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."

"Your 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.