Disclaimer: And we return you to your previously scheduled program of owning absolutely nothing.
A/N: However, for a change of pace, we return you to your hardly ever scheduled program of updating twice within a week or two. I know, I know, such productivity is unexpected. But we're on chapter eleven out of fourteen, so I figured I may as well give it that final push towards the end. This is totally going to happen! Even though I started posting this story what, four years ago? I'm going to finish it!
Chapter Eleven:
Anita:
Candlelight
She said it makes her feel unsteady,
Without a God to blame
Thriving Ivory, Hey Lady
Blow the candles out, looks like a solo tonight
I'm beginning to see the light
Blow the candles out, looks like a solo tonight
But I think I'll be all right
Hey Monday, Candles
Revenge is a strange thing. You always suppose yourself to be above all of that. Not you, roaming the streets with a pistol looking for the one person whose death could ever bring you peace. Oh, no. Not you, with your emotions carved in stone, rock-solid and unchanging, you would be far too reasonable for that. But there is a wild animal lurking in all of us, that savage native with a spear dancing behind our eyes that is capable of anything at the moment when our masks are shattered. The savage hits you when it shouldn't. You need to forgive, you want to, you pretend to, but the monster consumes everything else until you snap and do something you would regret were the target anybody else.
When you are pushed, you snap faster and harder.
I explode out of the store and into the street. The night hangs thick and heavy around me, each breath strangling me with the smell and taste of blood. Riff's words stick in my head in an endless circle. "There's been enough blood on these streets tonight." Not yet, Jet-boy. Not yet by half. You killed Bernardo, the only thing I had left to live for. You have torn my life and my world apart, not to speak of what you have just done to me. Do not think I will forget that. No matter how holy you pretend to be, no matter how much you pretend to care, I will never forget.
Fate has a strange way of arranging things. I walk with no control over my body, around one corner and the next in a direction the complete opposite of home. It does not take me long before I find the man I was prepared to search all night for. The weaselly, suspicious man my Nardo knew too well: Lieutenant Schrank. I had never thought I would be happy to see him, but it is not an ordinary happiness. The feeling has teeth and claws and frightens me at the same time it thrills.
"Senora, what..." he begins, seeing the serpent glint in m eyes. I think I see him recoil, take a nervous step back from the madness that has taken over my life.
"I have found him," I say, my words holding a snarl I had not expected.
Schrank has made a guess as to whom I mean and obviously is hoping desperately that he is right. "Who?" he asks eagerly.
"The one who killed Bernardo," I answer, feeling the familiar blow in my stomach whenever I say those words, give them life, make them real. "The one who has destroyed my life. Who else, Lieutenant? Is that enough reason for you to arrest him?"
"Senora, when have I ever needed a reason?" Schrank grins with enthusiasm that makes me sick. "But that's as good a one as I've ever heard. Lead the way, and I'll make damn sure it's worth your while."
Without another word I turn and nearly run back the way I'd come through the unknown side streets. My heart was on fire. Too much emotion and not enough time. So much had fallen apart tonight. Maria. Me. Everything. Pain, loss, death, hurt, hate. All I want is justice. No man has ever hurt me without my making him hurt the same and worse, it is how I survive. I will have justice.
Voices drift through the window of Doc's Drugstore as we stand on the front steps, the shadows we must throw on the floor completely ignored.
"Who fixed you up like this, daddy-o?" Big Deal asks. I know all their names now, have all their faces imprinted on my memory. I will remember all their voices forever.
"Didn't I tell you not to touch it? Goddamn!" Riff hisses in obvious pain. "It was Chino."
"The... the fucking spic?" Action stammers.
"Jesus, would you shut your mouth for five minutes until you start saying something you think about first?" Riff shouts. His anger nearly blows the door down, his own human savage buried not quite so deep beneath the surface. Schrank looks at me inquiringly, and I nod without a word. Yes, these are the ones.
"I'm sorry for your loss, really, I am," he says under his breath. "If I look like I'm havin' fun, know I'm still doin' it for you. It's just I've been waiting for this for years."
I do not care whom he does it for, though a little bit of sympathy on his part might not be unwelcome. So long as the thing is done. And I let Schrank precede me into the store, slipping noiselessly in through the door before it banged shut behind him. All the voices in the shot died instantly at the noise, and every single head turned to face us. A surge of angry pleasure rose up in me as all the color drained from their faces. Look who has control now, boys. Let's watch you dance now, hmm? Arriba.
My eyes go straight to Riff, seated on top of one of Doc's tables. There is a flash in his eyes as he sees the two of us, with an emotion I cannot label. It falls somewhere between fear, shame, and anger. The flash lasts only for a moment, before it vanishes and is not replaced with anything. Riff's light eyes have become like granite: hard, cold, and impenetrable. God only knows what thoughts are passing in his mind. God only cares.
"Evening, Lieutenant Schrank," he says softly, standing up with a grimace and taking a few steps toward us. I shudder and draw back, my jaw set. Don't come near me. I recoil from his presence like he is a monster.
Schrank, on the other hand, steps forward to meet him. "Don't give me any of that shit, boy," he snarls, so close to Riff that their noses almost touch, so close I see the officer's breath stir the boy's hair into motion. "Do you understand what happened tonight? Well, do you?" he roars when the boy makes no answer.
"Yeah," Riff says, his marble expression not chipping. "Yeah, I understand."
"Don't you ever think?" Schrank continues as if he had not spoken. "You think life is a game and you're too much of a tough guy to play by the rules, that you can do whatever you want and nothing's gonna go wrong? Newsflash, Peter Pan, it's five years past time to grow up. And now we've got this big mess on our hands."
The Jets watch Riff with wide, terrified eyes, waiting for him to say something, to do something, waiting for something to happen. But Riff does not seem to understand that all eyes are on him. He is not looking at Schrank. He is looking in his direction, but through the transparent limbs of the Manhattan police force at something entirely different, something none of us can see but all of us could identify if asked. Or maybe we would all identify it differently, I cannot pretend to know. Riff is not going to say. The only thing he has said is "I understand," and even that sounded like the words of a dead man.
Schrank's eyes narrow- this is not going as he pictured. "Well? Aren't you going to say something?" he demands. The defiant silence hangs for another moment, and then the officer becomes something I have never seen, a hungry animal, fangs and claws and amber-yellow eyes. The animal-man's hands curl into fists, and before we understand anything Riff has crumpled to the ground with a short, weak yelp, breathing hard, the officer's knuckles stained red. Two bys start forward, rushing to him, but at a look from Schrank they freeze. None of the others can move, and I certainly cannot either. We can do nothing but watch this god, this savior, this general, this bleeding and broken teenage boy doubled over on the dirty floor of Doc's Drugstore, breathing raggedly and clutching his side.
I feel a gag reflex rising in my throat, but I quickly push it away. This is what I wanted, is it not? This is what I wanted.
"Hope you'll like it where you're headed, Riff," Schrank sneered, looming over him. "Hell, jail might even be a step up from the kind of company you're keeping. I mean, you'd have to bathe and everything, which would take some getting used to... Oh, but you know, you're a minor still," he said nastily. "Which means we'd have to look up your legal guardian and get him in on the proceedings."
Riff's uneven breathing suddenly stopped, and he looked up at the officer with his marble eyes in a pile of gravel. There was nothing but horror there. Those eyes were screaming in horror. "No," he whispered, "no, please..."
"Miss your uncle, do you, Riff?" My stomach turned at Schrank's words. My heart was beating so fast it almost felt like it was vibrating, and I was sure I was going to be sick. This was what I wanted...
"Bet you got a lot of catching up to do. Come with me to the station. We're going to look him up in the morning."
This was not what I wanted.
'No!"
My voice echoed loud and awkward around the shop, and now everyone was staring at me. Riff looked at me with the eyes of a dying man, not daring to hope. "It was not him. It was Tony. I was mistaken." He had killed my Bernardo. He was the reason that my life was over. He deserved everything I could possibly do and more. This is what reason told me. This is what justice demanded. But my heart screamed this was not going to bring Nardo back. This would not bring me back to his morning and let us reconcile after our fight like we always had. This was going to kill Riff. And I had had enough of death.
Schrank's eyes turned to me, loaded to the top with disgust. "Oh sure, and now all of a sudden you're best friends? Too late to change your mind now, princess. What's done is done, but not half of what's gonna be done once I follow through with this. Get up, Riff," he snarled. I felt my blood racing through my body as my heart pumped faster and faster, anger and fear fighting one another for domination. Why was I feeling this for the boy I hated? Why this sudden pity, and why now?
Maybe because I had thought, if only for a second, I saw the black eyes of my Bernardo looking out from the Jet boy's face. It did not make sense, and I did not pretend to be close to understanding it. One thing I understood for certain, as Riff closed his (Nardo's?) eyes and stood precariously, was that this was wrong, all wrong, horribly wrong. What was there possibly for me to do?
"Don't you dare."
The voice coming in through the door was a familiar one, and I turned in disbelief to see two girls storm into the drugstore. One was Riff's girlfriend, that much was obvious by the length of her skirt and the trails of mascara coursing down her face, made even worse as she burst into silent tears at the sight of him. The other girl we all knew instantly as well. But what was that angry tagalong dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt supposed to do when I, who had loved Bernardo like none other, could do nothing?
"Anybodys, what the hell..." Action hissed in disbelief.
But Schrank had turned a strange mix of white and green at the same time, as he attempted to call back his ruthless amber eyes and stare Anybodys with the venom she gave to him. "I'm doin' what I gotta do, Alison," Schrank said in a tight, cold voice.
Graziella was the only one who did not give a pronounced start at this. Her name was Alison? Schrank knew that?
"Yeah? You gotta arrest him? And why is that again? 'Cause you can't rest until you lock up every kid on the streets? You're gonna have your work cut out for you. Think you can pick someone who deserves it to start with?" Anybodys fired back with a defiant confidence that stunned me.
"You don't... you don't understand what they did tonight, do you?" he managed, gesturing at Riff. The boy was staring at Anybodys as if he had never seen anything like her before.
Anybodys laughed bitterly. "I got news for you, daddy, I know exactly what happened tonight." Riff choked on a mouthful of air. Even I did a double-take. She was his daughter? The dynamic instantly made more sense, though the irony would have been funny in any situation but this one. Anybodys cringed, obviously feeling the torrent of questions about to attack her, but she kept talking like nothing was different. "I know what happened, 'cause I was there. I watched the whole thing. I egged 'em on, same as Riff did. I didn't kill nobody, but neither did Riff. So if you still want to arrest him, you're gonna have to take us all. All the Jets, plus me."
Riff reached out and took Anybodys' hand, pulling her over to stand next to him and face down the officer side-by-side. "So all the Jets, she means," he said in a quiet but powerful voice.
Schrank and Anybodys both gasped, and Riff nodded slightly. I saw her knuckles whiten for a moment as she squeezed his hand in thanks. "Go home, dad," she said coldly. "You don't need to worry about us tonight anymore."
Schrank looked from Riff to his daughter, who had still not released his hand, and I thought he was going to be sick. Without a word, he reached into his jacket pocket and removed his badge. Fighting a losing battle to keep his face blank, he threw the badge to the ground at his daughter's feet. The door slammed shut behind him.
For a moment none of us knew exactly what we were supposed to say, and the silence stretched damningly in front of us. Graziella walked over to Riff on steps like a ghost, and Anybodys silently slipped over to stand next to me in the corner, in the shadows where we were not sure we belonged.
"Riff, I thought you were..." Graziella began, but she couldn't bring herself to say the word.
"Not yet, baby," he said softly. "Not yet."
She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her close to him, determined that nothing would bring them apart again. "You owe me a night still," she managed after a moment. "I wouldn't let you go without that."
A sob leaped from my throat on its own, and I could not control it even when every person present turned to look at me. Bernardo owed me a night. He always did, when we fought like we had. The only value of our fights was the passion with which we made up. And now I would never have that. I would never hold him in my arms again, never hear his voice saying my name. My Bernardo, his quick wit and fierce pride, his fanatical devotion to Maria and, under many layers, to me, I would never find him alive and surrounded by his boys as Graziella had done. At least for one of us there had been a happy ending.
The Jets wanted to say something, I could see that, but none of them knew what. As if it would matter. As if it would change anything. "Anita, we never..." one began, but I shook my head and he stopped.
"Please, do not apologize," I said, and my voice broke but I pretended not to notice. "I know. And I hope that you know also." And no matter how hard I tried, I could not meet their eyes.
Riff sank to the floor, leaning against Doc's counter to keep him upright. He was pale and his hands had been shaking for ten minutes, but his expression was acutely present. Graziella sat on the floor next to him and I, without knowing why, crossed and sat on his other side. The Jets, like on some wordless cue, came and sat also until we had formed a silent circle in the middle of Doc's Drugstore. Anybodys disappeared for a moment, then returned from the back room holding two candlesticks, which she lit and placed in the center of our circle. This felt so right, so perfect. I could look at the Jets again through the dancing shadows of the holy candlelight.
As the stars traced their paths through the night sky outside, the Jets silently took one another's hands They all had lowered heads; the candles were indescribably difficult to look at, more so than the sun I looked at Riff, and he looked back at me for a moment.
And then I saw them again, those black eyes that looked straight through me. I extended my hand, and with a sad smile he took it.
In a halting voice, Anybodys began to speak, in words taken from all our hearts. "Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with you."
"Blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus," Baby John picked up, his voice high still and so alone.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God," Riff began hoarsely, and the words rang clear through the perfect silence as he gazed into the heart of the candle, "pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our deaths."
I heard voices in the crackling flame, saw faces in every shadow. I thought of the stars outside the window. I wondered if, had I ever thought to count the stars, if I would find one more in the heavens watching over me tonight. Te adoro, Bernardo. Para siempre. My voice broke over the only word I could think to say.
"Amen."