Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

Fuck that shit, I said. I can’t do that. Besides, I’m stone broke, man. And all I got’s a few CDs. Classical, man, in case you want to buy ‘em. How about I sell you twenty bucks’ worth and we’ll be even. Two, maybe three CDs. Like new, man. From rich people, professors.

He said forget it, but I could work it off if I wanted by I helping him deal with the Hooliganz in Plattsburgh.

What do I hafta do, man? I don’t feel like doing anything dangerous, I said. I’m still just a kid, remember. I wouldn’t mind being a roadie for the concert though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he said. I could be a roadie, that was fine and tonight all I had to do was follow orders and like hold on to the money he owed the Hooliganz and give it over to them when he said and not until he said because he needed them to sign some kind of contract that he had from the student council so that he could get his cut later when they paid the bands. I was supposed to hold on to the money in case the Hooliganz wanted to grab it off of him and do the concert the next night without signing the contract Buster needed for getting his cut.

I guess being a manager of a band is sort of like being a leech and it’s hard to get yours without letting the band get theirs first but you don’t want them to think they’ll get theirs unless you get yours first or else they’ll just rub you off against the nearest rock. It’s complicated. Anyhow I said sure.

Do you have a good hiding place there in your pack? he asked me. These fucking niggers may decide to search me and they may search the van but they won’t bother you. You’re just a child, he said and he made this sickening dry-lipped smile.

I was going to have Froggy hold the money, he told me. But she’s a little slow on the uptake let us say. And then when I saw you standing there by the side of the road… Well, my boy, my boy, talk about heaven-sent! Halleloo-yah. And praise the Lord.

Yeah. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I said which’s something my grandmother used to say for explaining weird things.

We were all the way out to the Northway now and Buster turned the van left onto the ramp heading north, not the direction I’d originally planned on going but there really wasn’t much I could do about it now. Besides my criminal mind was already kicking in and telling me that if Buster was stupid or high enough to trust me with holding the Hooliganz’s money there was the distinct possibility of me getting some of it off of him before I split. And then there was the matter of Froggy which frankly I was now into viewing as a total green-light rescue operation, a definite Go.

Around five which was when Buster’d arranged to meet these guys the Hooliganz we pulled into the parking lot of Chi-Boom’s but Buster looked over the cars and said they weren’t there yet. There was a McDonald’s two stores down on Bridge Street so Buster went off to get everyone some Big Macs and fries and left me and Froggy in the van. I asked her, You wanna book, man? You wanna get away from Buster?

She looked at me from her corner in the back like she was a suspicious beaten old dog instead of a regular little I kid and didn’t say anything, just glanced up at me and then looked at her bare feet and picked at the bottom hem of her dress. I could see she didn’t know anymore what she wanted which was of course how Buster preferred it and why he kept her stoned so I decided then and there that if I was going to help her I’d have to take Buster’s place so to speak and tell her myself what she really wanted and then go ahead and get it for her. That wasn’t my style, I usually let people do what they want to do or even do nothing if that’s what they want but this time I was fully prepared to take over her decision-making powers and rule her myself at least temporarily.

We’ll get the fuck outa here together, I told her. You just be cool and leave everything to me, man. I know a place we can hide till I find out where your real home is. Maybe you got parents.

Then Buster was back with the Big Macs and all, yackety-yakking about this and that like we were great lifelong buddies, me and him and Froggy, and these rapsters the Hooliganz from Albany or Troy or wherever were out to rip all three of us off and not just him and not him being out to rip them off either. Buster took this thumb-sized roll of bills, mostly fifties it looked like and tucked it into my hand and said to stash it deep inside my pack where no one would think to look.

There wasn’t anyplace like that in my pack, I told him because there actually wasn’t and plus I didn’t want him or anyone else to see my gun which is how I now regarded the niner I’d taken from the Ridgeways’, my gun. But hey, I got this stuffed bird, I said and pulled the ol’ woodcock out of the garbage bag. And it’s all hollow inside. I can hide the money inside the bird, I said to Buster and did it, just shoved the roll of bills up what would have been its asshole if it hadn’t been turned into this neat little pouch that I had already examined long ago to no avail for drugs. See, I said to him and then I put the CDs and the ol’ woodcock into the backpack but on top of everything else right out there in plain sight.

Genius, pure genius! he said and he leaned back in his seat and took a nap for a while as it slowly got dark and cars started pulling into the lot and after a while the place was rocking pretty good and there were pickups and motorcycles and all kinds of cars coming and going. Buster was wide awake now and watching every car that pulled in but still no black rapsters from Troy, just white people, locals it looked like, big guys with mustaches and shaggy hair and thick necks and some females in tight jeans and cowboy boots and the occasional biker when speak of the devil there they were, the men of Adirondack Iron, at least a few of them, Joker and Roundhouse and Raoul and Packer, all four riding their own Harleys this time.

Naturally I didn’t say anything to Buster about them, I just slid down low in my seat so they couldn’t see me even by accident as they walked right past the van and went inside Chi-Boom’s. It wasn’t bad enough I had to deal with Buster Brown the psycho porn king, now I had to worry about the men of Adirondack Iron too. Those guys I definitely did not want to see me even from a distance.

And then pretty soon after that Buster’s rapsters finally arrived, four black dudes in a rusted-out ‘79 Galaxie, big guys wearing doo-rags on their heads and Chicago Bulls sweats and hoodies and Filo sneaks looking straight out of the projects only there aren’t any projects within a hundred miles of here so they really looked like they were men from another planet like Pod Boy except Pod Boy was traveling incognito tonight and the Hooliganz definitely weren’t.

Buster jumped out and ran around and greeted them with all these high fives and get-down street talk which is almost embarrassing for a fellow white person to have to witness with his own eyes and ears and the first thing they do is ask him for the money.

They talked for a few minutes out there and I could pick up most of it. The rapsters wanted Buster to hand over the expense money up front or they wouldn’t sign and he was saying he couldn’t get it from the promoters until after they signed the contract blah blah but he does have a couple of motel rooms for them, he says and he’ll spring for food until they all get paid after the concert and so on.

The rapsters know Buster is lying and why, but they don’t know exactly where he’s lying which is his forte so to speak. The biggest Hooligan was wearing sunglasses and looked bad enough to rip Buster’s brains right down through the roof of his mouth. He draped one of his arms the size of a tire around Buster’s slopy shoulders and very pissed he says, Man, we be needin a drink and you be buyin cause they ain’t no other fuckin way for us to get a muthafuckin drink, you know what I’m sayin. Let’s us go inside an talk this whole muthafuckin mess over, he says and as requested Buster like a good boy scoots along into Chi-Boom’s with them leaving me and Froggy alone in the van with various things but most important with the money.