Warrior Angel

by Robert Lipsyte

  He woke early and booted the laptop. Thank the Creator it hadn’t crashed in the crash.

  I don’t know where to go.

  Hot and cold up his spine. It was the message he had been waiting for all his life.

  The reply was the message he had been waiting all his life to send.

  Dear George Harrison Bayer,

  Meet me at the top of the stairs.

  Warrior Angel

  9

  THEY WERE YELLING in the living room of the hotel suite for a long time before Sonny woke up. He was dreaming again of Donatelli’s Gym. Alfred was leaning against the ropes, watching Sonny spar with himself. Two Sonnys in the ring, unable to slip each other’s jabs, unable to mount the combinations to knock each other out, two Sonnys staggering around the ring while Alfred shook his head.

  Sonny was sweating when he lurched out of his bedroom.

  Hubbard was yelling at Malik and kicking his legs as he scampered around the room whimpering, and Boyd was pleading with him to stop. Hubbard jabbed a thick finger at the laptop, sitting on the floor at a crazy angle. “What’s this, what’s this?”

  “E-mail,” wailed Malik.

  “I know that, you fool. Tell me how you let someone from the outside slip messages to Sonny.”

  Malik whined, “We didn’t know—”

  “No we, I’m talkin’ to you.”

  “How was I to know?”

  “What you supposed to do but know?” Hubbard scooped up the laptop and read, “Dear George Harrison Bayer, Meet me at the top of the stairs. Warrior Angel. What’s this mean?”

  “That was on Sonny’s private e-mail. Malik had to…” Boyd stopped when he saw Sonny.

  Hubbard looked up. “What’s this about, Sonny?”

  “You reading my mail?” He tried to sound angry to cover his excitement. The path was suddenly clear.

  “Trying to protect you,” shouted Hubbard. He dropped the laptop on the carpet. Malik flinched. Hubbard advanced on Sonny, jabbing his finger. “Who this Warrior Angel?”

  “My private mail?”

  “Nothing private from us.”

  “Even his mind?” asked Dr. Gould. No one had noticed him come into the room.

  In a moment of dead silence everyone froze. Sonny almost laughed. Hubbard’s big mouth hung open like a steam shovel. Boyd and Malik were crouched at his knees.

  Finally, Hubbard said, “What you want?”

  “Sonny and I have an appointment.”

  “Been canceled. Send me your bill,” said Hubbard.

  “Sonny?” Dr. Gould raised his eyebrows.

  This was no time to take a stand against Hubbard, Sonny thought. Fighter has to know when to attack, when to retreat, when to clinch. Alfred told me that once. Know what I’ve got to do now. Warrior Angel showed me the way.

  When Sonny shook his head, Dr. Gould pulled a business card out of a small leather case and handed it to Sonny. “If you ever want to call me…”

  “He won’t.” Hubbard snatched the card out of Sonny’s hand, tore it in half, and let the two pieces flutter to the ground. “He been shrunk enough. Good-bye.”

  Dr. Gould waited a beat, looking at Sonny. When there was no response, he said, “Good luck, Sonny,” and walked out.

  “Man, you nailed that sucka, Elston,” said Malik, “you—”

  “Shut up. Sonny—who this Warrior Angel?”

  “Some fan, I guess.”

  “You give him a private e-mail?” Hubbard was advancing again.

  Sonny remembered a moment late one night in the latrine at Whitmore, the X-Men advancing on him, demanding he join their gang. He’d stood up then, and ended up stabbed on the white tile floor. Be cool, Sonny. Swallow the monster down.

  Sonny shrugged.

  Malik said, “Must be a hacker, right? Hacked in.”

  Hubbard didn’t look convinced. “Fight in less than five weeks, Sonny. No time for deestractions. You got to focus, get your game back. You got to be like a monk.”

  Sonny thought, Like a prisoner, but didn’t say anything.

  “So. No more e-mail, he-mail, she-mail, just rest and train,” said Hubbard. “Any video games you want, movies, CDs, you just tell Boyd or Malik. Booked a gym across town, no one bother us, start running tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  Boyd and Malik nodded like bobblehead dolls.

  Hubbard pointed down at the laptop. “Lose it.”

  “Need it for my work,” squeaked Malik.

  Hubbard mimicked him. “Need it for my work.” He stomped on the laptop, driving the heels of his boots into the screen until it cracked. “Your work is what I tell you to do.”

  Hubbard picked up the computer and hurled it against the wall so hard, it gouged out a chunk. He marched out of the room and slammed the door. Sonny could hear him shouting at the guards in the hallway that there were terrorists out to get Sonny, to shoot on sight.

  Malik was down on his knees, cradling the broken laptop like a doll. “Why he have to—”

  “We’ll get another one,” said Boyd. He put his hand on Malik’s shoulder.

  Sonny edged past them, scooped up the two pieces of Dr. Gould’s torn business card, and slipped back into his bedroom. Got to think.

  He was twenty stories up. The windows were bolted shut. Think. Marty always said, Sonny’s not as dumb as he looks. Miss that fat owl. Got to get out of here. Even if I could punch my way off the floor through the guards outside, they’d stop the elevators or nail me in the lobby.

  Running Braves could think.

  So think.

  He called room service, ordered enormous meals for three.

  He took his time showering, dressing. The wallet he had locked in the room safe before the fight was still there, with eighteen hundred dollars and his credit cards. He was ready by the time the food arrived, a bathrobe over his clothes.

  “Hey, Sonny, you order this?” Boyd was at the door. Malik was in a corner, still mourning over his laptop.

  “Figured you guys could use a good meal. Send mine in. I want to eat in bed.”

  When the room service waiter in his Vegas-style Arabian robe and hood rolled the food cart in, Sonny closed the door behind him and pressed a roll of cash into his hand. “I need your uniform and twenty minutes.”

  The waiter understood right away. “It’s my job, Sonny. But you could tie me up.”

  The best they could find were the long laces on old boxing shoes to tie the waiter’s ankles and wrists behind him. Just before Sonny taped his mouth shut, the waiter said, “Good luck, champ.”

  Malik and Boyd were pigging out and didn’t look up as Sonny rolled the empty food cart out of the suite. In the hall one of the guards said, “Nothing for us?” but Sonny kept his head down and deep inside the hood. The service elevator was empty. He left the cart in the basement, stripped off the flowing robe in the parking lot. The boxing ring and the chairs were gone. Like the fight had never happened. Okay with me.

  He walked to another hotel before he hailed a cab. With his ponytail tucked into a baseball cap and his hand on his face, no one recognized him at the airport. He’d catch an overnight flight to New York. George Harrison Bayer’s credit card wouldn’t send up any red flags for a while. Sleep on the plane, cab to Harlem, then back up to the top of the stairs and the Warrior Angel.

  10

  ALLY WANTED TO KNOW why they were heading east now, where they were going.

  “I told you, to save Sonny.”

  “That’s what, not where.” There was a sharpness in her voice he hadn’t heard before.

  The sharpness reminded him of the razor blade in the binding of the book. Once, he had sat on his bed and drawn the edge along his wrist, then across his throat, leaving red trails but not breaking the skin. Then he’d opened his shirt and pressed one pointy corner against the left side of his chest where he thought his heart might be. That had left a red pinprick mark.

  He had felt good, in control, knowing that if the Voices ever became unbearable, he
could cut them off forever.

  “Cut what off?”

  “Too many questions.” It came out more harshly than he intended, but it shut her up.

  Driving through Pennsylvania in the Neon he had hot-wired in the motel parking lot, he relaxed. The highway was wide, the farms on either side green. Ally found a radio station that played heavy metal. The music had a throbbing beat that kept the Voices out of his head.

  “I used to play the violin,” said Ally.

  “No kidding. You ever get those red hickeys on your neck?”

  “All the time. How’d you know about that?”

  “There was a girl in my class, they always made fun of her. Said she was making out, when all she did was practice.”

  “That was me,” said Ally. She laughed. She started telling a story about how much she loved playing in her junior high school orchestra, being a part of the music, but her voice faded as he remembered how that red spot on the girl’s neck had scared him. He had thought it was the mark of the devil. He couldn’t keep his eyes off it. Finally he’d tried to rub it off her. That was the first time they sent him to the hospital.

  “Hospital?”

  He switched gears. “Alfred went into the hospital after Sonny won the title. He’s a paraplegic, got shot in the spine. Then Jake got sick and died, and things turned bad for Sonny. All the important people in his life disappeared. He became vulnerable to Hubbard.”

  “I was in the middle of telling you a story.” She sounded annoyed. Her mouth snapped shut.

  She is going to be a problem, he thought, making an effort to keep the thought inside his head. Got to get rid of her now. He spotted a sign for a big truck stop in ten miles. Food, rooms, showers. It was a sign from Upstairs.

  Starkey had the skateboard dream. No surprise. During a Mission you always have dreams that are really messages from the Archies. One of the main ways they communicate. But you have to decode the dreams, figure them out.

  The skateboard dream began at the skate park, Sonny wowing the crowd on the half pipe, popping Ollies, and riding the lip and coming closer to a double McSick than anybody in town ever dreamed of.

  Most of the kids in town are wearing the same colors and brand of helmet and elbow and knee pads that he’s wearing. Red and black. Sonny’s the champ, a hero.

  And then Starkey sweeps by, no helmet or pads, in his blue-and-white Skate and Die T-shirt, and Sonny sees him and knows what he has to do, and he comes down the ramp and trails him back to the old mill on the edge of town. All the kids follow, they try to talk to Sonny, but he is shaking his head and stripping off the helmet and pads, no street skater is going to show him up. The champ, the golden boy, the favored one.

  The caretaker, the guy who watches the mill at night, comes out, shakes his head, and goes back into his dusty little room.

  Starkey starts slow and easy, gliding along the stone landings, then down the concrete steps on the side of the old mill. Sonny can do that, he’s smiling, the crowd is all jiggly, clapping for him. Starkey vaults over the steel railing a couple of times, landing back on the board, spinning once, and Sonny is still keeping up with him.

  Then Starkey takes him to the rim, a ledge of concrete maybe six inches wide that runs along the edge of an old road. On the other side of the rim is a long drop into acres of rusted machinery, jagged, all the old mill equipment that got thrown out over the years, that the town hasn’t yet found the money to haul away. A garden of spears.

  Starkey starts slow again, a few easy Ollies, a half spin that has him moving backward, another half spin that has him facing front, a full spin off the board, follow the leader, Sonny, and now the crowd is getting nervous but Sonny is only thinking about follow the leader so he can be leader again, and Starkey takes the board to the lips of the rim, first on the road side, then on the jagged-machinery side, back and forth, two wheels whining at a time, and he stamps on the tail as he goes up and comes down on the nose, one foot, no one’s ever seen this before, and suddenly he wants to stop, tell Sonny not to do this, but his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth and everyone’s screaming as Sonny falls, head over board, into the rusty steel jungle below.

  11

  SONNY REMEMBERED the first time he had pounded up the narrow, twisting stairs of Donatelli’s Gym, at midnight, taking them two at a time, not waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He threw open the creaky old door marked GYM and Alfred Brooks was waiting for him, sitting under a single naked light bulb. When Alfred said, “What took you so long, young gentleman?” he suddenly felt safe. For the first time, he felt he had a future.

  Now he took the steps slowly, one by one, feeling each sag under his boots, complain in a woody screech. You really want to do this, Sonny? Got to. Want to? No choice. He pushed open the door.

  Same old gym, worn and dirty, stinking of sweat and liniment and the bleach that could never erase all the blood from the wooden floor. Curling on the walls were old fight posters and old signs, NO SPITTING IN THE GYM, and PAY DUES THE FIRST OF THE MONTH, EVERY MONTH. The late-afternoon sun slanting through the filthy windows trapped tornados of dust motes in tubes of golden light. Buzzers and bells counted off three-minute rounds and one-minute rest periods.

  Boxers skipped rope, shadowboxed, slugged the heavy bags, and peppered the light bags while trainers watched them or yelled at them or gossiped with each other as if the boxers didn’t exist. He recognized most of them. Old Dave (The Fave) Reynolds, still lumbering after a heavyweight title shot, was up in the ring sparring with a younger, quicker fighter, who had two guys in suits shouting advice up to him. Guess which one’s getting the next title shot.

  The owner, Henry Johnson, tall and skinny, wearing his usual white shirt and tie, limped briskly around the big room, pulling on his little gray beard, spraying advice, snapping orders, showing a young fighter how to turn his fist on the jab, growling at a kid to pass around the water bottles. Johnson didn’t miss a thing.

  “What you want?” said Johnson.

  The room dropped dead. The shouts, the thump of the bags, the patter of feet, suddenly stopped. Everybody was looking at Sonny, ignoring the buzzers and bells.

  Johnson started moving toward him, dragging his leg. “This is no Hollywood gym, this is no Wall Street health club, so what you doing here?”

  It was a real question. Johnson stared at him stone-faced, waiting for the answer. Sonny choked it out. “Need a place to train.”

  “You’re not welcome here no more.”

  A fat man hustled up, wiping his sweating moon face. “Henry, this man is heavyweight champion of the world. You got to respect the title, least hear him out.”

  “Don’t got to do anything, Horace. This my place.” Johnson looked stern. “What do you think Mr. Donatelli would say?”

  “That was a different time,” said Horace. Sonny felt grateful. He remembered the fat man, a former fighter who owned a ribs restaurant called Jelly Belly’s. He had eaten there with Alfred and Johnson.

  “I believe in second chances, third chances,” said Johnson. “But I don’t think this boy has earned his.”

  “Sonny.” The Fave was pulling off his head-guard, leaning over the ropes. “Talk to us, man, what happened to you? Why’d you walk on everybody?”

  He hated the way they were all looking at him, making him feel small, pushing him underwater. He remembered nights fighting smokers in hillbilly towns when the hatred of the cracker crowds slapped his body with a fine cold spray that gave the monster strength. Where is the monster now?

  “We’ll listen to you, Sonny,” said Horace.

  “Talk fast,” said Johnson. “After you walked out on us, stayed with Hubbard, why should we give you the time of day?”

  Sonny had no answer. He wasn’t going to beg.

  “That’s a no-brainer.”

  A voice from the doorway, a voice Sonny had never heard before, high and hard and clear, knifed through the dusty murk of the gym. “He put this dump on the map, and you owe
him one.”

  Johnson’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “You heard me.” A tall, skinny teenaged boy was marching toward the ring, his long dark hair flopping over his pale face. “Sonny is going through a personal crisis, and if you can’t see that, Mr. Johnson, you’re not the crippled little kid who made himself the best trainer in the business.”

  Sonny lost his breath. His chest vibrated as if his lungs had become wings beating against the insides of his ribs. The wings of the Hawk. How long since he had felt that spirit?

  “Who are you?” asked Johnson.

  “My name is Starkey Brant, and I’ve come to help you get Sonny ready for the title fight.”

  “Help me?” Johnson’s voice squeaked with outrage.

  I know this boy, Sonny thought.

  “I’ll take my orders from you, Mr. Johnson, but I know you agree we need to get back to basics. Dust off Rocky—”

  “Who are you?” asked Johnson.

  “—and we’ll need to work on his head.”

  “I said, who are you?”

  “It’s very complicated, but for now consider me your assistant trainer.”

  “Consider you crazy.” Johnson was shaking his head. “You know this boy, Sonny?”

  “He’s come to save me,” said Sonny. He was laughing, suddenly feeling safe here again, with a future.

  “Is he crazy?” said Johnson.

  “He’s the Warrior Angel,” said Sonny.

  It took another hour of standing around, Johnson muttering while Horace and the Fave pleaded with him to give Sonny a chance. Starkey sponged off Rocky and hung it up in a corner. The other boxers went back to work, but they kept glancing over their shoulders. Sonny sensed that they liked the idea of the heavyweight champ back training at Donatelli’s, but they didn’t want Johnson to make it too easy on him. He’d walked out on them once. Why wouldn’t he do it again?

  “If Alfred was feeling better, I’d let him make the decision,” said Johnson. “Don’t want to bother him. You got some sort of plan?”