‘What you got to say to me you can say out at the dump after school, spic.’
‘Look, don’t make it rougher than now,’ Rusty cautioned him. ‘I wanna knock this off. I don’t feature the idea of a stand. I got enough trouble with the cops already. No sense my getting picked up and tossed in the farm.’
Candle reared back and laughed. Loud. His voice cut off all the chickie-chickie around the room, and everyone waited to find out what would happen. They knew Rusty was no chicken, they knew he had been rough as prez of the Cougars, and did not understand what had changed him.
But they also knew Candle was a rough stud, and it would be top kicks to see these two go at each other.
‘You don’t wanna stand, man? You don’t wanna come out and show all these kids you ain’t yellow?’ His grin grew wider as he grabbed a cardboard carton of milk, ripped open across the top. ‘That sits fine with me, man, but I still got a beef with you.
‘So,’ he said, lifting the carton, ‘if you wanna bow out, I’ll just settle my beef like this!’ and he threw the milk at Rusty.
They laughed. The crowd burst into sound, and Rusty stood there with milk running down over his face, soaking quickly through his shirt and running down to his pants.
Before he could restrain himself, he had lunged, and had his hands around Candle’s throat. The prez of the Cougars gave a violent gasp, and brought his own hands up in an inward swinging movement, breaking Rusty’s grip. Then he choked out, ‘Grab—grab him!’ and the side-boys had Rusty’s arms pinned.
Candle swung over the bench and stood up. His face was a violent blued mask of hate. ‘Now you read this, man. I’m not gonna work you over like I should now. Mostly cause I want to have more time at you, without nobody holding you back, yellow-belly. So you be out at the dump after school, and we’ll settle this down once and for all.’
Then he shoved Rusty in the stomach, not hard enough to knock the boy out, but hard enough to suck the energy from him. Then he and his side-men walked away quickly.
Rusty stood there for a full five minutes, listening to the cackles and catcalls ringing around him.
He could not move.
There was no way free. He would fight and he would win. He would carve that sluggy sonofabitch from gut to kisser and leave him for the dump rats to chew on.
The ringing of the sixth period bell brought him around abruptly, and he moved to his locker to get his books.
It was gonna be tough as banana peels.
Pancoast got to him just before school let out.
‘Rusty, I heard what happened yesterday. You going out there?’
Rusty shifted from foot to foot. What could he say to him? He knew if he went out there and fought, he was throwing it all away. But he couldn’t yank loose now if he wanted to, even though he knew it was the worst thing he could do.
‘I—I gotta, Mr Pancoast. I got into this, and if I don’t finish it once and for all, they won’t ever let me alone. One way or the other, I got to put a tail to this thing.’
Pancoast shook his head, grabbed the boy by the biceps. ‘Listen to me, Rusty. Listen to me now.
‘You’ve been doing real well. You’ve been growing with every day. You go out there and come down to their level, and you’ll be right back where you started three months ago when I fished you out of jail. Do you understand?’
‘I understand,’ Rusty said, not looking at him, ‘but it’s gotta be this way. Final.’
Pancoast dropped his grip. His voice got steely hard. ‘I’ll call the police, Rusty. I’ll come out there with them and stop it.’
Rusty looked up at the man, and a warm bond of friendship—and more—existed between them. He knew he might sever that bond with what he was about to say, but he had to say it nonetheless.
‘You come out there, or you call the fuzz, and I’ll cut you off even myself.’
Pancoast had been around the kids long enough. He knew that ‘cutting off even’ was tantamount to a threat of revenge.
He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with a nameless hurt. His hands moved aimlessly at his sides. Then he turned and walked away.
Rusty was alone.
So damned, finally, horribly alone.
He walked out of the school, knowing two Cougars followed him. He moved down the street, and when Fish pulled alongside in his heap, Rusty was not surprised.
‘Hey, man. They give me the word to bring you out. You know, like they told me.’ He was always alibiing, Rusty thought ruefully.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just a job like.’
‘So like get in, huh, man?’
Rusty got into the car, and Fish waited while Tiger and the Greek got in the back seat. No one said a word; the car pulled away from the curb, swung out into traffic heading uptown toward the dump.
Rusty was scared, and his mouth was dry.
At least the knife in his shoe felt reassuring.
But not much.
As they passed the burning piles of garbage and refuse, the sky darkened appreciably. It was still early, not quite four yet, but the day seemed blacker than any Rusty could remember.
Fish tooled the beat-up Plymouth along the bumpy road, avoiding chuck holes and pits in the packed dirt. ‘One of these days, dammit, I’m gonna crack a parts shop and get me enough cams and crap to juice up this buggy.’
Rusty didn’t answer. He had more important things to worry about.
If he chickened here, he would not only have to ward off the antagonism of the neighborhood for the rest of his days—that was minor compared to what else would happen. Dolo would have to live him down, and that could mean any number of things in the streets. She might have to get more deeply involved with the Cougie Cats and their illegal activities. He had gotten Dolores into the Cougie Cats at her own request, and even though she was his sister, or perhaps because of it, he would have to watch out for her as much as himself. She was in the gang for keeps; she liked it, liked the excitement of it. So he had to make sure her row wasn’t as hard as his own to hoe. If he had trouble, he had to make certain she didn’t get the stick side of it.
It surprised him, suddenly, that he should think of his sister. She meant a great deal to him, and yet he hardly gave her a thought; the gang had taken up too much of his time. But she figured in this big. He had to watch himself. And then his ma. She would be bugged in the street. His old man…
That crumbum wouldn’t have to worry, but if he was here, maybe he could have done something, maybe he could have helped. Rusty set those bitter thoughts aside. Pa Santoro was a wine-gut, and there was no help coming from that angle.
The heap pulled around a bend, and Rusty saw a dozen or so cars all drawn into a circle, their noses pointed into the center. The place was crawling with kids, and a great cheer went up as they saw him in the front seat.
Rusty’s belly constricted. He didn’t want to fight Candle; he didn’t want to fight anybody. He wanted to go home and lie down, put on some records and lay very very still. His belly ached.
Fish took off at top speed around the ring of cars, spraying dirt in a wide wedge as he rounded the circle on two wheels. It was all Rusty needed to finish the nerve-job on him. He leaned against the right side of the car, and puked so hard he thought the tendons in his neck would split.
Fish was spinning the wheel as Rusty came up with it, and his eyes bugged. ‘Hey, man! What the hell ya doin’?’
He slammed his foot on to the brake pedal and the Plymouth ground to a skittering halt, the tires biting deep into the dirt of the dump grounds and spinning wildly.
The car stalled, and Fish was out, around the other side and opening the door in an instant. He grabbed Rusty by the collar of the boy’s jacket, and hauled him bodily from the car.
The kids were running over from the circle, violence lighting up their faces. What was happening there? This was a real kick!
Fish pulled Rusty down and the Puerto Rican boy fell to his knees in the dirt, Fish still clinging to his j
acket. He began dry-vomiting, hacking in choking spasms.
Finally he slapped Fish’s hand away, and laid his palms flat on the ground, tried to push himself up; it took three cockeyed pushes till he was standing unsteadily. Everything was fuzzy around the edges and he could only vaguely hear the jeers coming from the crowd.
‘Man, what a punk he turned into!’
‘Chicken all the way. No guts.’
‘Candle’s gonna slice you up good, wait an’ see.’
Every face was one face; every body was a gigantic many-legged body. He was swaying, and he felt a hand shoved into his back, and, ‘Stand up, fer chrissakes!’
His throat chugged and he thought for an instant he was going to bring up what little of his lunch was left lying uneasily in his stomach. But it passed as he gulped deeply, and he began to get a clear picture of what was around him.
He saw all the faces. Poop and Boy-o, Margie, Connie, Cherry, Fish beside him looking angry and worried at the same time, Shamey, the Beast, Greek, Candle with his eyes bright and daring, and—he stopped thinking for a moment, when he saw her.
Weezee. She was here too. Who had brought her?
He started forward in her direction, but Candle moved in and stopped him. ‘She came with me. I brought her. Any complaints?’
Before he could answer, Weezee started to say something. ‘I couldn’t help it, Rusty. He saw me—’
‘Shaddup!’ Candle snapped over his shoulder. He turned back to Rusty. ‘You got any beefs, you can settle ’em the knife way.’
The sickness and the fear had passed abruptly. Rusty was quite cold and detached now. If it was a stand Candle wanted, all the rest of these sluggy bastards wanted, then that was what they’d get. Right now.
‘Who’s got the hankie?’ he yelled.
Magically, a handkerchief fluttered down on to the ground between the two boys. Neither touched it. Candle’s arm moved idly in his sleeve, and the switchblade dropped into his hand. Even as he pressed the stud and the bright blade flicked up, Rusty was bending sharply, and he came erect with his own weapon in his fist, already open.
They faced each other across the white handkerchief, and then Candle watched stonily as Rusty bent down and picked it up. From the crowd cries of ‘Get him! Sling him!’ and, once in a while, ‘Go, go, go, chickie-man!’ rang out.
Rusty shook out the hankie and put one corner in his mouth, wadding it slightly behind his clenched teeth. He extended the opposite corner to Candle delicately, and when Candle took it, his eyes were sharp on Rusty’s own.
Caution: when you knife fight, don’t bother watching the knife as much as the other guy’s eyes. They tell when he’s gonna strike.
Candle knew it, and took the hankie in his mouth with care. He maneuvered his tongue and teeth a bit till the cloth was settled properly. They were separated across a two foot restraining line of taut cloth, their backs arched, their bodies curved to put them as far away at swinging level as possible.
Then they circled.
Keeping the knife tight in the fist, keeping the hankie tight in their mouths, they stirred the dust with their heavy stomping shoes as they walked around each other.
Then Rusty swung.
He came out with the blade from the right, swinging hard and flat-stepping in. Candle jumped back, sucking in his belly just as the knife zipped past. Rusty sliced nothing but air. Then he was off-balance, and Candle jumped, bringing the blade up from underneath in a splitting swing. Rusty careened sidewise, dragging Candle with him, and the knife lanced past the Puerto Rican’s right shoulder.
Circling again, circling carefully as Candle bit down harder on the hankie, and Rusty made a fist with his free hand. They moved around each other slowly, like two tigers smelling each other’s spoor.
Every few seconds one would make a sharp, starting movement, and the other would leap back, dragging the other with him. They were feeling each other out.
Suddenly Candle cut sidewise, let the hankie loosen and sag in the middle, and he was in close. One arm snaked around Rusty’s shoulder, and his knife arm came back for the kill.
Rusty screamed loudly through the hankie, and twisted hard, throwing his hip into Candle. The stout boy was rocked by the blow, and fell back. Then Rusty was on him.
The knife came up once…
…and down once.
And Candle was through fighting.
Rusty stood looking down at the boy. The blood had begun to stain the ground around him, and a fine trickle emerged from the Mongoloid mouth. Candle died as he watched, with a sucking gasp and open, staring eyes.
There it was. All laid out cold and empty. There it was, and Rusty knew he was trapped again. Knew he was boxed in and nailed shut again. He had almost been free, but now the truth of it all came to him.
There was no freedom in these deadly streets. The kids of the gutter gang were never really free. There was always a claim, a tag, a rescinding order that canceled their freedom.
From close by he heard the wail of police sirens. Had Pancoast called them, or had a passer-by seen the kids and phoned in? Maybe a million answers, but none of them mattered. He was caught, and there was only one way out.
With a leaden heart he said, ‘Listen, listen to me.’ The Cougars and the Cougie Cats looked at him with renewed respect as he buried the knife in a pile of garbage where it could not be found.
‘I’m prez of the Cougars again, see. An’ nobody, but nobody, talks about this. We just found him out here. The gang that did it ran away. Got that?
‘Listen to me and we’ll be okay. We’ll get away free.’
They nodded. It would be all right; but was it all right? They would not go to jail—at least not now—but the deadly streets had called them back once more.
They knew inside them what it meant.
The gutters had claimed their own.
Only a few months after you read this book, a novel on which I worked for a year will be released by another publishing house. It is a sociological novel, a study of a rock ’n’ roll singer and the sickness of our times that allows us to foster such hollow idols; it is a book about the diseases endemic to the successful, and about the responsibilities of success. In several ways this book, Rockabilly, ties in with my stories of juvenile delinquency, because it is another manifestation of the unhappiness, misdirection and unrest of our youth. The rock ’n’ roll set is the spastic set, the epileptics with a beat. And if you don’t feel you can wait the three months till the novel comes out, here is a short story that partially inspired the longer, more penetrating work. This is about the hero of the novel, the way I saw him initially, before I decided to probe him in depth. This is how I see him as a type in his…
MATINEE IDYLL
The morals of an alley cat, the appearance of a weasel, I thought unhappily, staring from the wings at my meal ticket.
Out on the stage, with the big yellow spot washing him, as though it might wash off some of the filth, my meal ticket grated out the song that had that afternoon passed the million sale mark.
Behind me, the half-dozen girls I’d combed out of the Palace’s audience were making the usual orgiastic noises in my ear, and when I thought of what their fate was to be, I wanted to shove a gag in their mouths, and push them back out the stage entrance. Telling them to run like hell.
Out on the stage, my meal ticket hunkered over his electric guitar, closed his eyes in an ecstacy of sexy emotion (that came from the head, not the heart), and whanged away at the ending to that gold record hit.
The applause was murder.
The way it had been for thirteen days at the Palace already. I wanted to puke.
Stag Preston turned away from doing his humble bows at the adoring masses who were studiedly going out of their skulls, and looked squarely at me. Like always, I shivered a little when those brooding, dark, sinkhole eyes hit me. He inclined an eyebrow. Had I done my job?
I nodded, made a circle with thumb and forefinger, then broke the circle and jerke
d the thumb over my shoulder. He kept looking, and I held up six fingers. A half-lazy smile broke out on his wide, full lips, and he turned back to the sea of applause and screams.
The morals of an alley cat. A dirty alley cat.
Neal Castro, I said to myself, with characteristic candor, you are a sleazy sonofabitch. There are names for guys like you, and not all of them are press agent. Most of them are pimp.
Out on the stage, Stag Preston, idol of the teenagers, launched himself into his previous gold-record sock, Warm Baby. It was indistinguishable from Light A Fire, but it was a faster tempo, and the screams came in waves closer together.
Good God…
How did a worthless creep like Stag Preston get where he is? How did he get in a position to screw up so many lives, and make so much money?
I didn’t really ask myself, because hell, I knew the answer. The Colonel had helped—had actually created Stag from Georgia clay and hillbilly twanging—but there’d been more, much more. There had been a milion teenage kids who were bored with decent singers like Bing and Perry, who had wanted their libidos juiced a little, and their precociousness recognized.
There had been all that, and then there had been me.
Yeah, I had been in it from the start. I had helped create the Frankincense monster that stood hip-shaking and grinding out there.
Man, I wanted a drink so bad. So damned bad.
Because it was quickie day for Stag Preston.
And my thirty pieces of silver came by check.
The town of Atlas, Georgia, had been famous for only two things, before Stag Preston. The first had been that it had more tattoo parlors per square block than any other city of comparable size in America, and the second had been that it could fleece more soldiers faster, per square block, than any other city in America, size notwithstanding.
Then one August afternoon Colonel Frank Tully had gone through the town, and stopped for a bite to eat at a variously-named boite then titled The Bird N’ Feather Club. Stag Preston had been doing double service there at the time, alternating between busboy and bandstand crooner. He had been hand-shoveling the cornfed rhythms of the South and the hills to the B-girls and servicemen who had patronized the joint, and something—something—in that eighteen-year-old voice had caught the Colonel’s attention.
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