Susan Hinton - Rumble Fish

“You always say that.” She was crying. I backed her up against the wall and hugged her awhile.

“Love you, babe,” I said, and turned her loose.

“I wish you wouldn’t fight all the time.” She wasn’t crying anymore. She could quit crying the easiest of any girl I knew.

“Well, what about you?” I asked. “You took after Judy McGee with a busted pop bottle not too long ago.”

“She was flirting with you,” she said. Patty was a hellcat sometimes.

“Ain’t my fault,” I said. I grabbed my jacket on the way to the door. I stopped and gave her a good long kiss. Pretty little thing, she looked like a dandelion with her hair messed up.

“Be careful,” she said. “I love you.”

I waved good-bye and jumped off the porch. I thought maybe I’d have time to stop by my place and have a good swig of wine, but going by Benny’s I saw everybody waiting around for me, so I went in.

There were more people there than had been there in the afternoon. I guess word had gotten around.

“We just about give up on you,” Smokey said.

“Better watch out or I’ll take you on for a warm-up,” I warned him. I counted the guys and decided maybe six of them would show up at the lot. I didn’t see Steve, but didn’t worry about it. He couldn’t get out much at night.

“Split up and meet me there,” I told them, “or we’ll have the cops on our tail.”

I left with Smokey and B.J. I felt so good. I love fights. I love how I feel before a fight, kind of high, like I can do anything.

“Slow down,” B.J. said. “You’d better be savin’ your energy.”

“If you wasn’t so fat you could keep up.”

“Don’t start that stuff again,” B.J. said. He was fat, but he was tough, too. Tough fat guys ain’t as rare as you’d think.

“Man, this is just like the old days, ain’t it?” I said.

“I wouldn’t know,” Smokey said. Fights made him edgy. Before a fight he’d get quieter and quieter, and it always bugged the hell out of him that I’d get louder and louder. We had a funny kind of tension between us anyway. He would have been number-one tough cat in our neighborhood if it wasn’t for me. Sometimes I could tell he was thinking about fighting me. So far, either he was scared or wanted to stay friends.

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s right. It was all over before you got into it.”

“Hell, that gang stuff was out of style when you was ten years old, Rusty-James,” he told me.

“Eleven. I can remember it. I was in the Little Leaguers.”

The Little Leaguers was the peewee branch of the local gang, the Packers. Gang stuff was out of style now.

“Man,” I said, “a gang really meant somethin’ back then.”

“Meant gettin’ sent to the hospital once a week.”

Okay, so he was edgy. So was I. I was the one doing the fighting, after all. “You’re almost talkin’ chicken, Smokey,” I said.

“I’m almost talkin’ sense.”

I kept quiet. It took a lot of self-control, but I kept quiet. Smokey got nervous, since quiet ain’t my natural state.

“Lookit,” he said, “I’m goin’, ain’t I?”

I guess the thought that he was really going made him brave again, ’cause he went on: “If you think this is gonna turn out to be a rumble, you’re crazy. You and Biff are gonna go at it and the rest of us is gonna watch. I doubt too many’s gonna show up for that much.”

“Sure,” I said, only half listening to him. We had come to the pet store. We turned into the alley that ran alongside of it, crawled through a hole in the back fence and came out onto the vacant lot that led right down to the river. The lot was damp and it stank. The area around here always stinks from that river, but it’s worse in the lot. Further down, a bunch of plants and factories dump their garbage into the water. You don’t notice the stink if you live there awhile. It’s just extra strong in that lot.

Smokey was right — only four of the guys who were in Benny’s were there waiting for us. B.J. looked around and said, “I thought Steve was gonna be here.” He said it sarcastic. They never could understand why I let Steve hang around.

“So, maybe he’s late,” I said. I didn’t really expect him to show up, except that he said he would.

Across the field was Biff and his gang. I counted them, just like the Motorcycle Boy taught me to. Know everything you can about the enemy. There was six. Even enough. I was getting so high on excitement I couldn’t stand still.

“Rusty-James!”

It was Biff, coming across the lot to meet me. Oh, man, I couldn’t wait. I was going to stomp him good. It seemed like my fists ached to be pounding something. “I’m here!” I called.

“Not for long, you punk,” Biff said. He was close enough for me to see him clearly. My eyes get supersharp before a fight. Everything gets supersharp before a fight — like with a little effort I could fly. During a fight, though, I almost go blind; everything turns red.

Biff was sixteen, but not any bigger than me; husky; his arms hung off his shoulders like an ape’s. He had a pug-ugly face and wiry blond hair. He was dancing around worse than I was.

“He’s been poppin’ pills,” Smokey said behind me.

Now, I hate fighting hopped-up people. They’re crazy. You get crazy enough in a fight without being doped up. You fight some cat who’s been washing down bennies with sneaky pete and they can’t tell if you kill ’em. Your only advantage is a little more control. I never do dope, as a rule. Dope ruined the gangs.

Biff looked high. The light from the street-lamps was bouncing off his eyes in a way that made him look crazy.

“I hear you’re lookin’ for me,” I said. “Here I am.”

I’ve done this lots of times before. I’d get in a fight about once a week. I hadn’t lost a fight in almost two years. But Biff was a little tougher than the usual kid. If the gang wars had still been going on he would have been leader of the Devilhawks. He didn’t like anybody to forget that, either. You can’t take it for granted you’re going to stomp some snotty-nosed seventh-grader, so when you go up against somebody like Biff Wilcox you think about it.

We started in on the warm up, cussing each other out, name-calling, threats. This was according to the rules. I don’t know who made up the rules.

“Come on,” I said finally. I like to get down to business. “Take a swing at me.”

“Take a swing at you?” Biff’s hand went to his back pocket and came out flashing silver. “I’m gonna cut you to ribbons.”

I didn’t have a knife with me. Most people didn’t knife-fight these days. I usually carried a switchblade, but I got caught with it at school and they took it away from me and I hadn’t gotten around to getting another one. Biff should of told me it was going to be knife-fighting. God that made me mad! People don’t pay attention to the rules anymore.

Biff’s friends were cheering and screaming and my friends were grumbling and I said, “Anybody lend me a blade?” I still thought I could win — Biff wouldn’t have pulled a knife if he thought he could win in a fair fight. All I had to do was equal things up.

Nobody had a knife. That’s what comes of not gang-fighting. People are never prepared.

Somebody said, “Here’s a bike chain,” and I held back my hand for it, never taking my eyes off Biff.

Just like I expected, he tried to make the most of that moment, lunging at me. I was quick enough, though, grabbing the chain, dodging the knife, and sticking out my foot to trip him. He just stumbled, and whirled around, jabbing at me. I sucked in my gut and wrapped the chain around his neck, jerking him to the ground. All I wanted to do was get the knife away from him. I’d kill him later. First things first. I jumped on top of him, caught his arm as he swung the knife at me, and for what seemed like hours we wrestled for that knife. I took a risk I thought was worth taking and tried holding his knife hand with one arm, and used the other to smash his face. It worked, he loosened his hold on the knife long enough for me to get it away from him. It fell a few feet away from us, far enough away that I didn’t bother trying to reach for it, which was good. If I had gotten a hold of it, I’d have killed Biff. As it was, I was pounding his brains out. If he’d give up on that damned knife he might of stood a chance; he was older than me, and just as tough. But he didn’t come there to fight fair, so instead of fighting back, he’d just keep trying to get away and crawl over to the knife. Gradually I started to calm down, the red tinge to everything went away, I could hear everyone screaming and yelling. I looked at Biff. His whole face was bloody and swollen.