Rumble Fish

  "Although I suppose it's as good a place to be as any. There weren't so many walls in California, but if you're used to walls all that air can give you the creeps."

  The Motorcycle Boy kept talking on and on, but I couldn't adjust my mind to what he was saying, couldn't understand it at all. It was like stepping from solid ground onto a roller coaster, and while I was still puzzling over one thing, he had gone on to something else.

  "Shut up, willya!" Steve finally cried. He sounded worse scared than when he thought we were going to be killed. "I don't want to hear it."

  Maybe Steve had understood the words, I don't know. But I understood something behind the words. For some reason or other the Motorcycle Boy was alone, more alone than I would ever be, than I could even imagine being. He was living in a glass bubble and watching the world from it. It was almost like being alone, hearing him, and I tried to shake off the feeling. I moved my head and the pain knocked me out.

  He was still talking when I came to again. Nothing had changed, we were still in the alley, only I could feel morning coming on. I was so cold. I never get cold. I was cold, frozen stiff, unable to move, trying to hear the Motorcycle Boy's empty voice.

  He was saying that nothing in his life had surprised him so much as the fact that there were people who rode motorcycles in packs.

  I tried to say something, but it came out in a grunt that sounded like a kicked dog.

  "Rusty-James," Steve said, "you still alive?"

  "Yeah," I said. Oh, man, did I hurt. I'd rather be knifed twenty times than hurt like that. I sat up straight, leaning back against the wall, watching things go in and out of focus.

  The Motorcycle Boy sat beside me. We had on almost the same outfit. I always got his clothes when he outgrew them, but they never looked the same on me. We each had on a white T-shirt and black leather jacket and blue jeans. I was wearing tennis shoes, he was wearing boots. Our hair was a color of red that I've never seen on anybody else, and our eyes were alike--the same color, at least.

  And people never even took us for brothers.

  "What happened to those guys that jumped us?" I asked.

  "He clobbered them," Steve said. He didn't sound grateful.

  "Bashed one of them really good. The other one took off."

  "Way to go, man," I said. My head was hurting me until I couldn't see straight.

  "Thank you," the Motorcycle Boy said politely.

  "You have to go to the hospital this time," Steve said. "I mean it."

  "Shoot," I said. "Back when the rumbles was going on--"

  "Will you shut up about that!" Steve screamed at me, not caring if noise almost knocked me out. "The rumbles! The gang! That garbage! It wasn't anything. It wasn't anything like you think it was. It was just a bunch of punks killing each other!"

  "You don't know nothin' about it," I whispered. I didn't have the strength to do anything else.

  Steve turned to the Motorcycle Boy. "You tell him! Tell him it wasn't anything."

  "It wasn't anything," the Motorcycle Boy said.

  "See?" Steve said triumphantly. "See?"

  "You were president," I said. "You must have thought it was something."

  "It was fun, at first. Then it got to be a big bore. I managed to get the credit for ending the rumbles simply because everybody knew I thought they were a big bore. They were going to end, anyway. Too many people doing dope."

  "Don't say it was fun," Steve said. "It wasn't fun. You can't say it was fun."

  "Oh, I was speaking from personal experience," the Motorcycle Boy said. "I must admit that most of them didn't think it was fun. Most of them were terrified when we had a fight. Blind terror in a fight can easily pass for courage."

  "It was something," I whispered. I felt so tired and sick and sore that I almost wished I was dead. "There was something about it, I remember."

  "A lot of them felt that way apparently."

  "Yeah," Steve said to me. "You are just stupid enough to have enjoyed it."

  "Well, remember," said the Motorcycle Boy, "loyalty is his only vice."

  After about five minutes of silence, the Motorcycle Boy spoke up again. "Apparently it is essential to some people to belong--anywhere."

  That was what scared me, what was scaring Steve, and what would scare anybody who came into direct contact with the Motorcycle Boy. He didn't belong--anywhere--and what was worse, he didn't want to.

  "I wonder," Steve said wildly, "why somebody hasn't taken a rifle and blown your head off."

  "Even the most primitive societies have an innate respect for the insane," the Motorcycle Boy answered.

  "I want to go home," I said dully. The Motorcycle Boy helped me stand up. I swayed back and forth for a second.

  "Cheer up, kid," my brother said. "Gangs will come back, once they get the dope off the streets. People will persist in joining things. You'll see the gangs come back. If you live that long."

  9

  My head hurt so bad the next day, I figured I might as well go to the clinic and see a doctor. The Motorcycle Boy had left right after he dropped me off, and the old man left about noon, so I had to go somewhere.

  It was a free clinic--you didn't have to pay anything or even give your right name. It was crowded with old people and lots of whining kids and their mothers. I'd been there before, when the old man had a fit of D.T.'s. He didn't have them often, not as much as you'd think.

  I got to see a doctor after an hour or so. He was just a kid. I can't believe he was a real doctor. I thought they had to go to school forever.

  "I bumped my head," I told him.

  "I guess you did," he said. He washed off the side of my head with this junk that smelled awful and burned like hell. Then he stuck a thermometer in my mouth and listened to my heart awhile. I couldn't see what good that was going to do me, but I just sat there and didn't give him any trouble. The doctors here were really nice. The ones that took care of my father had been really nice. I wished I'd known about this place the time I broke my ankle. I would have gone here instead of the hospital. I hate hospitals. I'd rather be in jail. I didn't have anything against doctors, though. It just seemed like a waste of time to go see them. I thought maybe I could get some pain pills, this time.

  "You're running a slight fever," he told me. "I want you to go over to the hospital and get some X rays. You 'bumped your head' pretty hard." He grinned at me like he knew I got it in a fight somewhere, like he had seen so much of the same thing he knew that lecturing me wouldn't do any good.

  "Nope," I said.

  "Nope what?"

  "I ain't goin' to the hospital. Just give me somethin' to make it quit hurtin'."

  And just as I said that, everything turned kind of gray and this ringing in my ears got so loud I couldn't hear and I had to grab onto the table to keep from falling off.

  The doctor straightened me up and said, serious-like, "You are going to the hospital, kiddo."

  He left the room for a minute, to get some papers or something, and I got out of there pretty quick. I wasn't planning on any hospital stay. I'd been there before.

  I swiped a bottle of aspirin out of a drugstore on the way home and took about seven of them. I felt a little better after that. I knew where I could get some downers that would fix me up fine, but the Motorcycle Boy classified downers as dope. I could always say I got them legit from a doctor, but I doubt that I could fool him. I didn't want to risk it. After last night I'd believe he could cut my throat without thinking about it.

  I went by Steve's house on the way home. I knew where he lived even though I'd never gone there. His father had to be at work, though, and his mother was in the hospital, so I thought I'd be safe enough.

  He saw me coming up the sidewalk, because he was holding the screen door open when I got up the steps.

  "Good Lord!" I said when I saw him. "What happened to you?"

  "I was supposed to be home at ten o'clock last night," he said flatly. "I got in at six this morning."

  "Y
our father did that?" I couldn't believe it. I've come out of gang fights looking better than he did.

  "Come on in," he said.

  I'd never been in his house before. It was real nice, with furniture and carpets and stuff sitting on shelves. It was nicer than Patty's house, but then, she had those little kids tearing up everything. I sat down on a sofa, hoping I wasn't messing anything up. You'd think it would have gotten sloppy, with his mother in the hospital for so long.

  "Your father did that to you?" I asked again. I thought maybe I had missed something last night, that those two punks had worked him over. I didn't remember much about the morning, or going home. I think it might have been then that my memory went goofy on me.

  "Don't tell anybody, huh?" he said. "I'm gonna say I got it last night, across the river."

  "Okay," I said. It was hard for me to imagine anybody hitting Steve, anybody besides me, I mean. I had gone to a lot of trouble making sure nobody hit him. It made me mad. He was my friend. Nobody had any right beating him up like that. What difference did it make if he came home at ten or at six? He got home, didn't he? Why did people get upset about stupid stuff like that? I tried picturing my father beating me up, and couldn't do it. I couldn't even imagine him telling me when to be home.

  "He didn't mean to hit me so much," Steve said. But he was just repeating something he'd been told. "He's been worried about Mom. I didn't need to worry him, too. I just didn't think about that."

  It was like he had been brainwashed, repeating that stuff. I tried to figure out why Steve wasn't mad about getting knocked around like that. If somebody had done that to me--

  "What really set him off," Steve was saying, "was that orange junk all over my shirt. I guess that girl, that girl was wearing a lot of makeup, I guess. I don't remember her being orange."

  We sat there without saying anything for a long time. Finally Steve said, "What'd you come over for, Rusty-James?"

  I opened my mouth, and closed it, trying to think of the best way to tell him.

  "Steve, I think we'd better follow the Motorcycle Boy around for a while."

  He said, "Why?" I wasn't ready for that. I was ready to talk him into it.

  "Well," I said, "I just think we ought to." I hadn't really thought of why myself. It just seemed like something that needed doing. "I think maybe we ought to watch him for a while, that's all."

  "Count me out," Steve said.

  "You gotta help me," I said. I had been feeling funny all day. It had started the night before, when the Motorcycle Boy told me why I was scared to be by myself. It sort of felt like nothing was solid, like the street would tilt all of a sudden and throw me off. I knew that wasn't going to happen, but that's what it felt like. And since getting clobbered, everything even looked funny, like I was seeing things through distorted glass. I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit. All my life, all I had to worry about was real things, things you could touch, or punch, or run away from. I had been scared before, but it was always something real to be scared of--not having any money, or some big kid looking to beat you up, or wondering if the Motorcycle Boy was gone for good. I didn't like this being scared of something and not knowing exactly what it was. I couldn't fight it if I didn't know what it was.

  "I won't help you," Steve said again.

  "Just follow him around for a little bit," I said. "He won't go across the river again. He just went last night because I asked him to. He'll stick around here. We won't get into any trouble again."

  "I have to go to school," Steve said.

  "So meet me after school."

  "You don't need me there."

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Ask B.J. or Smokey."

  I started to say, "They'd laugh at me," but changed it to: "Oh, they don't know anything. I mean, they think the Motorcycle Boy's cool and everything, but they don't know him like me and you do."

  "You mean they don't know he's nuts."

  I jumped up, grabbed him by his shirt front and slammed him back against the wall.

  "You don't ever say that!" I shouted at him. I knocked him back against the wall so he'd remember. "You hear me?"

  "Yes," he said. I let him go. Then all of a sudden I couldn't see, and the pain was like an awful noise in my head. I sort of fell against the wall, trying to get my breath and my vision.

  When my eyes cleared up I saw Steve standing there, worried-looking. His lips were moving, but I couldn't hear anything. Then my hearing came back.

  "...all right?" he asked.

  If it had been anybody else I would have laughed, shrugged it off and left. But it was only Steve, and I had known him all my life and I was just too plain tired to put up a front. Maybe that was why Steve was my best friend instead of B.J. I didn't have to keep on being the toughest cat in the neighborhood for Steve.

  I sat down and dropped my head onto my hands. For a second my throat swelled up on the inside and I had a sudden picture of Patty bouncing on down the street. That was what I felt like. Close to crying.

  "Steve," I said. "I never asked you for nothing. I never let anybody punch you around, and I never bummed money off you. I'm asking you now."

  "Don't," he said. " 'Cause I won't do it."

  I couldn't talk. If I tried to talk I'd be crying. I couldn't remember crying. You didn't cry if you were tough.

  "Rusty-James," Steve said. I didn't look up. He sounded like he felt sorry for me and I didn't want to see him feeling sorry for me, because if I did I would hit him, no matter what.

  "I've tried to help you," he said. "But I've got to think about myself some."

  I wondered what he was talking about.

  "You're just like a ball in a pinball machine. Getting slammed back and forth; and you never think about anything, about where you're going or how you're going to get there. I got to think for myself, I can't keep on thinking for you, too."

  I didn't understand what he was talking about. Why did all the people I liked talk about such weird things? I did think about where I was going. I wanted to be like the Motorcycle Boy. I wanted to be tough like him, and stay calm and laughing when things got dangerous. I wanted to be the toughest street-fighter and the most respected hood on our side of the river. I had tried everything, even tried to learn to read good to be like him. Even though nothing had worked so far, that didn't mean nothing ever would. There wasn't anything wrong with wanting to be like the Motorcycle Boy. Even Steve admired him--

  "You don't like the Motorcycle Boy, do you, Steve? Then why do you think he's cool?"

  Steve looked surprised. "Well," he said slowly, "he is the only person I have ever met who is like somebody out of a book. To look like that, and be good at everything, and all that."

  That struck me as funny. I laughed and got up to leave. I wasn't going to pester him anymore. Steve walked with me to the door.

  "You better go to a doctor," he said.

  "I been."

  "You better let go of the Motorcycle Boy," he said. "If you're around him very long you won't believe in anything."

  "I been around him all my life," I told him. "And I believe everything."

  Steve sort of grinned at me. "You would."

  " 'Bye," I said.

  "Rusty-James," he said, really sincere, "I'm sorry."

  "Sure," I said. That was the last time I saw ol' Steve.

  10

  I spent the rest of the day in Benny's. You could see most of the street from the front booth. If the Motorcycle Boy went by, I'd see him.

  In the afternoon, after school was out, people came in. I didn't feel like playing pool, but I got a big audience when I started telling everybody about the wild night we had. It made me feel better to tell everything--about the party and movie and bars and pool games and almost-fights and just-missed chicks, and then the mugging and the way the Motorcycle Boy had rescued us. Maybe I told it a little better than it happened--a couple of people gave me looks like they didn't believe everything. But there was a lump on the side of my head half the s
ize of a baseball, and when they saw Steve they'd believe it sure enough.

  I liked telling things that happened to me. It took the scare out, like it was just an exciting movie I'd seen.

  Patty came in. She hardly ever came to Benny's, usually just on her mother's day off. We had never gone there when we were going together because I didn't like other guys looking at her. See, the kind of girls who hung out at Benny's were tough chicks--pretty good girls, you know, but not exactly like I thought of Patty.

  "You lookin' for me?" I asked her. It figured she'd want to make up with me. Well, I'd let her sweat it a little bit, like I had been doing.

  "Nope," she said coolly. She bought a Coke from Benny and sat down in a booth, looking around like she was looking for somebody. And it wasn't me.

  Pretty soon Smokey Bennet came in and slid into the booth next to her. Both of them sat there like I was supposed to pin a medal on them. Everybody got quiet, expecting me to toss Smokey through the front window and slap Patty's teeth out. I admit I thought about it. I thought about quite a few things, watching the crummy pool game. Both guys shooting were so nervous they couldn't play worth anything.

  "Smokey," I said finally. "You want to step outside with me?"

  "I ain't gonna fight you, Rusty-James."

  "What makes you think I want to fight? Just step outside a minute so we can talk."

  "It wouldn't be fair, now," he said. "You ain't in any condition to fight."

  "I said I didn't want to fight. Talk--get it? Speak. Communicate."

  He looked at Patty, puzzled. But she was looking at me. She still loved me, I could tell. She'd never say so, any more than I'd tell her I still loved her. What a weird thing that was. It was all over, whether we wanted it to be or not.

  "All right," Smokey said. He followed me outside, and as the door closed behind us I could hear everybody yapping at once. And a couple of guys were standing on the booth seats, making sure they weren't going to miss anything.

  We walked across the street and sat down on a stoop. Smokey lit a cigarette and offered me one. He was still a little tense, like he thought I was going to jump him any second. But he was calm, too, like he thought he could handle it if I did. I wondered why that didn't make me mad.

  "Smokey," I said. "Tell me somethin'. The other night, when we went to the lake with your cousin, and those girls were there--did you plan for it to get back to Patty? I mean, did you think this was what was goin' to happen? That Patty would break up with me and you'd move in and maybe take over while I was still done in from that knife fight?"