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reach to the end of the black field. He had stood in front of the mirror and ranted, gestured, made faces, but he knew he couldn’t showboat like a Castro. What he said must be simple, for most of them were not quick of understanding. What he said must be spoken quickly, for most of them had no patience. What he said must be put strongly, more acted than spoken, for they had to be hooked to stand and hear. He knew they moved there in the darkness frightened by their strange surroundings, ready to break and run, always nervous when they were away from their own turf.
    Two hundred yards away, Lunkface moved restlessly in the darkness and wanted to know, irritably, when the Man was going to begin, or was he going to showboat there all night, posing his sweet clothes in the flashlights? Stolid Bimbo whispered to wait. Nervous Hinton shifted, unable to squat comfortably, feeling eerie there in the darkness. How much of this strangeness could he take? He was on the verge of terror and it was only the feel of his family around him that kept his mask tight.
    Ismael stabbed his forefinger toward the circling city lights and turned all the way around, his rigid arm pointing, accusing.
    Hector whispered, “Listen to the man.” Ismael started. They could hear none of it yet, only see his arms moving.
    Ismael talked. He talked, hard-lipped and softly the way he always did. He told three signalers squatting in front of him; he told the swarming darkness and the far-off shifting headlights, and he told the city lights and the silly-kid fireworks in the air and the blinking plane lights crossing overhead, challenging everything. The three signal men heard his first words, turned and passed it on to the other communicators who repeated the Word, relaying it, conversationally, deeper and deeper into the night. There was no other sound now.
    Ismael told them what he was. They knew him. He had come up and taken over a fall-apart gang that had been dying for ten years through changes of personnel. He had the reputation of being a fierce fighter, a cunning planner. Who led his forces better? He had challenged, conquered, and assimilated a number of other gangs and won face for himself and rep for his fighters. Then he had made his men into mercenaries, hiring out his army to help other gangs in their rumbles. What army had more experience? What army had more discipline? He had given them new, magic signs which had force. He could now muster three hundred men, counting auxiliaries. What army had more equipment and money?
    They knew him. His face was there for all to see. His big blue lenses mocked them all with daring equanimity.
    In the darkness they all nodded.
    Why were they here? He gestured again, finger pointing, arm stiff, pivoting on the mound. He told them they were here because of the Enemy.
    He reminded them about the Enemy, the adults, the world of the Other, those who put them down. The courts and the prisons and the school-prisons and the home-prisons; these put them down. The newspapers put them down. The big-gang men put them down because they would never take them into the rackets. The ones who charged too much for everything put them down. The pushers working to hook their people put them down. The ones who held all the good things of life and misered it out—cheap living, televisions to dream with, the overpriced and easily repossessed cars, the fall-apart, cheap-slick clothes, all to be earned by breaking their backs for the rest of their lives—these put them down. And the worst were the people who were supposed to be
their
friends: the social workers, the Youth Board men, teachers, all the guidance people who spoke words like community centers, organized dances, sports, outings, reading,the Mobilization for Youth, the Career, this Haryou shit, Peace-Core fags; promises like church . . . They all remembered what a big fist his older brother used to be. Now some pentecostals had hooked his brother; his wife