Free Web of the City by Harlan Ellison Page A

not hurtin’ you. I don’t care if I never see my old man or if you got no time for nothin’, always here in the kitchen, and you,” she turned on Rusty, “you got big crazy ideas, the big brother thing all the time, and just cause you was yellow, you think I have to be. Well, it ain’t gonna be that way. Leave me alone, both of you crapheads!”
    The word hit Rusty with all the force of a steam drill. He saw the effect it had on Moms and for the second time, hardly knowing what he was doing, his hand came out and cracked hard against Dolores’ cheek.
    She fell back against the chair and her face told everything there was to tell. It told the past was rotten and the future was a disappointment and the present was the rock that lay in the pit of her stomach. She slid back the chair and ran from the room, yelling, “I’m never comin’ back here again! Never! Never!”
    Then the sound of the vase on the shelf near the door smashing to the floor and the sound of the slamming door, then that going-away-forever sound of Dolores hitting for the street.
    The word “never” hung like fog in the kitchen. Rusty avoided his mother’s eyes until he heard her crying.
    By then it was too late. They were all lost to one another down a dark lonely road that led nowhere. She cried too easily, damn her. Cried too easily, showed she was human, fallible, too easily. There’s only one way to escape the hurt; that way is the safe way. Just keep it locked in, down inside you somewhere, where they can’t get to you. No mother, no father, no sister, no one, because when they know they got you suckered, they know they can hurt you. And ain’t no one who doesn’t like to play god once in a while. No one who doesn’t like to hurt when they know they can be god and so they try it every once in a while. So play it cool, play it steady, keep it back where they can’t see it. Let the others—the mothers, the fathers, the friends—let them make the move, then you can play god! That’s the way.
    Rusty wadded up the paper napkin lying unused beside his plate and tossed it into the waste basket. He played with his food for a few moments, trying not to let the sound of Moms sobbing get to him. Finally, he could take it no longer and he slid away from the table, went to his room. It was going to be like that, all day, he was sure.
    He turned on the record player absently, letting a stack of 45s start turning on the center post. Without knowing it, he pushed the reject button, allowing the first disc to slip down. Music had become very important to Rusty. When he had no one else around, when solitude was forced on him, he could use the music to stave off loneliness, fear. The words were pointless, the tunes vapid, but he desperately needed the sounds. Nothing more, just the sounds.
    Come on over baby, Whole lot of shakin’ going on — Come on over, baby, Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on —
    The music reminded him where Dolo had gone.
    He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed letting his arms hang between his legs drawing tightly at the shoulder joints. It wasn’t good to let Dolores run loose like that, particularly not tonight. Besides the rumors of Cherokee action, there was always Candle—who might still harbor enough of a grudge to want to take it out on Rusty’s sister—and Boy-O with his always handy supply of sticks. There were the girl-hungry Cougars, and the lousy influence of the Cougie Cats, many of whom had police records.
    Dolores was clean so far and Rusty intended to keep her that way.
    As he sat there he glanced toward the bureau and saw the picture one of the kids had taken of him and Dolo at Coney, last summer. She stood shorter than he, slim and happy in the sun with the crowded beach behind her and the cloudless sky above. And he started undressing, so he could put on some better clothes and follow Dolores to the dance.
    He was going to make certain nothing happened to his sister. She had too much to live for, to