Warrior Angel

by Robert Lipsyte

  Starkey imagined the hugeness of The Wall pressing in on Sonny, cutting off the ring, trying to surround him. He seemed even bigger than the last time. This time he hadn’t taken Sonny lightly, dismissed him as an overhyped kid he could easily crush. The Wall had trained hard, rebuilt himself into the immovable object who had never lost a fight, who had never even been knocked down, until Sonny took away his title.

  It feels, thought Starkey, as if Sonny is…as if we are…as if I am pounding on bricks.

  The new night nurse’s bearded face appeared in the doorway, mounted on an enormous body draped in white. He looked like a bobblehead snowbank. Like to melt his nasty ass. Even after Dr. Raphael okayed the little radio—a Stepdad special that picked up the Armed Forces radio signal that got free title fights—the nurse had his grubby hand out. It had taken more than a few Locs ’n’ Bagels CDs to buy him off. He wouldn’t give Starkey the backpack with the red cap and The Book and the laptop, even though Dr. Raphael said Starkey could have it back. The nurse was holding out for a few bucks. At least the man was too lazy to feel around the binding of The Book. Dishonest and dumb. Lucky me. I can work with that.

  Starkey smiled and waved at him. He scowled and lumbered away.

  It seemed to Sonny as if every jab was answered with a stiff right hand from Floyd. In the beginning he skipped easily out of the way, jabbing and dancing back or to the side, letting Floyd lurch awkwardly after his missed punch. Then, almost imperceptibly, as the pace of the fight slowed, Sonny would slip the punch by tilting his head to the right and let Floyd’s glove fly harmlessly over his left shoulder. By the eighth round, the rights began to make contact, glance off his shoulder, first skim away, then bounce, then bruise bone.

  He welcomed the pain, breathed into it, tried to use it to stay zoned, up on the balls of his feet, to keep his combinations rattling. But he was tired. He was losing concentration. He felt The Wall grow and surround him. Trapped inside The Wall. How do I get out? And where do I go?

  “Stick and move.”

  Starkey felt Sonny’s shoulder grow numb. A razor edge of pain sliced down his arm to his fingertips. Sonny was pushing the jab more than firing it. He was tired. He wasn’t ready for this fight.

  The radio announcer’s voice was hot and urgent. He sounded excited at the possibility that The Wall might win back his title. He kept saying that Floyd had been a popular champion, a soft-spoken African-American Christian, a home-loving family man who visited hospitals and Army bases and did public service commercials on the importance of learning how to read. Just the kind of person who should be heavyweight champion of the world.

  “A real role model,” he said. “As a man, The Wall is solid. And he’s looking solid in the ring tonight.”

  Too much up against us, thought Starkey. If the radio announcer feels this way, the referee and the judges probably do, too. That means Sonny is going to have to knock out The Wall to win, he’s not going to get the benefit of points.

  Go for it, Sonny, take him, knock down The Wall.

  Sonny thought, I’m going to have to go for it. Try to knock him out. The bricks are not coming loose. And I am getting tired.

  Alfred was yelling, “Reach down, Sonny, don’t be fading now,” and Johnson, nose to nose, said, “Suck it up,” and slapped his face. The cut man waved a bottle under his nose that sent a chemical hot wire up into his brain. When the bell rang for the next round, he dropped an ice cube down Sonny’s trunks.

  His legs felt like cement poles. The Wall shook him with a quick left-right, but he managed to duck away from the hook. That could have ended it, Sonny. Wake up!

  Starkey felt cold and hot. It was now or never, forget about dismantling The Wall brick by brick, there was no time for that anymore, it was knock him out in this round or lose the title, youngest former champion in history, and then who are we?

  If Sonny loses, I lose.

  The Voices win.

  And then there will be only one way left to save Sonny and complete the Mission.

  Sonny could see The Wall was tired, too. His tree-trunk legs were taking root, the enormous chest was heaving for air, his right eye was closed from a hundred jabs that had gotten through his guard. His face was lumpy and bloody. He grunted from the pain and effort of raising his cannon arms.

  Sonny felt a surge of energy. The power ran down his shoulders into his arms, down his spine into his legs. He danced into range, easily blocked Floyd’s slow, looping hook with his right arm, and slammed a hook of his own deep into Floyd’s side. The Wall wavered.

  “Right, one,” screamed Alfred.

  Sonny set his feet and fired the short right to Floyd’s jaw, put his legs and hips and butt into it, watched it slam into the top of The Wall and drive him back against the ropes.

  “Do it,” screamed Johnson and Alfred and Starkey.

  The roar of the crowd pushed him forward like a surfer’s wave, to finish him off. Sonny tried to pound Floyd off the ropes, to hammer him into the ground, but his arms were so sore and the gloves on his hands were so heavy and punching through the water was so slow. He didn’t have enough left to knock down The Wall.

  The Wall stood up and they were toe to toe and forehead to forehead and banging each other in slow motion, pawing each other until the bell rang and they fell into each other’s arms murmuring, “Good fight.”

  Their cornermen swarmed into the ring to wait for the officials’ decision.

  Listening to the radio announcers read their scorecards, Starkey felt sad but not surprised. They liked The Wall because he was a better interview subject, friendlier. Sonny was a quiet guy, a loner. He didn’t even have a posse! Hard to figure.

  They don’t understand him, thought Starkey. Who knew him better than I did? And now…

  The crowd cheered the decision, unanimous for The Wall.

  At ringside, a radio reporter asked, “How do you feel, Sonny Bear, youngest ex-champion in heavyweight history?”

  What sounded like Alfred’s voice shouted, “Dumb question,” but Hubbard quickly took over and said, “Gooood question! Sonny will answer that when he tries to become the youngest man ever to regain the throne.”

  “There’s a rematch?”

  “The Wall has a contract with me,” said Hubbard.

  Starkey felt a prick of admiration for the promoter. Hubbard is the pick of the Legion. The Archies chose me to best him, and I can’t let them down.

  Sonny was too tired to think. “What you think?”

  Alfred said, “We’ll deal with Hubbard in the morning.”

  “That’s what I think,” said Johnson.

  Sonny said, “Where’s Malik? I need his laptop.”

  He knew there would be a message telling him what to do next.

  The night nurse came in with a paper cup of pills.

  Starkey said, “I need to send an e-mail.” The message was already moving around inside his head like a buzzing fly: Pick up the stones.

  “In the morning,” said the nurse. “We’ll ask Dr. Raphael—”

  “Four words. You can watch me send them from the computer in the nurse’s station.”

  When the nurse shook his head, Starkey said, “Be just one minute and then I’ll take my pills.”

  The nurse rattled the cup. “Let’s go—busy night.”

  “I send four words and then I take the pills. Otherwise you spend half the night setting up the IV.” He tried to sound firm without making it sound like a direct challenge.

  The nurse glared at him. Starkey bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh. You call that intimidation, whale belly? This Angel stood up to Cobra’s homies.

  Starkey dropped his eyes, peeked from a corner. More than two dozen keys hung from one big ring looped carelessly over the nurse’s walkie-talkie antenna. Looked like house keys, car keys, patient room keys, drug box keys. Man should be fired. But not until I borrow a few of those keys.

  “So?” Another cup to rattle.

  “Four little words and we both have
a good night.”

  When the nurse sighed, Starkey knew he had it. Night staff are either very good or very bad, and this one is in a league of his own. Won’t last long.

  Long enough for me to get my stuff and elope.

  But first, Pick up the stones, four little words to save Sonny and complete the Mission.

  22

  SONNY FOUND MOST of the stones in the dry creek beds deep in the Reservation. Centuries of rushing water had rubbed them round and smooth. A Running Brave must be able to close both hands over each of the stones he carries on his solo climb up Stonebird. One hundred pounds of stones in a heavy-duty backpack.

  He filled three canteens with water and began the climb.

  The early going was easy, the trail wide and gently sloped. After three days he was still sore from the fight. His hips and shoulders complained each time he twisted to take a stone from the pack, then bent to place it alongside the trail.

  Each stone left behind represented another useless burden cast off on the climb to manhood.

  Arrogance. Meanness. Selfishness.

  A Running Brave, on a mission for the Nation, cannot be slowed by angers and foolishness and childish fears.

  As he moved up the mountain, the weight of the backpack lightened. By the time the trail became narrow and steep, the backpack was half empty, stones strung out behind him like pearls on a string. He kept his mind empty as he climbed, concentrating on the path, on the stones, on keeping his mouth closed and breathing through his nose. He drank often but sparingly.

  He reached the peak just before twilight, exhausted from the climb, from the fight, from the last few weeks. He found a tall rock still warm from the sun and sat against it.

  The Res looked different from the last time he’d been here, a year ago. Scattered among the shacks and trailers were new suburban-style homes, a few big ones with white columns on the front porches. Gambling money.

  And looming over all, the Hiawatha Hotel and Casino. When he had fought The Wall here last year to win the title, the roof wasn’t finished on the first building. Now there were three huge hotel buildings, surrounded by thousands of cars and buses.

  The sun slipped behind a distant mountain, leaving an orange smear. He heard animals scurrying in the rocks below him. A young man chosen to be a Running Brave spends the night alone with the snakes and wolves and bears and mountain lions, and with the scariest creatures of all, the dark shapes that lurk in the corners of his mind.

  On the way down, if he was ready to accept the honor, he would pick up his stones, symbolic of a willingness to assume his heavy new responsibilities as a warrior-diplomat for the Nation. A man of his people. It had been Jake’s dream that he carry on that tradition.

  It had always seemed like such crap.

  But not to Starkey. Poor Starkey, looking for something to hold on to while his devils chased him. In his mind the Running Braves became the Warrior Angels for him. All from Marty’s book. Took me so long to figure that out. Am I stupid or am I not paying attention to other people’s feelings? To my own?

  I’ve got to take control of my life. Keep the monster and the dark shadow at the end of my jab. It doesn’t always have to be one or the other, the anger or the murk. And I don’t always have to be running away.

  Got to get in shape, win the title back.

  Got to help Starkey.

  Got to come through for him the way he kept coming through for me. Even after they busted him, he reached out to me.

  Pick up the stones.

  Start from the beginning. This time do it right.

  I’ll visit him when I go back.

  Sonny looked at the sky, so near and black and starry it seemed unreal, an animated video sky. How long since he had seen stars? He’d seen no stars in Harlem or Vegas.

  He imagined his body a tepee crowded with dancers around a cookfire. Where did that come from? Good feeling.

  He wished he had someone to share that with. He thought of Alfred and Lena. He thought of Starkey.

  The bus from New York went right to the front door of the Hiawatha Hotel and Casino. Starkey was first off, hurrying to the high-speed outside elevator that zoomed up to the observation tower. He spotted Jake’s junkyard right away. The description in The Book made it easy. It was just below the highest mountain on the Reservation. Stonebird.

  He mingled with the casino crowd until dark, then made his way around the parking lots, over fences, through fields until he reached the junkyard. The ancient Cadillac was exactly where The Book said it would be. It stank from mildew and cats. Starkey climbed into the rotted-out backseat. Young Sonny had once hidden here and drawn pictures.

  Starkey thought the stink and the excitement would keep him awake all night, but he fell asleep immediately.

  Ally was in the racing dream, although it didn’t look like her. She was carrying the green flag.

  “Pedal-to-the-metal time,” she said. “You ready?”

  Starkey and Sonny gave her the thumbs-up. Ally raised the flag.

  They floored the clutches and feathered the accelerators, a quarter inch deeper with each light pump until the pedals were down and the engines were howling. When the muscles in Ally’s forearm tensed, Starkey began to let the clutch up. By the time the flag was down, he was in gear. The crowd was screaming.

  Clean start. Sonny bucked ahead as they passed Ally, which was expected. His Ford had awesome pickup. But they were door to door by the time the headlights found the bales. They looked at each other and nodded at the same time. Go for it!

  Starkey didn’t know who had first called it the Edge, but racers had been daring it since the quarry opened. That’s all the Edge was, the rim of the town’s limestone quarry, a huge dark hole in the ground a hundred feet deep.

  Racing the Edge was simple. The winner was the car that stopped closer to the Edge. The driver who chickened out, and stopped first, lost. But if you went too far, you shot over the rim and died in a fiery crash below.

  They drove around the bales and headed for the rim of the quarry, black nothingness a football field ahead. They were still door to door. Sonny and Starkey looked at each other. Neither of them wanted to lose this one. Sonny yelled something Starkey couldn’t hear over the engine.

  Ally stepped in front of Starkey’s car.

  He swerved around her. Now he was headed into Sonny’s car. He tried to shout a warning, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  The rim was coming up fast. If he braked, he’d lose the race—if he didn’t, he’d ram into Sonny and drive him over the Edge.

  Starkey woke up sweating. The dream had made it clear. There was only one way to complete the Mission.

  He worked the razor blade out of the binding of The Book. The blade was still very sharp. Just touching it with his thumb drew blood.

  At dawn Sonny began to move back down the mountain, picking up his stones. He was stiff and sore, but he felt good. He had the answer he had come for.

  The answer was that there was no answer. You just have to keep finding your way. Let other people help you. Help other people.

  The monster and the dark shadow will always be lurking out there. Starkey’s Voices will always be waiting in ambush. All we can do is never give up, keep punching, move on, and watch for signs.

  Got to tell Starkey that.

  The pack grew heavier as he trudged down Stonebird. He staggered to the trail head under the hundred-pound weight, slipped it off, rested, then dragged the pack of rocks to the yard of Jake’s old house. He would pile the rocks in a ceremonial mound on Jake’s grave. The old man would like that.

  He was not surprised to find a sign waiting for him on top of Jake’s mailbox. It was a marked-up, dog-eared copy of The Tomahawk Kid. The book’s binding was ripped open.

  Another sign. Starkey’s backpack rested against the junkyard’s open gate. The laptop was in the pack. That’s a bad sign, thought Sonny. The Warrior Angel wouldn’t leave his laptop unless he doesn’t need it anymor
e.

  “Starkey?”

  The sound bounced off the old hulks. Sonny began to run, weaving among the wrecked cars. He sensed danger. The hair prickled on the back of his neck and his senses were Running Brave sharp. He smelled the rotting rubber tires and heard the rust flaking off the sagging carcasses. As he ran deeper into the junkyard, he began to wonder if he was the hunter or the prey.

  “Starkey?”

  Sign. A dirty, sweat-stained red baseball cap was perched on the roof of a Cadillac. He remembered that old corpse.

  He heard Starkey before he saw him, breathing hard in the backseat.

  “I used to hide in this one.”

  “It was in The Book,” said Starkey. He was curled up.

  “Come on out.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to talk.”

  Sonny peered into the car. Starkey was folded into a corner of the backseat, his bony knees jammed up against his chest. His long thin face was very pale, his long dark hair tangled and damp. He held something between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

  “They’re coming to get me.”

  “Moscondaga is a sovereign nation, Starkey—not even U.S. Marshals can come on this land without permission.”

  Starkey’s laugh was an ugly snort. “You don’t get it, Sonny. The Legion is out there.”

  Dogs barked at the wind in the trees. Sonny worked his head and shoulders into the back. “I’m here, man. Dare them to get past me.”

  “Too many.” Starkey raised his hand. There was a razor blade between his fingers. He pressed it against the side of his throat. Near the jugular vein, thought Sonny. He had already cut himself. A single thread of blood trickled down his throat.