The Wanderers

by Richard Price

Emilio had watched the crowd gather in the middle of the field. He moved closer. When people started drifting back he picked up something about a fight and some ducks. All he knew was if those niggers started a fight or anything he would kick their asses. Fuck the ducks.

  Ray Rodriguez was tall and fast. He played safety good enough for any high school team in the city. But like Ed Weiss, he'd wound up at a school without a football team, so he played with the Stingers. His close call during half time gave him nervous superspeed during the second half. And he played like a pro. He kept seeing that razor in front of his face and that Ducky Boy sitting on his chest with a cloudiness in his eyes that signified a conscience and an intelligence the size of peanuts. The Del-Bombers threw a long bomb, and Ray outran Leslie Frances, intercepting the pass in the end zone for a touchback. As he caught the ball, he slipped to one knee on a wet patch of grass. Facing away from the field, he looked up into the face of the Ducky Boy who tried to kill him He was standing ten yards away against a tree staring expressionlessly at Ray. Ray froze. The Ducky Boy motioned Ray forward Ray stood up and backed into a goal post The Ducky Boy drew his thumb across his own neck and clenched his teeth Ray turned and ran.

  "What's with you?"

  "They're here!"

  Richie's eyes widened. "Where?" Ray pointed to the end zone. Nobody there. "Where?"

  "I ain't fuckin' around, Gennaro. He was there."

  "What now?"

  "What happened?"

  "Ray saw the guy."

  "I ain't shittin', I'm goin' home."

  "Hey, c'mon, man. The game's almost over."

  "I don't care, like ... hey! There he is!" Not only was the Ducky Boy back but six or seven of his friends were standing by the goal posts. "Goodbye. You guys can hang around."

  "There's only six there. We can take 'em."

  People started leaving. The football players congregated in the center of the field with Perry in the middle. "Lissen, I ain't runnin' from midgets."

  "They ain't midgets. Whynchoo knock down a tree, Perry."

  "I'll knock your fuckin' head off, man. I ain't leavin'." Perry startled himself with his own bravado. He didn't know why he was coming on tough.

  "Oh, my God, look," said Eugene.

  The six Ducky Boys had multiplied into hundreds, luring the woods and the football field. The remaining fans packed up and hightailed it for the park entrance except Lenny Arkadian and Emilio Capra.

  "Jesus Fucking H. Christ!" Richie strapped his helmet on.

  "I think my mother's callin' me," said a Del-Bomber.

  "I'm thirsty, anybody wanna get a Coke?" asked Ed Weiss.

  Leaving their street clothes behind, about twenty football players ran after the fans.

  "What the fuck," Eugene said, "let's get the hell outta here." Eugene wanted to run, but bis fear of violence was less than his fear of losing face.

  Joey saw his father and Lenny walking toward them.

  "Let's hang around," he said, feeling a terrible sense of excitement.

  Perry put his cast around Joey's shoulders. "All faggots can go home." Every time Perry started feeling scared he came on louder and braver.

  "What's goin' on?" Lenny looked pretty big and tough. He saw the Ducky Boy nation down the field. "Friends a yours?" Lenny was disappointed and relieved that his younger brother had disappeared.

  About thirty guys were left including Perry, Joey, Richie, Raymond Firestone, Eugene, Buddy, about half the Del-Bombers and half the Stingers.

  "Where's my brother?" Vincent Tasso asked.

  "He split."

  "Goddamn!" Vincent looked hurt.

  Emilio strolled over and took off his coat, displaying a physique that silenced everybody. Joey felt like crying. "Who a' those guys?" Emilio asked with casual disinterest. Nobody answered.

  He shrugged, walked over to a tree, and tore off a fat branch, swinging it lazily. He returned to the group, resting the club on his shoulder. Impressed, Perry winked at Joey. Joey strapped on his helmet and adjusted his shoulder pads. Some guys, imitating Emilio, tore off tree branches. The Ducky Boys were motionless, waiting to see who stayed and who ran. Now they were on the move—almost walking in formation down the field like a marching band. Some of them carried baseball bats, some car aerials, some tire chains. Joey inched closer to his father. Emilio exhaled heavily through his nose and tightened his grip on the club. The football players didn't know whether to fan out or to bunch together, and they started bumping into each other shouting strategies Perry took practice cuts in the air with his cast Joey ran for the trees. He tried to pull off a branch but couldn't snap it loose. He ran back empty-handed, standing between Perry and his father. Ray Rodriguez stayed because Richie had made a comment about fuckin' nigger cowards when half the Del-Bombers ran for the hills. It didn't seem to make a difference that half the Stingers had suddenly developed a strong thirst about the same time.

  "What the fuck am I doin' here?" asked Lenny.

  "Get 'em, Wolfman!" Perry laughed.

  When the Ducky Boys got to midfield, they broke rank and charged, swinging everything they had. The football players were outnumbered five to one, but Ducky Boys came small. Emilio ran to meet them and swung his branch in someone's face. A fountain of blood arched from the kid's nostrils, spraying Emilio's arms. Emilio plowed through five or six Ducky Boys before someone got him from behind with a baseball bat, and he went down thrashing under a sea of foaming rats.

  Twelve Ducky Boys tried to jump Perry and Lenny because they were the biggest. Perry swung his cast like the jawbone of an ass, piling up bodies at his feet. Lenny grabbed a Ducky Boy by the legs and used him as a club, swinging him face-first into the attackers.

  Joey, inspired by Emilio and fear, was doing O.K. for a little guy until he saw his father go down. Then he got hit in the face with the tip of a car aerial—a curtain of skin and blood blinding him. Perry saw Joey go down, and bellowing in anger, he waded through Ducky Boys, smashing bones and heads until his cast was red. He peeled Ducky Boys off Joey, yanking him to his feet and shoving him toward the safety of the woods. But Joey couldn't see and walked right into a waiting Ducky Boy and went down again under a flurry of kicks and punches. Perry grabbed the Ducky Boy and rammed his head into a tree. His cast shattered, and the pain from his throbbing wrist made him cry.

  Raymond Firestone, a Golden Gloves boxer, was having an easy time until a tire chain smashed his fingers, and he sank to his knees staring in disbelief at the mangled remains of his life's dream.

  Richie, Eugene, and Buddy stood back to back in a defensive triangle, but for some reason no one was interested, much to their relief.

  Under the mountain of Ducky Boys, Emilio pumped his fists and eventually cleared an opening so he could sit up. He grabbed a Ducky Boy and using him as a support leaped to his feet. He lost his club but he wasn't hurt, except for the throbbing lump at the base of his skull. He grabbed another Ducky Boy with a tire chain and broke the kid's arm in one quick twist. Emilio wrapped the tire chain around his hand and, using it like a bolo, broke ribs and legs. After a while he stood untouched and unchallenged.

  Ray Rodriguez punched Richie in the nose.

  Lenny found Emilio's club, and when he got tired of swinging the Ducky Boy he tossed him away and used the stick, but he lost his balance, and they were all over him and suddenly things weren't so funny anymore.

  Joey lay on his stomach, whimpering. He thought he was blind, and his father was dead. But Emilio was still swinging, and Joey only had a superficial cut across his forehead. For the first time in the afternoon he felt hopeless, overpowering terror. He was too scared to lift his head and tried to belly-crawl away—his body moving slowly across the cool grass. He bumped into the broad roots of a tree and held onto the base of the trunk with all his strength.

  Blood was seeping from the inside of Perry's cracked cast. Shreds of gauze hung in festoons from his arm. The pain overcame his bravado, and he stumbled into the woods howling in anguish. Hidden
from view, he sat on the ground, held his arm, and rocked back and forth.

  Raymond Firestone lay curled into a ball, crying softly, holding his smashed hand against his chest. He'd lost a shoe, and his helmet was half off his head.

  After Ray Rodriguez punched Richie in the nose he felt much better and ran home.

  After Richie got punched in the nose he ran home.

  When Buddy and Eugene saw Richie run home, they ran home.

  Lenny was out cold and dreamed he was painting miles of canvas with a brush the size of a toothpick.

  Between those decked and those running, Emilio was the only one still fighting. When the Ducky Boys saw that the only one left to fight was the maniac with the steel whip, they decided their job was done and began to vanish as abruptly as they had appeared. Emilio ran after them like a lunatic gladiator, the burning ball at the base of his skull driving him on to mow down and plow through anything that moved.

  After the Ducky Boys bad gone, Stingers and Del-Bombers crept timidly out of the woods. Joey sat up. The blood had dried and except for the stinging band over his eyes and the shakiness of fear, he was more or less O.K. He saw his father, his back to everyone, standing alone in the field. Elated, Joey struggled to his feet and ran to him. At the second before contact, Emilio wheeled around, slamming him square in the gut. Joey made a noise approaching a snarl and sank to his knees. He stared at Emilio with unblinking eyes and vomited slender ropes of hateful black.

  4. The Roof

  THE HITE BROTHERS were idiots. Scottie, ten years old, was best friends with Dougie Rizzo, C's brother. Scottie's brother, Rockhead or Frank, was as old as the Wanderers but was considered a maniac jerk-off, and a leper.

  The Hite boys were so blond they seemed white-haired. They always went around moving their lips wordlessly and squinting like they were figuring out a calculus problem. Only a fellow maniac, though far more evil, like Dougie Rizzo could have befriended Scottie Hite—but only so he could use Scottie as Igor for his fiendish plots. As for Frank, he was friendless although he had many enemies. Mr. Hite worked in a factory that made roller skates. His job was checking that the right number of rollers were on each skate. He was on probation because he once let a three-wheeled skate get by and a fifty-year-old lady in her second childhood broke her leg zooming down a hill. The lady sued, and the company traced the error to him—so if he let one more faulty skate go past him again he'd be canned. They were purposely sending three-wheeled roller skates down the assembly line, but he caught every one. He was a conscientious worker.

  Mrs. Hite was in charge of the projects' laundry room in the basement of her building. She'd been living in this country for twenty years and still spoke almost unintelligible English. She was from Ireland.

  ***

  The day Dougie and Scottie were left nude in the park, Dougie convinced Scottie to run to the highway and try to stop a car for help. While Scottie was standing bare-ass-naked on the edge of the road, almost getting run over by shocked motorists, Dougie found and beat up a smaller kid, took his clothes, and went home.

  ***

  "Hey, Hite!" Dougie came up behind Scottie in Big Playground and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  "Hiya, Dougie."

  "You wanna hawa contest, Scottie?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I got a good contest. Let's see who can hit each other the softest."

  "Hah?" Dougie ushered Scottie behind the Parks Department building, a small brick supply house in the middle of the playground.

  "We'll see who can hit each other the softest, you get it?"

  "Nah." Scottie squinted, working out pi to the tenth decimal place.

  "Look, asshole ... like this." Dougie grabbed Scottie's arm, and as Scottie cringed, he drew back his fist and, faking a furious punch, tapped Scottie lightly on the biceps. "Like that ... see?" Scottie nodded. "O.K. You go first." Dougie stuck out his arm. Scottie made an angry face, snarled, drew back his fist—and for a second Dougie got scared that Scottie didn't understand—and tapped his friend lightly on the arm. "O.K., now it's my turn." Dougie grabbed Scottie's arm again, drew back his fist, and punched Scottie as hard as he could. "You win." He laughed as Scottie held his bruised arm and howled like a wolf, his head thrown back, his eyes clenched in pain. "Hey, I gotta 'nother one."

  "No!" said Scottie.

  "C'mon." Dougie rubbed his friend's arm. "Hey, Scottie!" Scottie stared at him.

  "Eeeeuwww! You got a booger on your shirt!" Dougie pointed to a spot on Scottie's chest, and when Scottie looked down Dougie flicked up his finger, smacking him in the nose.

  "Rotten shit!" Scottie chased Dougie around the playground, but Dougie was faster, eluding his flunky with laughable ease. Finally Scottie got tired and called it quits.

  It was one of those gray, cold Sunday afternoons when bored kids are at their most dangerous, Scottie and Dougie no exceptions. As they rambled through the angular housing project they broke a window, started fires in three garbage cans, and jammed the elevator in Scottie's building.

  "I wish I was a marine," said Dougie. Scottie squinted as if thinking about reorganizing marine troop distribution in the Pacific. "I wish I was a marine so I could torture Nazis ... do you like torture?" Dougie asked.

  "I dunno, what is it?"

  "C'mere, I'll show you." He took Scottie into the hallway of a building. "O.K. I'll be the marine and you be the Nazi." He faced Scottie. "Where are your tanks?" he barked. Scottie looked confused and shrugged. "You lie!" Dougie slapped Scottie hard across the face.

  "Auuu! You fuck!" Scottie grabbed Dougie's ears and slammed his head into a cinder-block wall. Hearing a satisfying BONK, Scottie's anger left him. Dougie sat dazed on the concrete floor, his head vibrating.

  "You shouldna did that, Dougie," he said, groping for an apologetic tone of voice. Dougie looked up at Scottie, who panted and picked his nose. Dougie was filled with a cool hate that calmed his impulse to strangle and replaced it with a sweet sense of time and revenge. Scottie had never hit him before, although Scottie was Dougie's punching bag; this was a clear case of mutiny. "Help me up, Hite." Dougie extended a hand. Scottie backed away. "You gonna hit me?"

  "Nan."

  "Swear to God."

  "I swear."

  "Cross."

  Dougie crossed.

  "Swear on your mother."

  "I swear." Dougie smiled amiably.

  "Swear on Brother Timothy and Sister Theresa at Holy Rosary."

  "I swear," Dougie said patiently. Nervously, Scottie extended a hand. Dougie resisted pulling Scottie headfirst into the wall and struggled to his feet "So you don' like torture, hah?"

  "What?"

  "C'mon, I'll buy you a Coke." He ushered Scottie through the projects into the Pioneer Candy Store. As Scottie sipped his Coke, Dougie spun himself around on the rotating counter stool until he was dizzy. "Hite, ain't I your best friend in the whole world?"

  "What?"

  "Ain't I your greatest buddy?" He put an arm around Scottie's shoulders.

  Maxie, the bald immigrant soda jerk whose glasses reflected every bit of light they could catch, came over to them. "Twenty cent."

  "I'll pay for the whole thing." Dougie made a big deal of extracting a quarter from his jeans. "He's my best friend, and I'll pay for him any time." Maxie failed to be stirred and gave Dougie a nickel.

  Outside, they walked across the street to Big Playground. Dougie nudged Scottie with an elbow.

  "What?"

  Dougie pulled a dirty magazine from the front of his pants and gave it to Scottie. "I took it when he wasn't lookin'."

  "Wow!"

  "You din't see me take it either, you..." He stopped himself from calling Scottie a jerk. "It's yours."

  "Wow."

  "You like that, hah? You like them big titties there?" Dougie snickered.

  Scottie giggled idiotically as he stared at a seminaked girl with big jugs.

  "You wanna go up onna roof and look at the pictures?" Dougie suggested i
n a nasty whisper.

  "Yeah, O.K."

  "C'mon."

  They trotted through the projects to a building they'd never been in before near the park, Scottie chortling and giggling, Dougie silent. They took the elevator to the top floor, then took the stairs to the roof. Dougie pushed the big iron door with his shoulder.

  The roof was square, bordered by a jail-like four-foot-high iron grill. The ground was covered with a carpet of gravel, and the gravel was usually covered with a fine layer of black cinders that floated up from the mouth of an incinerator chimney. The only two structures on this flat terrain were the chimney and the huge iron door that led to the stairs.

  The boys felt a delicious sense of terror because sneaking onto a roof was the most forbidden thing they could do in the projects. Any second a big black porter could kick open the iron door or dash from behind the chimney in his dark blue work uniform and drag them down seven flights of stairs and over to the housing police. Scottie whooped and hollered as he ran to the iron grill and looked down to the impossibly small street.

  "We're on toppa the world!" he squealed.

  "How 'bout that?" Dougie stared serenely across the sea of dirty buildings. Scottie ran around the roof making noises of nervous delight.

  "Hey, Hite! C'mere wit' that magazine." Dougie squatted on the gravel. Scottie sat down next to him, and they thumbed through the pages, Dougie making cracks, Scottie drooling and laughing. "Hey, Hite, look a' that ass!"

  "Yeah!"

  "Hey, Hite, watch!" Dougie lifted the magazine to his mouth and kissed the winking girl's behind.

  "Wooo!" Scottie waved a limp wrist meaning shame-shame.

  "You do it."

  "Nah." Scottie giggled in embarrassment.

  "C'mon, g'head." Dougie shoved the magazine into Scottie's face. Scottie tried to twist away, then gave the magazine a quick peck. He redoubled his noises, approaching hysteria. Dougie smiled contemptuously. He held the magazine in front of his own face, the nudie photos facing Scottie, and spoke in a high-pitched voice, "Oh, Scottie Hite, you naughty boy! You kissed my tushie!"

  Scottie waved weakly in helpless, salivating, embarrassed laughter. Dougie got up and started chasing him around the roof with the pictures and squeaking, "Oh, Scottie! Kiss my tushie!"