Aníbal reacted at once. He planted his feet wide, clenched his fists and calmly and deliberately and drunkenly waited for the rush of the first boy, who was almost upon him now. This was something he understood, Sandy had chosen precisely the words to hurl at him, “They’re after Rhoda!” This was pride and this was honor and this was manhood, and this was only the code that had contributed to the flow of mucho sangre along 111th Street and environs, “They’re after our girl, they’re after our turf, they’re after our balls, get them, get them, get them!” I suddenly wondered if he’d told us even one tenth of the truth about his life in Spanish Harlem, and as we ran across the street again, I turned for a last look at Aníbal Gomez. Hunched forward in the light of the lamppost, wearing his neat brown suit, swaying somewhat with the liquor that still fumed inside him, he stood with his slender accountant’s hands clenched, and bravely prepared to defend the honor of the wrong girl the computer had provided.
“Goddamn you, come on!” Sandy shouted, and the hero Aníbal Gomez burned himself in my mind in brown silhouette, and I thought again of the heroes in the space capsule and the way they had been reduced to merely terrified human beings at the end, and wondered if Aníbal Gomez would also scream to the unseen power that was NASA Control or whoever when three townie hoods tried to stomp out his brains — but it was Rhoda who screamed instead and tried to go back to him.
I grabbed her hand, I swung her around, I pulled her up the street. She was still screaming. Sandy ran over to where we were struggling. Behind us, I could hear grunting sounds, the muffled thud of fists, gentle mayhem, while here apart from the danger Rhoda screamed to the night and Sandy approached with terror-filled blue eyes, blond hair streaming from beneath the red wig, and quickly brought her hand to Rhoda’s mouth to smother the cries. I grabbed Rhoda’s arms and held them pinned to her sides while she squirmed and struggled to get loose, trying to calm her, knowing her screams would do no good, we did not want police on the scene, we did not want to have to explain fuzz to our parents. She was wearing lipstick Sandy had expertly helped her to apply, her mouth was slippery, she twisted her head sharply to the left leaving a wide blood-red smear on the right side of her face, escaping Sandy’s hand and screaming again, screaming hysterically while behind us the grunting went on, the pulpy sound of fists, the soft noise of people sweating hard to kill each other. “Hold her!” Sandy shouted, grasping for her mouth again — and Rhoda bit her.
She yanked back her hand. A look of startled rage crossed her face. “You fucking idiot!” she shrieked, and reached for her again, lips skinned back, teeth bared as if to return the bite. Something slid into her eyes. Intelligence or guile, cunning or concern, it jarred her to an immediate stop. Trembling, she forced a smile onto her mouth and gently said, “Rhoda, we can’t stay here. Come on, Rhoda. Please.”
Rhoda nodded.
We began running toward the ferry slip.
Behind us, I heard Aníbal scream, “Ayúdeme, por Dios, ayúdeme!”
The night wasn’t over yet, the night was just beginning.
Rhoda wept all the way back to the island, sitting inside on the ferry, and attracting the attention of several grownups who must have thought Christ knew what. We tried to calm her down, but she just kept shaking her head and weeping, so finally the three of us went outside and stood on the deck, but we didn’t say anything to each other we just kept watching the water slide by the boat.
I felt lousy.
When we got to Greensward, we took a jitney up the beach and said goodnight to each other without making any plans for the next day. I went inside the house and could tell immediately that it was empty. This was Saturday night, and the end-of-August parties had already started, a week sooner than they should have. My parents were certain to be out having a grand old time, Daddy guzzling scotch and Mommy shooting green-eyed daggers at him. I went into my room, took off my clothes, put on a nightshirt I had bought from a guy who went to boarding school, and climbed into bed. I kept thinking of Aníbal Gomez facing those hoods. I kept hearing the soft sounds of combat.
I was walking through a castle. Alfred Hitchcock was showing me through the castle. There were large high stone rooms. There were tattered drapes hanging at arched windows. There was a closed door. “Don’t go into that room,” Hitchcock warned me. The door of the room opened a crack. Sandy in her mother’s red wig whispered, “Come to me, Peter, come see my tits.” David was behind her, grinning. His hands came up. He began fondling her nipples. The door closed. “Don’t go into that room,” Hitchcock said again.
The castle was endless.
I tried to follow Hitchcock, but he was walking very fast, and I lost him. I was alone in what must have been the ballroom, with a huge chandelier hanging in the center of it, candles guttering, torn drapes moving at the windows, dust on the floor, knee-deep dust that rose and settled as I walked through it.
The candles went out.
There were things in the darkness, bats or birds. They flew silently about my head. I could hear the soft flutter of their wings. The dust was deeper. I had difficulty moving through it. It was higher on my body, it had risen to my chest.
“That is the dust of corpses,” Hitchcock’s voice said.
The fluttering above my head stopped. There was stillness. The dust had risen to my neck. I pushed through it in panic. I had to get back to the room. The dust touched my nostrils. I began breathing it. It was in my mouth and in my nose. I tried to push it away from my face. I saw the closed door through the darkness, through the dust. The dust was heavy and thick, I pushed through it and breathed it and spit it and choked on it. I reached the door. I forced my hand through the dust and clutched the doorknob. “Come,” Sandy said. “Hurry,” David said. I could not turn the knob. I struggled with the knob. The dust was rising over my head. I was suffocating. “Ayúdeme,” I shouted, “por Dios, ayúdeme!” and the knob turned, and the door opened.
The room was white, white walls, white ceiling, white floor, white drapes flowing over windows through which a blinding white light streamed.
They were moaning.
They were in the far corner of the room where the white walls joined, naked and white on the white polished floor, fucking.
I screamed.
“Peter,” the voice said.
I screamed again.
“Oh, Peter,” the voice said.
I opened my eyes.
My father was sitting by the side of the bed.
“Oh, Peter,” he said, “oh, Peter.”
“Get away from me!” I screamed.
“Oh, Peter,” he said, “oh, Peter.”
I got out of bed. I was sweating. I ran out of the bedroom, and then out of the house, and I stood outside breathing hard and saw the light in my father’s bedroom go on. I heard my mother say something in an angry voice, and heard an object falling, and my father cursing, and then the light went out and everything was still. I kept watching the house for a long time.