The Warriors (3 page)

In the Bronx, eight boys wearing sweaters despite the heat, and sneering looks on their murderous Irish faces, mounted the crosstown bus. They dropped their fares into the coinbox, moved to the empty back, and sat down quietly. The bus driver could feel the back of his neck ice; he recognized those longsideburned temples and crew-cut tops. Punky hoods. Trouble. They would sit there for a while, quietly until one would see something amusing—God knew what could amuse these animals—and he would nudge the next boy. They would start to stare, point, whisper, and laugh and finally to shout. Then the trouble would begin. They might pull, and keep pulling, the stop-buzzer. When the bus stopped, they would stamp and keep stamping on the plate that opened the rear door. They would curse to one another, slam windows up and down. Someone would complain, some prune-faced old lady, and he would have to make a stand, would have to stop the bus and go back and tell them to shut up and hope, if they didn't listen to him, at least they wouldn't jump him. Sometimes, surprisingly, they listened. Other times they cursed him in ways he hadn't thought of. Not that he had been jumped yet, but he knew drivers who had been. He tried to keep his eyes on the road and on the hoods. He drove anxiously with his body, avoiding cars and pedestrians, while he worried about the coming trouble in the back.

Boys hadn't been like that when he was young. Tough, sure,
but clean-tough. Nobody killed then. The world was cracking up. If the cops would only use their clubs. The punks just sat quietly. One kept folding and unfolding his arms, sticking his hands into his armpits as though he were cold. Another fiddled with the buttons of his gang sweater while his leg shook up and down uncontrollably. Another looked stupidly at the hot sunset. One even politely made room for a man to pass. And for once they didn't sprawl insolently in their seats. For a half hour the driver waited for the inevitable punk explosion, but nothing happened. Finally, as he was getting to the end of the line, one of the boys rang the bell.
Now,
he thought, but they just got off. They stood quietly, talking as he drove off. Maybe he made a mistake, maybe they were just a school group.

The snotty kid whose father owned the fat Cadillac sat, soft and stupid, between the two hard corporals in the back seat. When they drafted the tank they brought along the owner's son, a no-belonging slave, because they didn't want to get in trouble—not tonight. They half coerced him, convinced him, promised he would be high up in their councils if he volunteered. The kid looked worried, trying to toughen his face to be as bop-brave as the rest of them. You could see him working hard to feel like them, the two flanking him, the two squatting on the floor, and the three in the front seat. But he really knew that they only let him come along because he had gotten his father's long black tanky Cad for them, and because he let them drive it. But he worried; he was a hot driver himself, but nowhere near as wild and terrifying as the boy driving now. The General, staring out at the sun balanced along the rim of the Jersey shore, wondered if they shouldn't ditch the stupid slave before they got to Ismael's rendezvous. The General thought how fine they must look in the tank, took out Ismael's invitation, looked at his watch, and consulted the schedule. They were on time.

For the fifth time the General told the driver to cool it, to drive soft and square because if they were picked up, man, they were going to be put
in,
because of you know
what,
man. The driver said that, man, he knew, but his hands stroked the smooth black skin of the steering wheel and his toe eased the pressure on the gas pedal and he said he couldn't help it because, man, if you just
twitch,
man, the hair-triggered gas pedal made you know it, and you knew it because everything was like standing still as they went: Did the General understand that?

The General inspected the driver to see if he was gassed, teaed, or liquored. Anxious, one of the men in the back, asked could he drive now? The General wanted to know if the driver wanted some hard-hand head-buster in blue to break a few against his beak? Did he want that? Because as soon as they were cop-stopped, it was a matter of the club touching on their kidneys and asses and the backs of their legs, as they would be straddle-footed and bent over in the far lean against a wall, or against the car. What then? There was no chick around to run off with Ismael's pretty present between her legs. He knew, he knew, the driver whined, and slowed down some more. Why couldn't he have a little fun and drive too, Anxious in the back pleaded. The General didn't answer.

But a few joy-kids, some clean school-snots with all-American crewcuts came up the highway behind them, moving fast and passed, looking out of their doctored junk-heap with the roar hidden beneath the battered and flame-stenciled red hood, looking at the sedate lines of the Caddy. They recognized that here were rivals, and they hooted and laughed at the smooth black mass of gleamy Detroit Iron, pointed them, sounded them and put the men down. Here it was not a matter of chasing them and catching them on foot, and fighting it out. These hot-rodders knew the way tanks went, and theirs whooshed and coughed and growled and the fake old heap came to life and was dwindling up
the West Side Highway ahead of them, threatening to vanish in the distance beyond the George Washington Bridge.

The driver couldn't stand the challenge. It was a question of not being put down. The driver touched the pedal, trying to look cool, sedate, bored. He told himself, “Ah yes. Home, James, man,” and giggled. The tank hummed a little, and shot forward. The driver felt it, that subtle and exciting touch of power transmitted to his fingers, tingling them. They all wanted their tank to beat the souped-up heap, and they couldn't help yelling, even the General. It would be nice to go by and just blast them, to show them who they were dealing with. Wouldn't that surprise them? Anxious was hunched forward in the back, holding an imaginary steering wheel, which he kept wrenching around imaginary curves violently, lipping car-roar noises.

And at first the heap got no further away. And then they gained on it while the sides of the highway, embankment, and river, ran past faster. The men squatting on the floor
had
to raise their heads to see what was happening. And even with eight in the tank, it moved without effort, with tremendous power, so that the driver felt he had the strength of the world here, and felt it like it was in him, and he almost had more of this power, more, even, than the General. The noises from the car imitator in the back became deafening and his eyes were on his own private road. But the General remembered himself and he told the driver to cool it, cool it, cool it! The Driver kept arguing . . . but man . . . saying that allright, allright, he was slowing up, and it wouldn't do to slow up so suddenly because look what it did to the car, or to anyone behind them. And for one languorous second more his foot was heavy down on the pedal, giving it one last goose before he let go, unable to free himself from the throbbing feel of it.

The General twisted his body, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out Ismael's checker-papered gift package. He brought it
down hard against the hip of the driver, telling him, man, the next time it would fall he knew where. Did the driver want to dispute rank with him? Because he, the General, was ready—right now—to pull over to some private corner and show who had the power here. And the driver slowed down, promising himself a little fun later on. Just in time, because around the curve was the heap parked by the side of the road. The all-Americans were out getting ticketed by a blue fist in a helmet, wild breeches, and too-much boots. The heads of the men on the floor shot back under the rim of the window and the driver of imaginary cars braked his lips. They wondered what would happen if they were intercepted. So much depended on their not getting caught.

The cop, turning the corner, almost ran into them. There were about ten of them. They materialized out of the dusk, looking incongruous, brutal under the leafy, spreading trees. They walked beside the tended lawns, coming at him like the night itself. What were Negroes doing in this neighborhood? Were they an integration group? He'd bounce his stick off their skulls. They all had that same hostile face and he couldn't tell them apart except by size. Were they a Muslim group? His left hand began to tighten on his club. Were they a gang? He read that they never left their neighborhoods; he had never believed it. This was a fighting gang. He tried to make it look as if he were innocently swinging his stick.

It was not so much fear that disturbed him, but the barbaric anarchy of it. He had never seen such groups in this almost suburban neighborhood. Law and order had failed; they never came up here. Could he arrest them for unlawful assembly? Why were they here? Did the trees beyond them and across the street conceal others? What were they going to do? Were they going to beat up the neighborhood teen-agers? Or would they break
down the house doors and rape the women? Set off explosives, shattering the Fourth?

They all wore many little brass buckles on their raincoats and point-up shoes. Their hair was straightened, pompadoured high, held in place by wide, shiny black headbands. What was concealed under those short black raincoats: bicycle chains, zip-guns, shivs, brick sacks, baseball bats? He gripped his stick a little harder.

The narrowness of the sidewalks forced them to parade past him in twos like a frightening parody of a military formation. He almost panicked into shifting his club to his right hand. But no one strutted. No one taunted. They kept on stepping, marched around him and were past, going quietly, not even looking at him. He tried to look into their eyes and see if they were hopped-up. They were past and it was all he could do to keep from turning around and looking behind him, but if he made a wrong move, angered them by turning, he knew their treacherous weapons must flash. They would be on him, beating and kicking. He was sure they were watching him carefully. He could hear their feet, receding, clicking precisely on tapped heels and toes. As long as he heard them he was safe. But had some of them stepped off onto the grass? Those shiny shoes were indecent on the clipped lawns. He grabbed his stick with his right hand. The thong caught on his left wrist. This was the moment to let loose. He yanked hard, sure that some missile was already flying at the small of the back, or the head. The thong slipped loose and he shifted his stick to a better swinging grip. He couldn't stand it any more and turned his head.

The whole gang had moved on. They were in very good order, marching away till he had trouble seeing them in the dusk as they went in and out of the darkness cast by the trees. He stared in the direction they had gone. The last thing he saw was the twinkling buckles on their shoes. When they were gone he walked slowly after them, slapping his stick in his left palm. He
wondered if he should report their presence on the beat when he phoned in.

The car in which Ismael Rivera sat was not old and not new, not big and not small; certainly, it was not too sporty. It had been driven carefully, skillfully, all the way from Manhattan. The distance to the staging area was not far but they rode south across the Brooklyn Bridge and through Brooklyn, up along the interborough chain of highways into Queens. They had driven down side streets, through tunnels, over elevated highways, past cemeteries across which they could see the high buildings which seemed to spring from the graveyards—greater and more distant mausoleums. They stopped in many neighborhoods, but only for a second, a minute at most. They held quick briefings and drove on. Sometimes they merely exchanged signs with some scout as they went, people were celebrating the Fourth; the sound of explosions was building up slowly. The sun hung hot and setheavy, balanced on the spire-points. War-Counselor looked at Ismael's face, nodded, and said, “They'll know it soon.”

Now they were time-killing, driving around quiet streets where large houses were lawn-flanked and quiet; only birds were seen. Secretary said, “The richest people in the world live around here.” They listened to the car radio playing
pachanga
music; if anything went wrong the announcer would relay a
request.
Soon it would be dark enough to head for the Bronx where they would drive across town to the assembly place in Van Cortlandt Park.

Ismael sat in the back, relaxed, smoking a cigarette, his face motionless behind those lenses. The sides of his eyes were shaded by the heavy sidepieces that swept around his head. But he had been watching and seen it all: the streets, the cemeteries, the trees, the fine houses, the waters of Long Island Sound, and the clean arc of the bridge over those waters to the Bronx.

War-Counselor was busy going over the arrangements. There
were so many things to keep in mind: some gangs had chickened; unexpected representatives were coming; could they be put in the same place as the canceled soldiers? He kept looking at maps and consulting notebooks. He wished he could have thought of it all himself, but that was why he was the Counselor and Ismael was Presidente. It was that way since he had been with Ismael, five years now.

Secretary, who sat beside the driver, had been looking out the window at wonderful and unaccustomed sights, goggling at the splendor of the city, dreaming dreams, hoping for things he might have someday, given a few breaks. Certainly, he understood, if things went well with Ismael's big plan—and when had Ismael ever failed—he might, just might, make it. “Man,” he said, “that's the way to live. I want one of them,” pointing to a half-timbered house they were passing.

War-Counselor looked at Ismael, nodded, and said, “You should want to throw rocks at it.”

Secretary understood what Ismael meant and his resentment that always lurked beneath his surface surged. He saw himself tearing it down with his hands. Still, secretly, he wished Ismael had found it good and he couldn't help longing again, wistfully, and dimly seeing himself in the coolest, most expensive clothes, lounging around in a vague, but impressive house with a rich T.V. interior. Outside, there would be a long, long car to leap into, gleaming and heavy with a lot of chrome. He would have a slender, huge-breasted wife, a blonde, encrusted with shining stones; she would shimmer in shining dresses; she would have many children—boys—for wasn't he a man, didn't he have
machissmo?
But she would remain always desirable. Much money would be present, piles of bills and precious stones. It was all unclear and satisfying.