Finally he added, “Weezee, I been runnin’ the streets with the Cougars for three years. I got in lots of trouble with ’em. Look at me. I’m seventeen, an’ I got a record. Nice thing to have? Like hell it is! I been usin’ my fists since I could talk, and I’m just up to here with it, and that’s on the square. I just want out, is all.”
The girl shook her head. The brown hair swirled in its ponytail, and she began twirling it nervously. “They’re gonna make it rough on you, Rusty.”
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.
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 saw Rusty as an enemy now. Two days 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 that running and hiding were no good. Start running—do it once—and it would never stop. And the days in fear would be all 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.
“Whaddaya want?” Rusty snarled, straining against their hands.
Candle leaned across, folding his arms, and his face broke into 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, 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. 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’understand?” 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 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, 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 bother you. Just don’t you bother me.”
Fish—tall, and slim, with long eyelashes that made him think he was a lady’s 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, and not to spend the rest of his life in the army—because that was where most of these guys were going to wind up finally.
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, and they had all rumbled together, all gotten records together, all screwed around and had fun together. But now, somehow, he had outgrown 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 and 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 always 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 him and Rusty.
“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 his future might wind up in the gutter with him.
“When?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, after school. Out at the dump. Come heeled, man, cause I’m gonna split you to your groin.”
He broke his knife, shoved it into his sleeve, walked away angrily, shoving
aside the Cougars. He was gone then, and the ice cream shop was silent for a long moment.
Then Fish shrugged, said lamely, “Gee, I’m—well, hell, Rusty, there ain’t—”
Rusty cut him off, running a hand through his own hair. “I know, man. Don’t bother. Ain’t nothin’ you can do. I gotta stand with Candle. Gonna be rough bananas though.”
Why was his past always calling? Always making grabs on him? The blood was flowing so thick, so red, and it smothered him. He felt as though he was drowning.
Wouldn’t he ever be free?
It was gonna be a rough week.
The next day went like a souped-up heap. The kids stayed away from Rusty like he was down with the blue botts, and even the teachers seemed to sense something was hot on the fire, because they didn’t press him about his homework, or ask him to recite.
Rusty saw Candle only once during the day, and that was in the cafeteria. It was rugged inside him. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to leave the thing alone, and reconcile it with Candle. He had to talk to the boy. The hard-faced prez of the Cougars was sitting at a table with Joy, feeling her up, and laughing loudly with his side-boys. Rusty cut wide around them, and got a tray for himself. The food was the usual steam-table garbage, and he only took a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a piece of apple pie and a container of milk. He wasn’t hungry, not at all.
Finally, when he had polished off the food, he got up, took the tray to the check-in window where a colored boy was scraping them with a rubber tool, and turned around.
Everyone was watching him. He realized suddenly that they had been watching him all through lunch. But he had been thinking as he ate, and had not noticed. Now they stared at him, and from the middle of the room he heard the derisive voice of a punk.
“Here chick-chick-chick-chick-chick! Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck. Chick-chick-chick…” It went on and on, leaving the first boy, swinging to another, then pretty soon the entire room was carrying it, like a banner. The sound was a wave that washed against the shores of Rusty’s mind. It was the worst. It was a chop low like no other he’d ever heard.
He had been top man of the Cougars for so long, to have this kind of indignity pushed on him was something frightful. He clenched his fists and stood where he was.
Behind him, he heard the colored boy disappearing from behind the window. If things were going to be heaved, he didn’t want to be in the way.
Rusty knew he had to talk to Candle now. Now was the time, because if he spent the day with that chick-chick festering in his brain, he’d fight sure as hell!
Somebody yelled, “Oooooh, Russell! Oh, Russell, baby, do your hen imitation fer us! Go man, go, Russell!”
He hated that name. It was the first time they’d called him that since it had been abbreviated to Rusty.
The boy stepped slowly away from the window, and walked over to Candle’s table. The Cougar’s prez had been talking to his broad, not even looking at Rusty while the call had been going up. Now, as Rusty approached, he paid even more attention to
Joy, but the three side-boys stood up slowly, their hands going into the tight pockets of their jeans. There were shanks in there, waiting to cut if Rusty made a snipe move.
Rusty stopped. “Candle.”
The boy with the almost-Mongoloid features did not look up. He had his hand clutched to the girl’s knee, and he seemed totally oblivious to what was happening behind him. But Joy’s blue eyes were up and frightened. She stared straight at Rusty, and the wild excitement in her face made him sick; they all wanted their boots. They all wanted kicks. They didn’t care who got nailed, so long as sparks flew and they could bathe in them. Then Candle turned carefully around. He looked up.
“Well, read this,” he said arrogantly, more to his side-boys than Rusty. “Check who just dropped in for a chat. Welcome, spick.”
Rusty felt the blood surging in him, and he wanted to drive a fist straight into the bastard’s mouth. But that was what Candle wanted. That would be the clincher. They’d slice him up like fresh bacon, right there, and everyone would dummy up. No one wanted the Cougars mad at them.
“Candle, I wanna talk to you,” Rusty said softly.
The others grinned hugely, and Candle swung one foot up on to the bench, just touching the edge of Rusty’s pants, putting a bit of dirt there.
“What you got to say to me you can say out at the dump after school, spick.”
“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.