Children of the Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  It was a big choice. One way she would lose Rusty—he was like that, just like that—and the other, she might lose her pretty face. It was tough all right.

  Rusty knew what was happening within her, and he abruptly felt so alone, so terribly, desperately alone; he had to remove the burden of decision from her, had to hold on to one person in this thing…if only for a short while. He pushed away from the wall, walked over to her.

  ‘Wanna stop for a Coke, Weezee?’

  Louise Chaplin, more ‘Weezee’ than Louise, was a highly attractive girl, with the natural features that made up her beauty marred by imperfect application of make-up. Her eyes were a clear blue, her skin smooth, her hair a rich chestnut brown, drawn back into a full, rippling pony-tail. Her young body was already making attractive bulges and curved areas within her sweater and skirt. She was aware of the growing body, and so the sweater was a size too small.

  Now her eyes darkened and she blinked rapidly, pausing a moment before answering—an agonizing moment for Rusty—finally answering, ‘Sure. Guess so. What’s new?’

  It was like that all the way down the street.

  Chitchat. She was scared. Really, terribly scared, and though Weezee wasn’t a member of the Cougars’ girl auxiliary, the Cougie Cats, she was still in Cougar turf, and if a war started, she would be one of the first to get it. Right after Rusty.

  The streets were crowded. Late Friday afternoon, with fat Polish women going from butcher to butcher, trying to get the best cuts of meat for the weekend; little kids playing hopscotch and baseball on sidewalks, against walls; radios blasting from every direction with the Giants or the Dodgers beating the pants off someone. Normal day, with the sun shining, with gutters dirtied by candy wrappers and dogs that had been curbed, with the sound of the subway underfoot, with everything normal. Including the stink of death that hung not unknown above everything else.

  It was funny how the territory—the turf—knew when something was burning. Even the old women in their antimacassared single rooms, waiting for their government checks, knew the gangs were about to rise. The shopkeepers knew it, and they feared for their windows. The cops knew it, and they began to straighten in harness. The cabbies knew it, and they shifted territories, hurrying back downtown to catch the Madison Avenue crowd.

  Everyone knew it, yet a word was never spoken, an action never completed. It hung rank in the air, dampening everyone’s mood of the weekend joviality. Rusty walked through it, dragging his feet as if he were under water.

  Weezee walked along beside him, clutching her books to her firm young breasts too tightly, till her fingers whitened on the notebook. The scare was so high in her, it came out of her pores, and Rusty wished he had not approached her. No sense dragging her into this.

  But at the same time, he was perversely glad she was there; he was determined to make her sweat, if he had to sweat. They turned in at Tom-Tom’s Ice Cream Parlor. Rusty gave the place a quick look-over before entering, and then pushed open one of the wooden doors with the glass almost covered by soft drink advertisements. They walked past the counter, past the magazine racks, to the booths in the back.

  Weezee slipped into one far back, and, even as Rusty watched, she drew in on herself, slid closer to the wall, made herself ready for what had to come.

  Rusty sat down across from her, two-fingered a cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket. He offered it to the girl, but she shook her head slowly. He lit it with a kitchen match and settled back, one foot up on the bench, watching her steadily.

  Finally, Tom-Tom came back to get their order.

  He was a stubby man, built like a beachball, with rolls of baby fat under his chin where a neck should have been but was not. He had been in the neighborhood a long time, and his hair was white, but his appearance was always the same. So was his service. Bad.

  Rusty looked across at Weezee. ‘Coke?’ She nodded. ‘Make it a pair,’ he said to Tom-Tom.

  The beachball rolled away, shaking its head; these damned kids sat here for three hours over one lousy Coke, and if he tried to bounce them he’d get a staved-in candy counter for his trouble. Damned neighborhood. One of these days, he was going to move, open a high-class little shop down in the Village somewhere.

  Rusty sat silently watching his girl. Weezee bit her red, red lips, and her hands moved nervously. Finally she asked, ‘Why are you quitting the Cougars?’

  Rusty made a vague movement with his hand, uneasy that she had broken the law: she had let her feelings be known, had asked him a straight question he could not goof out of answering. ‘Dunno. Just tired, I guess.’

  Her face grew rigid. ‘It’s that goddamned teacher, that Pancoast, isn’t it?’ she asked.

  Rusty leaned forward an inch, said tightly, ‘Just forget about him. He’s okay. He saved my tail from the can a month ago, that’s all I know.’

  ‘But it is him, isn’t it?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, can’t you knock it off? I just quit because I wanted to, and that’s it, period.’

  She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘But you were prez of the Cougars for three years. They ain’t gonna like you leeching out that way.’

  ‘That’s their row to hoe.’

  She tried desperately to pierce the shield he had erected around himself. What he was doing was suicide, and she felt a desperate need to communicate with him, to get him to see what he was doing to himself…and to her. For as Rusty’s drag, she was as marked as he.

  ‘Are you chick-chick?’

  Rusty slammed forward against the table. His hand came down flat with a smash, and his eyes burned fiercely. ‘Look, don’t you never call me that, understand? I’m no more chickie than anybody else.’ His face smoothed out slowly, the anger ebbed away even more slowly.

  Finally he added, ‘Weezee, I been runnin’ the streets with the Cougars for three years. I got in lots of trouble with ’em. Look at me. I’m seventeen, an’ I got a record. Nice thing to have? Like hell it is! I been usin’ my fists since I could talk, and I’m just up to here with it, and that’s on the square. I just want out, is all.’

  The girl shook her head. The brown hair swirled in its ponytail, and she began twirling it nervously. ‘They’re gonna make it rough on you, Rusty.’

  He nodded silently.

  Tom-Tom brought the Cokes, collected the two dimes Rusty laid out, and went back to his fountain.

  Five minutes later, they arrived.

  Not the entire gang, just ten of them. With Candle in the front. Many of Rusty’s old buddies were there—Fish, Clipper, Jonny Slice, even the kid they called the Beast—and they all had the same look in their eyes. All but the Beast. He was half-animal, only half-human, and what he had behind his eyes, no one knew. But all the rest saw Rusty as an enemy now. Two days before he had been their leader, but now the lines had changed and Rusty was on the outside.

  Why did I come here with Weezee? Why didn’t I go straight home? His thoughts spun and whirled and ate at him. They answered themselves immediately: there were several reasons. He had to prove he wasn’t chicken, both to himself and to everyone else. That was part of it, deep inside. There were worse things than being dead, and being chicken was one of them. Then too, he knew that running and hiding were no good. Start running—do it once—and it would never stop. And the days in fear would be all the worse.

  That was why he was here, and that was why he would have to face up to them.

  Candle made the first move.

  He stepped forward, and before either of them could say anything, he had slid into the booth beside Weezee. The boy’s face was hard, and the square, flat, almost Mongoloid look of it was frightening. Rusty made a tentative move forward, to get Candle away from his girl, but three Cougars stepped in quickly and pinned his arms.

  One of them brought a fist close to Rusty’s left ear, and the boy heard a click. He caught the blade’s gleam from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Whaddaya want?’ Rusty snarled, straining against their h
ands.

  Candle leaned across, folding his arms, and his face broke into a smile that was straight from hell. ‘I didn’t get called onna carpet by Pancoast. He kept his mouth shut.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Rusty replied sharply.

  Candle’s hand came up off the table quickly, and landed full across Rusty’s jaw. The boy’s head jerked, but he stared straight at the other. His eyes were hard, even though a five-pronged mark of red lived on his cheek.

  ‘Listen, teacher’s pet. That bit this mornin’ was just a start. We had us a talk in the Cougars, after I was elected prez, after you ran out on us like a—’

  Rusty cut in abruptly. ‘What’s it all about, big mouth? What’s your beef? You weren’t nothin’ in the gang till I left, now you think you’re God or somethin’.’

  This time it was a double-fisted crack, once, twice, and blood erupted from Rusty’s mouth. His lip puffed, and his teeth felt slippery wet.

  ‘I’ll hand all that back to you real soon, big deal.’ But Rusty was held tightly.

  ‘Nobody checks out on the gang, y’understand?’ He nodded to one of the boys holding Rusty’s left hand, and the boy drew back. Candle’s fist came out like a striking snake, and the fingers opened and grasped Rusty’s hand tightly. Rusty flexed his hand, trying to break the grip; but Candle was there for keeps, and the knife was still at his ear. He let the other boy squeeze…and squeeze…and squeeze…and…

  Rusty suddenly lunged sidewise, cracking his shoulder into the boy with the knife. The force of his movement drew Candle partially from the booth, and he released his grip.

  Then Rusty moved swiftly, and his hand, flat and fingers tight together, slashed out, caught the boy with the knife across the Adam’s apple. The boy gagged, and dropped the blade. In an instant it was in Rusty’s hand, and he was around the booth, had the tip of the switchblade just behind Candle’s ear.

  ‘Now,’ he panted, trying to hold the knife steady, having difficulty with nervous jerks of his hand, ‘you’re all gonna listen to me.

  ‘I left the Cougars cause I’m through. That’s all, and it doesn’t gotta make sense to any of you. I’m out, and I want out to stay, and the first guy that tries to give me trouble, I’ll cut him, so help me God!’

  The other Cougars moved forward, as if to step in, but Candle’s face had whitened, and his jaw worked loosely. ‘No, for Christ’s sake, stay away from him!’

  Rusty went on: ‘Listen, how long you figure I gotta run with this crowd? How long you figure I gotta keep gettin’ myself in bad with the school, with my old lady, with the cops? You guys wanna do it, that’s your deal, but leave me alone. I don’t bother you. Just don’t you bother me.’

  Fish—tall, and slim, with long eyelashes that made him think he was a lady’s man—spoke up. ‘You been fed too much of that good jazz by that Pancoast cat, Rusty. You believe that stuff, man?’

  Rusty edged the knife closer, the tip indenting the soft skin behind Candle’s ear, as the seated prez tried to move. ‘He dealt me right all along. He says I got a chance to become an industrial designer if I work hard at it. I like the idea. That’s the reason and that’s it.

  ‘Now whaddaya say? Lemme alone, and I let your big-deal prez alone.’

  At that instant, it all summed up for Rusty. That was it; that was why he was different from these others. He wanted a future. He wanted to be something. Not to wind up in a gutter with his belly split, and not to spend the rest of his life in the army—because that was where most of these guys were going to wind up finally.

  He wanted a life that had some purpose. And even as he felt the vitality of the thoughts course through him, he saw the Cougars were ready to accept it. He had been with them for three years, and they had all rumbled together, all gotten records together, all screwed around and had fun together. But now, somehow, he had outgrown them.

  And he wanted free.

  Fish spoke for all of them. Softly, and with the first sincerity Rusty had even heard from the boy. ‘I guess it sits okay with us, Rusty. Whatever you say goes. I’m off you.’ He turned to the others, and his face was abruptly back in its former mold. He was the child of the gutters; hard, and looking for opposition.

  ‘That go for the rest of you?’

  Each of them nodded. Some of them smiled. The Beast waggled his head like some lowing animal, and there was only one dissenter as Rusty broke the knife and tossed it to its owner.

  Candle was out of the booth, and his own weapon was out. He walked forward, and backed Rusty into the wall with it. His face was flushed, and what Rusty had always known was in the boy—the sadism, the urge to fight, the animal hunger that was there and could never really be covered by a black leather jacket or chino slacks—was there on top, boiling up like a pool of lava, waiting to engulf both him and Rusty.

  ‘I don’t buy it, man. I think as long as you’re around, the Cougars won’t wanna take orders from their new prez. So there’s gotta be a final on this. I challenge.’

  Rusty felt a sliver of cold, as sharp as the sliver of steel held by Candle, slither down into his gut. He had to stand with Candle. It was the only way. As long as you lived in a neighborhood where the fist was the law, there could be no doubt. Either you were chickie or you weren’t. If an unanswered challenge hung around his neck like an albatross, his days on the street were numbered.

  Slowly, hesitantly, he nodded agreement. Knowing he was slipping back. Knowing all the work Pancoast had done might be wasted. Knowing his future might wind up in the gutter with him.

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomorrow, after school. Out at the dump. Come heeled, man, cause I’m gonna split you to your groin.’

  He broke his knife, shoved it into his sleeve, walked away angrily, shoving aside the Cougars. He was gone then, and the ice cream shop was silent for a long moment.

  Then Fish shrugged, said lamely, ‘Gee, I’m—well, hell, Rusty, there ain’t—’

  Rusty cut him off, running a hand through his own hair. ‘I know, man. Don’t bother. Ain’t nothin’ you can do. I gotta stand with Candle. Gonna be rough bananas though.’

  Why was his past always calling? Always making grabs on him? The blood was flowing so thick, so red, and it smothered him. He felt as though he was drowning.

  Wouldn’t he ever be free?

  It was gonna be a rough week.

  The next day went like a souped-up heap. The kids stayed away from Rusty like he was down with the blue botts, and even the teachers seemed to sense something was hot on the fire, because they didn’t press him about his homework, or ask him to recite.

  Rusty saw Candle only once during the day, and that was in the cafeteria. It was rugged inside him. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to leave the thing alone, and reconcile it with Candle. He had to talk to the boy. The hard-faced prez of the Cougars was sitting at a table with Joy, feeling her up, and laughing loudly with his side-boys. Rusty cut wide around them, and got a tray for himself. The food was the usual steam-table garbage, and he only took a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a piece of apple pie and a container of milk. He wasn’t hungry, not at all.

  Finally, when he had polished off the food, he got up, took the tray to the check-in window where a colored boy was scraping them with a rubber tool, and turned around.

  Everyone was watching him. He realized suddenly that they had been watching him all through lunch. But he had been thinking as he ate, and had not noticed. Now they stared at him, and from the middle of the room he heard the derisive voice of a punk.

  ‘Here chick-chick-chick-chick-chick! Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck. Chick-chick-chick…’ It went on and on, leaving the first boy, swinging to another, then pretty soon the entire room was carrying it, like a banner. The sound was a wave that washed against the shores of Rusty’s mind. It was the worst. It was a chop low like no other he’d ever heard.

  He had been top man of the Cougars for so long, to have this kind of indignity pushed on him was something frightfu
l. He clenched his fists and stood where he was.

  Behind him, he heard the colored boy disappearing from behind the window. If things were going to be heaved, he didn’t want to be in the way.

  Rusty knew he had to talk to Candle now. Now was the time, because if he spent the day with that chick-chick festering in his brain, he’d fight sure as hell!

  Somebody yelled, ‘Oooooh, Russell! Oh, Russell, baby, do your hen imitation fer us! Go man, go, Russell!’

  He hated that name. It was the first time they’d called him that since it had been abbreviated to Rusty.

  The boy stepped slowly away from the window, and walked over to Candle’s table. The Cougar’s prez had been talking to his broad, not even looking at Rusty while the call had been going up. Now, as Rusty approached, he paid even more attention to Joy, but the three side-boys stood up slowly, their hands going into the tight pockets of their jeans. There were shanks in there, waiting to cut if Rusty made a snipe move.

  Rusty stopped. ‘Candle.’

  The boy with the almost Mongoloid features did not look up. He had his hand clutched to the girl’s knee, and he seemed totally oblivious to what was happening behind him. But Joy’s blue eyes were up and frightened. She stared straight at Rusty, and the wild excitement in her face made him sick; they all wanted their boots. They all wanted kicks. They didn’t care who got nailed, so long as sparks flew and they could bathe in them. Then Candle turned carefully around. He looked up.

  ‘Well, read this,’ he said arrogantly, more to his side-boys than Rusty. ‘Check who just dropped in for a chat. Welcome, spic.’

  Rusty felt the blood surging in him, and he wanted to drive a fist straight into the bastard’s mouth. But that was what Candle wanted. That would be the clincher. They’d slice him up like fresh bacon, right there, and everyone would dummy up. No one wanted the Cougars mad at them.

  ‘Candle, I wanna talk to you,’ Rusty said softly.

  The others grinned hugely, and Candle swung one foot up on to the bench, just touching the edge of Rusty’s pants, putting a bit of dirt there.