Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

“Is it true? She was—she was—I mean, like he said?”

Then she turned and the blank oval spaces that should have been her eyes grayed out at him and her mouth moved like a pencil line that had somehow been endowed with life. “Raped,” she said and twisted the word once. “She was on her face, in a dirty alley with a garbage can tipped over on her, to hide her. Empty ice-cream containers was dripped all over her, I don’t know. She was. There. I saw her face. She was wet. It rained last night. I don’t know. Her blouse was black where he did it with the thing, with I guess he did it with a knife, it was black…”

Her words were confused, the agony ramblings of a woman in shock. Rusty listened, knowing he should remember all this. This was the death of his sister and perhaps the death of his mother. But it all went by rapidly and he saw her only as hysterical. He had to stop her talking that way.

“Mom! Stop it, you gotta stop it, please, stop it!”

But she went on, talking more to herself than to him. “I went there. I don’t know why they let her lay there like that. Why was that? I don’t know. There was a policeman who said, ‘Look there lady and tell us if that’s your daughter,’ so I looked. I thought you had to go downtown to that there, I don’t know, what do they call it? Why was I called down to the street? Why was she there in the… the… there? Why was she killed?”

Her hands had twined soundlessly together. Two lost things searching for peace. Her face had turned half away, and the wall received her words. Rusty could not move to her, could do nothing, for a long century of pain in his chest. Then he walked slowly and put his arms around her.

She seemed to melt, then, and she was a child who had lost a dear loved thing. She did not cry, because that would have been easy, that would have been a release. She was numb and trembled under dry, wracking shakes that were a product of disbelief, of confusion, of searching. Rusty realized how much he needed his mother, how much she needed him, and he lay her head on his chest, said to her softly, “Mom, Mom, please. It’s okay, you’ll see, it’ll be okay, we’ll be all right, just take it easy, Mom; and it’ll be okay.” He said it again and again, in endless strings of words that started nowhere, ended nowhere, and soothed himself alone. He knew they did not reach her, but he said them more and more, hoping.

“Do, do you remember, she was ten then, just ten, and she come home, said the other kids wouldn’t play with her ’cause she was Puerto Rican and slammed the screen door on her knee. You remember, just ten, and she cried, god how she cried, and I wanted to tell her it don’t matter honey, ’cause you’re good too and prettier than any of them whites…You remember that?”

Rusty remembered. He remembered all the stupid people who had hated the Santoro family, the trouble they had had getting squared away in the new neighborhood, the way Pops had done them so low with his drinking and all, and the way Dolores had grown beautiful and ripe like a flower, just the same. A spot of pretty in the gray of the streets.

Moms stiffened in his embrace and suddenly she shoved against him, threw him back with hatred. Her face was transformed. It was like a scream in the night. Bright red flash in the gray. He felt attacked, he countered with fright. Why that expression?

Her eyes were livid pits of slag and her mouth was a raw, wounded gash that opened and snapped closed with hatred and vehemence. “You! You did it! You made her join that gang. You killed her. Like the knife was yours, you killed her. You’re the one. Oh, god!” She tore at her breasts, at her belly, screaming, her hair wild and streaming. “Oh, god! I gave birth to you, you filth. You scum, you bastard son of mine! Oh, god, I wish you’d died in my womb, died, god, died! If you’d never touched her with your filth—if you’d never touched her she’d be alive now, she’d be alive!”

Rusty could not speak. What could he say? Was she hysterical or was it the truth? Was he to blame, indirectly?

“I wish you was dead, dead and in the grave and buried under six feet, and she was here, and God I’d make it up to her, I’d treat her fine and damn her father for his wild ways…

“But it was you, you that killed her as sure as if you put that knife in her breast! Get out, get out of my house. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you sleeping in the same house where she slept or ate off the table—or —get out! Get out!”

Her face was livid, her hands claws that tore at the air. She came toward him haltingly, with that loathing burning in her face. Her hands moved out for him and Rusty was frightened at the abrupt change the space of a minute had brought. Her mouth opened and no words came this time, but a spatter of drool oozed from one corner of her thin gray lips. No words came out, though the fire burned high and bright in her cheeks, but Rusty knew what was being said.

You killed your sister. You did it. You’re responsible.

Rusty stared unmoving as his mother came toward him and suddenly she lashed out with both hands doubled. Her fists thundered against his face and he felt pain that rocked his head. All her fury went into those blows, as she mumbled over and over, “ You! You made ’er join that gang! If you’d of left her alone, she’d be alive! You did it to her! Murderer! Murderer murderer murderer…”

Rusty turned and fled.

The street was filled with Sunday crowds of housewives, slobbering dogs, sweating trucks. There was a steady beat in the streets and sidewalks—the sort of beat that makes you fall asleep over tiresome desk jobs; the kind of beat that makes the loners in the pool hall toss down their cues, gather up their winnings and slump against the Coke machine. The sort of beat that makes the old men lounging on the stoops in front of the buildings think they’re catching a tan. The sort of beat that brought euphoria to Rusty. He walked aimlessly.

He remembered having seen Pancoast sometime that afternoon. He remembered having seen Pops, too, but that was a memory he wanted to slip away and he did not dwell on it.

Pancoast had been annoyed at him. Sullenly annoyed, and he had not come right out and called Rusty a turncoat. The boy remembered the red-haired teacher, the way he had sat in the modern contour chair—an inexpensive replica of a Paul McCobb original—and sucked on the dry, split end of a metal-stemmed pipe. He remembered the dark gray eyes as they turned up to him and the worry lines about the man’s mouth and eyes.

The voices that had been there came back as they had been; strong, clear and filled with hidden emotions.

“You let me down, Rusty.” It was a statement.

“No.”

“What were you doing there if you weren’t waiting for the rumble?”

“My sister… I was… was looking for her.”

“I know. I heard a while ago over the radio. It made the papers.”

Rusty knew the conversation had gone on from there, with his position strengthening and the teacher’s calm trust flowing back. He had been glad about that. It had helped him a little and for a few minutes he saw a clearing in the fog. But the teacher had been a shadow, really, and the recurring image of Dolores, so small and pretty, kept returning to eat at his mind. He had assured Pancoast nothing more would happen, and had left, with the teacher making a gun of thumb and forefinger, aiming it and saying heavily, “Be good, son. They’ll find the bastard.”

Rusty had left and walked some more and the afternoon had softened into evening without notice. He recalled seeing Pops, slouching in a doorway, a bottle empty beside him. His eyes wandered away quickly. His steps carried him to the opposite side of the street, for fear the old man would see him, and in a few moments he had passed the spot.