The other boy with Cooch was a six-footer with a face so dark that all personality somehow became lost in the overall impression of blackness. His features were a mixture of Negroid and Caucasian, a mixture so loosely concocted that even here there was an impression of vagueness, of vacuity. The boy was sixteen years old. He moved slowly, and he thought slowly. His mind a blank, his face a blank, he presented a somewhat creaking portrait to his contemporaries, and so they had named him Papa, as befitted a sixteen-year-old who seemed to be seventy.
"When my fodder go on a trip," he said, "I hep my mudder. He tell me to hep her." He spoke with a Spanish accent so marked that sometimes his words were unintelligible. At these moments, he would revert back to his native tongue, and this too added to the concept of a young boy who was old, a young boy who clung to the old language and the old slow-moving ways of a land he had deeply loved.
"That's different," Zip said. "When he's away, you're the man of the house. I'm not talking about a man's work."
Proudly, Papa said, "My fodder's a merchan' marine."
"Who the hell are you snowing?" Zip asked. "He's a waiter."
"On a boat! Tha' makes him a merchan' marine."
"That makes him a waiter! Listen, we've wasted enough time already. Let's lay this out. We're gonna have to move if we want to catch that eleven o'clock Mass." He turned suddenly to Sixto who had been staring blankly at the street. "You with us, Sixto?"
"Wah? Oh, yes. I'm ... I'm with you, Zip."
"You looked like you was on the moon."
"I wass thinkin' ... well, you know. This Alfredo kid, he not sush a bad guy."
"He's getting washed and that's it," Zip said. "I don't even want to hear talk about it." He paused. "What the hell are you looking at, would you please mind telling me?"
"The organ-grinder," Sixto said.
The organ-grinder had rounded the corner and stopped just outside the luncheonette. His parrot had bright-green feathers. The parrot perched on the instrument, accepted coins in his beak, gave them to his master, and then reached down to select a fortune slip from the rack of slips on top of the hand organ. A crowd immediately gathered around the organ-grinder and his trained bird. The crowd was a Sunday churchgoing crowd, bedecked in bright summer colors. The girls shrieked each time they read a fortune. The old men and the old ladies grinned knowingly. Jeff walked out of the luncheonette and handed the parrot a nickel. The parrot reached into the rack, peck, a narrow white slip appeared in his beak. Jeff took the slip and began reading it. The girls squealed in delight. There was an innocence surrounding the organ-grinder; the mechanical music he produced was countered by the skill of the bird and the faith of the crowd. For this was Sunday morning, and this was a time to believe in fortunes, a time to believe that the future would be good. And so they crowded the man and his bird, crowded around the sailor who read his fortune from the card and grinned, laughed again in delight as the parrot dipped his beak for another fortune. There was innocence here, and it shimmered on the summer air like truth.
Not ten feet from the organ-grinder, not ten feet from the crowd in their gay Sunday clothes, Zip stood in a whispering circle with three other boys who wore purple silk jackets. The backs of the jackets were lettered with the words the latin purples. The words were cut from yellow felt and stitched to the purple silk. The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, four jacket backs and four young men who huddled close together and spoke in low whispers while the organ-grinder filled the air with the music of innocence and truth.
"I ... I wass thinkin'," Sixto said, "maybe we shoul' jus', you know, maybe warn him."
"For messing with one of the debs?" Cooch whispered, astonished.
"So, he dinn really do nothin', Cooch. He jus' ony say hello to her. Thass not so bad."
"He made a grab," Cooch said with finality.
"Thass not what she say. I ask her. She say he ony jus' say hello to her."
"What right did you have to go asking her questions?" Zip wanted to know. "Whose girl is she? Yours or mine?" Sixto remained silent. "Well?"
"Well, Zip," Sixto said, after long deliberation, "I tink ... well, I don' tink she knows. I mean, I don' tink she got no understanding with you."
"I don't need no understanding with a chick. I'm telling you she's my girl, and that's good enough."
"But she don' tink so!"
"I don't care what she thinks."
"Anyway," Sixto said, "no matter whose girl she is, if Alfie don' do nothin' to her, why we got to shoot him?"
The boys were silent for a moment, as if mention of the word, as if translation of their plan into sound, into a word which immediately delivered the image of a pistol, had shocked them into silence.
In a very low voice, Zip asked, "You going turkey?" Sixto did not answer. "I thought you was a down cat, Sixto. I thought you had heart."
"I do got heart."
"He gah heart, Zeep," Papa said, defending Sixto.
"Then why's he backing out? How'd you like it if this was your girl, Sixto? How'd you like it if Alfie went messing around with your girl?"
"But he dinn mess with her. He ony say hello. So wha's so bad about dat?"
"You in this club?" Zip asked.
"Sure."
"Why?"
"I... I don' know. You got to belong to..." Sixto shrugged. "I don' know."
"If you're in this club, if you wear that purple jacket, you do what I say. Okay. I say the Latin Purples are washing Alfredo Gomez right after eleven o'clock Mass. You want to turkey out, go ahead." He paused meaningfully. "All I know is that Alfie give China a rough time. China's my girl whether she knows it or not, you dig? China's my girl, and that means Alfie got himself trouble."
Cooch nodded. "Big trouble."
"And that don't mean a burn. I don't want him burned. I want him washed! You can turkey out, Sixto, go ahead. Only you better watch your step around here afterwards, that's all I'm telling you."
"I jus' thought ... oh, I jus' thought ... well, Zip, cann we talk to him?"
"Oh, come on, for Christ's sake!" Zip said angrily.
"Cann we jus' tell him to stop ... to stop talking to her no more? Cann we do dat? Why we have to ... to kill him?"
There was another long silence, for another word had been spoken, and this word was stronger than the first. And this word meant exactly what it said, this word meant kill, to take someone's life, kill, to murder. This was not a euphemism, a handy substitute like "wash." This was kill. And the word hung between them, the sentence hung between them on the still July air: "Why we have to ... to kill him?"
"Because I say so," Zip said softly.
"It be diff ren if he really was..."
"What else you going to do, huh? Get pushed around?" Zip asked. "Man, ain't you sick of all the time getting pushed around?"
"I dinn say that. I said..."
"Everybody in the neighborhood knows he made a pass at China!" Zip said plaintively. "Am I supposed to...?"
"He dinn make no pass! He ony say hello!"
"Am I supposed to go over and have a chat with him? How are you, Alfie old boy, how you been? I understand you was feeling up China the other day, was it good? Am I supposed to hold his goddamn hand, Sixto?"
"No, but..."
"Don't you want these other clubs to notice us? Don't you want them to know we got self-respect?"
"Sure, but..."
"So we going to let a creep like Alfie go around screwing our debs?"
Sixto shook his head. "Zip, Zip, he dinn even..."
"Okay, listen to me," Zip said. "After we pull this today, we're in. You understand that? We wash this creep, and there ain't nobody in this neighborhood who don't know the Latin Purples from then on in. They'll know we don't get pushed around by anybody! Every damn kid on this block'll want to be in the club after today. We're gonna be ... something! Something!" He paused to catch his breath. His eyes were glowing. "Am I right, Cooch?"