Russell Banks: Rule of the Bone

Finally the door’s closed and we’re all panting and staring at each other and he says, Get into the livingroom, Chappie, and sit down. We have some news for you, mister, he says, and that’s when I remember the coins.

On the coffeetable is the briefcase and it’s closed and for a second I think it’s the one with the rifle but no, when my stepfather flips it open I see right away it’s the one with the coins and I realize for the first time that there aren’t very many of them left. It was kind of a shock. None of the plastic bags had more than a few coins inside and some of the bags were completely empty although I didn’t remember emptying any and leaving them in the briefcase but it definitely looked like that’s what I had done. Dumb. My mom sat down on the couch and looked at the open briefcase like it was a coffin with a body in it and Ken said for me to sit in the chair which I did while he stood between me and the table and crossed his arms like some kind of cop. He had his glasses back on and was calmed down a little but was still steamed I knew from me hitting him with the bike.

I felt like a pathetic jerk sitting there looking at those few remaining coins. I remembered how I’d felt the first time I opened the briefcase and saw inside an endless supply of weed like it was the goose that laid the golden egg. My mom started crying then like she does when I really fuck up and I made a move to get up and comfort her by apologizing like I usually do but Ken told me just to sit there and shut the fuck up even though I hadn’t said anything yet.

Chappie, this is the worst thing you’ve ever done! my mom said and she started sobbing harder. Willie the cat tried to get on her lap but she pushed him away hard and he got down and left the room.

Ken said he didn’t give a shit anymore what I robbed from other people or how much dope I bought, that was my problem not his and he’d given up on me anyhow but when I stole from my own mother that’s where he drew the line especially when I stole something irreplaceable like those coins. He said I was goddamned lucky I hadn’t taken his rifle because he definitely would have called in the cops. Let them handle it. He was sick of feeding and housing and clothing a freeloader and a thief and a drug addict and as far as he was concerned if it was up to him he’d boot me out of the house this very minute except my mother wouldn’t let him.

I said to him, I thought they were your coins, and he reached out and slapped me real hard on the side of my head.

They were your mother’s! he said real sarcastic and she went sort of crazy then, screaming about how the coins had been her mother’s and she’d given them to her years ago along with other precious and sentimental items and someday the coins were going to be mine and really valuable but now I’d gone and stolen them and sold them and spent all the money on drugs so she’d never be able to pass them on to me. Never.

They were only coins, I said which was stupid but I didn’t know what else to say and I was feeling really dumb anyhow and lowdown so why not say something that sounded like I felt. They weren’t worth much anyhow, I said and my stepfather whacked me on the head again right on the ear this time tearing out an earring which really hurt. But it was like the sight of my blood got to him because then he belted me a couple more times, harder each time until my mother finally hollered for him to stop.

He did and when he went out into the kitchen and got a beer I stood up and still shaking I said real loud, I’m leaving this place!

Neither of them tried to stop me or even said where do you think you’re going so I walked out the door and slammed it as hard as I could and picked up my bike where he’d thrown it and went straight over to Russ’s who let me sleep on a ratty old couch that was in the livingroom.

The next morning as soon as I knew my mom and Ken would be at work I went over to the house for my clothes and stuff. I took a few towels and a blanket from the linen closet and some shampoo from the bathroom and shoved everything into two pillowcases. I was just about to leave when I remembered the few remaining coins and said to myself why not try and find them and take what’s left since they’re supposed to be mine someday anyhow. I was feeling hard and cold like a criminal mentality was creeping into me, and it was funny to me that I’d gone and made up the story about my grandmother to the pawnshop guy and then it’d turned out to be almost true.

I put my stuff down by the front door and took a beer from the fridge and popped it and walked back to my mom’s and Ken’s bedroom. I knew that as the saying goes a friend in weed is a friend indeed and if I was going to crash at Russ’s I’d better have some smoke to pass around until I got a job or something.

It didn’t seem likely they’d put the coins back in the closet but it was worth a look and sure enough when I reached into the darkness there were the two briefcases wrapped in the blanket the same as the day I found them. Ken and my mom must’ve thought that after last night I’d be too scared to go back there again but it was like I’d gone too far by now to be scared of anything anymore. The first briefcase had what was left of the coins, maybe fifty or sixty of them in a half-dozen bags which I took. I opened the second case and put the rifle together as usual and loaded it this time just to see how you did it since it was probably my last chance.

I was standing by the window aiming through the scope at a little kid on a tricycle across the street when I heard the bedroom door behind me creak like someone was coming in from the hallway. When I spun around it was Willie the cat jumping onto my mother’s bed. I must’ve been freaked because I aimed the rifle at him and pulled the trigger but nothing happened. Old Willie came down the bed and sniffed the end of the barrel and looked like he was ready to lick it. I pulled the trigger again but still nothing happened and then I realized that the safety was on and the trigger was locked.

I started to look for the safety but just as I found it Willie jumped down off the bed and disappeared into the closet which was lucky for him because as soon as he was out of sight I suddenly saw myself standing there with the gun in my hand and I could see what I’d been trying to do to him and I started to cry then, from my stomach up to my chest and into my head until I was standing there sobbing with my stepfather’s stupid rifle in my hand and the last remaining bags of my grandmother’s coins on the floor and the black briefcases open beside them. Nothing seemed to matter anymore because everything I touched turned bad so I just started firing. Slam, blam, blam! Mostly I shot at my mom’s and stepfather’s bed until the rifle was empty.

Then I came out of it like I’d been in a hypnotic trance. I stopped crying and put the rifle on the bed and got down on my hands and knees and tried to get Willie to come out of the closet but he was too scared. I was talking to him like he was my mom saying, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, real fast and high-pitched like when I was a little kid and similar stuff happened.

But no way that cat was going to trust me now. Way back there in the dark end of the closet scared out of his mind, he looked like I felt so I figured the best thing I could do was leave him alone. I picked up the coins and walked down the hall.

I hauled my stuff over to Russ’s place and stayed there until the last of the coins and the weed ran out and Russ said the older guys didn’t want me hanging around anymore. Hector let me have a couple of bags on credit so I could start dealing on my own and then the older guys said I could have the couch in the livingroom at least for the rest of the summer if I kept them in weed and since I was a dealer now that’s what I did.