by Sol Yurick
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.
July 5th, 1:30–2:30 A.M.
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 MEMORIES OF PUERTO RICO.
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 bus
ting 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?”
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 o
rdered 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.
