The Warriors (11 page)

Hector said that he had made it.

She said that she would like one.

Hector said that they only had one Sign apiece.

“What does it mean?”

“It's the mark of our Family.”

“I never saw one like it. I'd like one.”

“We don't have any extra.”

“Give me yours.”

“I can't. That's the insignia of our men. I'm the leader.”

“Then take one from your men.”

“Bitch, stop making trouble,” the little leader said.

“I'm not making trouble. But look, man, are you going to let them parade through our land wearing insignia? It's an insult.”

“You just want one. Stop making trouble.”

“I'm not making trouble. But what if the word gets around you let some army walk through our land at will? How are you going to look then? What are the others going to think about it? Soon, the Stompers and the Masai, they are going to mambo in, man.”

“You just want one for yourself.”

The bitch smiled, stamped her heels, twisted her white skirt till it whirled up above her stocking tops again. “Some man you are.”

“All right,” the little leader said. “Stop egging me.”

“You're the chicken; I egg,” and she put her lips around the bottle again, pushing out her cheek two or three times. She looked at the Family from under her long, black lashes.

The little leader made a motion to backhand her; she stuck her face close, bottle under, holding her jaw up for him to slam but he didn't hit her. Any Dominator would have creamed her.

“All right,” the little leader said; “I'm not going to fall for your jazz, and you're not going to get the pin. But I'll show you Jesus Mendez is no chicken. You,” he told Hector. “You just take them pins off and you can passage through this homeland with no trouble at all. We'll even give you an escort. But you can't army through.”

“The pins are our mark. They don't mean we're at war. They just tell you who we are.”

“You go through as civilians—all right. You go through as soldiers—no good. We come down on you. You take them pins off. We don't want them, but she's right. You can't trample our territory without showing respect.”

“You're going to let her make your policy for you, man?”

And the little leader got angrier; it was hot, he didn't want to spend the whole night talking, he was nervous because help wasn't marching up. “Listen, no woman runs this army. The Borinquen Blazers are all men and all strong and we have a lot of rumbles to our credit—you can ask anyone around here. But how is it going to look to the enemy if we let you march through here? We'd be put down, laughed at, and warred on.”

Hinton thought that it might be a good idea to take off the pins; so did Dewey. They didn't say anything.

But the little leader's attitude was annoying; the way the bitch kept posturing, shaking her ass, showed that she was running the play here, but Hector didn't dare do anything about it. If the Family had her alone for a while, they would show her what the score was. They stood there in the heat. Above, the train started to back out of the station, rumbling back uptown. They didn't say anything till it got quieter. Firecrackers were still going off
up the sidestreets. Well, it was simple, Hector thought: just waste the little leader a little, take off, take the slut with them—that might do it. But who knew what she had around her. Maybe—and she looked like just the girl to do it—she was packed for her boy—a blade between her tits, a gun strapped between her legs.

Hector said, “Well, fuck you, man. We're not coolies. We're warriors. We're going through. We're going through in peace, remember that, man, but the Coney Island Dominators is one Family that moves with its signs. I mean we don't punk out because some shake-ass woman . . .”

The little leader turned his back on Hector and went back to the candy store. Hector saw it was time to move out. “Remember, we're moving in peace,” he called.

“Good-looking,” the bitch told Hector; “Why don't you give me that pin and I'll make it all right for you.”

“Fuck yourself,” he told her.

“Don't talk to me like I was a whore. Man, I'll show you who'll get fucked, you motherfucker.”

Hector turned around and waved the Family into the quick-march downtown, along the route of the elevated tracks. They walked a block, crossed the street and started down the next one when they saw that the other Blazer and the girl were following the Family. Hector ordered them to quicken the pace. They were getting scared. They walked a half-block and Hector held up his hand and they all stopped. The trailer and the bitch stopped too, moved back against the store front and waited. The Family jittered. They pulled at their clothing. They kept plucking their pants free from between their sweating buttocks and away from their crotches. They were getting frightened now, moving restlessly, impatient, ready to cut out and start running downtown.

“All right, sons,” Hector told them; “If that is the way they are going to have it, then we are going to move out like a war
party, and if they come up on us, why we'll burn them and lay them waste.”

“Man, I wish I had artillery,” The Junior said.

“Don't dream,” Hector said. “We wanted peace. You all know we wanted peace.”

They said, “Yes.”

“But they wouldn't let us be.”

“No,” they all said.

“They never let us alone. Always after us. Man can't breathe.”

They all said “No.” They were beginning to get angry.

“We tried. We tried. Never leave you alone.”

“No peace,” they said.

“Bimbo!”

Bimbo, the bearer, came up. He knew what was wanted. He took a red cigarette case out of his pocket. The soft, cardboard-backed leather was crusted with colored little cut-glass-headed tacks, gleaming like diamonds. He opened it. Inside were black-paper cigarettes with white tips. They moved close. Bimbo tapped six cigarettes out and gave them to Hector. Hector put one in his mouth; Bimbo lit it; Hector inhaled deeply, held it, and exhaled and they all said “aaaah.” Hector pinched out the tip. They watched him carefully; he didn't flinch. They nodded. Hector put the butt, white tip up, into his hat band. Bimbo gave him the second whiskey-bottle, and Hector drank. Then Hector stuck the other five cigarettes into his mouth and Bimbo lit them all. Hector gave four back to Bimbo. He puffed the fifth cigarette. Bimbo genuflected in front of Hector, took the cigarette from him, said, “This brother will serve his Family till he dies,” pinched out the coal and stuck the sign in the side of his hat band, and also took a drink.

Lunkface, whose sense of tradition was at war with his patience said, “Hurry that up, man, they'll be coming down on us.”
But they all gave Lunkface the cold look because this was the important moment. Bimbo took the third cigarette, puffed it, and tapped Lunkface. Lunkface kneeled in front of Bimbo and Bimbo gave Lunkface his cigarette to puff. Lunkface said the words, stuck the snuffed-out cigarette behind his ear, and took his drink. They were beginning to feel a little better now, getting tight and cool, their fear growing into anger, and they began to bounce a little on the balls of their feet, working themselves up.

The other sons went through it, sticking the cigarettes into the backs of their hats. As each man said that this brother would serve his Family till he died, they felt, more and more, the fighting spirit uniting them into one, till they could take on anyone; feeling drunk with it, drawing closer, closer, Father, Uncle, brother-children, all together tight, because they had all sucked from one another's lips, were one, gang-person-family, blood-united, ready and able to stand up to any fucking Other in the whole fucking world. Hector, speaking loud, chanting angry; “I mean we come down here and we want peace and we're not no Commies jiving sounding putting down anyone of them and they come on like they have to have war because of that slut.”

They all said “Yes.”

“Well, now we move out like a war party, even though we wanted peace. Anyone could tell you we wanted peace. Well, now it's too late for that.”

“Yah! We wanted peace,” they shouted.

The bottle was finished. Bimbo flung it far into the air toward where the trailer and the bitch skulked. It arched and shone high, but splintered short of the mark; the bitch and the Blazer bounced high over the fragments slivering along the sidewalk.

Now they moved out, swiftly, leader and brothers, all knowing exactly what to do, bonded into One. Muscle tightened, compressing body a little so that biceps bunched, and triceps
tensed, fist balled, shoulder hunched, legs flexed, trunk tilting, every part taut to sense.

The Family considered going down one of the side streets and moving parallel to the main street till they came to the station. But the side streets were smaller. If the Borinquens had a tank to bring up, they could come blazing down on the Family, catch them, and who knew if there would be doorways to dive into? If they were japped from the roofs with Molotov cocktails here, it was a matter of deploying into the middle of the street, under the elevated tracks where they would be shielded. A scout, The Junior, moved out at a trot till he was a block ahead. No one told him to; he knew. Hinton dropped back about a block to bring up the rear. Scout and Rear stayed on opposite sides of the street so they could command more space as the eyes of the war party. The slut and the trailer followed. They could see her white skirt in the dimness, moving in and out of the street lights. A string of small-arms firecrackers fired off to their left; they startled; head ducked down and around, heart pounded faster, sweat beaded out in sudden spurts.

A soft, hot wind sprang up in front of them, opposing them with a stream of damp air. They leaned forward. The Family eye kept busy searching for anything to form weapons fast in case of a jap. If the attacking army came in a tank, or outnumbered them, the Family might make it to a fire-alarm box and pull the lever; cops and firemen would come and they could be saved; but that was the extreme thing to do. They kept alert for the orange lights that showed where the alarm boxes were.

The Family saw cars—good—car antennas to break off for flails. Garbage cans were everywhere—covers good for shields. It was pointless to run. Who knew how far they would have to run, and they couldn't lose face under the enemy fire. The point spotted nothing suspicious ahead; the rear signaled that they were still being trailed. The Family sweated now; the moving air
was getting stickier; the closeness of the air smelled of a near enemy. The wind was gusting dust and papers into their faces. Tension was beginning to strain their muscles. Every time a car drove by, someone jumped and they looked carefully to see how old the man driving it was. They watched every passerby, but there were very few of these and they wished the streets were crowded.

They passed an apartment building. A lot of broken furniture was lying around in the street. It worried the family. Might mean an assembly and ammunition dump: tables with legs fixed to come off easily, couch springs for wire whips, guns stashed away in the fluffy arms of busted-down easy chairs, ash-can covers for shields and ash cans full of broken Coke bottles to fling, rocks, used light bulbs, pipe ends, loosened spikes in the iron fence, old-fashioned spear-headed cast-iron floor lamps, stacked bricks, and oiled excelsior bunches to fire and fling from the rooftops. All the enemy had to do was to boil out of the doorways, race up from behind the stoops and the whole arsenal—nothing the cops could call weapons—was ready for them. The Family would have to run a gauntlet under the fort. But the houses were very old here, and there was a reason for throwing out furniture, and a street this wide was never a good place to ambush anyone. It couldn't be blocked off from the ends; it couldn't really be controlled from the roofs and, for that matter, the cops could easily come down on everyone with their superior tank force, cordon off the whole battlefield and take both sides in.

Lunkface broke formation and ran over to the pile and started to tear loose a table leg.

Hector told him to drop it and remember they still moved in peace. “Give them Blazers no cause.”

“Well, man, you're not going to trust them to care about that, are you?” Lunkface asked.

“The Family makes no move yet.”

The Family sense was better attuned to this land now. They
were not jumpy, only battle tense, sorting the sounds into innocent and dangerous. The wind bugged them. They came to the Freeman Street station, but it was blocked off and they went on. Hinton had lived around here once, but it didn't look familiar anymore. The Family hoped the territory of the Borinquen Blazers would end here, but the chalked wall-signs told them they were still deep in enemy country. A bus passed them packed full of track-loonies from the train. Lunkface pointed and they saw the Professor standing there; he looked like he was still making his speech to no listeners.

Hector had an idea. If they could only capture the Blazer, they could hold him as a hostage. Or better, they would let him go and that would show the Borinquenos that their intentions were honorable. They wouldn't even touch the slut. Whatever they did to her, no matter how innocent, that bitch was going to say that they had fingered her and insulted her and spit on the honor of the Blazers. But they couldn't stop to jap the right way because they had to keep moving at a raid pace, keeping alert for any party coming down on them. How could they trap the trailer here? Hector wondered. If they moved into the next land, they could alter their strategy and spring the snare right. But where were the borders?

They passed undershirted men seated in front of an apartment house. There were tots still playing in the street. The men had brought out chairs and boxes and set up a bridge table. A wire from a ground-floor apartment was strung out and two lamps lit a too-hot-to-sleep card game. A baby was sleeping in a carriage; one of the players rocked with one hand and held his cards with the other. The men froze their play and looked the Family over, carefully without staring insultingly, as they passed. The radio played
pachanga
music to keep the card game gay: drums, bongoes, and cowbells echoed down the very still street. As they passed they heard the players begin to talk.