“I think you better get your ass home, kid,” Schrank warned Baby-John. “You’re goofy to be mixed up with these shape-up characters.”
Snowboy draped a protective arm around Baby-John. He had used the last stink bomb on the grocery and was clean. “We’re keeping him out of trouble, Detective Schrank, sir.” He patted Baby-John’s head, and the kid rolled his eyes in mock innocence. “We are keeping him away from evil companions.”
“So you know nothing about the grocery?” Schrank ignored the ribbing to stick with the relevant issue.
Riff shook his head, then raised his right hand as if taking an oath. “We saw a couple of Sharks a couple of minutes ago,” he suggested. “Maybe the grocery slob wouldn’t pay protection or something. Now if you want to induct us as deputies and arm us with the weapons of the law—” he looked with longing at the heavy butt in Krupke’s holster—“we’d be willing to serve without pay.”
“Cut the comedy,” Schrank said. “The Sharks didn’t do it. The grocer said it wasn’t a PR.”
Big Deal exposed both palms as he shook his head sadly. “If it wasn’t the PR’s, and it certainly wasn’t us, then I gotta come to a very sad conclusion. The outrage must have been done by a cop.”
“Maybe two cops,” Snowball said. “Renegades and traitors to their oaths of service.”
“Correct,” Big Deal agreed. “One to open the door, and the other to throw the bomb. Terrible, terrible,” he clucked. “What are things coming to?”
“You’re rubbing my back the wrong way,” Schrank advised Big Deal. “Who did it? The guy who took off? Come on,” he urged. “There’s a difference between being a stool pigeon and cooperating with the law, or don’t you rumblers know that?”
“We know the difference, sir,” Riff looked from Schrank to Krupke. “You gentlemen taught us.”
“It might interest you to know that we’re saving up our scanty pennies to buy both of you gentlemen a suitable gift for giving us this knowledge,” Snowboy declaimed with oratorical flourishes that doubled Baby-John with laughter. “It is the kind of knowledge designed to make us better citizens and without which we could have gone on living in blind ignorance. Then, how could we ever have done full justice to our civic responsibilities?”
After he raised a modest hand to still the applause, Snowboy bowed and took a backward step to put him beyond the reach of Krupke’s nightstick.
“Listen to me, Riff,” Schrank said, “and that goes for all your cruds.” Moving quickly, Schrank fastened his right hand on Riff’s shoulder and held him in a hard and painful grip. “The news I’ve got for you may come as a surprise.” He tightened the grip and hoped the boy would wince. “You hoodlums don’t own the streets.”
“Never said we did.” Despite the pain, Riff knew his voice was level and unconcerned.
“There’s been too much raiding and bombing between you and the PR’s. Now we’ve told it to them and we’re telling it to you. Since you kids have to stay somewhere, we want you to be on your block and no place else. And you’re not to block the sidewalk.”
Action clapped his hands. “The word’s official! We can’t even go to work! Thank you, Detective Schrank!”
“Thanks for cueing me,” Schrank pointed at Action, “because this is the appropriate time to mention the workhouse.” No longer smiling, he chewed with a hard rotation of his jaws. “It’s this way,” he began, and the hard balling of his left fist warned the Jets to restrain their humor, “if I don’t put down the roughhouse, keep this neighborhood clean and quiet, I’ll wind up on a beat again, which means walking the same street with you, which I couldn’t stand. Now I’ve got ambition, and you’re going to have to play ball with my ambition. At least you’re going to have to put up with it. So it’s this way”—he tightened his fingers on Riff’s shoulder and twisted to bring the defiant boy off balance—“I want you back on your block. I don’t want you off your block. I don’t want you looking for the Sharks or any other PR gang. I don’t want you to do nothing that’s going to bring them looking for you. You understand that, Riff? Goddamnit”—he shook the boy hard—“do you understand me?”
“I understand,” Riff said. The pain was excruciating, numbing his shoulder, but he wasn’t going to give the cop the satisfaction of knowing it. The Jets had to be proud of him, and he felt Tony would be, too. “You want us to behave like we always do. Peaceful.”
“As for the rest of your trash,” Schrank continued, “you can give them the message for me. If they don’t do as I say, it means they want the crap beaten out of them. And my colleagues and me are ready, willing and anxious to oblige.” The thrust of his hand made Riff stumble and fall against Action. “Get back to your block,” Schrank repeated. “Krupke and me will be cruising it regularly because we want to tell you boys when it’s bedtime.”
There was no love, never had been, never could be, Schrank felt as Krupke and he walked backwards to the prowl car. Before he entered he moved his thumb to start the boys on their way, and from the corner of his eye could see that Krupke admired the way he had handled the situation. Krupke would remember this, would mention it; and it might be of some use to other cops who had enough of this sociology crap which preached that the underprivileged were often misunderstood.
He understood them all right, and if he had been able to get his hands on the boy who had thrown the stink bomb he would have rubbed his nose in it. Schrank exhaled soulfully and saw that Krupke nodded because the officer understood that both of them had thankless jobs—dangerous, too.
But a cop had no time to think of the danger. If he did, it meant that he was becoming frightened, and to stay on the force these days demanded an absolute indifference to fear. Jets and Sharks. They were only two of the gangs that infested the West Side. Sometimes it seemed to him there were more gangs than roaches. But gangs and roaches, both had to be squashed.
“Where to now?” Krupke asked.
Schrank sighed again. “To see if we can find the Sharks. I’ve got a little talking to do to Bernardo.”
“Tough kid?” Krupke asked.
“He’s just like the rest. Speaks English with an accent, but a good fist in his mouth is a language he’s sure to understand. Everyone does.”
They watched the Jets move along the street and hated the boys for their fighting strut—stiff legs, heels striking the pavement hard, shoulders rotating, thumbs hooked into their belts.
“Think we ought to go back to that grocery store and see if we can get a description of the kid?” Krupke suggested.
Schrank crinkled his nose. “No, I can’t stand the stink.”
“Of the bomb or the grocer?” Krupke asked.
Schrank’s laugh was short and bitter. “No comment.”
* * *
From the way his boys walked, the way they whistled, laughed and bragged, Riff knew the Jets felt they had gained a full victory, and over the cops at that. People had seen the cops talking to them, had seen the way he had stood up to punishment, and the word would get around to the PR’s. Word might even get back to Tony, and it might bring him back to the Jets.
If Tony wanted to take over again it was all right with Riff. Smiling secretly to himself, Riff knew this would really tear up Action, but that was all right. Action had seen him take it from the dick—man, but the dirty bastard had a grip. He wanted to rub his aching shoulder but refused to do so because he wanted the Jets to believe that it hadn’t hurt him a bit. No one could say he hadn’t stood up to punishment like a leader.
The street clock above the barred windows of a credit jeweler told Riff it was almost ten o’clock. Things had happened mighty fast; and back at their corner the boys might spend another hour, talking it over, playing up their roles, telling each other what they were about to say to Schrank and Krupke, what they might have done if the lousy cops had swung even one punch. Then it would be eleven o’clock.
Still too early to go home, but not too early to go looking for the chicks. There were too many
hours ahead until morning—hours of just nothing to do—and all that energy inside him ready, aching, to explode.
He had to see Tony, have another talk with him, beg him to come back. When Tony had been running the show every minute of every hour had been occupied, filled with things to do. True, at that time Tony and the other Jets had been busy battling to get title to the turf. They’d had to take on everyone to make the block their own, and Riff and the other boys had scars to prove that they had won the block and held it. There had been no one around who even thought of challenging them, no one until Bernardo, who was one of the first PR’s to move into the block.
The other PR’s lived all over the neighborhood, but Bernardo kept on bringing them down to the turf; and what he had in mind was very evident—to take over the block. If Bernardo and his Sharks could do this then all the white people would have to move out and it would be another victory for the PR’s and their frabajaba talk. Then where would they go? Into the river?
Not for him, Riff swore. If anybody was going to live in the water it was going to be the Sharks. Damn spics! They never took a bath, kept coal in the bathtub; so kicking them into the river would be doing them a favor.
“Riff!”
Riff hunched his shoulders and refused to turn.
“Hey, Riff!” Anybodys was at his side. “What did Schrank want?”
Riff looked at the pale, thin, intense tomboy whose hair was cut almost in a butch. She had no breasts under her T shirt and her jeans were worn low because she also lacked hips. Dirty feet were stuffed into dirty tennis shoes, tied with broken laces, and as Baby-John ran forward to goose her, Anybodys looped at him with a hard right round-house and the movement was that of a boy.
Failing to connect, she cursed Baby-John in a flat, gritty voice, then curled her tongue to spit at him.
“I’ll get you later,” she warned Baby-John. “What happened, Riff?”
“We had a talk.”
“About what?” Anybodys asked.
“About you,” Riff said. “Schrank asked if we wanted to get rid of you and we replied in the affirmative.”
Anybodys reached for his arm but Riff shrugged himself free. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You wouldn’t say that about one of the Jets.”
“You’re not one of the Jets. But it’s not for trying,” Riff admitted.
“Then what is it?” Anybodys trotted at Riff’s side and managed to hook her finger into his belt. “I’m willing to do what anybody else is.”
“You mean that?” Riff asked her.
“Try me,” she said.
“We’re gonna look for the chicks,” Riff said, loud enough for the boys to hear. “All of us. Even Baby-John. We’re gonna get laid. What chick are you gonna promote?”
The sob torn from Anybodys’ lips was drowned by a roar of laughter. Blindly, she struck out at Riff, but his left warded off her punch and Baby-John moved in to goose her again.
Tears spilled over to course down her dirty cheeks, and frustration made her search for a rock, a stick, a bottle, anything, but nothing came to hand; and ringed by the hooting Jets, she turned from them to dart into the traffic. She wove between wheels and fenders, oblivious of startled horn blasts, until she reached the other sidewalk.
“Not bad,” Action complimented Riff. “Tony never got rid of her as quick as you did.”
* * *
The season was spring, the month May, but the soft night was early summer. From where she sat on the tenement roof, Maria Nunez looked off toward Central Park and saw the bright windows and irregular patches of light. It had been a short climb from the fire escape up the ladder to the roof, and she had avoided unnecessary conversation with her father, mother, two uncles, two aunts, and several family friends, all crowded into the little kitchen with its one window.
Overhead the sky was prodigal with stars and thin, tenuous clouds had been torn apart by the passage of the moon. She had come to the roof at dusk to admire the tops of buildings less than a mile away, but separated by a greater distance than she had come a week before.
Night had come slowly to the city, to obliterate the form, thrust, and strength of the monoliths, to tone down the burnished metal and stone of intricate design, to erase the towers and bring patterns of color into tier after tier of windows. People lived differently in such rich, marvelous buildings, and with her chin supported by the palm of her hand, Maria wondered in what luxury they bathed and dressed. How different were the streets below; not at all like Puerto Rico where the houses were little more than hovels without floors, without glass in the windows, and certainly without plumbing. Most of the streets were unpaved, without sidewalks, and poverty was everywhere.
When she had been met only the week before at the airport, she had had to blink and make certain that the man and woman running toward her with outstretched arms were her parents, for they appeared so much younger, more self-assured, even better dressed than she had last seen them two years before. At the time they had migrated to New York, it had been decided that she and her sisters would remain behind with relatives. Only Bernardo, her brother, would accompany them to New York until they could get themselves established.
Her father had frowned and not replied when she asked why Bernardo hadn’t come to the airport. But she soon knew the reason. He was eighteen and handsome; but his eyes were too bitter, his mouth too tight, his voice too high, and every word he spoke dripped hatred of Americans.
They had more here in New York, more of everything, even of hatred; and to be rid of the latter Maria would have given up everything else and returned to Puerto Rico because she believed it was wrong to hate. She didn’t want to hate when it was so much more wonderful, joyous, to love.
Maria yawned, stretched her arms and wondered if she ought to go to sleep. She might go down and study English grammar or practice speaking English with her father and try to remember that in this language verbs were placed differently in sentences. But the kitchen was filled with company and they were probably talking about San Juan and the little community they had once called home. Why had they left Puerto Rico? This they need not answer, for they had only to touch their pockets and look at the kitchen sink with its faucets.
Winking lights cut diagonally across the city, and Maria followed that flight. Was this plane coming from Puerto Rico? Was it returning to Puerto Rico? Again she was tempted to return to the kitchen, but everyone there would be speaking in Spanish, and if they spoke English it would sound like Spanish. She wanted to speak English as Americans did, with harsh consonants and clipped vowels and no music or lilt in their speech. She wanted so much to be an American.
Maria stood to stretch her arms and embrace the moon and stars. Yesterday she had been sixteen and her mother had kissed her many times as she exclaimed what a beautiful bride Maria would be. And Chino Martin, Bernardo’s friend, had looked at her with eyes filled with love. Later he had spoken to Bernardo and to her parents about wanting to marry her. He was a steady boy and worked as an apprentice in a dress factory on Seventh Avenue; some day he would be a full-fledged union operator. Chino was good looking, very shy, much different from Bernardo.
Standing on her toes, moving about, Maria whirled and kissed her hands at the sky and the distant towers. If she married Chino her sisters would have more room because she and Chino would have a flat of their own. And if they made love, it would be more wonderful because they would have the privacy on the day they were married that her mother and father had not known for almost twenty years. Maria covered her face. She had to stop thinking such things, even when she was alone on the roof and in love with the world.
Did it include Chino Martin? She wasn’t quite sure. Yes, she loved him as she loved everything in the world, but no more than that.
She heard the heavy metal door to the roof open and turned to see the dark shadow of a man. A startled flash of fear vanished at the sound of her name, and her respondent sigh of relief was loud enough to tell Bernardo she had recogni
zed him.
“How come you’re sitting on the roof alone?” Bernardo challenged his sister.
“Why not?” she asked him.
“Because it isn’t safe,” he said. “Not even if you were sitting up here with Anita.”
“Why not?” Maria persisted in this question. “Isn’t Anita your girl?”
“I guess so,” Bernardo said. Resting against the parapet, he lit a cigarette, flicked the match toward the street, and watched the path of its descent. “It isn’t safe to sit on a roof alone. There’s too many bums in this neighborhood. If one of those Jets saw you sitting up here no telling what might happen.”
Despite the night’s warmth, Maria trembled. “Would one of them have done… that?”
“Without thinking twice,” Bernardo replied, then dragged hard at the cigarette. “One of them threw a stink bomb into Guerra’s grocery tonight. If I catch him he won’t have any arms left.”
“You know the boy who did it?”
“What’s the difference? He was a Jet. The first one we catch is going to be the first one to get it. If they catch one of us, we get it.”
“But why should it be this way?” Maria asked her brother. “Why should they hurt us?”
“Because they say we hurt them by coming here. You know what I’m going to do?”
“What?”
“Maybe tomorrow, I’m going down to Times Square with a couple of the boys—Pepe, Anxious, Toro, and Moose. And we’re going into one of them souvenir stores.”
“To rob it?” Maria was frightened.
Bernardo stroked his sister’s cheek. “Of course not,” he said. “Just to buy some iron statues of the Statue of Liberty. Some of them come about this long”—he indicated a measurement of about twelve inches—“and they’d be just about the right size for beating in the head of those Jets. You know what it says on the Statue of Liberty?” he challenged his sister.
“No,” she replied. “Should I?”
West Side Story Page 2
