Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

I threw my sleeping bag off and marched straight to the bedroom where the gun was and took it and the box of bullets and then I went down into the cellar and got a backpack and put the gun and bullets and a bunch of the camping equipment inside, a cook kit and canteen and hatchet and even a first aid kit and tied a fresh sleeping bag onto the pack frame. Then I walked through the whole house selecting various items I thought I’d need for survival like a flashlight and a couple of towels and the rest of the canned smoked oysters which I’d developed a definite fondness for and some of the other food that was left. I took one of Mr. Ridgeway’s sweaters and the last of his clean socks and underwear and some other clothes and put on a cool flannel workshirt I found in the closet, the only thing of his I actually might’ve bought myself if I’d had any money and a loose pair of old jeans with paint stains that kind of fit me when I rolled up the bottoms practically to the knees and of course my old shearling jacket which Russ’d been decent enough to leave behind. In one of the pockets I found the folded-up clipping about the fire which I guess he no longer wanted to be reminded of but I sure did, I never wanted to forget it.

Then I checked myself out in the movie star mirror in the big bathroom and the clothes looked pretty decent on me in a grunged sort of way. I remember thinking suddenly that I didn’t look like I used to anymore. I was still a kid and all and small for my age but I looked more like a true intentional outlaw now and not so much a homeless kid pretending not to give a shit that no one wanted him. I took out my nose ring for the first time in a year and my earrings too and laid them on the counter. For a second it felt funny like I was going to sneeze but then it felt more normal than ever. Same with my hair. I found a pair of scissors in the medicine cabinet and snipped off the mohawk so that I had short hair all over like a guy just released from jail.

It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid I wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy I could travel to the seacoasts with, a boy I’d like to meet up with in foreign cities like Calcutta and London and Brazil, a boy I could trust who also had a good sense of humor and liked smoked oysters from a can and good weed and the occasional 40 ounces of malt. If I was going to be alone for the rest of my life this was the person I wanted to be alone with.

One other thing I did before leaving the Ridgeways’ was look around for stuff I might be able to sell for cash. There wasn’t much except for things that were too big to carry like the TV and VCR and the fancy plates with golden edges and some antique furniture and pictures that I thought might be worth a lot but couldn’t be sure of. I took one of the smaller stuffed birds that I personally liked though, a woodcock I think it’s called and put it in a plastic garbage bag and a bunch of the classical CDs but they were things I might keep for my own private enjoyment and not sell unless someone offered me a substantial amount of cash. Otherwise there wasn’t much left in the house for me to exercise my criminal mentality on that I hadn’t already used or eaten or burned in the fireplace or just trashed and left in the middle of the floor.

I stood there in the middle of the huge livingroom with the high ceiling and this enormous picture window at the end because of the terrific view of the Adirondack Mountains on the other side which you couldn’t see because of the wooden shutters outside, and I kept thinking there was something important that I’d forgotten to do or some final thing I needed to rob. I must’ve still been incredibly pissed at Russ for running out on me or something because what I did then was sort of stupid and pointlessly violent but it felt good. I reached down into my backpack and drew out the gun and the bullets. It was a small black Smith & Wesson niner, heavy and solid in my hand and when I checked I saw it was already loaded like Mr. Ridgeway’d kept it right next to his bed so he could reach into his dope and condom drawer and without even getting out of bed he could blow away whoever’d sneaked in to rape his wife and rob his valuables.

I didn’t have to aim but I did anyhow, holding the gun with two hands like on TV and said, Freeze, asshole! and fired at the plate-glass window in front of me. It was incredibly loud like from the world of nature instead of a little metal handheld instrument. I fired again. The third shot was the one that did it, killed the window so to speak and the whole thing shattered at once and fell like a curtain crashing to the floor in a million pieces. It was beautiful to see and I stood there for a minute playing it back in my imagination a couple of times.

Then I crunched across the broken glass and shoved hard against the wooden shutters and busted the hooks holding them and when they swung back it let the light of day pour into the house and fill it like a tidal wave. A couple of bluejays squawked and I saw a hawk making these slow loops overhead and heard the wind float through the pine trees like a river sliding over smooth rocks. I stood there with the warm spring air and the early afternoon light hitting me full in the face and looked across the wide acres of sloping yellowed lawn below the house and the wide forested valley beyond and then up the further side to the dark blue and purple mountains, all cragged and hooked and bulky making this huge bowl of space spread out before me and it was like I was up on the balcony of a castle and could see the whole world from there.

I put the gun on the windowsill and cupped my hands around my mouth and like I was a lone wolf howling at the moon I hollered as loud as I could, The Bone!

The Bone!

The Bone rules!

The Bo- own-n-n rooo-oo- oool-l-ls!

Probably it would’ve been more polite if I’d’ve cleaned up the Ridgeways’ summer place a little before I split especially with the busted picture window and all but I figured if I left the house funky and more or less trashed like it was they’d have to pay Russ’s Aunt Doris and Uncle George extra to do the job for me. They might even put Russ to work, he was so hot to get a job and all. Pumping a little extra outside cash into the local economy was mainly how I looked at it so with no further a due or thought I slung on my backpack and grabbed the garbage bag with my CDs and stuffed bird and truly glad to be out of there at last I stepped through the window frame onto the deck and strolled down the stairs to the driveway and out to the road.

When I reached the bottom of the hill by the Stewart’s in Keene I had to ask myself for the first time in a while which way to go, west or east. The road through town ran two ways. West wound across the Adirondacks to nowhere, to Fort Drum and parts of Canada I guess, hundreds of miles of little country roads and small towns and the occasional ski resort. But east went to the Northway which is the highway that runs between Montreal and Albany and from where I was standing Albany looked like the gateway to the rest of America and to the wider world itself.

I set my pack and bag down on the road there and started hitching east. I didn’t have any map or anything or any money and I didn’t have a detailed plan except to get out of the northcountry where I had so far lived my whole life and to just go limp so to speak and let fate take care of the rest like I was the pod boy from Mars freshly arrived on earth.

Quite a few cars and pickups flashed past without a look or a pause or else they pulled into the Stewart’s for groceries or gas and I was starting to get discouraged and wondering if maybe I should try to hoof it the whole god-dam fifteen miles out to the Northway where all the traffic wasn’t local like here in Keene, when this old dark green Chevy van that had CHURCH OF THE DISADVANTAGED SAINTS painted on the side comes speeding around the bend. It slows like the driver is looking me over and finally stops a ways up the road and I think what the hell, Christians are people too, although it looks like there’s only the one inside and I run up to where it’s stopped and pull open the door and throw my pack and bag inside and climb in.