Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

He thought of the set. The coin slot for quarters and the guy who came and emptied the receptacle once a week. Crummy, like everything else they’d ever bought. On time. A quarter in the slot and a million years to pay off. All the yuks ya want for one thin two-bit piece. Shit!

Rusty shook his head. “I don’t feature that stuff, Ma. You know that. All that crap with Gleason or some other guy that ain’t funny. I’d rather go out, check in some air.”

She said incongruously, “Can’t you talk natural? You all the time gotta use those crazy words?”

He was honestly confused. “Whaddaya mean?”

“Oh, you talkin’ like them kids in the street all the time. You never talk natural, or cultured, like the people on television.”

It was too much. Just too goddamned much! He threw the dish towel onto the scrubbed wooden table, and stormed to the door. “Goddamnit! I talk natural as everybody else! Can’cha stop beatin’ on my ears for once? Just for once?”

He stumped through the apartment, dragged a half-empty package of cigarettes off the top of the television set, then slammed a fist against the blank-faced machine. He shrugged into his leather jacket halfway through the door, yelled, “Damn it!” as loud as he could, and slammed the door. The sound of his feet descending the stairs was a sharp tattoo in the dim halls.

Rusty’s mother listened carefully, tensed with her stomach tight to the sink, and the wham of the slamming door downstairs brought her head around with a snap. He was gone, like a thousand other nights, he was gone.

She never knew if he would return.

The street was noisy as usual. The cabs tooled along with gnashing gears. The steady squares were out on the door-stoops with their fat wives, their cans of beer, their stupid expressions. Man, he couldn’t stand them. All the time just roosting on their butts, never getting a cool time, just gathering dust in the world.

He beat for Tom-Tom’s.

It wasn’t still there. The Cougars were in, full force. He took a fast look through the glass doors to spot Candle, before he entered. But Candle was not there.

He shoved in, and the gang stopped their noise for a moment, awkwardly, before the rumpus started in again. Three couples were doing the fish, close together on the aisle between the booths. The juke was going loud—one of the boys must have turned it up, over Tom-Tom’s fat objections—and Rusty identified a rhythm and blues number he was fond of. There were at least twenty kids in the malt shop. Lockup and his broad, Margie. Tiger, Greek, Shamey and that broad with a million miles on her, Caroline. He saw the Beast slouched way back in a booth, beating time with his massive hairy hands, his drooling face swinging back and forth.

Rusty edged down the counter, and came over as Fish beckoned to him from a booth.

“How goes it, man?” Fish asked.

Rusty slid in beside him, spread his hands to indicate so-so. “Where’s the apple?” Rusty asked, meaning Candle.

“Out. Went off in Joy’s heap with her. He’ll be out for the rest of the evening. She just came off the rag and Candle ain’t gonna waste no time.”

Rusty nodded understanding.

“You seen my drag?”

Fish shook his head. Weezee had not been around all night. “I think she’s scared out, man.”

Rusty agreed. “She’s okay. I don’t blame her.”

Fish shrugged. He couldn’t care less.

The number ended, and the couples slunk off the floor, the girls clinging to their partners. Rusty felt alone, as usual. It was strange how these kids who had been his best friends, almost his whole universe, a few months before, were now nothing to him.

Fish was speaking, jerking Rusty back to where he was. “What you gonna do about tomorrow, man?”

“Whattaya mean?”

Fish arched his eyebrows. Rusty was playing it maybe too cool. “What about the stand with Candle?”

“Whattaya think? I’m gonna be there.”

“He’ll eat ya up, man. That’s a rough apple, that Candle. You see him in that rumble with the Cherokees, couple months ago?”

Rusty shook his head. “What?”

Fish tensed his puffy fish-like lips. “Uhuh! He got one of them studs down on the ground and stomped the boy’s head in with his one foot, man. Made me puke to see it. Took away that Cherokee’s eye on the left, I think.”

Rusty dragged out a cigarette, lit it by snapping his thumb against the head of a kitchen match. It flamed abruptly, casting a bloody shadow over his face. “He don’t fear me none, Fish. I don’t wanna fight to begin with, but I don’t back off for no man, specially not that punky.”

Fish shrugged. It wasn’t his problem, but Rusty had been a good friend, and Candle was now Prez of the Cougars. It was smartest to stay out of it.

Caroline showed then.

She came around the edge of the booth and her huge, pointed breasts aimed over his head. She was a worked-out trick, with bags under her eyes, and there wasn’t a stud in the club who hadn’t sampled her offerings.

“Wanna dance, Rusty?” she said. Her voice was a nasal bang, and it grated on him. He thought of Weezee and her smooth, clean face, and the sight of this girl ate on him.

“No.”

The juke started up then. A mover named “Blueberry Hill,” Fats Domino singing, and she began hip-switching, moving her plushy, soft body in a suggestive rhythm. “Aw, come on, Rust. Let’s go. Dance with me.”

“I said no! Like move out, or I’ll chop you out. Go!”

She said something nasty under her breath and slid away from him. In a minute she had another boy in her grip, and they stepped out smartly to the song. She pressed her fleshy breasts against the boy at every close-in, and he didn’t pull away.

Rusty was sick to his belly. All this, every night, night in and night out. It was all a waste. It was a loser from the top.

He started to leave.

Fish stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Where you off to?”

“Nowhere, just out.”

“You wanna get a little up tonight? I hear Boy-O got a little good-cut on him. Sound interesting?”

Rusty didn’t particularly want to get high on pot or Horse tonight, but if he went home, all he’d get would be the beat-ears treatment from Ma and that goddamned TV. He slid back into the booth, plopped down heavily.

“Talk to the man. See if it’s top stuff or just crap. All I got on me tonight’s round money, man, so if he wants the moon for it, no go.” He drew forth a handful of coins, jiggled them meaningfully. Among the coins was a souvenir Spanish silver dollar his mother had given him. He put it inside his wallet as Fish watched.

“I’ll talk to him,” and Fish stood up.

Rusty watched him walk toward Boy-O. They were so different, those two. Fish was slim, dressed sharp, had a quick wit and an innate fighting man’s senses. He was murder with a gloveful of quarters—he had seen Fish bring down a mark with one swing of the glove many times—and yet he had long, slim fingers, excellent for picking locks on candy stores, or working in clay. They had been in the same fine arts class at Pulaski last semester, and Rusty had been amazed at how talented Fish was, working with clay.

Boy-O was something else.

He dressed like a wharf-rat, with a stink on him that came from alleys and taking his fun under bushes in Prospect Park. His face was a puffy thing, all slides and fattiness, without a real expression ever pausing on it for very long. His eyes were junkie eyes, and he shook like a tree in a storm when he couldn’t knock off a stick or two for a few days. He had a record longer than Seventh Avenue, in and out of Lexington Narcotics Farm for the treatment. He was more yo-yo than human being. His arms were cheeseclothed with needle holes. But he was the pusher in this turf, and if you wanted a fast sky-trip, Boy-O was the one to see.