The trouble never reached the market area, and the day ended quietly. Dewey insisted that Ron stay with him another night. Ron easily agreed. The old man’s food was too good to miss. And sleeping on a real bed again was like being in heaven.
The following morning Ron started for the Gramercy turf. He passed the burned-out section. Buildings were black with smoke. Windows, doors, roofs all gone so that the daylight sifted through the still-smoldering insides of the buildings.
White warriors were patrolling the streets here and there. Either they knew Ron from his earlier trips to the market through their turf, or they didn’t care who he was as long as his skin was white.
Turning a corner, Ron saw a handful of kids sitting quietly on the front steps of an old brown stone house. One of them had the stump of a broken knife tucked in his belt. He couldn’t have been older than Davey. The children were watching the unmoving body of a boy, about twelve years old, that lay under a swarm of flies in the gutter. The corpse lay face up, chest crumpled and brown with dried blood. His eyes were open and his mouth was twisted as if he had been screaming when he died.
Ron felt his teeth clench. The local gang ought to clean up after themselves better than that, he grumbled silently. Those kids are scared half to death. Then he thought of his own retching reaction to the first corpse he had seen, back in the truck on that first raid into Chelsea turf. It seemed like a thousand years ago. Ron realized he had changed, hardened. He wasn’t certain he liked it.
The Gramercy area looked deserted when Ron got there. There was no damage, no sign that fighting had come this far downtown. But there was no one on the streets, either. Everything looked dead and emptier than usual. As he climbed the steps inside their home building, Ron wondered where everyone had gone. There was no one in the halls. No kids playing. Nobody around anywhere.
He took the stairs three at a time and didn’t stop until he was pounding on Sylvia’s door. She opened it and went wide-eyed when she recognized him.
“Oh, Ron!” She threw her arms around his neck. “We thought they killed you!”
He kissed her, long and warm and hard, forgetting about Al and Dewey and everything else except her.
Finally she pulled away from him. “Al’s called a war meetin’,” Sylvia said. “All th’ gangs’re doin’ it. Th’ Muslims made a lotta trouble yesterday an’ all th’ gangs’re tryin’ to figger out what t’ do.”
“The hell with them,” Ron said. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Whatcha mean?”
“You and me and Davey. We’re getting out. Right now, while they’re all busy making war talk. We’re going to live in the market, live like real human beings. Get Davey and let’s go.”
“You’re crazy,” Sylvia said, backing away from him. “You can’t just quit th’ gang.”
“Yes we can. And we’re going to do it right now. Where’s Davey?”
But Sylvia was shaking her head. “No, Ron, it won’t work. You can’t quit a gang. They’ll come after you and kill you. They’ll find you, wherever you go. Nobody’s allowed t’ quit.”
Ron stood in the doorway, feeling his face twisting into a frown. “Listen. Nobody owns me. Or you.”
“Al went to bat for you,” Sylvia said, talking more slowly now, trying to explain. “He letcha into th’ gang when he coulda left you out on the street t’ die. Right? He hadda go against Dino t’ bring you into th’ gang. If you buzz off on him now, it’ll make things rough for Al. Catch?”
Ron muttered, “I don’t owe him—”
“He saved your life, Ron!”
Ron slapped a hand against his leg. “Does that mean that he owns me? And you?”
She shrugged. “It means you can’t quit th’ gang. Unless he says it’s okay.”
“And you? If he lets me go, will you come with me?”
“Al won’t lemme go.” She looked away from Ron.
He reached out and touched Sylvia’s shoulder. “But if he was willing to let you go, would you come with me?”
She wouldn’t look at him. She stared down at the floor.
Ron lifted her chin with his outstretched hand until she was gazing right at him. “Would you?” he asked.
In a voice so low that he could barely hear it, Sylvia said, “Yes.”
Ron smiled at her. “Okay. I guess I’d better get to that war meeting, then.”
“Don’t do anything that’ll hurt Al in front of Dino,” Sylvia called to him as he started for the steps.
The roof was packed with guys, warriors and others that Ron had never seen before. As Ron edged through the door to join the crowd, he could hear Dino shouting: “Them Muslims been gettin’ too smart for their own damned good! It’s time we taught ’em a lesson!”
“Yeah!”
“Right on!”
“Hell yeah!”
Then one of the guys standing next to Ron suddenly called out, “Hey look who’ here! The fix-it dude!”
Everyone turned toward Ron. Through the sea of faces Ron could see Al up at the head of the crowd. He was almost smiling, as if he was really glad to see Ron.
“Hey, Ron, we thought you was killed.”
Ron wormed his way up to the front of the crowd. “No, I’m all right. I stayed . . .” Don’t tell them who you stayed with! Ron warned himself. “Uh . . . I stayed in the market area, hid out until the Muslims left. I hear there was trouble.”
“I hear there was trouble,” Dino sing-songed, trying to make Ron’s words sound funny. “Humpin’ right there was trouble. And there’s gonna be more. Right?”
“Right!” answered half a dozen guys.
