Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

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. The silent word had passed down the neighborhood.

Not the entire gang; just ten of them, with Candle in the front. Many of Rusty’s old buddies were there—Fish, Clipper, Johnny 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, they saw Rusty as an enemy now. Two months 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 the running and hiding was no good. Start running, do it once, and it would never stop. And the days in fear would all be 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.

“Waddaya want?” Rusty snarled, straining against their hands.

Candle leaned across, folding his arms, and his face broke in 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, the night-before’s pain started anew, 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. Last night was a sample. 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’unnerstand?” 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 they 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 out, 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 talk to nobody about what goes on in the Cougars, and 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 ladies’ 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, not to spend the rest of his life in the army, not to end up as a useless bum on the street—because that was where most of these guys were going to close out their stories.

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. They had all rumbled together, all gotten records together, all screwed around and had fun together. But now, somehow, he was older than them.

And he wanted free.

Fish spoke for all of them. Softly, and with the first sincerity Rusty had ever 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, 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 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 of them.

“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 that the future might wind up in the gutter with him.

“When?” he asked.

“Tomorrow. In the morning, we’ll send someone after ya. At the dumps. Come heeled, man, ’cause I’m gonna split you to your groin.”