Read The Warriors for Free Online

were blocked out.
    Ismael nodded to War-Counselor. War-Counselor passed the word to Secretary. Secretary told the Chauffer. The Chauffer edged to the road rim fast and his lights blinked a message. About twenty sentries came out on the concrete and were picked out by the lights; they stood fifty feet apart. The car screeched fast and stopped; one of the sentries opened the doors. Three of them got out; the car started again, going so fast for a moment that the wheels spun on the pavement, gripped, and the car roared off.
    The three of them were escorted down the embankment, following the dim white pants. Although the darkness seemed to hold nothing but damp, unfamiliar smells of vegetation, the sounds of insects buzzing, and the rustling of grass and leaves, Ismael knew that they were all there, a thousand strong. As he went, Ismael received whispered reports from the scouts. There were ambassadors from almost every major fighting gang in or around the city.
    Ismael was taken to his place. He began.

July 4th, 10:30–10:50 P.M.
    The glorious Fourth was reaching a new crescendo. Even though explosives were forbidden, all around the Park rim, Roman candles were going up, sheaves of many-colored light blazed, explosions canonaded in an almost steady rumbling barrage. Faintly heard strings of crackers machine-gunned and blinked away. Sparklers burned for a little while like stars. Rockets exploded into a thousand patriotic shapes: heroes of American History, Presidents—Washington in lights to the west, Lincoln in nebulous clouds auroraed down toward the south, Kennedy danced in the northeast—historic flags blazed. The Statue of Liberty shimmied in an air current.
    Ismael stood on a little rise—like a pitcher’s mound—in front of a stand of bushes which concealed him from the roads. A ringof flashlights had been stuck into the ground around him and tilted up so that he was illuminated. His eyes stared through the cold blue glasses and he felt all the eyes stare back. He remembered an advertisement—something about how someone’s life was saved by flashlight batteries: Whose life would they save tonight? He heard a responsive murmur coming from the darkness, but it might have been a change in the wind, for all he knew. He stood there, dapper, the coolest, wearing the neat, simple, Ivy League clothes; he shunned the too-tight fit, the surplus of buckles most of the men wore. His hat sat neat and square on his head, and except for the one earring that glinted in his ear he could have looked like an advertising man. Did they understand what he had done?
    They waited in the pool of dark. Bracketing them, two rows of highway lights strung away and the cars sped by, faintly heard, known mostly by the flash and turn of the headlights shooting off into the night over their heads. Further back were the lights of apartment houses. Here was The Man with the Idea, who was rumored to have twenty-one expensive suits in his closet and as many pairs of shoes; the Man with an arsenal that could outfit a battalion. Who did not know Ismael?
    Ismael knew he had about ten minutes to get The Word to them. Their attention would stand no more. He heard hands slapping at mosquitos. He had to make it simple and he had to make it dramatic and he had to give them just enough to bring them out, roaring. Once he really got them going his cadres could keep them that way for a long time. He imagined this moment many times, he thought again and again of everything he had to say to them. He rehearsed how he would distill his knowledge into this moment to which the Idea had brought them. Though his face remained, as it always must, impassive, he felt the terrible surge of power, that throb when he had to release it in one scream. The sunglasses masked it. He knew hedidn’t dare orate to them; they were always talked at, and they had learned long ago not to listen. Then too, his voice was not strong; shouting, it would not even