Children of the Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  Right then, the kids blew in. Without knocking. Eight of them. With switchblades uncurled.

  ‘Fast, Harrison!’ I yelled into the phone. ‘Eight of them just showed on the scene, and they don’t look as though they’re here to trade bubble-gum pictures!’

  I had to drop the phone then, because Steckman was grinning and clapping his hands at them. ‘You understood the “Boots” warning! Good, good! Now get Campus! I can cover with the police. Get him!’

  Then, maybe because the kids were too slow for him, Steckman came out of his chair at me, with a fist as big as a muskmelon aimed at my head. I ducked under it, and it swished past my ear. Beyond him I saw three of the eight kids coming at me.

  Steckman had spun halfway around me with that swing, so I leaned away from him and smacked him good and hard behind the ear as he swung past. The blow didn’t catch him full, but he fell across me, and threw me against the spinet again.

  He tumbled to the floor, on his back. Then the kids were on me.

  I felt one of their knives go into my shoulder, ripping up and out, and tearing away my shirt—some skin with it. It wasn’t really a deep slash, but it hurt like hell, and I could feel warm stickiness running down my arm. I wished I’d kept my jacket on.

  They were all over me, but it was as rough for them as it was for me. They couldn’t get a clear shot at me and I couldn’t pot any of them.

  Even so, I felt another shank go into my thigh. It was close again, but much more of this and I’d die of anemia!

  Finally I kicked up with both knees, lying on my back as I was, and they went in all directions. The pain was blinding me, and blood was all over the place. But I staggered to my feet, holding on to the edge of the piano, and barked, ‘Get the hell back, you little bastards, or I’ll make you look like Life Savers!’

  They laughed, almost at the same time, and came at me.

  I fired and caught the first one in the left leg. He slipped over and crumpled on to his side, moaning and clutching the shattered shinbone. The second one was too close to stop, and had his arm back for an overhand swipe with the knife. It was the ratty-faced kid that had pushed me off the cliff.

  I couldn’t help it—all I could see was that knife, so I fired at it as it slipped toward me. The shot went past his arm and caught him just under the nose. The bullet plowed upward and the back of his head flew off. He fell forward, just a lousy bloody wreck, and I shoved the knife hand aside as he fell. He tumbled on top of Steckman, who wasn’t completely out and who was just rising. When Steckman saw what was on his back, he screamed like a woman, high and thin, and fainted.

  The other six stopped cold. They didn’t want any more of that jazz. I felt sick for a moment, thinking how I’d killed a kid, but then I remembered what Harrison had said about how Pessler’s face had been stomped to goo. Then it didn’t bother me so much.

  I staggered back till I had them all in sight, and suddenly I felt the ceiling lowered down on me. ‘Back up, and drop those shanks,’ I mumbled. Things were starting to ooze off into grayness. I had to keep my eyes wide open and focused on them or I’d lose them, too.

  I heard the switchblades drop dully to the rug, and they backed against the wall.

  ‘You didn’t come from Brooklyn, did you?’ I rattled. They shook their heads.

  One of them gave a belligerant half-laugh, said, ‘We live eight blocks away from here, off Broadway. You thought we’d be a whole lot longer comin’. But Steckman gave us the word.’

  ‘Now we’re going to wait for Harrison and his squad boys,’ I said. I choked the words out, and the kids didn’t look too worried about matters.

  They didn’t say a word. I leaned against the piano and waited.

  It seemed like forever. I could feel the blood oozing off down my arm and leg, and all the clubbings I’d taken in the past few weeks were finally adding up. How I’d kept going till now suddenly shocked me. It seemed fantastic, but nervous energy accounted for most of it, and good condition answered the rest.

  I glanced down at my wrist watch. It had been a good twenty minutes since I’d spoken to Harrison. Maybe the sonofabitch didn’t believe me!

  I didn’t have a very long while to think about it though. Abruptly, somebody drained all the juice out of me, and I felt myself tilting over. The gun dropped out of my hand, and as the grayness closed in I saw the kids dipping for their shanks, with hell in their eyes.

  A weird thought about all the times I’d been unconscious lately popped into my head as I fell:

  What a helluva way to go through life!

  I came to with the sweet young thing just focusing in, and beyond her the black-and-white bespectacled kisser of Harrison.

  ‘I made it,’ I said, duck-rasp.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. For the first time, the slob smiled. ‘There’s money in this for you, Campus. Nice reward—totes up into four figures.’

  I grinned back at him, and my head started playing the Anvil Chorus. I could feel the adhesive pull of bandages on my arm and thigh. ‘Reward, huh?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘Know what I’m going to do with it?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to buy you a pair of roller skates, you creeping, crawling slob!’

  He didn’t smile—but what did I care?

  Gang Girl is a proud name for certain types of chicks in certain lower social circles. They carry their stud’s piece (or gun), they keep themselves available for bed duty and drag brawls, they know how to bop, fish, dip, twist, and cha-cha. They are hippies of the snotty set. They’ve got a longshoreman’s grasp of the English language, and an idiot’s regard for the finer things in life. They swing, if you call that swinging.

  GANG GIRL

  I’m back with Moms now, and I get sick to my stomach when I think of what I did. I only did it because I was lonely and because I loved Puff. If it hadn’t been for him—well, things might have been different.

  Moms doesn’t say anything; she won’t judge me. But a lot of them look at me when I go down the street, and I can hear their dirty whispers floating behind me.

  All those wiseguy, stuck-up big shots out there! They should try living where I live. Down where the cold off the river mixes with the stink of the fish, and you always have a rotten-fish odor in whatever you do.

  After a while it gets in your hair, and your nose, and you taste it when you eat, and when you go to sleep you smell it all night. It gets so bad you want to run away from the neighborhood, just to breathe some fresh air.

  Maybe that’s what made me walk so much, the day I met Puff.

  I hadn’t much to do with the kids in the street. Dad’s been dead six years now. When I wasn’t in school, I was taking care of the house or my baby sister while Moms worked.

  So when I walked out of my neighborhood, and wandered into Eagle turf, I didn’t even know I’d gone over a line.

  Was that only six months ago? It seems like six years!

  I was just walking; I didn’t know where I was going, just so long’s I was going away from that fish-stink! I must have walked further away from my section than I’d ever gone before.

  I passed a lot of boys on the streets. At first the remarks they kept making got past me. I was thinking, and I was lonely, and I just wanted to walk.

  I was going past a drugstore, and there were two boys leaning against the window. I heard one of them say, ‘Man! Hand me some of that on a big plate, and I’ll eat it up with a big spoon!’ Then the other fellow laughed and called me something dirty.

  I’d never been around the streets too much, and I’d never heard anybody speak to girls that way. I started to walk past, but the one who’d called me a dirty name grabbed me by the arm.

  ‘Let go!’ I yelled.

  ‘Come on, tight-jeans,’ he laughed, pulling me to him. ‘Whyn’cha come with old Toby and me in my car? We’ll take ya out and buy ya a hamburger!’

  ‘Get the hell away from me!’ I screamed, scr
atching at his face. He had me tightly around both wrists, and I struggled but couldn’t pull loose. So I kneed him in the groin.

  He let loose fast then, and clutched himself. His buddy, the one he’d called Toby, grabbed me by my pony-tail and gave me a stiff crack across the face. He hauled back to smash me some more, but I bit him.

  He was howling, and they were both getting ready to belt me again, when three other boys came tumbling across the street. They were all wearing black leather jackets, with metal stars and studs on them. The word Cavaliers was written in white across the backs.

  ‘It’s Eagles!’ howled one of the black-jacketed boys, a big kid with a blond crew-cut. He slammed across the street and hit the boy named Toby in the mouth with his fist. Toby sailed backward and went through the drugstore window. The other kid still looked as though the kick I’d given him hurt a lot, but it didn’t stop the other two Cavaliers. They picked him up by arms and legs and heaved him through the window on top of Toby!

  ‘Come on, let’s get the hell outta here!’ mumbled the boy with the blond crew-cut, grabbing me by the arm. Somehow, I trusted him more than the other two. I ran with them, turning down an alley between two apartment buildings, and hopping a fence.

  After a while we stopped to catch our breath. The blond boy turned to me. ‘It’s okay now. We’re in Cavalier turf.

  ‘You’re new around here, aren’t you?’ he asked. He had a nice face. It was square and strong-looking; when he smiled his eyes crinkled at the corners.

  ‘I’m not from around here,’ I answered, still not sure of them. I was puffing from all that running.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘I asked first,’ he replied, hooking his square hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He grinned.

  ‘Julie,’ I answered. ‘Julie Grendon. Now what’s yours?’

  ‘They call me Puff. This is Flip, and the short one there is Weepy,’ he said, waving a hand at his friends. ‘We’re members of the Cavaliers,’ he said proudly. ‘What were you doing in Eagle territory?’

  ‘What’s Eagle territory?’ I asked. He looked at me in surprise. I was real stupid in those days.

  ‘For a chick as cool looking as you, you’re pretty square, ain’tcha?’ he asked.

  I drew myself up in anger. ‘So who asked ya to speak to me, wiseguy. I was doing okay till you came along!’ I started to leave, but he put a hand on my arm. He didn’t try to hold me, just to stop me for a second.

  I turned around and looked at him. I could tell right off that he was sorry. ‘I—I didn’t mean that,’ he stammered.

  ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ I said. I knew he didn’t want to look punk in front of his buddies. It had taken a lot to apologize.

  The little fellow, Weepy, sat down on a garbage can and asked, ‘Don’t you know who the Eagles are?’ The way he asked it, it sounded like they were someone real important.

  ‘No,’ I answered. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They’re a new gang that just got together. Bunch of real slobs. They been raiding our turf about three months now,’ said Flip. He clenched his fists as he spoke.

  ‘One of these days we’re gonna lean on those crumbs—real hard!’ Puff added, his eyes getting harder. He looked nasty when he was mad. But I couldn’t help liking him.

  They nodded at one another, as though they’d agreed on something silently. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a shake,’ said Puff, taking my hand. ‘Then I’ll let ya in on the score around here. If you’re going to be hanging around the Cavaliers, you better know what gives.’

  I hadn’t really considered it, but being around the Cavaliers—and that meant being around Puff—seemed like a real cool idea.

  ‘Sure. I’d like a shake,’ I said.

  Over a milkshake they told me about the rival gangs, and how we were now in Cavalier turf, which bordered Eagle territory.

  ‘What were you doing over in their neighborhood if you’re not supposed to cross over there?’ I asked them.

  Weepy started chuckling, ‘Woman, we were on a raid! We was gonna bash a few skulls, that’s why!’

  These boys were different from the ones I’d known. All the kids I’d ever hung around with were just happy-go-lucky, always laughing at something silly. These kids were so different. They seemed mad at everybody, yet I knew they liked me, and wanted me for a friend. I liked that, too. I wanted to be in with a bunch of kids who all knew each other and had something in common.

  I’d never belonged to a group of my own, and these kids seemed like lots of fun.

  Flip leaned across the booth, twisting the straw from his shake. ‘How’d ya like to be a Cavvy Deb?’ he asked.

  Puff put his hand on Flip’s chest and shoved him back. ‘I saw her first,’ he said, pointing his finger at Flip with meaning. ‘I’ll ask her!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’ve got a girls’ auxiliary in the Cavaliers,’ explained Puff. ‘We call ’em the debutantes, or just Debs for short. The Cavvy Debs, see?’

  I smiled. ‘Sure, I understand. What do I have to do to join?’

  Puff shrugged his shoulders, said, ‘Nothing. Just say you want to be a member. Then we take you over and introduce you to the other kids. Then you’re a Cavalier—after initiation, of course—and you can come to all our dances, and on our rumbles, and stuff like that.’

  It sounded terrific. ‘That sounds like fun,’ I told him. ‘I guess I’d like to join.’

  Puff told me I should come to the clubroom the next night, and I’d get introduced around. He told me where they were, and what I should wear. Then he offered to walk me home. I said okay.

  On the way home, Puff said hi to a lot of kids, both girls and guys, and a lot of them weren’t wearing Cavalier jackets. ‘How come?’ I asked him.

  ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the cops are looking for some of us, and it isn’t smart to advertise. If they don’t know we got a club, they can’t pin anything on us.’

  ‘What do they want to pin on you?’ I asked nervously.

  He waved his hand carelessly. ‘Oh, you know. Stuff.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’ I asked again.

  Puff turned on me, real mad. ‘Look, Julie. You gotta mind your own business, not ask personal questions till you’re in the club. You know!’

  I was so surprised, I wanted to walk away. But he’d been so nice to me, I decided not to.

  He left me off at my building, and said he’d see me the next night. He warned me to cut around Eagle turf. By this time I was smart enough to know what he meant.

  Next day I was in a complete fog. I mean, it was Saturday and I was supposed to clean the house. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about Puff, and the Cavaliers, and the new things that had suddenly come into my life. I forgot everything else, I guess. Moms came back from shopping and I was still lying around, eating an apple and thinking about the night before.

  Moms is pretty good about those things. ‘How come you didn’t clean up like I asked you, Julie?’ she said, putting down her packages.

  ‘Moms,’ I said slowly, ‘do you know anything about the Eagles?’ She looked at me with a puzzled expression for a minute, so I added, ‘You know, what they call the club! The Eagles Club.’

  ‘They hang out in the streets, don’t they, Julie?’ Moms asked me.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I answered. Moms had that look.

  ‘You aren’t hanging around with them boys, are you, Julie?’ She looked worried. So I gave her the answer she wanted.

  ‘No, Moms. I just heard some kids talking about them, and I was—well, you know—wondering like.’ I shrugged the whole thing off. But Moms wasn’t put down that easily.

  She came over where I was lying on the couch, and sat down next to me. ‘Julie,’ she said, ‘I know things haven’t been so hot, with Dad gone and you having to watch out for things while I work. I know you don’t have much fun. And you’re a good-looking gir
l—you should have more fun. But these are bad streets we live in, Julie. The kids are wild and they don’t know no respect for their elders. You got to promise me you won’t go near any of those roughnecks in the gangs.’

  ‘Sure, Moms,’ I said. I took her hand in mine, cause I knew she liked that. It made her think I was her little Julie-baby again.

  Then she smiled down at me, and patted me on the rump. ‘I’ll fix lunch,’ she said, getting up. She looked so tired, I couldn’t hardly bear it.

  ‘I’ll clean up now, Moms,’ I yelled to her as she went through the door to the kitchen.

  A couple minutes later, Moms called in to me while I was dusting the TV: ‘Where are you going tonight, Julie dear? You going out?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I answered.

  ‘Where you planning on going?’ she asked. I could tell she was still worried, so I answered, ‘Oh, there’s a dance down at the Y. Thought I’d fall over there and see who’s around.’

  She said, ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ and went back to her cooking.

  I hate lying to Moms like that—but she just doesn’t understand!

  When I showed up at the clubroom, Puff and the others were already there.

  The clubroom was a big apartment at the back of a bowling alley. It must’ve been an apartment house once, and they’d cut it up when they’d put in the bowling alley, because I had to go around the back, through the passage between buildings, to get into the apartment. The place was real big and classy looking. It was six rooms, all with high ceilings, and the kids had fixed it up so there was a living room like, and bedroom pads in case any of the kids had to sleep overnight. There was a kitchen, and a bar in the living room. The whole setup was the coolest!

  The place was dim with cigarette smoke, and I could see couples dancing close together in the dusk. I could also smell the sour-sweet odor of dope. That I didn’t like!

  Puff met me at the door and introduced me around. All the kids had nicknames like Cherry, Smooch, Clip, Froggo, and even one girl they called Hike. After I’d met all the kids, Puff took me aside.