This candy store is called Chris's. There must be ten thousand like it
in the city. A marble counter with perhaps five stools, a display case
of cigars and a bigger one of candy, a few dozen girlie magazines
hanging by clothespin-sort-of things from wire ropes along the wall. It
has a couple of very small glass-topped tables under the magazines. And
a juke--I can't imagine a place like Chris's without a juke.
I had been sitting around Chris's for a couple of hours, and I was
beginning to get edgy. The reason I was sitting around Chris's was not
that I liked Cokes particularly, but that it was one of the hanging-out
places of a juvenile gang called The Leopards, with whom I had been
trying to work for nearly a year; and the reason I was becoming edgy was
that I didn't see any of them there.
The boy behind the counter--he had the same first name as I, Walter in
both cases, though my last name is Hutner and his is, I believe,
something Puerto Rican--the boy behind the counter was dummying up, too.
I tried to talk to him, on and off, when he wasn't busy. He wasn't busy
most of the time; it was too cold for sodas. But he just didn't want to
talk. Now, these kids love to talk. A lot of what they say doesn't make
sense--either bullying, or bragging, or purposeless swearing--but talk
is their normal state; when they quiet down it means trouble. For
instance, if you ever find yourself walking down Thirty-Fifth Street and
a couple of kids pass you, talking, you don't have to bother looking
around; but if they stop talking, turn quickly. You're about to be
mugged. Not that Walt was a mugger--as far as I know; but that's the
pattern of the enclave.
* * * * *
So his being quiet was a bad sign. It might mean that a rumble was
brewing--and that meant that my work so far had been pretty nearly a
failure. Even worse, it might mean that somehow the Leopards had
discovered that I had at last passed my examinations and been appointed
to the New York City Police Force as a rookie patrolman, Shield 8805.
Trying to work with these kids is hard enough at best. They don't like
outsiders. But they particularly hate cops, and I had been trying for
some weeks to decide how I could break the news to them.
The door opened. Hawk stood there. He didn't look at me, which was a bad
sign. Hawk was one of the youngest in the Leopards, a skinny, very dark
kid who had been reasonably friendly to me. He stood in the open door,
with snow blowing in past him. "Walt. Out here, man."
It wasn't me he meant--they call me "Champ," I suppose because I beat
them all shooting eight-ball pool. Walt put down the comic he had been
reading and walked out, also without looking at me. They closed the
door.
* * * * *
Time passed. I saw them through the window, talking to each other,
looking at me. It was something, all right. They were scared. That's
bad, because these kids are like wild animals; if you scare them, they
hit first--it's the only way they know to defend themselves. But on the
other hand, a rumble wouldn't scare them--not where they would show it;
and finding out about the shield in my pocket wouldn't scare them,
either. They hated cops, as I say; but cops were a part of their
environment. It was strange, and baffling.
Walt came back in, and Hawk walked rapidly away. Walt went behind the
counter, lit a cigaret, wiped at the marble top, picked up his comic,
put it down again and finally looked at me. He said: "Some punk busted
Fayo and a couple of the boys. It's real trouble."