The Warriors by Sol Yurick Read Free Book Online

thousand brothers and sisters. And before he heard the protesting murmurs, he told them, “Now we’re all brothers, I don’t care what you say. They make us think we’re all different so we rumble in colored gangs, white gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, Polish gangs, Irish gangs, Italian gangs, Mau-Mau gangs, and Nazi gangs. But the iron fists break all our heads in the station house the same; and when that judge, he looks down on us and says Youth House, reformatory, or Riker’s Island, or the Pen, he is treating us the same; they treat us like we, one and all, had the same mother, and they fuck our mother and that’s what makes us brothers.”
    He shot out his arm. The fist was clenched. His other hand was over his arm in the Gesture and he turned, more slowly than before, gesturing at the whole world around them.
    And for a moment they were all one. Two hundred yards away The Junior felt it; he was one of a vast and comforting throng, and the terror of being in a strange place was not so frightening for a moment. Lunkface could see the backed-up headbusters being beat in their own prison cells. Hector could think, now, in terms of handling big platoons, companies, battalions of men, who could move in swift, devastating raids. Hinton would be able to walk long distances without having to fight. Bimbo dreamed of being deferred to. Dewey hoped that it would be an end to hanging around, waiting in the morning for the night to come, bored, always bored. Papa Arnold wondered how he could get close to Ismael. They yelled and Ismael held them for a second. They were formed into a soothing bubble of powerand warm community. They yelled together stood and made the Gesture in every direction. But it could only hold for a second; too many things probed at the skin that united them all. What Ismael said got garbled in the passage because the communicators and the listeners to the Word could hardly understand its power or meaning, and so saying it right, or hearing it right wasn’t so important. The dissident elements couldn’t stand it. Some gangs had too much rep; some too little. The Nazis hated that crazy nigger prancing up there. The Muslim gangs thought he was a traitor, a Puerto Rican, and so really white and where was the white man you could trust? Their harsh hatreds could only rest for a second at a time and they must break out, knowing only to offer violence before it was offered to them. The psychotics could never maintain discipline, could never be grouped too long with others; they were too restless. Most of the others could never dare place themselves far from their dreamy wants of kicks, power, women, clothes, cars, and honor; some of them had almost been won back into the world, were beginning to believe in the way things were and couldn’t dare to sacrifice the joy of belonging. The frightened shied away from it because they could almost see, palpable out there, beyond the park ends, the terrifying shape of the opposition, those massed apartment-house lights, the now-innocent fireworks sounding and flashing in the air; only a little sign of how the world could come down on them.
    Someone slapped at a mosquito; a jumpy warrior misinterpreted the sign and struck back. A fight broke out. Groups began to bop in the darkness. A lot of them, not trusting the situation completely, had brought their own flashlights and began to use them. A whorl of violence swirled, and expanded outward. Gangs reformed, shattering that holy instant of universal unity. A few men, always prepared, undid garrison belts from their middles and prepared to start lashing, buckles out. Someone putdown someone else’s mother. A few of the gunbearers began to shred the gift wrappings off the token guns to feel protected; they pointed the power, still afraid to use it, probing the surrounding darkness.
    The fights were still scattered and the liaison men were trying to stop them. Some fights were halted momentarily,