The Warriors (12 page)

They waited for the attack as they moved; the tension became
acute again; the muscle ached; the senses dulled with the strain of being at attention too long, and they probed harder into the dangerous night. The wind died down. The dust settled. It seemed stiller. There were fewer explosions. The air became almost palpable; the sweat was drenching their shirts to their jackets again. And now, as they passed another shut-down station, the sounds they had learned to interpret as nonhostile began to become suspicious again. An explosion like the smash and thud of a Molotov cocktail breaking into flame jumped them. Somebody with a grease gun was beginning to spray them and Dewey started to throw himself prone when he realized it was a string of firecrackers rattling off. Not being packed for any action, not even having one knife among them, they worried that they wouldn't be able to get hold of any defensive weapon on time to fight back if they came. Or if they came down in a car—everything would be lost. The way the lead's head was turning, in sudden jerks, meant he was alarmed at everything. If he broke and ran, they would all panic. Hector had to get them out of it. He didn't know how much further they had to go. Mysterious open windows, black, looked down on them from the apartment houses. A sniper would lurk in any one of those windows, ready to pick them off. It was not like being on a raid in traditional rivals' territory—territory that was as well scouted as their own, where they knew a lot of ways to get home, and when they did there were a million covers to be safe in if there was a chase. Where could they go now?

Then Hector came up with the plan. He gave Bimbo, Lunkface, and Dewey the word. Bimbo faded back to tell Hinton. At the same time Dewey ran down and gave the action to The Junior. The girl's white skirt still swirled behind; if the trailer had any idea of giving it up and cutting out, that cunt was going to keep him going to make up for her honor; she was going to get a pin tonight, Hector thought. Bimbo and Dewey came back.

The Junior increased his pace to double time. Hector, Bimbo, Lunkface, and Dewey quick-marched. But Hinton slowed up just a little. They began to draw out of sight of their trailers. It helped when the tracks turned a corner and the train route left Southern Boulevard and kept on going down along Westchester Avenue. As soon as they were around the corner, the men fanned out and holed into store doorways. Then Hinton passed and caught up with the slowing-up Junior. A few minutes later, the bitch and the Blazer followed along. When they passed the ambushing men, The Junior and Hinton turned and began to charge the tailers who turned and began to run away, as the four Dominators rose out of ambush, surrounded, caught, and held them. The trailer knew enough to stand still but the girl threw herself around, cursed them and shouted for them to get their hands off while Dewey said, laughing, showing his teeth very big, World War II Jap style, “Ah ssso, Captain Sssstrongheart. You are sssurprissed?”

The girl began to noise it loud when Lunkface, who had her, clapped his big hand over her mouth.

Hector told her, “You keep raising your voice and we'll give you something to raise it about. Stand still in front of this Family, you hear?” And she stopped fighting.

And then Hector told them he didn't want any war. Did they understand that? And the bitch said that they didn't need any war; why didn't they just give her one of the pins? The trailer told her to shut up and she called him stupid because he had let himself be japped in this simple-minded way. Hector tried to explain it again and asked them if they were going to take back the word to the others that they passed in peace, or was the Family going to have to take them along as hostages, for safety? Lunkface wanted to take the Borinqueno's hat away, but Hector wouldn't let him. The trailer said that as far as he was concerned, they could move in peace: he would bring back the
word. The girl said what kind of man was he to surrender to these hick warriors from the hills of somewhere else? The trailer should ask for a fair one right here and now. The trailer told her to shut up because she was going to get him wasted if she didn't shut her big bitch mouth. And while she didn't raise her voice, she kept sounding them all and telling them what nowhere characters they were—halfmen—and if they wanted to get home in one piece, all they had to do was to let her go and to give her one of the pins.

The Family gave her the big laugh and wished they had the time to show her what they did with big-mouth sluts and she was asking for it, but good. Still—and they had known some good ones in their time—they had to admit that she wasn't frightened of them—not one bit—and they had to admit that she had heart, more than the trailer who stayed quiet. They frisked the trailer and found that he had a blade, and they took that away. Spoils of war. They wanted to frisk her too, but they saw the look on the trailer's face. There was no point in making any more trouble than necessary. They wanted to question the trailer—how many soldiers were coming down on them; were there tanks; which way would they come from? But the trailer called on the honor of his band and wouldn't say anything at all. He looked the Family up and down in the cold and Spanish way, angering them. The only thing to do was to teach him with a few lessonslashes with his own knife. But it was pointless to do so.

And in the meantime, the bitch kept lipping them, one and all, and mostly the trailer. What was he supposed to do, Bimbo wondered? She called him a one-ball, half-cock, stupid man, and it wasn't the heat he was sweating from, but the hate; he was going to give her that one good, but very good beating when he got her back, for making him out such a fool in the eyes of the grinning Family. The Family had contempt for these Borinquenos; none of them could control their women one shit-worth.

And then Bimbo had the thought: “what if they were putting on an act to keep them there. It was time to pull out and march on down the line and get out of this hot and dangerous country. Bimbo signaled speed-up warnings. Hector gave the sign to the prisoner-holders, and they let go of the trailer. Hector said, “On your way,
amigo,
and say only that we march in peace.” The Junior moved out to take his point position. The bitch sounded them and the trailer started to pull her away, but she swung free, slapped him, and lunged back for Lunkface's pin. Lunkface leaned away a little and she missed.

The Family started to move out, Hinton lingering to be the Rear, when Lunkface said, “If you want that pin so bad, chick, just come along with us. I mean we're the men. I mean we, you know, ball the best, and we're the biggest men in this whole wide city. Everyone knows the Dominators. I mean you'll be like a sister to us, you know?”

And that was the wrong thing to say because the trailer gave them a look that, under other circumstances, might have cost him a slash or two, a gun-burning, a chain across the face. Even cautious Bimbo wanted to wipe that irritating Spanish Pride off his face, but Hector held him back.

“You,” he told the bitch, “move off.”

The bitch didn't move. She grinned at Hector and said, “What's the matter, Chico, you don't think you're enough
hombre
for me?”

But Hector was cool and used to being sounded, so he didn't bother to answer her. He waved his arm and the men began to move out.

“You'll give me your pin?” the bitch asked Lunkface. He said he would. She told them that she would go with them. The trailer warned the bitch that she would get what was coming to her. And she said that she didn't know if she was even going to come back to this land of the cuckoos and the capons, and followed
the Family. They moved for a block, easier now, faster, but after a while the word was flashed that the trailer was still behind them and they tensed up again. The bitch said not to worry because the Blazers weren't out in force tonight. Most of the men were busy shooting off those kid-stuff fireworks somewhere or other, scattered, and she doubted if they could muster more than five or six men. And anyway, they would soon be over the border.

They passed walls on which the contending Castro Stompers and Borinquen Blazers insulted one another in multi-colored chalks, while the Intervale Avenue Lesbos said they sucked and had more manhood than any little-boy.

After two more Borinqueno blocks, they crossed into a new country. The bitch said there was a truce between the Borinquens and the Jackson Street Masai. Soon they would be coming to the station where they could take the train out.

“Don't let these Masai coons funk you, because the Blazers have them in control,” she said. Dewey looked angrily at her.

Lunkface told the girl again that she could be a sister to them and she gave him a look. But he explained what being a sister was and she grinned and said she would, brother, so long as he gave her the pin to show her he really loved her like a sister. They laughed at that. Hector only hoped she wasn't going with them to bring down the others.

They were almost out of it, but muscle couldn't untense; body remained crouched; fist clenched; moving through the heat, wanting to knock and smash at anything, to let it out, loosen, because there had been no fight. Bimbo felt the girl looking at him and hammered the side of his fist against a sign. Her little smile rewarded him. But Lunkface, jealous, strutted stiffly, looking to hit something bigger, to let out the choked spasm. To show her, to live up to her spunkiness. The Junior kept turning back to look at her; Hinton rear-guarded too close. Dewey
sulked apart, still angry. Hector watched: A woman on a raid was always trouble. Trust Lunkface to initiate it. Did she give him a wink? Lunkface frowned at Hector and pulled her closer. There was nothing to do but to get rid of her as soon as they could. Hector angrily signaled The Junior and Hinton to watch carefully. He didn't know how he was going to pry her away, because Lunkface was going to fight for the snatch. Maybe just leave the two of them.

They saw the next station a few blocks ahead—the station from which they could get the train home. A man looked them over for a second as he passed. Lunkface, whose arm was around the bitch's neck left her and walked over to the man, caught his arm, turned him around and said, “What you looking at?”

The man said, “Get your hands off me, you snotty punk.” He looked big, thick-necked, like he used his hands for a living and had his fight or two.

“Why you look at my sister that way?” Lunkface wanted to know. He had moved in front of the man. The others, excited by the talk, were moving up around the man.

“Are you studs going to let that coolie insult my honor?” the girl said. Hinton was moving up and The Junior was coming back from the point.

“You punks think you own the street. Out of my way.”

“Who're you talking to like that?” Hector asked.

And then the man moved fast, trying to break through. He swung at Lunkface. Lunkface, hit on the chest, staggered back. Someone yelled. They were on the man, hitting at him. He tried to back up to the wall, but they were around him. Bimbo had out the first empty whiskey bottle and swung down for the man's head; he missed, hit his wrist on the man's head, and the bottle shot out of his hand and shattered on the floor; someone kicked Bimbo in the shins. They punched the man down and began
kicking at him. The bitch danced around them, “Go. Go. Go, go. Gogogo,” voicing up to a shriek, reaching through to all of them, the scream-note exciting them. They were standing away from the man now, kicking at him, stomping at his arms and legs. The man tried to move away; it infuriated them and they kicked harder at the sides, stomach, legs; the man lay still, it maddened them and they bent down to punch at his stomach, face, groin. The man turned over—his polo-shirt was bloody from the glass. They kicked his head and beat at his shoulders, his back, wherever they could get at him, and he rolled over again onto his back. And the girl's voice rose higher and higher till it was a throbbing scream and she was hopping up and down, and then the Borinqueno's knife was in Bimbo's hand. Lunkface and Dewey stomped on the man's hands and held them to the floor. Bimbo thrust down. The man screamed; the body jerked violently; the feet on the hands held the body in place; his scream drove them all a little wilder. Bimbo drew out the knife and the man rolled his head back and forth. The face was bloody from the glass; the nose was broken; his mouth was bleeding. Bimbo yelled “Catch,” and threw the knife into the air, point downward. It hovered. Lunkface's hand went out to catch it by the handle and, continuing the fall, thrust it down; the man moved a little and the blade went into his side, to the right of the heart, and the bitch screamed again. Her eyes were half-closed and her mouth was open wide and she panted between shrieks and circled and pushed at the Family yelling, “Me. Me. Me. Give it to me. Me too. Me.” And Lunkface, pulling out, threw the knife up into the air and Hector caught it and shot it downward, coolly, ripping into the man's face, and skin flapped loose from the sliced-apart cheek. The bitch screamed and Hector drew the knife out and hefted it higher into the air, and this time The Junior caught it and slashed down and caught the man as he tried to roll free from the feet standing on his
hands. The Junior got him in the hip and threw the knife up as the bitch followed the way it flew up and saw the faint lights from the street lamps gleaming along its blade and blood, tried to leap up, reaching among the men to catch it herself, but they were too close together. This time Dewey caught it and plunged it down and caught the man in the heart and the man moaned and the moan was long and drawn-out and excited them more because it lingered. The girl was saying, “Give me the knife, give me the knife.” But Dewey threw it into the air and yelled, “Your service,” to Hinton, and Hinton caught, took, and slashed the knife down into the body.

The bitch was leaning against the wall, her legs spread wide for balance, her belly heaving, her eyes glazed, her open mouth fixed in a grin, panting.

Lunkface said, “Man, look at this sister.” And he took her and started to put her down on the floor.