble-making look: a bitch.

They parleyed back and forth a little about the safe passage. The little leader said he didn't know if he could let the Family through. After all, the matter should be discussed in council. They talked a little about one another's reps, what brother gangs
they ran with, what interborough affiliations they had, who they knew. But though the Dominators and the Blazers had never heard about one another, they took care to admit one another's big reps. They pulled out clippings: Hector's from the
Daily News;
the little leader's from
La Prensa,
in which their gang's raids and bops were written up. They bragged how many men they could field. Hector said that they had a Youth Board Worker. The little Borinqueno had to admit that they didn't have a worker yet, but they were busting out hard and should be assigned one any day now. Hector hastened to say that the Youth Board was overworked, short-handed and it was shortsighted on the Board's part, not so much an insult.

The girl was chewing gum and smoking a cigarette, looking at the diplomats coolly, staring at the Family, turning to talk softly to the other Blazer now and then, swirling as she turned so they could see where the tops of her rolled stockings cut into her thighs. She did a few dance steps. The sound of her heels clicking on the sidewalk made them edgy.

Hector offered a cigarette to the little leader; the Borinqueno took it—a good sign. They compared their individual reps and gave one another full credits as tough warriors. The talkers relaxed a little, but the Family wondered what was taking so long. What if they were being kept here while reinforcements were being brought up? Bimbo coughed twice to warn Hector. The girl went back into the candy store and came out with a Coke. She stuck it into her mouth slowly, her lips low around the neck, tilted the bottle up, a little to the side so she could keep challenging them with that stare. Bimbo watched Lunkface. Lunkface didn't do anything; he was still keeping his head. The little leader decided that there was nothing wrong with the Family taking passage through the territory of the Borinquen Blazers, as long as they came in peace. Hector spread his fingers, palms up. So he told Hector it was a matter of following elevated tracks
down two, three stops, he wasn't sure. The buses went there and train service began again.

But the girl was bored. She had been hanging around all day and nothing interesting had happened. Sure, some of the boys had brought a little wine for her. She had gone off and had a little fun with some of them. But the whole day had been dragging and now she was a little headachy because the wine was wearing off. She yawned—it was much too early to go home—was there any fun in shooting off firecrackers? Mankid stuff. The invaders looked interesting, almost men. Now, if she could promote a little excitement for herself, things might look up. She could boast about what her powers were; armies fought over her.

She came up to the little leader, and they all knew they were going to have a little trouble. Hector hoped the little leader had control enough to stay cool. The little leader knew what was happening, too, and he decided that they wouldn't have any trouble; certainly it was pointless. They were outnumbered; reinforcements hadn't come up yet. Maybe Chuchu was having trouble finding everyone at this time of the night, or they were all off having fun with explosives.

The girl looked Hector up and down and turned away a little, raised the Coke bottle, surrounded the glass rim with her lips, clicking it against her teeth. The boldness embarrassed the truce makers, but the little leader didn't have the sense, or the manhood, to stop her. Hector would have just slapped her away. She turned and looked the Family's dirty clothes over in the cool way that always meant “show me.” The Blazer who thought he had control got irritated without knowing why. Hector turned his face away carefully and looked back at the Family. No one was moving, not even Lunkface.

The little leader told the Family to hurry up, go, rushing them; he warned them that they would have to cross a thin, block-wide
stretch of territory they were warring over with the Castro Stompers, move on to Borinquen territory again, but look out for the Jackson Street Masai on two blocks before they got back on the train.

They were about to leave but the girl said, pointing to Hector's hat, “Where did you get that pin?”