The Chief

by Robert Lipsyte

  “Gon’ barf,” he said.

  “Go for it.” I pointed him over the pool. It came out in one long silver rainbow and splashed into the water. “That’s good, chief. Vulnerable but tough.”

  I could write better dialogue than those creeps, even if I couldn’t play basketball with them.

  Sonny’s clothes were scattered. Getting him dressed took a while. There were some other people in the pool house, waking up slowly. I was cool and didn’t stare at them, although I was almost sure I had seen one of the women on MTV.

  The limo driver was waiting patiently for us out in the driveway, reading an Arabic newspaper. When I loaded Sonny into the back, he barely looked up. I had a feeling he’d seen all this before, and worse.

  I thought we’d have trouble getting out of the hotel, but the studio had guaranteed payment, and at the airport I exchanged the return flight of my first-class ticket for two economy tickets. I left a message on Robin’s machine with our flight number and time of arrival. Sonny slept most of the way home. Somewhere around Chicago he woke up and filled a barf bag. I got him some water and he felt better and then he went back to sleep.

  Robin was waiting for us at JFK. We tucked Sonny into the back of her old BMW and covered him with a blanket.

  “He looks awful,” she said.

  “He had the total Hollywood experience. Did everything, did everybody, and now he’s done.”

  “That sounds like a line you’ll put in your book and a good editor will take out.”

  “I’ll put it back,” I said. “How’s Jake?”

  The wound isn’t so serious, but they’re worried about his heart. He’s in the hospital in Sparta.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Sonny slept in the back most of the way up. It was night. I liked the intimate feeling of sitting close to Robin in the dark, talking softly. I told her everything I knew about Sonny in Hollywood. She snorted when I mentioned The Chief series.

  “It makes me crazy, the boys’ club. They’ve got all that money to play with, they make crap, and we’re begging for crumbs to do something worthwhile.”

  “You got your money,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You got money from Hubbard.”

  “No strings attached.”

  “Ill bet.” I thought about mentioning the cut over Sonny’s eye, how Alfred and Dad were so sure Senior had picked that up from her tape. But something held me back.

  “Look, Marty, we’re all on the same page. We all want Sonny to be champ.”

  “You ever think Sonny wants to be something else?”

  “What else?”

  I didn’t like the way she said it. As if he couldn’t be something else. “Maybe we’re pushing him for ourselves. Be the youngest champ. Be an Indian. Everybody’s got their own idea of what you should be.”

  “Are you talking about Sonny or yourself?”

  “Both of us, I guess. Who knows, maybe you, too.”

  “Maybe.” She was quiet for a long time, but I kept my mouth shut. I knew she had more to say. Her voice barely made it over the grind and snarl of the old car. “I’m supposed to be in law school. Go into my father’s firm. They think I’m fooling around, going through a boho phase before I grow up. I’ve got to get this documentary on the air.”

  “That’s about what you want, not about Sonny.”

  “And what’s your book about?”

  “I’m not here as a writer, I’m here as Sonny’s friend.” It sounded so self-righteous that I started to squirm the minute I said it.

  “You’ve been a good friend,” she said. “I guess I’m just a producer.”

  I was glad I hadn’t brought up the cut. But then I wondered if she was just soaping the soap man. After all, she was a producer. Then Sonny groaned and asked us to stop; he needed to barf.

  By the time we were back on the road, Robin had a tape on. The soul-search was over. We talked about music.

  Jake was sitting up in bed staring at the TV when we walked into his hospital room. He looked gaunt and gray. He was connected to beeping monitors. His arm was in a sling. He squinted at us.

  “Sonny, you look bad,” he said.

  “You don’t look so great yourself.” He hugged Jake.

  Jake wrinkled his nose. “You smell worse than you look.”

  “What happened?”

  “Called for the Stump.”

  Sonny looked surprised. “That would do it. Nobody’s called for the Stump since they killed your grandpa.”

  “Your great-great-grandpa,” said Jake.

  “What’s the Stump?” asked Robin.

  “Tell her,” said Jake.

  “Sometime.”

  “Now,” said Jake. “See if you really know.”

  “Some kind of test?” asked Sonny.

  “Maybe,” said Jake.

  There was a long pause. Sonny sat down, closed his eyes. Did he remember? Had he really been listening?

  “Okay, but it don’t mean anything,” said Sonny.

  Jake nodded. “I won’t get no ideas you’re an Indian.”

  Sonny spoke slowly: “Long ago, when Wahsdaywe, the Dog Who Laughs at Bears, was Chief of Chiefs, there was a fight between two subchiefs. It split the Nation. Over who owned a tree. One morning it was cut down. The subchiefs accused each other. Their Clans were ready to go to war, when Wahsdaywe said that it was a sign from the Creator.

  “Nobody owns a tree. It’s nature, like the earth, air, water. Belongs to everybody, together. Wahsdaywe said that what was left of the tree, the Stump, would become a treaty table, and any Moscondaga could call for the Stump in a crisis, and the whole Nation would work out the problem. The two subchiefs took the name Stump. They put their Clans together, and one of their offspring became Jake’s great-great-great grandfather, who became a Running Brave.”

  “What happened to the Stump?” asked Jake.

  “Still there. The white man outlawed the Stump when he outlawed the Running Braves. Called it pagan. The missionaries didn’t like it for sure. Too much power to the people. Jake calling for a Stump is strong medicine.”

  Jake smiled and settled back into his pillow and closed his eyes. Sonny remembered.

  At dawn we went out to the Res. We smelled the wet ashes as soon as we pulled off the paved county road. Jake’s house was still standing, but the inside was gutted. The windows were black eyes. We poked around. Sonny found a broken bottle that smelled of gasoline. It must have been a quick, fierce fire. Sonny’s old boxing trophies had melted down. An old leather backpack had dried into a wrinkled brown fist around a lump of melted crayons.

  We were still picking through the rubble when a dozen men and boys sauntered up and surrounded us. They were casually carrying guns, like you see in news reports from Beirut or Palestine.

  “How’s Jake?” one of the men asked.

  “Tough bird,” said Sonny. “He’ll be okay.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Live here,” said Sonny.

  “Bad time.” He tilted his head. On the other side of the junkyard another small group stood, also casually carrying guns. They were looking at us. “Gonna go down.”

  “Maybe we got to do something,” said Sonny.

  “Like what?”

  Sonny shrugged. “You think the casino’s a bad idea?”

  “Not even finished yet, look what it’s doing.”

  “Maybe there’s some middle way.”

  “What you got in mind?” They looked at each other and then back at Sonny. I had the feeling they wanted a leader.

  But Sonny said, “Don’t know yet.”

  They drifted away.

  Robin headed back to New York, but she left her credit card so we could stay at a cheap motel near the hospital. Sonny bought a pair of running shoes and shorts and started jogging and exercising in the mornings. He said he was only doing it to feel better, he wasn’t in training. But he was running hard.

  We’d spen
d most of the day in the hospital with Jake, watching TV, talking. We watched an AIDS telethon to see Floyd (The Wall) Hall spar with Arsenio Hall and Geraldo Rivera, one round each. The Wall was kind of lame, no sense of humor, but he was huge, and not slow. When it was over, they asked him who he was going to fight next.

  “Ask my man,” he said.

  Old Senior himself swaggered onto the set.

  “There’s a young man out there who thinks he should be champ because the spirits have told him so, and I’m not so sure he’s wrong. We’re waiting for you, Sonny Bear.”

  Jake cackled. “They need you to make them some big money.”

  “Not interested getting jerked around no more.”

  “If you beat him,” I said, “you’d be champ.”

  “You think they’re gonna let me beat him?”

  Jake made us leave. “Nothing you can do here, Sonny. They’ll try to kill you like they killed your great-great-grandfather.”

  That’s history, Jake.”

  “What you got except history?”

  “What about you?”

  “They’ll leave me alone now.”

  “We should do something,” said Sonny.

  “You win the title, you got some power. Now you just get hurt.”

  We drove the pickup back to New York. We passed Stonebird in the distance. “I never did the solo.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “It’s a solo, no-brain.” He began to laugh for the first time in weeks, laughing and laughing, and then crying, until we had to pull off the road.

  After a while. Sonny wiped his eyes and looked at me. “What do we do now?”

  We, he said.

  “Ill figure something out on the way,” I said.

  He started laughing again. “Where’d I hear that before?”

  26

  THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK has his main office in Albany, the state capital, which is about halfway between Donatelli’s Gym and the Res, but he spends a lot of time in an office in the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. When we got up to the desk in the reception area, a state trooper with a bull neck and a bulge under his green Kmart suit held up a palm.

  “What can I…Hey, the Bear man.” He leaned back in his swivel chair and threw a few jabs in the air. “Saw you get beat in Hillcrest a couple years ago.”

  “We’re here to see the governor.” Sonny’s voice was deep, with the old hard edge. Pre-Hollywood.

  “Ready to knock down the Wall?” It was that tone you use with children. The trooper wasn’t taking Sonny seriously. I got nervous.

  But Sonny was cool. “Ready to see the governor.”

  “Got an appointment? He’s real busy on this Moscondaga thing.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” said Sonny.

  “He’s got qualified people working on it.”

  “How about an Indian for a change?” I said.

  The guard laughed at me through his skinny nose. “You don’t look like an Indian to me.

  Another trooper came up. “Governor’s with some folks from Washington. Maybe come back tomorrow.”

  “People could start dying tomorrow,” said Sonny.

  “We’re on the case, chief,” said the first trooper. He made a big show of opening a newspaper to the sports section. His pal grinned. I could see Sonny starting to steam. “Later.”

  “Now.” Sonny ripped the newspaper out of the trooper’s hands.

  “Whoa, boy.” The trooper’s face was red.

  Sonny slapped the paper down on the desk. “Tell him Sonny Bear’s here.”

  Both troopers were up now and their hands were on their guns. “You watch yourself, boy.”

  I stepped between them. “If anything happens on the Res and the governor finds out you didn’t let Sonny in, you’ll be back guarding toxic dumps.”

  They were happy to tangle with me instead of Sonny. “Don’t smart-ass me, boy.” The first one came around the desk and grabbed my shoulders. More troopers swarmed out of another office. “Get these jerks out of here.”

  “Hey.” A guy with a notebook appeared. “Aren’t you…”

  “Sonny Bear!” I shouted. “Trying to get them to pay attention to a dangerous situation.”

  More reporters came out, and the troopers tried to get between them and Sonny, and then the two groups were jostling each other and the reporters were shouting at us over the fence of guards. It reminded me of Vegas.

  “You here on the Reservation thing?”

  “Big trouble,” shouted Sonny.

  “What are you going to do, Sonny?”

  “Go back to the Res.”

  “Why?”

  “See what I can do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Get people talking to each other.”

  The troopers were pushing us out the door. “Take it downstairs, boys.”

  “When you going up?” a reporter shouted.

  “Today,” said Sonny.

  I said, “Today?”

  “You got a date or something?” Sonny grinned as the troopers pushed us.

  “Flying, driving?” one of the reporters asked.

  “Running,” said Sonny.

  I looked at him. “Running?”

  “You’re going to run up to the Res?” asked a reporter. “That’s hundreds of miles.”

  “Three hundred,” said Sonny. “Nothing for a Running Brave.”

  “A who?”

  “Did he say Running Brave?” They were all scribbling furiously, pushing their tape recorders toward Sonny. “Why?”

  “Wake people up,” said Sonny. “Make them see what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Trying to screw the Nation again, set us against each other.”

  “Who?” A couple of the reporters were talking into their cellular phones.

  “Government, white people.”

  We were out in the hallway now, and a wall of Kmart suits was pushing us into an open elevator.

  “What’s a Running Brave?”

  “A warrior who can negotiate,” yelled Sonny, “a diplomat who can fight, a…”

  The elevator door closed on us.

  “That was great. Sonny.”

  “Just starting.” His eyes were bright, his shoulders were back.

  “Now what?”

  “This time we’re going all the way.”

  “You’re not going to run?”

  “Your idea, man.”

  “To see the governor, not all this stuff.”

  Downstairs, the lunch-hour crowd jammed the lobby of the World Trade Center. Somebody yelled, “Sonny Bear!” and we were surrounded, people pushing scraps of paper at Sonny, trying to touch him.

  “Gonna fight the champ?”

  “You bet.” He winked at me.

  By the time we got out to the street, it was human gridlock, cops, workers, more reporters. The story must have been on the radio already. A TV truck pushed through the crowd, a correspondent standing on the roof, broadcasting live.

  “A remarkable story is beginning to unfold here in New York’s financial district as a young Native-American prizefighter. Sonny Bear…”

  While Sonny gave interviews, I borrowed a cellular phone from a reporter. I needed a chase car for his run. Robin wasn’t home, my folks were at work, Denise was at school, Henry was out of the gym. Finally, desperate, I called Alfred to borrow the HandiVan.

  “Martin?” His voice sounded sharp. “Just saw you guys on TV. He really going to do it?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “You sure you…”

  “Meet you at the gym in an hour.” He hung up.

  I told Sonny.

  “Good. You ready?”

  “I can’t run all the way.”

  “Just up to the gym.”

  “That’s like eight, nine miles.”

  “You can do it.” He took off.

  What could I do? The first mile was murder: A s
titch ran up and down my left side, and my breath got caught in my rib cage, and my pants got caught in my crack. The second mile was actually easier; we were in Greenwich Village, where the streets were narrower and we had to slow down. A red TV truck pulled alongside me, and a woman stuck her mike out the window. “Can you tell us what…”

  “Can’t run…and…talk.”

  So they stopped, picked me up, and interviewed me in the truck as it followed Sonny up the middle of Manhattan.

  “Sonny Bear carries the blood of the best, the warriors who can negotiate, the diplomats who can fight.…”

  After that, every TV truck picked me up for a rolling interview. It was great. I felt like I was doing color commentary on the big game, watching Sonny run while I babbled on about why he was running.

  I didn’t have to run again until we were in Harlem. But by then it was only a few blocks to Donatelli’s Gym. Alfred was waiting in the HandiVan. I fell in and we took off.

  Alfred grinned at me. “Got my spare bladder bag, the shotgun and the thirty-eight. Let’s rock ’n’ roll, little brother.”

  27

  I’M TAKING NOTES again as Alfred keeps the HandiVan twenty-five feet behind Sonny on the highway heading north.

  …smooth stride…flows over the white stripe…inside himself, totally zoned…thinks only of mission, what need do to get there, what will do when arrive…Running Brave…

  “You think he can run the whole way?” I ask.

  “If the Hawk gives him a lift,” snickers Alfred.

  “You still don’t buy that spiritual stuff.”

  “You know what I think.”

  “If it works, fine.”

  “You got it.” He backhands my shoulder without taking his eyes off the road. “I think you’re gonna be all right, Marty. A contender. Spoon always said so, but I was never sure till now.”

  “Dad said so?” There’s a fist in my throat, my eyes sting.

  “Never told you?”

  “No.”

  “Probably did, but you missed the signal.”

  There are state troopers waiting for us at the entrance to the New York Thruway. One of them waves us down, a massive Black guy in a Smokey the Bear hat.