Rumble Fish (6 page)

“California's nice, huh?” I heard myself asking. It didn't seem like me talking.

“California,” he said, “is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.”

He smiled again, but when I said, “She say anything about me?” he went deaf again, and didn't hear.

“He never told me about her,” I was saying to Steve. The Motorcycle Boy was ahead of us, slipping through the crowd easily, nobody touching him. Steve and me pushed and shoved at people, getting sworn at, occasionally punched. “I never bugged him about it. Hell, how was I to know he could remember anything? Six ain't old enough to remember stuff. I can't remember anything about being six.”

An old drunk guy was creeping along in front of us. I couldn't stand for him to be blocking the way like that. It made me mad, and I slammed my fist into his back and shoved him into the wall.

“Hey,” Steve said. “Don't do that.”

I stared at him, almost blind from being so mad. “Steve,” I said with effort, “don't bug me now.”

“All right. Just don't go pounding on people.”

I was afraid if I hit him or something he'd go home, and I didn't want to be left with the Motorcycle Boy by myself, so I said “Okay.” Then, because I couldn't get it out of my mind I went on: “You'd think it'd cross his mind to tell me he saw her when he went to California. I woulda told him, if it was me. That is something he shoulda told me.”

The Motorcycle Boy had stopped to talk to somebody. I didn't know who, and I didn't care. “What is the matter with you?” I asked him. I didn't see why he had to go around messing everything up. I felt like the whole world was messed up.

“Nothing,” he said, walking on. “Absolutely nothing.”

Steve laughed, crazy-like. We stopped to pass the bottle back and forth again. Steve leaned on a glass store window.

“I'm dizzy,” he said. “Am I supposed to be dizzy?”

“Yeah,” I told him. I was trying to shake off my bad mood. Here I was, having a good time, having a really good time, and I shouldn't let people mess things up for me. So what if the Motorcycle Boy saw our mother? Big deal.

“What the hell.” I straightened up. “Come on.”

We ran and caught up with the Motorcycle Boy. I started clowning around, trying to pick up girls, trying to start fights, just giving people trouble in general. It was a lot of fun. I might have had a really good time, except for Steve, who was scared, giggling, or throwing up. And except for the way the Motorcycle Boy was watching me, amused but not interested. After an hour Steve sat down in a doorway and bawled about his mother. I felt bad for him and patted him on the head.

We found a party later. Somebody leaned out of a window and yelled, “Come on up, there's a party.” There was more booze there, music and girls. I found Steve in a corner making out with a cute little chick about thirteen years old. “Way to go, man,” I said.

Steve looked at me dazedly and said, “Is this real? Is this real?” and seemed terrified when he realized he wasn't dreaming.

It did seem like a dream, sort of. Even if we hadn't been drinking so much, I think it would have seemed like a dream.

Later we were back on the streets, and the lights and the noise and the people were more and more and more. Everything was throbbing with noise and music and energy.

“Everything is so bright,” I said, looking at the Motorcycle Boy. “It's too bad you can't see what it's like.”

We were watching the Motorcycle Boy play pool. I didn't exactly know where we were, or how we got there, but I knew how long we'd been there—forever. The place was smoky and dark and full of black people. This didn't bother me, and it didn't seem to bother Steve either. Steve and me were sitting in a booth. The table was scarred and the plastic covering on the seats was ripped and leaking cotton junk. Steve was adding to the carving on the table. He was writing a word I didn't even know he knew.

“My, my, my,” said the guy who was playing the Motorcycle Boy. “Ain't he fine?”

The Motorcycle Boy was winning. He walked around the table, measuring his shot. In the dim smoky light he looked like a painting.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I'm gonna look just like him.”

The black cat paused and looked me over. “No you ain't, baby. That cat is a prince, man. He is royalty in exile. You ain't
never
gonna look like that.”

“Whadda you know?” I muttered. I was tired.

“Pass me the wine,” Steve said.

“There ain't any more.”

“That,” he said, “is the most depressing thing I have ever heard.”

The Motorcycle Boy won the game and they started in on another.

“Isn't there anything he can't do?” Steve grumbled. He dropped his head on the table and held on to the edges, like he was trying to keep it from spinning around. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them, the Motorcycle Boy was gone. It occurred to me that this wasn't a particularly cool place to be, if he wasn't there.

“Come on,” I said, and shook Steve. “Let's go.”

He staggered out with me. It was dark. Really dark. There wasn't any lights or people and very little noise. That was kind of spooky, like things whispering around in the dark.

“I'm gonna be sick again,” Steve said. He had already puked twice that night.

“Naw you ain't,” I said. “You haven't drunk enough.”

“Whatever you say.”

The night air was sobering him up some. He looked around.

“Where are we? Where's the living legend?”

“He musta took off,” I said. It wasn't any more than I expected. He probably forgot we were with him. I could feel the hairs of my neck starting to bristle, like a dog's.

“Hell,” I said. “Where'd everybody go?”

We started moving down the street. I wasn't sure about where we were, but it seemed like we ought to be going toward the river. I had a good sense of direction. I was usually right about what direction to go in.

“How come we're walking down the middle of the street?” Steve asked after a few minutes.

“Safer,” I said. I guess he thought we should be trotting down the sidewalk, when God knows what was waiting in the doorways. Sometimes Steve was really dumb.

I kept thinking I saw something moving, out of the corner of my eye, but every time I turned around, it was just a shadow laying black against a doorway or an alley. I started through the alleys, looking for shortcuts.

“I thought we were sticking to the streets,” Steve whispered. I didn't know why he was whispering, but it wasn't a bad idea.

“I'm in a hurry.”

“Well, if
you're
scared, I guess I should be terrified.”

“I ain't scared. Bein' in a hurry don't mean you're scared. I don't like creepy empty places. That ain't bein' scared.”

Steve mumbled something that sounded like “Same thing,” but I didn't want to stop and argue with him.

“Hey, slow it down, willya?” he called.

I slowed down all right. I stopped. Two live shadows stepped out of the dark ones to block the alley. One was white. One was black. The black had something in his hand that looked like a tire tool. Actually, it was a relief to see them. I was almost glad to see anybody.

Steve said, “Oh, God, we're dead,” in a singsong voice. He was absolutely frozen. I wasn't counting on any help from him. I just stood there, gauging the distances, the numbers, the weapons, like the Motorcycle Boy had taught me to, a long time ago, when there were gangs.

“You got any bread?” said the white guy. Like he wasn't going to kill us if we had. I knew if we handed them a million dollars they'd still bash us. Sometimes guys just go out to kill people.

“Progressive country, integrated mugging,” Steve muttered. He surprised me by showing he did have some guts, after all. But he still couldn't move.

I thought about a lot of things: Patty—she'd really be sorry now—and Coach Ryan, bragging that he knew me when. I pictured my father at my funeral saying, “What a strange way to die.” And my mother, living in a tree house with an artist—she wouldn't even know. I thought about how everybody at Benny's would think it was cool, that I went down fighting just like some of the old gang members had. The last guy who was killed in the gang fights was a Packer. He had been fifteen. Fifteen had seemed really old then. Now it didn't seem too old, since I wasn't going to see fifteen myself.

Since Steve had said something, I had to say something, even though I couldn't think of anything besides “Bug off.”

Now here is a funny thing that happened to me—I swear it's the truth. I don't exactly remember what happened next. Steve told me later that I turned around and looked at him for a second, like I was thinking of running. That was when the black guy clipped me across the head. I can't for the life of me think why I was so slow—maybe it was the booze. But the next thing I remember, I was floating around up in the air above the alley, looking down at all three of them. It was a weird feeling, just floating up there, not feeling a thing, like watching a movie. I saw Steve, who just stood there like a steer waiting to be slaughtered, and the white guy who was acting like he was bored out of his mind, and the black guy who casually glanced across to Steve and said, “Killed him. Better get this one, too.”

And then I saw my body, laying there on the alley floor. It wasn't a bit like seeing yourself in a mirror. I can't tell you what it was like.

All of a sudden it seemed like I bobbed a little higher, and I knew I had to get back to my body, where I belonged. I wanted back there like I've never wanted anything. And then I was back, because my head was hurting worse than anything had ever hurt me before, and the place smelled like a toilet. I couldn't move, even though I kept thinking I had to get up or they'd kill Steve. But I couldn't even open my eyes.

I was hearing all kinds of noises, swearing and thumps like people were being clubbed to death, and Steve screaming, “They killed him!” Even though I was glad he was still alive, I wished he wouldn't yell. Noises went right through my head like knives.

Somebody pulled me up, and I was half sitting, half leaning against him.

“He ain't dead.”

It was the Motorcycle Boy. I would know his voice anywhere. He had a funny voice for somebody as big as he was—kind of toneless, light and cold.

“He ain't dead,” he repeated, sounding more surprised that he was glad about it than anything else. Like it had never occurred to him that he loved me.

He had settled back, me against his shoulder, and I heard the sound of a match being struck. He was smoking a cigarette, and I wanted one myself, but I still couldn't move. A harsh, breathing kind of sound kept rasping in my ears, until the Motorcycle Boy said, “Will you stop that crying?” and Steve said, “Will you go to hell?”

Everything was quiet, except for street noises somewhere, the sound of rats scratching around and alley cats fighting a block over.

“What a funny situation,” said the Motorcycle Boy after a long silence. “I wonder what I'm doing here, holding my half-dead brother, surrounded by bricks and cement and rats.”

Steve didn't say anything, maybe because the Motorcycle Boy wasn't talking to him.

“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.”