TOWER: I ain’t afraid of a rumble.
DANNY: Neither am I.
TOWER: So? You coming or staying?
DANNY: I ain’t afraid. You know that, damnit!
TOWER (sarcastically): Sure, I can see you’re not afraid.
DANNY: All right, all right. Damnit, I was talking to a girl. All right, come on, let’s get it over with.
(They start around the edge of the pool toward the other side, where the Horsemen are emerging from the water. As they walk, we notice other boys watching them, and then getting to their feet to join them, so that the long march around the edge of the gleaming blue pool becomes a sort of recruiting march, as if the bugle has been sounded for formation of ranks and the Thunderbirds are massing. It is a terrible thing to watch them, because there is the silence of a vigilante committee about them, the menacing deadly purposefulness of a lynch mob. Tower, Batman, and Danny are in the front rank. As they walk, the other boys fall in behind them, not in strict formation, but nonetheless presenting the formidable appearance of an army on the move. The lifeguard on his high chair looks over to the boys. He is not a cop, and he doesn’t feel like getting involved with a bunch of hoods. He stays where he is, studying the water for drowning people, of whom there are none at the moment. The hum over the pool begins to subside, and then it is gone altogether. Barefoot, bare-chested, the Thunderbirds — at least a dozen of them now — cross the pool area. Trouble is in the air. The silence of trouble is a louder noise than the gay hum of voices which preceded it. Five of the Puerto Rican boys have gone over to the fountain on that side of the pool. Only one — Alfredo — remains by the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in the water. He does not see the Thunderbirds until they are almost upon him. He scrambles to his feet and looks frantically for the other members of his party, but he is surrounded before he establishes contact. The boys ring him in, and he faces them with his back to the pool.)
TOWER: What are you? A little girl?
ALFREDO: A gorl? What you minn?
TOWER: You’re wearing a necklace. I thought only girls wore necklaces.
ALFREDO: A neck— (His hand goes up to the chain and cross. He is trying to see past the boys to where his friends are, but the circle is tight and unbending.) Tha’s no necklace. Tha’s Jesús Cristo. Don’ you got no religion?
TOWER: Oh, you got religion, huh? He’s got religion, boys.
ALFREDO: Come on, wha’ you wann here, anyway?
TOWER: We want to see how religious you are, spic.
ALFREDO: Hey, don’ call me—
TOWER: We want to see if you can walk on the water, spic.
ALFREDO: Walk on dee—
(Batman shoves out at him, and Alfredo hurtles backward into the water. The Thunderbirds are in the pool almost instantly, splashing wildly as Alfredo surfaces. Alfredo is frightened now. He is surrounded by a dozen boys, and his feet are not on the ground. He has never been a good swimmer; he came here today only to be one of the boys. Now the boys have deserted him and...)
TOWER: Get him! Get him!
(The Thunderbirds reach for Alfredo. He strikes out at them, but his punches are ineffectual in the water. Batman seizes him from behind.)
TOWER: Shove him under!
(Batman pushes down on Alfredo’s shoulders, shoving him beneath the surface of the water. Alfredo pushes up again, his mouth open for air, and another boy strikes him, and then Batman seizes his hair and pushes down with all his might. Another boy closes in, adding the force of his arms to Batman’s. A bubble breaks the surface of the water. The pool is terribly still. The lifeguard weighs his responsibility — someone is likely to drown out there — and then decides his responsibility does not extend this far. He comes down off the chair, though, and sidles away from the crowd in search of a cop.)
DANNY: Okay, let him up. That’s enough.
TOWER: Hold him!
DANNY: You’re going to drown him! Let him up!
TOWER: I said hold him!
(Another air bubble breaks the surface. The boys stand in a silent circle. Beneath the water, held tightly by Batman and the other boy, Alfredo struggles, but he cannot break the grip. Then he stops struggling.)
DANNY: Let him go! He’s drowning, can’t you see?
TOWER: He’s faking! He’s holding his breath.
DANNY: Damnit, you’re gonna kill him! Tower, let him go!
TOWER: Shut up!
(Beneath the surface, Alfredo is beginning to go limp, his eyes opening wide in terror. From the water fountain, Frankie senses the sudden silence of the pool. He turns, takes one look and then says “Mira!” and the other Puerto Rican boys turn, and then they break into a trot toward the pool’s edge. They do not stop at the lip. Led by Frankie, they dive into the water, striking first at Batman and the boy holding Alfredo under. Alfredo, released, surfaces, grabs for the lip of the pool, and feebly sucks in air. In the pool, the boys are fighting now, cursing loudly. The girls around the edges of the pool are screaming. The lifeguard rushes back with a policeman. The sound of his whistle splits the air.)
“Then Tower started it all, is that right?” Hank said.
“Damn right, he started it,” Frankie said. “And we weren’t doing nothing, either. Just swimming. So he got us all hauled down the station house, that dumb jerk. And for what? Just so he could be a big man.”
“Did Danny actually resist Tower’s command?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he try to save this boy Alfredo?”
“I didn’t even know he was there,” Frankie said. “I just found out today, same as you did.”
“He was there,” Gargantua said. “Some guys told me he was yelling they should let Alfie go. That’s what I heard around, anyway. He ain’t really a Thunderbird, you know. He just kind of hangs out with them.”
“He oughta choose his friends better,” Frankie said. “They all stink, every one of them. You ever meet the president of that club?”
“No. Who’s he?” Hank said.
“A guy named Big Dom. He’s really a little shrimp. You could fit him in your side pocket.” Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know where they dug him up, I swear to God. Ain’t a president supposed to have leadership qualities? Not that I’m a big leader, but this Dominick character is strictly for the sparrows. Argggh, they’re a nowhere club altogether.”
“You’d do good to send them three to the chair, Mr. Bell,” Gargantua said.
“Yeah,” Frankie agreed, “you’d do real good.” He turned to face Hank. His eyes were still invisible behind the dark glasses, but suddenly he was no longer the Picasso-lover with the proud Spanish blood. His face seemed to go suddenly hard, and his voice, though issuing from his mouth in a monotone, was menacing. “You’d do real good, Mr. Bell.”
“It wouldn’t be nice for them to get away with this,” Gargantua said.
“No,” Frankie said. “A lot of people might not like it.”
They sat in silence for a moment. The two boys stared at him, as if trying to make their meaning clear without the necessity of further words.
Finally Hank rose. “Well,” he said, “thanks for all the information,” and he reached into his back pocket for his wallet.
“The beers are on me,” Frankie said.
“No, let me—”
“I said the beers are on me,” he said, more firmly this time.
“Well, thank you, then,” Hank said, and he left the bar.
The mother of Rafael Morrez did not arrive home from work until 6 P.M. She was a seamstress in the garment district. She had come to Harlem from a town in Puerto Rico called Vega Baja, where she had worked in a one-room factory that made children’s shirts. From the outside of the building, the place where she had worked had not resembled a factory at all. There was a grilled iron railing, and then a pastel-colored building set back from a small courtyard where wild orchids grew. Violeta Morrez would begin work at eight in the morning, and she worked through until six o’clock in the evening. She had better working conditions and higher wages in New York, that was true. But in Puerto Rico, at the end of the working day, she would go home to her son Rafael. In New York she could no longer do that. Her son Rafael was dead.