Susan Hinton - Rumble Fish

“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.