Susan Hinton - Rumble Fish

“Sure,” I said. That was the last time I saw ol’ Steve.

I spent the rest of the day in Benny’s. You could see most of the street from the front booth. If the Motorcycle Boy went by, I’d see him.

In the afternoon, after school was out, people came in. I didn’t feel like playing pool, but I got a big audience when I started telling everybody about the wild night we had. It made me feel better to tell everything — about the party and movie and bars and pool games and almost-fights and just-missed chicks, and then the mugging and the way the Motorcycle Boy had rescued us. Maybe I told it a little better than it happened — a couple of people gave me looks like they didn’t believe everything . But there was a lump on the side of my head half the size of a baseball, and when they saw Steve they’d believe it sure enough.

I liked telling things that happened to me. It took the scare out, like it was just an exciting movie I’d seen.

Patty came in. She hardly ever came to Benny’s, usually just on her mother’s day off. We had never gone there when we were going together because I didn’t like other guys looking at her. See, the kind of girls who hung out at Benny’s were tough chicks — pretty good girls, you know, but not exactly like I thought of Patty.

“You lookin’ for me?” I asked her. It figured she’d want to make up with me. Well, I’d let her sweat it a little bit, like I had been doing.

“Nope,” she said coolly. She bought a Coke from Benny and sat down in a booth, looking around like she was looking for somebody. And it wasn’t me.

Pretty soon Smokey Bennet came in and slid into the booth next to her. Both of them sat there like I was supposed to pin a medal on them. Everybody got quiet, expecting me to toss Smokey through the front window and slap Patty’s teeth out. I admit I thought about it. I thought about quite a few things, watching the crummy pool game. Both guys shooting were so nervous they couldn’t play worth anything.

“Smokey,” I said finally. “You want to step outside with me?”

“I ain’t gonna fight you, Rusty-James.”

“What makes you think I want to fight? Just step outside a minute so we can talk.”

“It wouldn’t be fair, now,” he said. “You ain’t in any condition to fight.”

“I said I didn’t want to fight. Talk — get it? Speak. Communicate.”

He looked at Patty, puzzled. But she was looking at me. She still loved me, I could tell. She’d never say so, any more than I’d tell her I still loved her. What a weird thing that was. It was all over, whether we wanted it to be or not.

“All right,” Smokey said. He followed me outside, and as the door closed behind us I could hear everybody yapping at once. And a couple of guys were standing on the booth seats, making sure they weren’t going to miss anything.

We walked across the street and sat down on a stoop. Smokey lit a cigarette and offered me one. He was still a little tense, like he thought I was going to jump him any second. But he was calm, too, like he thought he could handle it if I did. I wondered why that didn’t make me mad.

“Smokey,” I said. “Tell me somethin’. The other night, when we went to the lake with your cousin, and those girls were there — did you plan for it to get back to Patty? I mean, did you think this was what was goin’ to happen? That Patty would break up with me and you’d move in and maybe take over while I was still done in from that knife fight?”

“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.