Children of the Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  ‘Hey, hold on a minute, will ya?’ he asked. ‘If you ain’t got no place better to sit, I’d like to talk to you.’

  His spear-cane—he’d leaned it against the edge of the table—started sliding, and I caught it and straightened it. Somehow, that committed me, so I sat down. He must have felt me sitting down beside him, because he said, ‘Wouldja mind sittin’ opposite me?’

  I didn’t figure it, but I got up and moved to the other side of the big rough-hewn table. I sat down and pulled my tray across to me. Another guy came by then and dropped two pieces of day-old bread donated by some bakery on our trays.

  The big guy didn’t say anything, so I ripped the center out of one of the pieces of bread and dunked it real good in the soup. When I’d swallowed a mouthful of it, I spent the time trying to forget what it’d tasted like by saying, ‘My name’s Piddy Sandoz. What’s yours?’

  The big guy stopped spooning the soup into his long mouth and said, ‘Ben. Glad t’meet ya.’

  Then he took another spoonful, got it halfway to his kisser and added, ‘Thanks for helpin’ me. I’m not as good a crip as most blindees. I never learned to handle myself too good, and it’s been five years.’

  I didn’t much care to spend that lousy mealtime hearing some guy moan about his infirmities, but I said, real sympathetic like, ‘Well, you know how it is…’ Which was a pretty nothin’ thing to say actually.

  ‘I guess it was because I was so used t’handling myself with my eyes—before,’ he said, looking at the soup and not seeing it. ‘When you gotta rely on your sight to fight real good, it’s tough after—’

  Then it damn near bombed me, where I’d seen this big gook before. I remembered the wide face with its long mouth, the mop of jet-black hair falling over the forehead, and the big mitts. He used to be a fighter. I never forgot a face I seen once, and his was a face it was hard to forget. He’d been pretty big stuff five years or so ago. I sat there and his name popped right out on my mouth.

  ‘Kid Walders,’ I said, too loud. ‘Kid Walders, and you were good.’

  His head came up like a lion at a watering hole that’s just heard the smash of underbrush. ‘How’d you know me?’ he asked, and there was a fine wire in his voice.

  I had to tell him, ‘Take it easy, man. I never forget a face. One of the curses I carry.’ He continued to stare sightlessly at just past my right ear for a minute, then went back to his soup.

  We didn’t say anything to each other till we were both finished, and he said, ‘You got a cigarette?’

  I shook my head, then realized he couldn’t hear a shake. ‘No.’ He reached into a side pocket of his dirty tweed jacket and pulled out a couple of butts. ‘Best I can do, but you’re welcome.’ He had a kitchen match in the hand too, and I took a butt, the match, and lit up. I held the flame for him and said, ‘Puff.’ He got his going and we sat there silently. I knew the joker had something to say, otherwise why would he have made like a friendly with me?

  Finally he ventured, ‘How’d you like to make some money?’

  I answered real quick. ‘How much, and what kind of a fall can I take for making it?’

  ‘Strictly legit,’ he answered. ‘It won’t be much, only five bucks, ’cause that’s all I got, but I’ll give you half now and half when you’re finished. It shouldn’t take too long, ‘cause I know where to look now. I been away four years and eight months, gettin’ well, and it took me almost four months to find out where to look, but now, with a pair of eyes—your eyes—it won’t be no trouble.’

  I tell ya, I didn’t know what the crazy coot was talking about.

  ‘What’s the job?’ I asked.

  ‘I want you to help me find a guy,’ he said. ‘I’ll give ya half now and half when we find ’im.’

  ‘You don’t want him knocked off or beat up or nothin’, right? You just want to find him, right?’ I wanted to make sure I wasn’t gettin’ into nothing I couldn’t handle. I’ve already fallen twice, both for breaking and entering, and an assault-and-battery would put me away for too long. For five bucks I couldn’t risk it.

  ‘Hell, no,’ he assured me. ‘I just wanna find him. It’s my old manager, the guy who got me into the fight game. I been back almost four months now, and I wanted to look him up. He—uh—he owes me some dough from my last fight before I got—before I got sick.’ The way he said sick I knew he meant blind.

  ‘Well, I guess so,’ I said finally. ‘You got the two-and-a-half on ya?’

  He whipped out a finiff and said, ‘We’ll get change, and I’ll pay ya—’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I interrupted, ‘half now and half when we find this guy. Okay, let’s go.’

  So we got up and I came around the table and he took my arm again, hanging on to that metal spear-cane like it was a hotel-room key. ‘That was a lousy meal,’ he said, as we climbed the stairs to the outside.

  I opened the door from the soup kitchen to the street and let him go out ahead of me, adding, ‘It was a lousier sermon.’

  He didn’t say nothing to that, but I knew he agreed. I mean, what kind of a lecture is that to give us: ‘How to Keep Your Soul Pure in Poverty.’

  Ben Walders ex-manager’s name was Primo.

  I asked him if that was first or last, but he just shook his head like I’d asked him the riddle of the universe. I asked him if he’d ever heard another name, but he snapped no at me so hard I decided for five bucks I didn’t need the aggravation.

  We were in the Seventh Avenue-Broadway subway, sitting on the hard-bottomed seats, waiting. I didn’t know what we were waiting for. I’d taken him to the subway, and when I’d asked him what was what, he’d gotten huffy and told me to shut up till he needed me. I was willing; that’s part of my trouble—laziness.

  We were passing the 116th Street Station when I heard the sound very faintly under the damned-soul shrieking of the train. It sounded like a sax. I looked down the car to the left, and sure as God made the state of Florida, here comes an old blind guy tootling a sax, this tin cup hooked on his belt.

  ‘Is that a blind man with a saxaphone?’ Ben Walders asked me, leaning in close to my ear. I answered that it was, and he told me to get the guy down between us.

  I thought it was pretty Kookie, but when the old man came blowing past, I reached up and touched the blue serge of his arm. ‘Uh, hey, man,’ I said, ‘can we bother you for a minute? I got a blind friend here, wants to talk to you.’

  As far as I was concerned, if someone had stopped me while I was trying to con the coins from the marks, I’d’ve crowned him, but the old guy just murmured something I lost under the wild-animal howl of the train in the tunnel. But he took my hand, and I scooted over and he sat down between us.

  I leaned in close, and Ben Walders took the old man’s head between his hands and felt his features. When he got to the old guy’s nose, which was broken like it’d been stomped by a herd of buffalo, he said: ‘Funny?’ and the old guy said, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me, Funny. Kid Walders.’

  The old man damned near dropped his sax grabbing for the big guy’s shoulder. ‘Benny. Benny Walders,’ and he started to cry. It was really gut-pulling to see those two sightless men sitting there—one holding the other’s shoulder, and the first one with the other’s head in his hands. And both of them crying. Finally, when I thought everybody in the car would bust a gut staring, they started talking real fast and low to one another. The damned train was making so much noise I couldn’t hear them, but after a few minutes they sort of patted each other on the back, and the old guy got up and went on his way, blowing up a storm.

  ‘What the hell was that all about?’ I asked.

  ‘We get off at the next station, and take the train back downtown,’ was all he’d say. I shrugged.

  But when we were on the downtown platform later, I figured it was about time the big guy told me a few things.

  ‘Who was the horn-tooter?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he tried to put m
e off.

  ‘So long,’ I said and walked away.

  He yelled after me. ‘Hey, c’mere! I’ll talk to you.’

  I came back, and he took my arm firmly. He was using the spear from the picket fence less and less now, depending on me more and more. ‘Who was he?’ I asked.

  ‘He isn’t anybody any more,’ Kid Walders said somberly. ‘He used to be my trainer. We called him Funny. That nose. He used to be my friend. He had a line for me where I could find Primo. A guy told me if I wanted to find Primo I had to find Funny. The guy said Funny always kept close run on Primo, for old time’s sake. You know.’

  I said I knew, and we were both satisfied.

  ‘Now where?’ I asked.

  ‘Funny said Primo’s out of the fight game now. He’s got an interest in some little night club downtown, and he might be there. Fourteenth Street.’

  So we got another subway train and took it down to Fourteenth. When we got there I steered him out on to the platform and he said, ‘Now we got to take the local to Fourth.’ I cursed under my breath, ’cause for five bucks this was a helluva lot of trouble.

  When we got to Fourth he gave me the directions the guy named Funny had given him, and I knew why he’d needed a down-on-it bum like me to take him around. It had taken him almost four months since he’d gotten back from wherever it was he’d gone to get well just to get the word on Funny. He was getting impatient to find his ex-manager, and he didn’t want to spend another four months just finding the guy. I supposed it was to get that money, because Kid Walders looked in worse shape than me, almost.

  ‘You an’ this Primo musta been good friends, huh?’ I asked. He spun on me and his voice was like a piece of silk tearing.

  ‘I hate him. I wanna kill the bastard!’

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  ‘Who d’ya think got me these?’ and his clawed hands went to his blind eyes. ‘I wasn’t so bad—not good, but not too bad either—when he got hold of me. I coulda come along slow and maybe been a contender today. But no, he was hungry, too hungry.’

  He stopped talking, and the fires that were banked in him came out as flame spots in his high cheeks. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘Not me, fella,’ I said, starting to edge away. ‘I don’t want no trouble. This could be an assault-and-battery. With my record—’

  He grabbed me by the throat. Don’t ask me how that blind sonofabitch knew where my throat was, but he had me by it, and little Roman candles went ka-pop in my skull and I heard Basic all brass and boom in my ears. ‘I need eyes, you little—,’ he cursed, using a word I hesitate to repeat. ‘And you’re taking me to him.’

  I didn’t want to argue with him. I figured I could easily slip away when he let loose of me. But he didn’t. He hung on to the back of me and made me take him down the dozens of twisting, narrow streets Funny had told him about; streets that would lead us to the night club Primo had bought an interest in.

  Finally, I saw a little wink of red neon and when we got close enough it said THE PLAYPEN.

  ‘This is it,’ I said. ‘How’s about you slippin’ me my two-and-a-half and I’ll cut out. I don’t want any trouble with the fuzz.’

  He dragged me forward, though he didn’t know where the hell he was going, and to protect my nose from getting to look the way Funny’s nose had looked, I steered him down the steps into the black hole that was The Playpen.

  I was about as blind as him, then. They believed in saving on electric bills, I suppose.

  Once inside, almost immediately we were jumped by a guy with his hair slicked down so it shined. I figured he must use petroleum jelly or goose grease or something, and it was parted 1920’s-style right in the center. He was wearing a white tie and tails and I supposed he was the maître d’ but I didn’t want to say anything.

  He looked at us like we’d just bathed in a pigsty. In all truth, I gotta admit he had reason to draw that kind of a conclusion. As a matter of fact, I’d spent the past three nights in the doorway of a pottery shop off the Bowery, with pages of The New York Times inside my jacket to keep me warm. And the Kid looked a couple notches worse.

  ‘What do you men want?’ he asked.

  It was like God asking if you had your passport to get through the Gates. I didn’t say a word.

  Like a snake striking, the Kid jammed out a fist and caught the guy right around the collar with that other meaty paw. He had an uncanny gift for grabbing throats, when you come right down to it.

  ‘Where’s Primo?’ he demanded.

  The maître d’ couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to, with those big five tangled across his larynx.

  ‘You’re blockin’ his wind, Kid,’ I advised Walders. He eased up and the maître d’s eyes went back to rest in their sockets. They looked very beat.

  ‘Where’s Primo?’ he asked again, this time even nastier.

  The guy talked real fast, then. The joint was very uncrowded, and I felt sure he felt sure the Kid would throttle him then and there if he didn’t hand over some fast information.

  ‘He’s over at the rehearsal hall, picking girls for the line.’

  ‘Where’s the rehearsal hall?’ the Kid demanded, his fingers going white on the maître d’s throat—and so help me God, I’ve never seen a man who had so much death running out of his pores. The maître d’ looked like he was going to drop from a heart attack or melt or scream or something, but he answered, ‘It’s across the street, down three buildings. The big brownstone. There’s a sign on the—’

  ‘What floor?’ the Kid screamed at him.

  I noticed the bartender—who had maybe been in back because I hadn’t seen him till now—reaching down under the counter for something. I was frankly dropping my load; I could see the packet on me now: Piddy Sandoz, alias Roger Sanders, alias George Samuels, alias—

  And all fattened up with an assault-and-battery fall.

  ‘Second floor,’ the maître d’ said, and the Kid let loose of him just long enough to wind up and clip him squarely on the jaw. The greaseball staggered backward about eight feet and went over a table and four chairs. They all went into a pile in the middle of the narrow corridor that was the night club, stopping the bartender’s advance, and the Kid rasped in my ear, ‘Get me out of here!’ I was ready, believe me!

  I dragged him out of there, and we made it across the street, down three, in no time at all.

  ‘Second floor,’ he said, holding his spear-cane away from himself, holding me away with the other hand. ‘Quick!’ he added urgently. I wanted to crawl away somewhere.

  But I led him up the steps, and opened the glass-paneled door for him. A big sign said COLLINS DANCE STUDIO AND REHEARSAL HALL—2ND FLOOR so I maneuvered him around the banister and up the foul-smelling steps.

  From above us I could hear music and the building shook from someone dancing real hard.

  There was only one door open, with light coming out, and he hustled me toward it, almost as though he could see—though I knew it was the music that was drawing him.

  ‘Four months, four months,’ he kept mumbling, and his steps quickened. I had the impression that he’d have rather said five years than four months, but he said what he said in droning tones, and I was yanked with him helplessly. I—and this will knock you down, because it confused me—felt sorry for the big, muscle-bound blind bastard. He was only gonna get in trouble, I knew.

  We came through the door like a steam loco and its caboose, and the girls stopped dancing. There were maybe ten or twelve of them, all a little on the faded or beefy side, but they looked good in tights and jerseys. They stopped kicking up in the air, and the guy who was sitting backwards on a chair, staring at them, turned around.

  He was even greasier looking than the maître d’, and he went but sheety when he saw the Kid.

  It was night outside now, and the few feeble lights in the rehearsal hall’s ceiling cast weird shadows over all of us.

  ‘Benny…’ The guy strangled on the word.

  Primo!
’ Kid Walders shouted, and charged across on a dead line for him. Primo stood up just as the Kid caught him with his body. The Kid’s arms went past Primo, but they retracted and were around his throat in a second. The girls screamed and cowered against the wall. I wanted to run—I knew I should run—but I was rooted there as much as if someone had nailed my shoes to the floorboards.

  ‘Blind! I’m blind, Primo! Can you see, I’m blind!’ the Kid was screaming, backing Primo up. ‘I used to see, Primo, I used to see, but I don’t no more, Primo. I coulda won a lot, Primo. I had the punch, I had the brains—I had it all, Primo, I had it all! But you pushed and you pushed and you pushed and now—now I’m blind! Five years in that home, Primo. You thought I was gone, and you thought Funny was gone, and you thought Babs was gone, and all the others, didn’t you, you bastard thing you!

  ‘But I’m here, Primo, and this is for Babs and it’s for Funny’s nose and for Charlie, who put all he had in you, and most of all, you rotten, you dirty…’ He was weeping like a baby, pressing Primo’s throat, shoving the greasy man backwards, ‘…most of all, it’s for me! He had dropped the spear from the fence, and as he stepped he tripped on it. Primo, who was half-dead already, took his chances where he found them, and with a madman’s strength or the strength of the dead or whatever it was, he shoved the Kid back, and the Kid fell right on his ass.

  Then Primo looked around for a way to get out; he was dizzy and coughing, and holding his throat, but he wanted out. Then he must’ve seen me right near the door and thought I’d stop him, that I was a friend of the Kid’s, because he looked cornered, like—well, like a tiger at nightfall, when the hunters are closing in and it knows it’s got to strike back.

  The way everybody looks just once. Just once.

  He grabbed up the spear-cane, and held it out in front of him. The Kid got up. ‘Don’t come any closer, you crazy bastard!’ Primo screamed.

  The Kid didn’t say anything then, about Babs or Funny or Charlie or any goddam body; he just plodded forward.