Rumble Fish

"Well," he said, slowly, quiet-like, "I guess I did. I kind of thought about it."

"That was real smart," I said. "I wouldn't of been able to think of something like that."

"I know," he admitted. Then he said, "Rusty-James, if there was still gangs around here, I'd be president, not you."

I couldn't believe that. I was the toughest guy in the neighborhood. Everybody knew that.

"You'd be second lieutenant or somethin'. See, you might make it a while on the Motorcycle Boy's rep, but you ain't got his brains. You have to be smart to run things."

I just sighed. I wondered where my temper was. I had a mean temper. I just didn't seem to be able to find it anywhere.

"Nobody'd follow you into a gang fight," he went on. "You'd get people killed. Nobody wants to get killed."

"I guess that's true," I said. Nothing was like I thought it was. I had always thought that one and one made two. If you were the toughest, you were the leader. I didn't understand why things had to get complicated.

"Do you really like Patty?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Even if she wasn't your chick I'd still like her."

"Okay," I said. He went back into Benny's. He was the number one tough cat now. If I wanted to keep my rep I'd have to fight him, whether I was in any shape to or not. He had been counting on that. Everything was changed.

I sat there awhile. B.J. Jackson came by, saw me, and sat down. I was glad to see him. He didn't know everything was changed. I could still talk to him like always. Once he went into Benny's, it would be Smokey he'd listen to. It would be Smokey that everybody would be listening to and watching. It was like this would be the last I could really talk to B.J.

"Guess what," he says. "You know who we had for a substitute teacher today in history? Cassandra, the Motorcycle Boy's chick."

"No kiddin'?" I asked. I guess she had been right, about not being hooked.

"Yeah. Man, we really gave her a hard time, too. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to be a sub. She was pretty good about it, though. I stayed after class and talked to her some. I says, 'I'm surprised to see you again.' And she says, 'Did you think I'd throw myself off the bridge, or O.D. on a roof or something?' And she told me to tell you something. She said, 'Tell Rusty-James that life does go on, if you'll let it.' Do you know what she meant?"

"Nope," I said. "She was always talkin' crazy. She was a real dingbat."

"I always thought she had a lot of class," B.J. said. He didn't know anything about women.

"You seen the Motorcycle Boy around?" I asked him.

"Yeah, he's in the pet store."

"Pet store? What's he doin' in there?"

B.J. shrugged. "Lookin' at the fish, as far as I could tell. I heard he messed up a couple of guys across the river last night."

"Yeah, he stomped these two creeps that jumped me an' Steve. Almost killed them."

"I heard that. He better be careful, Rusty-James. You know that cop Patterson is just looking for an excuse to get him."

"He's been after the both of us for years."

"You know," B.J. said, "Patterson has the rep of a good cop. I mean, the Motorcycle Boy is his only bad point. He's never gone out of his way to hassle the rest of us."

"He beat me up once," I said. "And got me thrown into Juvenile Hall for a weekend." I figured Patterson was the only person in the world who thought I looked like the Motorcycle Boy. "Anyway, he's never done so much as say a word to the Motorcycle Boy. He'll never get anything on him."

"Come on," B.J. said. "Let's go get a Coke."

"Naw," I said.

He got up, and started across the street. "Come on, Rusty-James," he said.

I shook my head, and watched him disappear into Benny's. I didn't care if I ever went in there again. And that was a real funny thought, because I never did.

I found the Motorcycle Boy at the pet store, just like B.J. said. He was up at the counter, looking at the fish. They were some new fish, not regular goldfish. I never saw fish like them before. One was purple, one was blue with long red fins and a red tail, one was solid red and one was bright yellow. They all had long fins and tails.

"Hey," I said. "What's up?"

He didn't even look at me. I pretended to be interested in the fish. I mean, they were pretty and everything, as far as fish go.

"How come they each have a bowl to themselves?" I asked. "I never seen pet fish kept one to a bowl."

"Rumble fish," said the Motorcycle Boy. "They'd kill each other if they could."

I looked at Mr. Dobson behind the counter. He was a nice old guy, a little nuts to keep trying to run the pet store, since all he had were some scroungy puppies and kittens and a parrot that he couldn't sell because we'd taught it all the bad words we knew. That parrot could come up with some interesting sentences. Mr. Dobson looked worried. I wondered how long the Motorcycle Boy had been in there, to scare Mr. Dobson that much.

"That's right, Rusty-James," he told me. "Siamese fighting fish. They try to kill each other. If you leaned a mirror against the bowl they'd kill themselves fighting their own reflection."

"That's really neat," I said, even though I didn't think it was really neat.

"Wonder if they'd act that way in the river," the Motorcycle Boy went on.

"Nice colors," I said, trying to keep up the conversation. I had never seen the Motorcycle Boy look so hard at anything. I thought Mr. Dobson was going to call the cops if I didn't get him out of there.

"Yeah?" he said. "That makes me kind of sorry I can't see colors."

It was the first time I'd ever heard him say he was sorry about anything.

"Hey," I said. "Let's go boppin' around again tonight. I can get some more wine. We can get some chicks and have a really nice time, huh?"

He went deaf again and didn't hear me. That pet store gave me the creeps, with all those little animals waiting around to belong to somebody. But I stayed there anyway, fooling around until Mr. Dobson said he was closing up. The next day was Saturday, the closest thing to a busy day he ever had, so he closed up and just left the animals there. The Motorcycle Boy stood outside, watching Mr. Dobson close up, until the shades were pulled down over the windows and the door.

And when he finally left the place, I followed him the best I could, even though he didn't even see me anymore. It seemed like the only thing I had left to do.

11

We went home. The Motorcycle Boy sat on the mattress and read a book. I sat next to him and smoked one cigarette after another. He sat there reading and I sat there waiting. I didn't know what I was waiting for. About three years before, a doped-up member of the Tiber Street Tigers had wandered over onto Packer territory and got beat up and crawled back. I remember waiting around in a funny state of tenseness, like seeing lightning and waiting for thunder. That was the night of the last rumble, when Bill Braden died from a bashed-in head. I'd been sliced up real bad by a Tiger with a kitchen knife, and the Motorcycle Boy had sent at least three guys to the hospital, laughing out loud right in the middle of the whole mess of screaming, swearing, grunting, fighting people.

I'd forgotten about that. Sitting there reminded me. It was much harder to wait than to fight.

"Both home again?" The old man came in the door. He liked to stop in and change his shirt before he went out to the bars for the night. It didn't matter that the one he changed into was usually as dirty as the one he took off. It was just something he liked to do.

"I want to ask you somethin'," I said.

"Yes?"

"Was--is--our mother nuts?"