- rusty santoro
- insubstantials
Days came, and days went. None of them paused in their relentless march to nowhere.
Everything straightened out, as straight as death could make it. Morlan was not heard from again. He was said to have left town when the police—after questioning Rusty—heard about his business ventures. Mirsky was gone, too. It was perhaps the safest thing he could do, for his life was worthless in Cherokee turf. The lot with the poppies was thoroughly excavated and the flowers destroyed. So good a job of ploughing was done that the dry cleaning establishment purchased the lot for expansion purposes.
Rusty was asked a great many questions.
No one came to claim The Beast's body. It went to Potters Field and no one took flowers for the hole. But it all straightened out, finally. With finality.
Moms got better, because she could not get worse. No one ever dies of a broken heart. Not really. At least, not on the outside. Life moves and time moves and people must move.
There were no charges that could be brought against Rusty. Over a hundred people had seen and heard what had transpired between the boy and The Beast that night, on the roof. It was clearly self-defense. And when Rusty had finished explaining how he had tracked down The Beast, the fuzz were more than happy to give him a clean turn-loose so they could spend their time breaking the dope chain that had supplied the kids.
The kids. The Cougars were another world, another time, another life. He found no hope in that direction. There was no hope at school, either. Pancoast came around, trying to find the Rusty Santoro he had taught, but like the fog that Rusty was also gone. Now there was only a quiet, dark-eyed boy who wanted peace. Too much peace.
Then one day he left.
He took a few things with him and he kissed Moms in the night, late in the night when the city was almost asleep—for the city never completely sleeps, but spins its web by night and by day—and he left. He went silently down to the street, and he stood staring at the wet-shine the water trucks had left behind when they tried vainly to clean the gutters. He looked up and saw the night of deep blue and the stars of white, and he walked away.
He walked past Tom-Tom's place, all empty and dark now, with no juke box and no stamping feet and no harsh voices. All empty, the way he was empty inside.
The street echoed back his hollowly beating footsteps, as he walked the pavement, seeing it all clearly, in retrospect. He had come from these streets, and he would someday go back to these streets, for he was umbilically joined to them and the rottenness they spawned. There was no escaping it, no getting away from it. But somehow there must be a way of fending it off for a short time.
A catalyst, some hindering factor, some buttressing force that could intercede. He had found the death and the violence and the stupidity of this life—now he had to find his way out of it. At least for a while. He had to go away and search for something insubstantial.
Decency? Was that it? Was that what he wanted? He didn't know. Perhaps that was the word and the act and the insubstantial he sought. But he knew one thing. There was quiet in him now. There was no longer any anger and any hurt and any frustration. It was all quiet, too quiet, inside him.
A quiet that these streets would not long tolerate.
Candle would end his days in some prison, it was as certain as a token in the turnstile or no ride. But so what if one Candle was gone, or one Beast was dead, or one Morlan had been halted? There would be others. There had to be others. For where the dirt and the hunger and the anger bred violence, there would be human flies to feast on the carcasses of the weaker. As those flies themselves were caught up in the city's suffocating web.
No, to find what it was he sought—and he had no way of knowing what it was he sought—he must get away from here. Not to run in fright, not to be alone, but just because there was nothing here. These streets had held him long enough. Now they were wasteland.
Here there was only the web and the knife and his fists.
He had sworn he would never raise his hands to anyone again. But what good was that promise if he remained here? No good, for the streets had their own rules, and you could not beat them. You could only pass, and hope to escape that final jackpot. The jackpot that bound you once more into the web. So he had to go away.
He took the subway to Times Square and he got off and walked past the glaring, neoned, never-asleep squares that beckoned him—and he ignored them. He walked till he came to the movie where he had picked up the girl. How long ago was it? Weeks? Years? Eternities? He had no way of gauging the time. Not only had things happened, but he had become a different person since then. He had changed so very much, and lost so much, and found nothing to replace it.
He stood in front of the theatre and waited.
He did not know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing or just another emptiness, but he knew he wanted to do it this way. She was lonely, too. She was alone and empty and tired and together they might find that insubstantial he sought. They were both alone, but at least it was better to be alone together. What had been her name? Teresa? Yes.
She would come back to that movie one night. He knew that. She would, because she had his coin and she would have to. He did not know why he knew, but he was sure.
So he left his neighborhood and he left his streets and soon he would leave his city—which held the life that had been Rusty Santoro.
All that, behind him.
But oddly, the city did not care at all.