Children of the Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  He had paid Stag’s old man one thousand dollars in tribute, because he was taking away the family breadwinner (the old man was deeply enamored of a jug of corn likker, and had not worked since John Nance Garner ran with FDR) and spirited Stag to New York in the cream-colored Porsche that was so much a part of the Colonel’s façade. Once in New York, the campaign had started, and I was hired on almost immediately.

  Hired on? Hell, yes. I wouldn’t turn down three Cs a week steady, when I had barely been making oleo money beating the drums for a string of smut-peddling cafe comics, a broken down chantoosie who doubled in the sheets to make her own rent, and a couple of below-street-level bottle joints that laughingly called themselves night clubs. I needed the job, and who could have suspected, then, that today Stag Preston would be the biggest thing since the Graf Spee?

  Now there were Stag Preston guitars, and Stag Preston T-shirts, and Stag Preston tooth brushes, and, so help me God, Stag Preston insoles for loafers, music boxes that played Warm Baby, hair tonic for DA haircuts, and, most appropriate of all, I’ve always thought, Stag Preston toilet paper. In four delicate, pastel shades.

  Now Stag Preston was a billion dollar property, and I was riding his sport-coat tail up the ladder. Now I was collecting the juicy payola from the toy makers and manufacturers who wanted Stag’s endorsement on their products; now I was the champion gimme-gimme boy of Tin Pan Alley, who was getting the nod in Toots Shors and the Harwyn Club and 21, from all the pluggers and the celebs, when I came in to eat. I liked the life; I liked the gold and the easy living and the recognition from guys who’d never spit on me before.

  Even though I did not like what Stag Preston had become.

  Even though I did not like being a 3C-a-week pimp.

  They didn’t allow smoking in the wings during a show, but I lit up anyhow. What could they do me? I was with Stag, and they were faunching to have him sign another two week contract, so they wouldn’t take a chance on getting me sore. Particularly since the Colonel was out on the Coast tying the knot with MGM for the new Stag Preston flick, and I was handling everything at this end. Everything.

  Behind me, the girls nearly fainted as Stag hit that wavery part in All Alone Heart and ground it out like a burly stripper. I dragged on the cigarette till I got lightheaded and the smoke gagged me, but I still saw the bastard out there, and I still knew the girls were behind me.

  ‘Isn’t he just terrific!’ one of the girls moaned. I tossed a look over my shoulder, and saw it was the cute little brunette with the beauty mark alongside her mouth. She’d been just coming out to get popcorn when I’d spotted her. She had been the fifth one, and the blonde with the sleepy eyes beside her had been number six. Six was about par for the course.

  Which wild-eyed one would be the luckily chosen?

  Stag had drawn me aside just before he’d gone on, and murmured in my ear: ‘Today’s quickie day, Neal baby. I’d like you to do the talent scouting out front, eh baby?’

  Then he’d dug the shank of that damned guitar into my gut, and grinned that all-knowing I-look-only-nineteen-but-you-know-I’m-older-than-that-inside smile at me, and I saw my three hundred a week, and went out front to find him some fair game.

  I’d gone out, and found a few good-lookers, all in bobby-socks and pony-tails and with bodies too well-developed for their ages, and brought them backstage, promising them they would get to meet and talk to Stag Preston.

  In fact, the attractive little auburn-haired girl who now leaned against the scenery with eyes closed, bobbing and weaving in time to the music, had been with a fan club.

  ‘What club is this?’ I’d jollied them.

  ‘The Schenectady Stag Preston Fan Club!’ they had shouted, showing me their gray and gold jackets, all with a big Stag Preston fan club emblem sewn on over the heart.

  ‘Well, how would you like one of your members to meet Stag?’ I asked, eying the cute redhead. They had squealed and clapped their hands and pretended to faint, and even begged me to take them all. But all of them wouldn’t do…just the good-lookers.

  Stag was finicky.

  ‘Well, how about that little girl right there—yeah, you—what’s your name?’ She had mumbled something, and blushed, and the others had shoved her forward.

  ‘What? What’s that? What’s your name?’

  She blushed even more furiously and said, ‘Marlene.’

  ‘So how about it, Marlene? Want to meet your favorite star? In person, backstage?’

  The club had shoved her forward, and she had joined my group. That had been the greatest thing that had ever happened to her, she’d told me. And I’d thought, Yeah, kid, but an even greater thing is going to happen after the show.

  And I hated myself for getting them together, like sheep, about to be slaughtered. And I hated Stag Preston, but what could I do? A guy’s got to live, doesn’t he?

  The club had begged to come along, but I’d said only one. Finally, Marlene had told them to wait around back by the stage entrance, and if Stag came out, they’d see her with him. I’d said we might all go up to Stag’s hotel room for a private concert, just the eight of us. The six girls, me—and Stag. So she had told them to wait around down in the street, beneath Stag’s window, and she would talk him into coming out on the balcony or to the window, or whatever the room had, to wave to them. She said she’d be with him, so they could take pictures if they wanted to.

  I’d listened to it all, and the ball in my throat had become a shot-put, and I needed a drink so damned bad. Then I’d hustled her away from her friends, put her into the group I’d gathered, and after rounding up numbers five and six, had brought them backstage.

  Now I stood there watching my meal ticket finishing up his act, and behind me the girls were in the last stages of disintegration. What did he have?

  The last notes quavered up to the second balcony, the applause started wildly, and Stag bowed off the stage. Usually he went back for half a dozen encores—the egotistical crumb—but today was quickie day, and he had just two hours till the next show. This was the matinee, and he just had time for a quickie before he hit the stage again.

  I had to hand it to him; as long as he could have anything in that audience, he wanted the best. So he sent a connoisseur, Neal Castro, boy toady, anything for a velvet buck.

  ‘Neal, buddy! What have we here!’

  He had on that loud yellow and black sport jacket with the white piping, a pair of pegged charcoal slacks, and a sport shirt open to the center of his chest. His hair was piled up on top in long strips, and oiled flat to the sides of his head. It curled around in back in an exaggerated duck’s tail and the pompadour in front looked more like an awning than a hairdo. His eyes were dark, brooding things set under thick, curling lashes, and his eyebrows met in the center. His cheeks were hollow and his skin was very white, almost sick looking. He was nearly six feet tall, and thin, and the guitar looked as though it were carrying him.

  ‘Oh, Staaaag!’

  They all screamed at once, and elbowed past me. I let myself be shouldered aside, and stood there in the semi-shadow, smoking and hating myself. They went crazy over him, touching him here and touching him there and talking to him. Why couldn’t they see what his eyes had in them?

  He looked at them like raw meat.

  After a few minutes—minutes in which I could see him sorting and analyzing and picking the lucky number—he said, ‘Okay, kids, okay. That’s all. I gotta go on over to the hotel now, an’ grab a few hours sleep. I got another show t’do, y’know.’ He smiled at them, and hugged a couple, getting a cheap feel that shocked them, I knew, and pleased them too. They could tell the gang, You know what happened when he hugged me? I mean Stag Preston! He put his hand right here, and he was smilin’ all the time. You wouldn’t expect it right in public, but he was so strong, y ’know, and—

  So he said his good-byes, and as he passed me in the dim there by the scenery, he mumbled, the way he always did, ‘The redhead. Five minutes, give me time to c
hange…’

  The little punk. Nineteen years old, and he was having me do his work for him. I wanted to club the little bastard, but three hundred a week is a lot of Brooks Brothers suits and a lot of gas for my Thunderbird. I nodded okay, and he went past me to the cops who were waiting to get him the half block to his hotel without being mobbed.

  The girls still stood staring at his departing back, and I drew the little redhead away from them. ‘Stag would like to see you again,’ I said softly. Her face turned up to me, and all that little-girl wonder shone through like morning. I wanted to kick myself in the head.

  ‘He—he does?’

  I nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Let’s go.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked, troubled.

  ‘Why, up to his hotel, for that concert,’ I said, smiling. ‘That private concert.’

  ‘What about the other kids?’ she asked, a little line of concern appearing between her brows. I shrugged off the question.

  ‘Stag’s waiting, uh, what was your name? Oh yeah, Marlene. He’s waiting, Marlene, and I’ve known Stag to give fans a very special souvenir. What a deal that’d be, don’t you think, to show to your club.’

  That did it. I’ve got a snake-slippery tongue, damn it!

  She came along, and when we went out the stage door, her club was all gathered around, and I tried to stop her from telling them where she was going, but she ran over to them, and gave them that bit about waiting under his window, and she’d come out with Stag.

  They ate it up like ice cream.

  Boy, are you in for a disappointment, Marlene, I thought.

  When we got upstairs, one of the legmen for Raw son of the Globe was waiting outside the suite. He gave me the old glad hand, and I had to stop for a minute to beat the drum for my meal ticket.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Stag was great out in Vegas!’ I boomed, letting my voice slip into that columnist sincerity the newspaper boys want to hear. ‘He really rocked ’em out there. Milt Rosters wanted to sign him on for another four weeks, but you know how Stag is. He likes the city.’

  Rawson’s man kept looking at the kid, and I finally broke it off, and told him to give us a nice couple inches in Rawson’s column, told him I’d talk to him later about a nice present in return.

  Then I hustled the kid into the suite.

  Stag was already in his silk dressing gown, with that stupid-looking cigarette holder he smokes around the hotel, where the fans can’t see him. A nineteen-year-old punk with all that silk and holder…he looked like a clown.

  But this Marlene kid really went for him in a big way.

  I started to edge out, but this was one of those perverse days for Stag. He wanted observers today. ‘Hang around, Neal baby,’ he said. ‘I’ll want to talk to you a little later.’

  I started to go into the bedroom on the opposite side of the sitting room from Stag’s bedroom, but he motioned me to a chair. I plopped down, and wanted to go blind.

  ‘Now, honey,’ Stag said, coming toward the kid. She just stood there in her loafers and bobby socks, her pony-tail and peasant blouse, looking wholesome and sexy for her age, and ripe. ‘Now, honey, let’s you and Stag get acquainted.’

  She started to edge back, and I knew by then she’d gotten the pitch. Her idol had feet of clay.

  Real dirty clay.

  ‘W-wait a m-minute, Mr Preston,’ she quavered, and pulled the jacket with the Stag Preston fan club emblem on it closer to her. She dragged it tight across her breasts, and that was a mistake.

  Stag lunged for her, all red in the face, and greedy as only a teenage success like him can get. ‘C’mon, honey, don’t be rough to get!’ He grabbed for her and she twisted away, looking at me for help.

  So I just sat there. All right, all right, so I’m a bastard. That’s life, ain’t it?

  ‘Lemme alone! Lemme out of here!’ she started to yell, and that only made our boy Stag the hotter. He grabbed for her, and got the jacket. It was a cinch; she just twirled around and yanked out of it, leaving him holding the jacket. He swore and threw it down.

  Then he went for her again, and she couldn’t get to the door, because naturally I’d pulled my chair in front of it.

  She was crying now, and yelling, and begging her goddam idol not to rape her, and she tried the French doors that led on to the balcony.

  They sprang open as Stag grabbed her again, and she pulled him right along with her, out on to the little balcony, thirty stories above Broadway. He had a grip on her shoulders, was digging his fingers into the white shoulder that showed over the peasant blouse, and this time all the songs in the world couldn’t win that kid for him.

  He tried to pull her close, to drag her back inside, but she shoved against him, as hard as she could, and the peasant blouse ripped across the front, revealing a pink lace brassiere, and she kept falling. The grip broke, and she hit the low balcony railing with her buttocks, and the force of her pulling carried her up on to the railing, and then over, and then she was gone.

  From where I sat, I could hear her scream, all the way to the sidewalk.

  Stag stood there, with a look of utter disbelief on his face, and a rag of peasant blouse in his hand. His other hand was in mid-air, just about where it had been on her other shoulder when she’d pulled loose. He was standing on the balcony, in clear view of the street, and I could hear other screams now.

  I jumped out of the chair, and ran over to him there. I looked down into the street, and there she was, thirty floors below, all spread out and yet twisted up, with a tight little circle around her.

  I saw some of the girls from her club looking up, but they were too far away for me to recognize anything but those gray and gold jackets. I heard a siren.

  ‘Inside! Get the hell inside, Stag!’ I shoved him back into the room.

  ‘She—she pulled away. She went—went over…I tried to stop, stop her, but she—she—’ His eyes were dim with confusion and fright. ‘What’ll they do to me?’ he wanted to know. That kid was dead in the street and the sonofabitch wanted to know if he was going to have to pay for it.

  I wanted to beat the hell out of him right then, and to hell with my meal ticket, but I couldn’t. I don’t know why, don’t ask me. I took the cloth from his hand, and the jacket, and ran them into the hall. For a minute I couldn’t get my bearings, then I remembered having seen the maid’s clean-up room, and ran down the hall to it. The incinerator was there, in the wall, and I shoved the two hunks of material into it. They were gone in a moment, and I ran back to Stag.

  ‘Now look,’ I said, shoving him into a chair, ‘when the cops get here, let me do all the talking. You just nod that pretty head of yours when I tell you to. Understand me?’

  He nodded brokenly, and his face was a wreck. ‘That’s good,’ I said, noting his bewildered expression. ‘Just keep it like that for another half hour and we’ll be out of the woods.’

  Then the knock came on the door.

  It was the cops.

  It didn’t take much or fast talking. Mr Preston had been seeing one of his fans. She had made up a story about wanting to interview him for the school newspaper, and as soon as she had gotten in, she’d started pulling at his clothes, trying to kiss him, and he had tried to get away from her. She had some sort of unbelievable strength, for she shoved him back against the French doors—isn’t that so, Mr Preston?—and they flew open, and she went over. Isn’t that right, Mr Preston? Well, officers, you can see Mr Preston is really broken up about this thing. Every fan is something special to him, you understand, don’t you?

  And a little later: Yes, it’s terrible, and I hope you will refer the newsmen to me, and we’ll handle the way they talk about this. I’m sure you’ll understand, and thank the Commissioner for his interest, and tell him the Colonel sends his regards, won’t you? Thanks a lot.

  Then the door was closed, and I was alone with him.

  I never wanted to follow that girl as much as I did right then. Right over the balcony.

  But my conscience has
been dead for years. Years, dammit! Stag got up, and went to the mirror over the sofa. He smoothed back his DA and looked at me by reflection. ‘I wanna thank you, Neal,’ he said jauntily. ‘I’ll let the Colonel know about this. He won’t forget you. We made it.’

  Oh, you sleazy crud! Oh, you greasy devil!

  Another knock came on the door.

  I opened it, and it was the Schenectady Stag Preston Fan Club, all twenty-odd of them. They pushed in before I could stop them.

  One of the girls—a fat kid with glasses—said, ‘We saw Marlene, Stag. We saw her with you. Gee, what a kick—’

  But the faces on those kids said something else.

  ‘We wanted to come up to get souvenirs,’ another one said, reaching for the lapel of Stag Preston’s silk dressing gown.

  ‘Yeah…a souvenir,’ said a short one with small breasts and thick legs.

  She reached too, and I heard a rip.

  Then they were all reaching, and all ripping, and one of them applied long nails to the side of Stag’s face. I saw four bright crimson lines well up on his cheek.

  Stag yelled something at me.

  ‘Neal! Neal, get them the hell outta here! Neal!’

  But I opened the door and walked into the hall. I heard the ripping sound as they tore away his shirt, and I saw him fall down, and one of the girls raised her foot.

  He yelled again, but I closed the door.

  I lost my job, because I lost my meal ticket, but hell, that’s life.

  It didn’t really bother me, inside, down where it counts, because every one of those kids got her souvenir.

  One evening several years ago, when I was living in the city I love, New York City, I attended a meeting of professional science-fiction writers (a field in which I’ve had some small success and quite a great deal of pleasure), The Hydra Club. It was shortly after the release of my first novel Rumble, and inevitably the conversation between myself and six of my peers turned to the subject of juvenile delinquency. In the group was a learned gentleman of such erudition and impeccable dress that one assumes his cuffs shoot automatically and that his stomach would never have the audacity to gurgle. It was, oddly enough, this particular gentleman who came up with the genesis for the story you are about to read. In our conversation he relayed his concern about a young teen living down the street from him in his quiet, well-bred, altogether reserved New England Village. This tot had been terrorizing the neighborhood—playing Peeping Tom, stealing cars, threatening anyone who attempted to take him to task with a ‘shiv,’ and in general playing the role of local Genghis Khan. It set me thinking, and I harbored the idea for three years until finally I wrote my conception of what would happen if a typical—but inventive—juvie matched wits and violence with a cultured, sophisticated, genteel man of the world. In my opinion, such a contest would be…