Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

Oh shit, let’s go! Russ said. He dove out the window like a circus lion jumping through a ring of fire and I followed him straight into the darkness.

By the time we got to the edge of the roof and turned to shinny down the pole to the ground the flames had completely filled the window and it looked like the whole room was burning. It was a combination of beautiful and scary probably like war. The room went up like one of those smart bombs’d hit it and when me and Russ reached the ground we turned and stood there and looked up amazed at the sight.

We should’ve gotten into Russ’s car and beat it the hell out of there but I guess we wanted to watch the fire. We staggered backwards away from the house across the yard to the garage where the Harleys were and a few minutes later we saw Roundhouse and Joker and Raoul and Packer come running down the stairs from the apartment so we slipped away from in front of the garage into the bushes on the side.

Russ said, C’mon, follow me, and we climbed through a broken old fence and came out behind the abandoned liquor store. He walked up to a rear door and opened it and we went inside this large storage room where we could safely look out the side window and watch the fire. All around us were these empty whiskey and wine cartons and then in the center of the pile I noticed a stack of ten or twelve unopened boxes. VCRs and laptop computers. I touched Russ’s shoulder and when he turned I just pointed to the boxes.

He goes, Oh, yeah, I know. I had a little trouble unloading them locally. I thought maybe I’d make my own deal with the Albany guy. You know what I’m saying?

Yeah, I said and turned back to the fire. Already there were two fire engines blocking the driveway. Lights were flashing and sirens and cop cars were pulling up and firemen were running hoses down the alley and driveway and rushing up the stairs with their axes.

The bikers still stood in the shadows at the front of the garage looking up at the apartment. Bruce wasn’t with with them I noticed. They were only a few feet from us and I could see they were scared shitless, even Joker who was telling them they had to book. Forget the electronics.

So where the fuck’s Bruce! Roundhouse said in a loud voice, very upset.

Packer said, I think he went back for the kid.

Fuck the kid! Joker said. Fuck Bruce. Fuck the stuff. We gotta get outa here, man. There’s cops everywhere.

Moving fast Roundhouse and Packer rolled their bikes out of the garage and got the engines started. Joker’d climbed on behind Roundhouse and Raoul got on behind Packer and the two huge Harleys and four bikers went roaring down the driveway past the pickup and Russ’s Camaro bumping over hoses and dodging firemen and at the street they turned right and disappeared.

You hear that? I said to Russ.

What?

Bruce is still up there, man. He thinks I’m locked inside your crib. He’s trying to save me!

Yeah. And I’ve got the key, Russ said in a strangely calm voice.

I gotta tell him I’m okay!

But when I turned to leave Russ grabbed my arm and said, You can’t get up there, man. It’s too late now.

I looked back at the fire and he was right. The whole apartment was in flames and the attic above and the empty storefronts and even the Video Den were burning now. A couple of firemen who had gone up the stairs to the apartment came stumbling back out the door and got safely down to the ground just as the whole staircase and porch fell in a huge shower of sparks and flame.

The noise of the fire was incredible, like a jet plane taking off with sirens and firehorns and firemen giving orders over loudspeakers. They had hoses snaked all over the place and were shooting hard heavy streams of water into the fire but it was like the fire was alive and the water was its food that only made it grow larger and hungry for more. I spotted Wanda and Rudy LaGrande out on the street with a crowd of people but then the cops pushed everyone back out of sight and a third fire truck pulled into place. On the far side of the street I thought I saw a bunch of people I knew, including my mom and my step-dad but I think it was an optical illusion due to fear and excitement.

Pretty soon the firemen must’ve realized there was no way they could save the house so they started spraying water on the buildings on either side of it including the one me and Russ were in to try and keep them from going up too. I could hear the water pounding on the roof and a bunch of firemen ran past the window toward the back. The storage room was filling with smoke and we were coughing from it and our eyes stung and sparks were starting to float down from the darkness near the ceiling like fireflies.

We better book, man, I said.

He goes, What about my stuff? I can’t leave my stuff!

It’s not your stuff. Never was.

Bruce and the other guys, they’re the ones who stole it!

Yeah, and you stole it from them. Now Bruce’s dead and the other guys’re gone.

Like it’s the first time he’s thought it Russ says, The cops’ll think I stole it too.

Fucking duh, man. Let it burn. It’s our best chance.

What about my car? I need my car.

Forget it. We’re criminals, man. You’ll have another chance. Maybe we’ll get lucky and people’ll see your car and think we died in the fire too, I said and ran for the door thinking that was the way it should be, me and Russ and Bruce burned up in the fire together, our bodies turned into three piles of char surrounded by burned-up tons of stolen electronics.

I didn’t know how Russ’s mom would take it but mine would be sad at first and then she’d get over it and my stepdad would be secretly happy especially since he could carry on like he’d lost something important to him.

Nobody else would think much about it though. Except Black Bart maybe since he’d lost a lot of freight forwarding business with the bikers plus a homeless kid who used to sell him his daily blunt. But nobody else’d care.

Russ was a step behind me and when I pushed open the door I freaked a pair of firemen who had their axes all ready to chop their way in.

Jesus! What the hell are you doing in there! the lead guy hollered. Get the hell outa there! he said and I said, We’re gone, man! and we were.

We booked like mad through a bunch of backyards and cut down to the river where there’s this narrow brick walkway from the olden days when the mill was running that snakes under the Main Street Bridge. You can stand down there next to the water which in spring comes right up to your feet and smoke a J if you want or just hang out and talk without being seen or heard which is why kids have been going there for generations I think.

Due to the fire and everybody in town wanting to watch it, us getting out of Au Sable without being seen was easier than it probably should’ve been but of course nobody was actually looking for me and Russ yet. They didn’t know yet that we were missing and presumed dead.

It was my idea not to let anyone see us.

Russ said, Maybe they’ll be so busy putting the fire out and keeping it from spreading and all that they won’t notice my stuff and we can go back later for it. Plus he was worried about his car. Russ is a very material guy.

I said, No way, man. Firemen are really smart and they hate unanswered questions. They’re not like cops, I told him, who would’ve just grabbed up all of Russ’s stolen VCRs and computers for themselves like it was Christmas and then busted us for some other crime than stealing. Like arson, even though it was only accidental. And once they found Bruce’s body up there in the apartment which unless he was burned to a crisp they could identify easy because of all his Gulf War tattoos they’d try and nail us for murder although a lot of people’d want to give us a good citizenship medal for getting rid of the bikers regardless of how we’d done it.