The Brave Page 4

  At the mention of her name, Doll staggered out of another room, rubbing her eyes.

  Without makeup, the freckles dark on her pale skin, she looked fourteen. Her brown eyes were bloodshot. He wondered where she had slept. She could barely talk. She wiped her runny nose. He wondered if she had taken drugs.

  “You clear?” asked Stick. When he nodded, Stick handed him a round-trip bus ticket and a five-dollar bill. “Showtime. Don’t miss your bus,” and he pushed him out the door.

  He made his way down the iron spiral staircase and through the corridor of cubicles and into the video arcade and out onto The Deuce.

  Few hustlers were on the street yet. Sonny moved against a tide of suburban commuters hurrying out of the Port. Stay cool, slow your heart, make your face a mask, cut a path with your eyes. Inside the Port he checked the stairway to the long-distance gates before he started down. A few beggars, a few commuters, no one who looked out to get him.

  Was Stick right? Had Brooks let him go as a decoy? Was he safe from arrest as long as Stick was loose?

  He didn’t feel safer. Just meant that Brooks was another person trying to use him.

  He spent most of the five dollars on orange juice, coffee and two doughnuts for the bus ride. The driver took his ticket without looking up. The bus was nearly empty. He sat near the back, alongside an emergency exit. He kept the gym bag on his lap.

  A few more passengers climbed aboard. In the dim light he couldn’t make them out. A black couple sat down behind him. Their faces were hidden by the brims of big hats. A white couple in jeans and matching sweatshirts sat in front of him. All the room in this bus and everybody crowds around me.

  Don’t get paranoid, Sonny. Maybe they just like Indians in New York.

  The couple in front began to neck. Sonny relaxed. Piece of cake. Just kick back and daydream about spending two hundred bucks on a hot girl who likes me. He drank the juice. It cleared a cool, sweet channel from his throat to his belly.

  The driver swung aboard and counted passengers, then sat down and gunned his engine. A few more minutes and we’ll be on the road, heading south, starting my new life. Free. On my own. For the first time, doing what I want to do, making my own choices. No more being dragged to powwows, made to dress up to sell jewelry, no more being dumped on the Res when life goes wrong, no more fighting smokers for a crazy old man who lives in the past.

  Here comes Sonny Bear, Chief of The Deuce.

  The driver closed the door and kept gunning the engine, but the bus wasn’t moving. Sonny glanced out the window. Drifting shapes alongside the bus. Beggars and commuters. But even the beggars looked big and healthy.

  The hair on the back of his neck itched. They’re just dressed like beggars and commuters.

  He watched a police car glide alongside the bus.

  Sonny yanked the iron lever of the emergency exit. He had the door half open when the white couple in front of him came out of their clinch and lunged over the back of their seat. The woman shoved the barrel of a gun into his nose. “Police, you’re under arrest.”

  Behind him, a familiar voice said, “Ah, New Jersey. Were you planning an educational tour of the Garden State, young gentleman?”

  7

  “YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY determined to screw yourself into an early grave,” said Brooks. He sounded disgusted. “Too bad. A left hook is a terrible thing to waste.”

  Sonny’s hands were cuffed behind his back to a hard plastic chair in the small room with the long mirror. He faced Brooks across the little white table.

  “You know you were carrying crack?” asked Brooks.

  Sonny stared at the wall. If he said, Yes, he’d be guilty. If he said, No, he’d sound like a fool.

  “Mules,” said Brooks. “The street word for delivery boys like you. Mule is a cross between a horse and a jackass. No brains, no future. Good for nothing but to carry.”

  Brooks stood up and turned away. He wore his gun under his belt against the small of his back. It was a big shiny silver automatic.

  “You have any idea what crack is doing to this city, this country?” Brooks talked to the wall in a flat, cold voice. “How many people are dead? Not just users and mules and dealers, but little kids who got caught in a crossfire. Mushrooms. That’s what they call innocent bystanders. Mushrooms.”

  He turned slowly and faced Sonny. “Stick’s part of an uptown dope posse, call themselves X-Men. Pretend they’re some kind of African-American heroes. They ship crack to middle schools in New Jersey.” His face seemed darker, his eyes were slits. “Poison eleven-year-olds. You want to be part of that?”

  Sonny couldn’t look Brooks in the eyes.

  “They plucked you off the bus like a chicken, made you think you had friends in the Apple. Doll got you all hot and bothered, right? It’s their M.O. You’re not the first.” Sonny felt the heat rise up his neck and redden his face. “And now you’re ready to take a fall for two people who gave you half a counterfeit hundred.” He laughed, a harsh, snorting sound.

  “You are on your way to the slam, young gentleman. Felony time. For what?” Brooks sat down and leaned across the table. His face was so close, Sonny could see the tiny beads of sweat glistening between the sharp black hairs of his mustache and beard. “All I need is your statement. Everything that happened since you hit town yesterday. And then I can turn you right around with a bus ticket out of this mess. It’s Stick I want, not you.”

  Sonny stared at the wall, struggling to control his breathing, to swallow down the fear rising in his throat. I may be a mule, but I’m not a rat.

  “Let me tell you what’s going to happen,” said Brooks. “Some poor, overworked public defender will do the best she can for you, which won’t be much. Meanwhile, the district attorney’s going to want high bail because you’re from out of town. The way the courts are backed up, you could rot for weeks, months, before your trial. In a hole with some heavy-duty psychos.”

  “I can take care of myself,” said Sonny.

  “You’re tough, you got pride,” said Brooks. “I can get behind that. But for crack? Stick sells death to kids. How you justify that?”

  Brooks was staring at him so intently, he felt he had to answer, but all he could do was shrug. He had no answer. He had never thought about it until now. Mules and mushrooms and selling death to kids.

  “Pushers reel in the kids like fish on a hook, listen to them scream for more, they’ll do anything for dope, lie, cheat, whore, rob, kill. You want a piece of that?” His voice rose, his chunky body quivered. “Give me Stick and you walk.”

  Brooks stood up and came around the table. “What you say?” His polo shirt was dark with sweat. “I’m giving you a chance to go home.”

  Sonny lowered his head. He tried to sort the feelings running through his body and the thoughts jumbled in his mind. Stick was just using him. Okay. But what about Doll? If he turned in Stick, would she go to jail, too? He couldn’t narc on her.

  And a chance to go home. What did that mean?

  “Look at me.” Brooks pulled his ponytail, jerking his head back up. “You gonna be a dumb mule all your life?”

  Sonny stared into Brooks’ face. The beads of water hung on the bristly tips of his mustache and beard, and pooled in the hollows under his eyes. “I don’t know what makes me crazier, a piece of garbage like Stick or a kid like you who could be somebody if he tried. You ever stay with anything long enough to find out if you could do it?”

  The monster clawed up his legs.

  “What happened with your boxing? Too many rules? Didn’t want to spend the time finding out if you were really good or not? Afraid to find out? Just wanted to throw the big hook?”

  He felt his own eyes narrow as he glared at Brooks.

  “That woke you up. Okay, hotshot, let’s see what you got.” Brooks was behind him, unlocking the handcuffs. “Stand up.”

  His right wrist was still cuffed to the chair, but his left arm was free. He stood up. He was a head taller than Brooks. He coul
d see the beginnings of a bald spot on the top of Brooks’ head. The monster filled him.

  “Go ahead, throw that big left hook.”

  Sonny didn’t set his feet, he just fired a quick one at the bearded chin, a sucker punch that should have smashed the grinning black face against the wall. But Brooks casually tilted his head, and the punch missed by inches.

  “Got to do better than that, young gentleman.”

  Another one, angled down, but Brooks leaned away at the last instant and Sonny staggered off balance. The plastic chair banged against his leg.

  “Dynamite hook, but it’s not enough.”

  Sonny feinted, then threw a long hook, but Brooks was moving, small dance steps that took him out of range. He must have been a boxer once, thought Sonny.

  “Rules, discipline, can’t run away from that.”

  Shut up, he thought, hurling himself behind a roundhouse left. Brooks ducked under it.

  “Can’t run away from anything.”

  He threw three in a row, bangers, but they struck air and the plastic chair whacked his shoulder and the back of his head. The anger in his chest filled his throat. He hooked and missed again. His shoulder ached. He tried to blink the sweat out of his eyes.

  “Your hook could be heavyweight champ.” Brooks skipped to the center of the room. His arms dangled at his sides, mocking Sonny. “But the rest of you is chump of the world.”

  Sonny lunged forward, but his arm was tired, his legs were wobbly, all he had now was the monster and it wasn’t enough. He was pushing his punches, staggering after Brooks, dizzy in the heat of the little room. The bearded face was always just out of range, taunting him.

  Sonny’s throat closed down. Air. The monster asked, You going to take this? Fight him one-handed? You are a dumb mule if you let him make the rules for you. Sonny’s right hand closed around the top of the hard plastic chair. It was heavier than he thought, but he swung it over his head and hurled himself at Brooks, slam the chair into that sneering black face, crush it, but Brooks whirled away and Sonny smashed into the wall and slid to his knees, retching and gasping for air.

  “Tell me about Stick,” said Brooks. “Everything. What he said. What he did. Where he squats. What you saw and heard. From jump, yesterday at the bus.”

  Sonny shook his head.

  “Go on. From the beginning.” Brooks grabbed his ponytail and pulled his head back.

  “No.”

  “FROM THE BEGINNING.” His voice thundered in the little room.

  “No.”

  Brooks yanked on the ponytail. Sonny’s eyes bulged; he gasped for air.

  The door burst open, the room was filled with blue uniforms. “Easy, Sarge.” Brooks let go. Sonny slumped to the floor.

  “Call a wagon,” said Brooks wearily. “Bury the fool.”

  8

  HE WAS HELPLESS, a child again, his life out of his control. He was searched, stripped of his headband and belt and boots, fingerprinted, photographed, talked at by guards, judges, lawyers. He was pushed into vans and dragged through courthouses, chained by the ankle to other prisoners. He didn’t eat so he wouldn’t have to use the stinking toilet holes in cells jammed with bodies that reeked of booze, vomit, feces. He kept his back against a wall and his face hard and tried not to sleep. The other prisoners left him alone. In the dark he heard them struggle with each other in thrashing, whimpering mounds. He kept his mouth shut and his hands ready. The monster was silent.

  His lawyer was a thin, jittery, dark-haired woman who snapped chewing gum as she talked. She opened a brown folder. “George Harrison Bayer, last known address Moscondaga Reservation.”

  He must have looked surprised, because she said, “The belt said Sweet Bear Crafts, an easy trace. Listen, they want to make a deal. Tell Brooks about Stick and I can get you off.”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, think about it, George. I gotta go.”

  He saw Brooks at one of his hearings, standing in a corner, arms crossed, staring at him as Sonny’s lawyer argued with the assistant district attorney. She was another skinny white woman with dark hair and a sharp voice. The judge was a large black man who looked bored.

  Sonny’s lawyer said, Here’s a naïve hick from a poverty-stricken reservation who’s been victimized in the big city. Given the way Native Americans have been exploited in this country, how about giving this kid a break.

  The D.A. said, That’s silly, everyone in America knows about crack, no ethnic group is any less responsible for its actions than any other.

  Sonny’s lawyer said, At least let him go without bail so he can go home or into a runaway shelter in the city.

  The D.A. said, No way, he would just run again, and besides, the police gave him a chance to cooperate in the battle against drugs and he refused.

  Sonny’s lawyer said, Send him to Whitmore and he’ll become a hardened criminal.

  The D.A. said, Turn him loose, it’s a message to every red, white, black, yellow and brown kid that the Law plays favorites.

  The judge said, No people has a franchise on good or bad or responsibility or lack of it. George H. Bayer. Whitmore. Next.

  When it was over, the D.A. shook hands with Brooks.

  Sonny was shoved into a van with three other teenaged boys and driven north. He knew the direction because they crossed the Hudson River and kept the water on their right for almost an hour. The three spoke in Spanish. The one who did the most talking had a tattoo on the back of his left hand, a flower and a dagger crossed. It looked as though it had been drawn with a sewing needle and ink. The tough kids on the Res would come back from jail with homemade tattoos. The boys in the van kept glancing at Sonny. He sensed they were talking about him.

  The van drove under a huge sign WHITMORE HILLS JUVENILE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY and into the center of a cluster of gray-green barracks surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence. They were unloaded on a dusty ballfield.

  “New boys, let’s go, new boys.” A cocky little man in a gray uniform herded them toward a barracks door marked RECEPTION CENTER. “Hard time, easy time, you do the time or the time does you. I’m Lieutenant Deeks, and if you cross me once, I’ll put some hurt on you. Cross me twice and I’ll cross you out.”

  In a barracks shower room they were stripped and hosed down by other prisoners who laughed at them shivering in the cold water. They were splashed with disinfectant and anti-louse shampoo. They dried off with towels the size of handkerchiefs. They were issued tee-shirts, shower clogs and drawstring sweatpants. Everything was stamped W.H.J.C.F.

  They were marched into a room with a barber chair. One of the Spanish kids cursed as a woman in civilian clothes hacked off his long black hair.

  “Next,” she said to Sonny.

  He shook his head. He was going to keep his hair. It was all he had left.

  “Deeks,” she called.

  The little lieutenant ran in. “What going on?”

  The barber pointed her clippers at Sonny.

  “You crossing me,” he glanced at his clipboard, “Mr. George H. Bayer?”

  “I am Sonny Bear, a member of the Moscondaga Nation. This is how we wear our hair.”

  “I don’t care if you are Sitting Bull,” said Deeks. He rocked on the balls of his spit-shined black shoes. “Whitmore rules. It’s no hair, so get in the chair, Mister Bayer.” He laughed and winked at the barber, who rolled her eyes.

  The monster filled his belly and curled his hands into fists.

  “Let’s go, Tonto. Get ’em up, Scout. Into the chair, kemo sabe.” He was enjoying himself.

  The barber cleared her throat. “You might want to check this, Lieutenant. That civil liberties case we had last…”

  “That was religious,” said Deeks. He was rocking faster now and a red flush inched up his neck. “Injun ponytails don’t mean dip. Into the chair, Little Beaver—I am losing patience.”

  Crush this bug, said the monster. “The way I wear my hair is a symbol of…”

  “Into the c
hair,” snarled Deeks. “I don’t even know if you’re really Indian, you don’t look that Indian, you ain’t that dark, your face ain’t flat, you could be some kind of Eye-talian, you don’t have a Indian name, you could be anything, try to pull something on me, I’ve had enough.” He pulled a blackjack out of his back pocket. “Into the chair.” He poked the lead tip into Sonny’s belly. “Let’s go, let’s go now…hey!”

  Deeks was tough. The first punch turned his head and buckled his knees but didn’t put him down. He tried to raise the blackjack.

  The second left hook knocked him flat.

  9

  HE WAS DUMPED into a sealed iron box without a window. The toilet was a smelly hole in the floor next to the bed, which was a rotting mattress. He couldn’t tell if it was day or night. Even the prison sounds, the bells and whistles and clanging doors, were distant and muffled. Meals were shoved through a slot at the bottom of the door. They were always the same—a cup of weak, lukewarm coffee and a sandwich of greasy-green bologna on stale white bread. He never saw the guard’s hands.

  He remembered Jake’s stories about the final test of a Running Brave, the solo on Stonebird, the highest mountaintop on the Reservation, days and nights of surviving off the land and wrestling with the question:

  Do I really want to be a Running Brave?

  A courier, a diplomat, a warrior, a peace bringer, always on call to the Nation, always in training, to run a hundred miles, to sit a hundred hours, to fight to the finish, to speak with wisdom.

  He shook his head to clear it. Why am I trancing out on the bedtime stories of a misfit Moscondaga?