Web of the City by Harlan Ellison Page B

there were no stars. And no moon. And no clouds. And nothing up there but what should be there; the sky. Somehow it meant something to him. He wasn’t quite sure what, but he thought it meant something like inevitability. It was a cinch the sky was there and it was a cinch he was down here in the cell. That was the way it was and the way it would wind up. You’d never find the sky being used as a rug and you’d never find Rusty Santoro living the good life. Didn’t figure.
    He sat down on the trough, then remembered the last prisoner had peed in it and got up before he felt moisture. He slouched against the wall and then decided he, too, wanted a smoke. He had the cigarette in his mouth before he remembered he had no matches.
    “You wanna send them matches back?” he asked.
    For a second he saw relationships all too clearly, and was sure the Negro would say, “Go screw yaself. I got ’em, they’re mine.”
    The Negro said, “Sure ’nuff, man,” and they skittered across the floor, sliding up against the cell door. Rusty reached down in the darkness and found them.
    As he was lighting up, the other prisoner remarked, “A real bitch, man.” As though they were not in jail, merely neighbors. A casual remark, so incongruous.
    Rusty looked up. “What’s that?”
    “They get you in here and they let you have butts, but no matches; so we got to keep one butt goin’ all night or nobody smoke. You know?”
    Rusty grunted understanding.
    “I ’member one night they’s about six of us in here and all with butts, none with matches. One guy was lit-up when he got in, an’ we hadda roll them butts back an’ forth all night, till we was near shook, man, we got so nervous.”
    Silence for a while. Then, “They take your shoelaces and belt, jack?”
    Rusty leaned his head against the wall. “Not my laces. Took my belt an’ tie, though. Yours?”
    “Mmm. Took mine.” The Negro laughed deeply, it rumbled. “But then, I’m a veteran. I’m tank bait, man.”
    “Why they take that stuff?”
    “You know, like some cat gets the lows. Tries to cool hisself with his belt. Ties it up to that screen ’round the light thing in the ceilin’, and hangs hisself with it. That makes a bad smell for the coppers, somebody goes out the hangin’ way overnight. So they takes the stuff. They must not of booked you if you still got your laces an’ matches.”
    Rusty grunted agreement. “No, they didn’t.”
    The Negro went on. “That explains it. They can’t take ya stuff they just holdin’ ya, in procoo or like that.”
    “What’s procoo?”
    “Man, you sure ’nuff new to this, ain’tcha?”
    “I been in the cooler a couple times. With some other guys. I been around.”
    The Negro chuckled wryly. The calf trying to be the bull. “Yeah, sure, jack. Didn’t mean no harm. Sure you been around, you say so, it’s so.”
    “What’s procoo?”
    “Protective cust’idy, man. Like they’s holdin’ you for your own good. A crock. You know, so they know where you are overnight.”
    Rusty stood up. He leaned his head against the thin, cool metal of the bars. “What you in for?”
    The Negro laughed cheerily. “Sheet, man. Nothin’ much. They makin’ a big thing outta nothin’.”
    “Oh? What?”
    “Sheet, man. I just cut someone, thass all.”
    “Who’d you cut?”
    The prisoner hesitated, and Rusty heard a deep drag on the cigarette. The Negro’s voice came in a deeper, more strained, more worried tone, belying his words. “Oh, no one much. I just cut my old lady a little. She peed me off and I took the blade to her, is all.”
    Rusty slid back along the wall, staring up at the ceiling, staring at nothing. He didn’t want to talk to the guy; that was nowhere. He had to think. He had to give it a long, long think.
    Was Pancoast going to come down tomorrow and bail him loose? Was he going to sit in the can till his tail turned blue? He thought of Moms and he thought of Dolo and the last thought worried