Rumble Fish

"Russel-James," my father said, settling down with a book and a bottle. "Please be more careful in the future."

The Motorcycle Boy was quiet for so long I finally thought he was upset about Cassandra.

"She said she wasn't hooked," I told him. Even though I didn't like her, I thought maybe this would cheer him up.

"Who?" he asked me, surprised.

"Cassandra."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I believe her."

"You do?"

"Sure. You know what happened to people who didn't believe Cassandra."

I didn't. My father said, "The Greeks got 'em."

Now see what I mean? What the hell did Greeks have to do with anything?

"You don't like her anymore, though, huh?" I asked him.

He didn't answer me. He just got up and left. I went to sleep right away. Smokey came by around midnight with his cousin who had a car, so I went to the lake and drank beer with them. There were some girls there and we built a fire and went swimming. When I got home it was early in the morning. The old man woke up and said, "Russel-James, I heard a rumor going around that a policeman was determined to get one of you. Is it you or your brother?"

"Both of us, but mostly him."

I knew who he meant. The cop was a local who had hated us for years. I wasn't worried about that. I was a little worried that I might have got my side infected from swimming in the lake, but it looked all right.

I was tired again, so I cut school and slept till noon.

6

That afternoon turned out to be more interesting than I'd bargained for. I got expelled, and Patty broke up with me.

I went to school about one o'clock. I had to check in at the office and let them know I was there. I told them I had been sick that morning but was okay now. They didn't believe me, but I wasn't going to say I'd been to a beer blast till five in the morning.

I had done the same thing lots of times before, so I was surprised when, instead of giving me a pass back to class, I was sent in to see Mr. Harrigan, the guidance counselor.

"Rusty," he said, shuffling through some papers on his desk to let me know I was taking up his valuable time. "You have been to see me before."

"Yeah," I said. I can't stand for people to call me just "Rusty." It makes me feel like I'm not wearing my pants or something.

"Too many times," he said.

I was wondering what was coming. I mean, I didn't go in there and waste his time on purpose. All they had to do was quit sending me there.

"We have decided that we can no longer tolerate your kind of behavior." He went on to list all the things I'd been sent to the office for that year: fighting, swearing, smoking, sassing the teacher, cutting classes...

It was quite a list, but I already knew about it. He acted like he was telling me something I didn't know about. My mind went kind of blank. There was something about Mr. Harrigan that made my mind go kind of blank, even when he was swatting me with a board, like he had two or three times before.

All of a sudden I realized he was kicking me out of school.

"We have arranged for you to be transferred to Cleveland," he was telling me. Cleveland High was the school where they sent everybody they didn't like. That didn't bother me. But Biff Wilcox and his gang ran Cleveland. Since our fight, Biff and me had left each other alone. He stayed in his neighborhood, I stayed in mine. But if I just walked into his home territory, I was a dead man. It'd be me against half the school. Biff had had his chance to fight me fair. He wasn't going to try that again. Sure, I'd go to Cleveland. All I needed was a submachine gun and eyes in the back of my head.

"I don't want to go," I said. "Look, I done lots of things worse than cutting school for half a day. Why now?"

"Rusty," he said, "they are equipped to handle your kind in Cleveland."

"Yeah? They got bars on the windows and bullet-proof vests?"

He just looked at me. "Don't you think it's time you gave some serious thought to your life?"

Well, I had to worry about money, and whether or not the old man would drink up his check before I got part of it, and whether or not the Motorcycle Boy would pick up and leave for good, and I had a cop itching to blow my brains out. Now I was getting sent to Biff Wilcox's turf. So I didn't have much time for serious thinking about my life.

I gave some serious thought about punching Mr. Harrigan. I mean, they were kicking me out anyway. But I was still a little hung-over, so I decided not to waste the energy.

"You start at Cleveland next Monday, Rusty," Mr. Harrigan said. "You are suspended until then."

"I won't go," I said.

"The alternative is the Youth Detention Center." He rattled his papers again, to show that my time was up.

The Youth Detention Center. Big deal. Those guys had a lot of paperwork to get straightened out before they came after me. I had weeks to think of something to do, before they showed up.

I left his office with the intention of heading straight for his car and slashing his tires. But I ran into Coach Ryan in the hall.

"Rusty-James, man, I'm sorry," he said. He really did look kind of sorry. "I told them you were a good kid," he said. "I told them you never gave me any trouble."

Which was a lie, since I gave him trouble. He just tried to laugh it off.

"But it didn't do any good. I couldn't talk them out of it."

"Don't worry about it," I told him. He looked at me like I had been sentenced to death. He must have really thought I loved that school. I didn't, but my friends were there, and it was easier to go to than someplace where Biff Wilcox's friends were.

"Kid," he said to me, "don't go getting into trouble, okay?"

I must have looked at him like he was nuts, because he went on: "I mean trouble you can't handle."

"Sure," I said, and added "man."

It made him so happy. I hoped to hell when I was grown I'd have better things to do than hang around some tough punk, hoping his rep would rub off on me.

It really felt weird not being able to stay in school. I had always found something to do in the summer, though, and over Christmas, so I figured I'd get along.

Nobody was in Benny's besides Benny, and even though he was better than nobody, I don't like shooting pool without an audience. I went down the street and over a couple of blocks to Eddie & Joe's Bar. A couple of guys who used to be in the Packers hung out there. But as soon as I went in, Joe (or maybe Eddie) threw me out. Then I tried Weston McCauley's place. He was there, with some other people, but they were all spacey and nervous and dopey, doing horse. Junkies can't stand to be around straight people, so I left, feeling really sad because Weston had been second lieutenant in the Packers. He had been the closest thing to a friend that the Motorcycle Boy had. The Motorcycle Boy didn't have any friends, I realized when I got over being sad about Weston. He had admirers and enemies, but I'd never heard anybody claim to be his friend.

Then it was time for Patty to be getting home from school. She went to an all-girl Catholic school. Her mother didn't want her to be around boys. Patty thought this was really funny. She was the kind of girl who had boy friends when she was nine.

I waited for her at the bus stop, smoking a cigarette and fooling around, smarting off to people passing by. You'd be surprised at how many people are afraid of a fourteen-year-old kid.

Patty hopped off the bus and went swinging on by me like she didn't even see me.

"Hey," I said, dropping my cigarette and running a couple of steps after her, "what's up?"

She stopped sharply, glared at me, and really told me what I could do.

"What's with you?" I asked her. I was getting mad, myself.

"I heard all about your little party," she said. I must have looked as blank as I felt. She went on: "Up at the lake. Marsha Kirk was there. She told me all about it."

"So what? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you really think you can treat me like that?" She started off swearing at me again. I wondered whe

re she'd learned to swear so good, then remembered she'd been going with me for five months.

"What does a dumb party have to do with anything?"

"I heard all about you and that girl, that black-haired tramp." She was so mad she couldn't even speak for a second.

"Just get lost," she said finally. Her eyes were shooting sparks. "I don't want to ever see your face again."