Young and Violent (3 page)

“One thing about Flat Head Pontiac,” she says, still looking down at the magazine, “is that he
asked
me, you know what I mean? He comes up to me in the corridor at school, and he says, ‘What’d you say if I said I was going to cut Gober out at the shindig Friday?’ See? He gets my opinion. I says, ‘You think you can? You think you can, Pontiac?’ I just ask him if he thinks he can.”

“You got to decide, Baby-O. I tell you, break with Gober! Everybody and his brother knows he cruising that Polack up in the ice cream parlor. He just comes to you to cool off!”

Marie stands arms akimbo as she talks, a tall, skinny, flat-chested girl in tight black slacks and a bright red sweater, a plastic raincoat drawn around her shoulders, a kerchief tied under her chin, and white socks and black toeless heels on her feet. She too wears a great deal of make-up, but her features are harder and more irregular than Babe’s; and she looks more sure, somewhat mean, and slightly coarse in contrast.

“Last time I’m with Gober,” Babe starts, as she lays the magazine across the pinball machine and folds her arms across her chest thoughtfully, “he tells me, ‘Wash your face!’ in just that kind of voice. Like it was an order. ‘Wash your face!’ We’re down in the clubroom on the couch, all by ourselves, and he comes out with that. I say, ‘What’s eating you?’ and he says, ‘I’m not interested in making the cosmetic counter at Woolworth’s.’ “

“Gober said that?”

“Yeah. Three nights ago, after the dance. When I wore my blue.”

“He doesn’t appreciate you, Baby-O. He never did!” “No, he
did.
He used to. I don’t know what happened.” “It’s that Polack, Baby-O.”

“Yeah,” Babe Limon agrees, “it’s her, all right. But he don’t get no place with her. That’s what I don’t understand. It’s not like Gober. Geez, Marie, you don’t know Gober! He’s oversexed or something, know what I mean?”

“That’s what I been trying to tell you, Baby-O. He just uses you. You’d think you were his wife, kid. You’re crazy to torch for Gonzalves! Dime a dozen, Baby-O!”

Babe tosses her cigarette to the floor and squashes it out. “Flat Head has pimples,” she says.

“So what! He’s a big man! He’s got a car, hasn’t he?”

“Another thing Gober says to me last time we’re together. You know how Gober is — always drawing these pictures of things?”

“Yeah, I know how Gober is — so?”

“So, he draws these two pictures of cats, see? One was a cat chasing in circles after his own tail. The other was a cat jumping up in the air trying to catch a rubber ball on a string that was too high for him to reach, see?”

Marie snorts, “What an imagination!”

“No, I mean, then he says to me, ‘Baby, if you were a cat which one you rather be?’ See? And I say the cat chasing his tail, cause it’s more like a game, you know what I mean? Lots of cats play that way. One we got in our building is always chasing his tail. So I told him I’d rather be that one than the other one, because the other one couldn’t get the ball he was after, do you see?”

“So what did Mr. Picasso say to that?”

“Well, he said, ‘That’s the difference between you and me, Baby. That’s what makes horse races!’ Then he gives me this whack across my rump, like he was being cute, only it was a hard whack, and he says, ‘Why don’t you clear out now, tootsie. Me and the boys got to huddle.’ “

“You see!”

“It was two things in particular, Marie, if you follow me. It was all that stuff about the cats, like I’d chosen the wrong one or something. And then, it was the way he came on with this tootsie business, like I was just another girl and he was finished with me for the night, and I could go on home or drop dead or something.”

“I follow you,” Marie says. “Oh, I get the picture, all right.” She points her nail file at Babe and tells her, “Chuck Gober! Play up to Flat Head, Baby-O, and let ‘em rumble over you. That’ll show Señor Gonzalves. Maybe he’ll get a rock in his head!”

“You think the Kings would rumble over this?”

“Baby-O, they’d have to! It isn’t like Gober announced to the world he threw you over. You’re still Gober’s girl on the books, Babe!”

“A rumble!” Babe Limon says thoughtfully.

“Sure, Baby-O. They’d have to!”

“A rumble,” Babe repeats. “A rumble over me!”

S
O
I
SAYS
who the Christ needs ta go ta a whore and take de chance gettin’ rolled when you can get a bim any night de week in a line-up for one skin!”

“… and just when D.&D.’s got dis hub cap off the Caddy’s wheel, a lousy Friday shows and says you’re unner arres’!”

“… tole me all dey do out on Nort Brudders Island for a hoppy is give ‘im de cold turkey treatment, f’Chrissake!”

The smoke pall is heavy in this cellar on 102nd Street where the Kings are congregated. There are a dozen Kings here — sitting on broken chairs, orange crates, a moth-eaten couch with its springs popping from its insides, and a long board supported at each end by empty beer barrels. A naked, dinky electric light hangs on a cord from the ceiling, over a tottering card table at one end of the wide-brick-walled room. Comic magazines are scattered about, along with dice, cards, empty beer and pop bottles, and old blankets.

This is their clubhouse, and it is not much, but they are lucky to have it. The cellar where the Kings meet is safe; and so are the goods of the newsdealer above them, who lets them use the cellar in return for their guarantee that his store will be “protected.” Still, though they have permission to be there, they are wary of the suspicious nature inherent in coppers, and so they post Owl Vasquez outside, as lookout.

It is Owl who stills the room now.

He sticks his head in the door and shouts, “Gobe’s here!”

There is a scraping of chairs as the Kings pull their sundry seats up nearer to the card table; and the raucous hubbub diminishes to a murmuring undertone, silenced completely in seconds when Owl shouts again: “On your feet! The King of Kings!”

Into the room Gober stalks, followed by Red Eyes de Jarro and Tea Bag Perrez. Gober looks neither right nor left, and at no one, but marches to the card table, while Eyes and Bag take chairs at his side. The Kings stand until Gober snaps, “Places!” and then there is silence, while Gober comes around in front of the table and paces silently.

“All right!” he says finally, facing all of them, “We got a crisis on our hands. Maybe you know — maybe you don’t. We’ll get to it after regular business. Let’s clean up the usual first. Okay. Braden here?”

Braden stands up.

“What’s the latest from your end, Braden?”

Braden is in charge of reporting any arrests made of Kings, of any sentencing of Kings in court, and of any imminent release of a King from a correctional school or reformatory.

“They picked up D.&D. last night, Gober! Held him over for court tomorrow.”

“Yeah? What was he doing?”

“He was borrowing a hub cap from a big yellow Caddy.”

“Christ, doesn’t he know by now there’s no future in hub caps! So he gets ten stinking cents for one! How many’s he expect to get in one night.”

Braden shrugs. “He got thirty a couple nights ago.”

“So three dollars! Big deal!”

“Yeah, Gobe, but it’s chow for D.&.D. S’gotta eat.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gober admits tiredly. “They questioning him about the gang? Anyone with him?”

“Naw, he was solo, and I don’t think they’re going to question a dummy long, particularly D.&.D. You know him, Gober — they write the question down for him on a piece of paper, and then pass the paper to him. They write something like: Who do you sell your loot to? Braden pauses, shaking with laughter, and then says, “And D.&D. writes back to them, What? Whatta character, huh!”

Impatiently Gober snaps, “Okay. Okay. What else?”

“Just Morales,” Braden says. “They sent him out to North Brothers Island for the cure.”

“That’s a good place for Morales,” Gober asserts. “He’ll get more horse out there than he could get around here, and he’ll be out of our hair. I hate a guy who’s hooked that way. Now, take me. I sniff a little horse now and then, maybe I smoke some tea. I’ve been known to take a cap of the snowy stuff too. But I don’t let it hook me. Or take Bag, here.” Gober turns toward Perrez and Perrez nods and smiles blandly. “Bag’s an addict. We all know that. Bag’s got a mistress and her name is snow. But Bag doesn’t let her make him so goddam daffy he walks off a roof or into the river. Bag keeps her to himself, and that’s the way it should be. But Morales! He didn’t know how to get the stuff. Pretty soon he’d steal and get picked up — and then he’d tell anything he knew if the coppers would promise him a cap of the snow. Morales should
stay
on North Brothers!”

Braden says, “You’re right, Gober!”

Other Kings comment: “That’s a fact!” “I’ll buy that.” “I can hear that coming in fine.” “You tell them, Gober!”

“Okay, okay!” Gober yells. “This is a meeting! You finished, Braden?”

Braden gives a lazy salute and sits down.

“Flash, you’re next. What’s on the social agenda this week?”

Flash pulls himself up from the couch and stands knife-thin and tall, and dressed the way Flash always dresses, in the new “sweet” style of gangland, which has replaced the old zoot suit. He is a symphony in dark brown and tan. Flash dresses six nights out of a week. To support his liking for high fashion, Flash sells numbers, and pimps.

“Well, Kings,” Flash drawls, “if anyone’s interested there’ll be a midnight revue on Tuesday, around quarter to midnight, here. It’ll cost you two skins, and — ”

“Two skins, fer the love of — ” someone protests.

“Who’s gonna shell out two skins for a line-up broad, for Christ — ”

“You silly! Two skins! Who you pimping for, the Queen of Sheba?”

Flash holds up his hands for silence; and Gober booms, “Shut up and hear him out. Nobody’s forcing the piece on you!”

Flash waits until the Kings are reasonably quiet. Then he continues: “Two bucks is a fair price for the bim I got lined up. One, this bim is a real doll — packed! Two, she isn’t local talent. She’s out-a-town pussy, in visiting relatives. Three, this bim is virgin territory!” Flash polishes his nails on his coat sleeve in a triumphant gesture, blows on them, raises an eyebrow and adds, “So I say you’re lucky to get off for for two skins — I’d charge an outsider five. Quarter to twelve — here — Tuesday, if you’re buying it.”

“Okay!” Gober says. “We heard the announcement. Anything else!”

“Just the usual dance on Friday,” Flash says, “and I hope you Kings’ll be sweet from head to toe, cause as you know the Jungles have been putting more emphasis on the matter of wardrobe lately, and by comparison we look like a bunch of goddam slobs!”

Flash takes his seat again, and Gober resumes his pacing; talking now as he does. “That should clean the important business off the agenda now, while we deal with the most important business of all — a new development. Red Eyes de Jarro will at this time give a brief summary for those who may not have heard what’s in the wind.”

Red Eyes stands importantly before them; his legs spread, his arms behind his back. “Kings,” he begins solemnly, “the general story is that Flat Head Pontiac Moravia has passed along the information he’s out to make Babe at the Friday night dance.” Red Eyes takes a breath after exploding this bomb, surveys the room through solemn eyes, and continues. “Kings,” he says, “we all know this is top insult; and coming from a Jungle chief, aimed deliberately at our leader, it’s unexcusable!”

The light from the naked bulb glints on Red Eyes’ face as he pauses for emphasis and waits until the uprise of indignant murmuring subsides. Behind him, Gober sits at the card table with a blank expression on his face, showing no reaction whatsoever to his words. It is further proof of his perpetual poise; another indication of his sterling predisposition for leadership.

“I took an analysis of this situation,” Red Eyes goes on, “along with Tea Bag, my fellow War Counselor, and it is the conclusion we came to that there is no way out but to rumble. What Pontiac intends is a straight insult through and through. We lose face not to war over it. That’s my analysis. I now open the floor to discussion.”

Gober pounds on the card table for silence. “One comment at a time!” he shouts; as the Kings begin talking all at once.

Two Heads Pigaro begins, “I don’t dig fighting for some goddam broad, with no intent to critic you, Gobe. I just — ”

“Stand up!” Red Eyes shouts. “This is a meeting!”

“So all right!” Two Heads stands. “I’m no chicken, and nobody ever said I was the type to punk out. I go into a rumble with as much guts as the next guy, but I always contended no broad is worth getting your head cracked open for, or your guts spilled on 107th street! S’far as I figure a rumble is when a wise guy invades your turf, not your goddam piece, cause if your piece can be had what good is it? You might as well get in line behind the others for a bim as try to — ”

For the first time during this meeting, Bag becomes enraged. He jumps up and shouts at Two Heads, “What you know? You never had nothin’ but a bim. You don’t know the score on nothin’ but a bim. You don’t know — ”

“I don’t know what?” Two Heads holds his ground and snarls, “What you know? Is that what I don’t know? You sleep with a goddam needle, hop head! You screw a goddam hypodermic — ”

Gober hits the table with his fist again, almost breaking its legs. “Ask for the floor when you got something to say, you hear? What kind of lousy parliamentary procedure is this crap!”

“I’m just trying to tell this creep he never had nothin’ but a bim,” Tea Bag says. “Anything he ever had, he had to share!”

“Shut up!” Gober commands. “Red’s got his hand up! That’s the way to get the floor.”

Red Eyes de Jarro waits for complete silence. Then he says carefully, “Look, Kings, let’s make this clear right now! It’s not a broad we’re fighting over, see? It’s not Babe! It’s the insult! It’s the idea a Jungle thinks he can walk right up to a King’s deb and cut the King out! I call that nerve, see? I call that raw nerve!”

“Still,” Two Heads persists, “it involves a broad!”

“No, Two Heads, it involves our honor. You ought to see that!”

“Him!” Bag nags. “He’s thick in the head, f’Chrissake! Him know anything about honor, f’Chrissake?”

“I told you about asking for the floor, Bag!” Gober warns.

Blitz Gianonni raises his hand and gets the floor. “If you ask my opinion,” he says, “the consensus is that since that crappy model boy got bumped off up in the Bronx, the heat is on, and a rumble is asking for a pad in a cell. I say Gober oughta forbid Babe to go to the dance Friday, and that way avoid all trouble.”

“That’s punking out, Blitz, and you know it,” Red Eyes states.

“It is not, cause nothing’s gonna happen that way.” Red Eyes moans, “How’m I gonna make you guys see? How?”

“Who needs to see!” someone shouts. “I’ll rumble right now!”

“Yeah, I’m in!”

“It’s clear as crystal!”

“Man, this is Rumbleville, s’far as I see it!”

“Let’s go, hey!”

“Errrrrrrrumble! Yeah, yeah!”

Gober stands and glares at the Kings of the Earth until they are quieted. “I wish,” he says with a pained expression, “that you guys would conduct yourself as guys in a meeting are supposed to. Now, let’s face facts! It is clear that the majority is for a rumble, and that the majority sees this is a rumble not over Babe, but over the insult offered up on a silver platter by Flat Head Pontiac. Is that clear?”

A chorus of loud voices shouts, “Right!”

“And it is clear that this is an insult directed not at me personally, but at each and every King. Otherwise Pontiac would not announce his intentions. Clear?”

“Right!”

“So what chance do we have? To chicken, or to rumble. Right?” “Right!”

“And do we chicken?” “Hell, no!”

Gober socks the fist of one hand into the palm of another. “So there you are,” he says. “There you are. Anyone got more to say?”

“When we gonna plan it for, Gobe?”

“I’m not sure in my mind about that,” Gober says. “That’s got to be thought out. But my best theory at the moment is that we ought to fall in at the dance, just like any other time, and let Pontiac make his play for my Babe — who I am going to have a sweet little talk with in person ahead of time. Then — after he has made his pitch, and after we have concluded dancing, and after the Jungles leave the hall —
then!”

Flash pulls himself up from the couch again. “What about our clothes, man? We going to rumble in our sweet clothes?”

“I figure,” Gober paces as he talks, “that we leave our rumble clothes here. We go in our sweet clothes, and we conduct like nothing is gonna happen that night, and we even let drop phrases like, ‘Wait until tomorrow night!’ to give them the idea we plan a rumble on Saturday. We carry on at the dance normal, and a few of us even drop in at the poolhall after, and we don’t act excited — but we beat it over here fast, change, get our weapons, and get them in
their
sweet clothes, and get them so they never forget it!”

The Kings cheer wildly. Gober feigns nonchalance. Only Two Heads Pigaro does not cheer. He spoils the mood with acid words. “There’s a goddam rumor going round,” he says, “that Babe ain’t even your broad any more, Gober. If that rumor’s true, I don’t see no one should be insulted if Flat Head Pontiac wants to shop in a second-hand store!”

The atmosphere is tense now; you could drop a pin. The Kings watch Gober’s face. His eyes needle Two Heads, but his expression remains impassive, his voice calm.

“Where’d you hear that rumor, Two Heads?”

“Around!”

“And what was that rumor?”

“That Babe ain’t your cup of tea no more.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Babe ain’t your cup of tea no more.”

Gober walks closer to Two Heads, slowing a foot away from him, standing and staring into Two Heads’ face. “Did I refer in this meeting to the broad in question as
my
Babe, or wasn’t that how I put it?”

“That was how you put it, all right,” Two Heads says, “but I hear — ” Two Heads stops. Gober’s eyes are menacing; his breath hot in Two Heads’ face. He shrugs. “Okay. So I hear wrong.”