Читать книгу Newark Minutemen - Leslie K. Barry - Страница 25

My head flops onto Heidi’s shoulder when Yael whips the car around Clinton Place corner past the dark Hawthorne Avenue three-story apartments. It’s so dark because no one can afford to waste electricity in our neighborhood.

My stomach fizzes. I close my eyes. I feel the car slow. “Hey Al, Benny, Abie! Makin’ trouble?” Yael yells out the window. I open one eye and see Yael’s friends smoking cigars in front of the one and only lit place on the block—the candy store.

As the car rolls, knuckles bang against the metal roof, and I jolt like someone just brought a hammer down on an anvil.

Yael calls over to the others. “Hey, Maxie. Where’s Puddy?”

Heidi pushes my head off her shoulder. “Drop us here. Papa will murder us if he catches us with Jews.”

Yael pulls the car over. When we get out, the chatter of his rowdy friends pecks at my brain. But that doesn’t compare to the silence that explodes in my one hearing eardrum when my boyfriend Axel and his friend Frank appear out of the blackness with their gang. Their uniforms howl action. Everyone freezes.

The calm before the storm doesn’t last long. Like gray wolves joining forces, Yael’s smaller pack surrounds our German boys. The tension crackles like static electricity from a sock. This town could ignite. I’ve had too much to drink, but I have to admit, our own boys with their military air might have an edge.

“What are you doing with Jews?” Frank says. He pushes me toward Axel.

“Frank, I swear, it was Krista’s idea,” Heidi tattles.

Yeah, so what if it was my idea. One thing’s for sure. I’ll never forget this night.

Axel pinches my chin and inspects my neck. “You are drunk, Krista!” At least he’s screaming in my deaf ear, so I can’t hear his rubbish, and I don’t care if he thinks I’m not ladylike.

I want to tell him he’s controlling like my father and he’s got another thing coming if he thinks I’m gonna bow to him. But instead, I drawl. “Axel. You snow I don’t trink.” The world tips. Then my stomach gurgles and starts heaving all over Axel’s uniform.

Axel shoves me into Heidi. “Scram, you drunken whore.” He grabs Frank’s handkerchief out of his pocket and swats slimy chunks off his uniform.

Heidi drags me from the fuse that’s going to blow. From steps away, we watch it unfold like a handkerchief before a sneeze.

Axel squints his eyes at Yael. “Well, lookie here, Frank. If it isn’t a Newark Minuteman from the rally the other night.”

“You frickin’ Nazis!” Yael shouts. Even stone drunk I can see his blood bulge the vein in his neck. Behind him, his men punch their fists into their hands and rock from side to side.

In an empty second, I catch Axel’s eyes flick to Frank. Then, I hear the crack before I see it. Yael’s chin vaults off Axel’s fist.

The dark alchemy Yael was talking about ripples the six-pack under his wet shirt and detonates a chain reaction. As a thunderous sound like aluminum foil covering a Thanksgiving turkey shakes the sky above us, Yael lets loose a barrage of blows that should have knocked Axel, my future sovereign, from here to Weequahic High School.

But, Axel isn’t one to stand down. He bends his elbows and blocks Yael’s blows. Finding an opening, he clobbers Yael in the face. A part of me feels Yael deserves a few hits from Axel. After all, he shouldn’t have run his hand up my blouse.

As if someone higher up is orchestrating this battle, the next clap of thunder signals war between the gangs. I gulp the storm’s spicy-sweet down draft as the scene becomes a powder-keg rumble. Rain whips the bodies. The enemy camps don’t just want to hurt each other. They want to obliterate each other.