Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

It wasn’t like Buster and Sister Rose. I mean, either way, whether it was my idea first or I-Man’s plan all along it didn’t matter once I was doing it because at any point along the way from the ferry ride across Lake Champlain to this morning in Mobay I could’ve said I’m outa here and I-Man would’ve said, Up to you, Bone. It’s important for me to remember that even though I-Man usually knew what I was going to do before I did a thing he never tried to make me do it.

So anyhow just when I’m in the middle of deciding to reenter my old life of crime you might say I spot another white couple on the other side of the marketplace. They’re easy to pick out of course due to practically everyone else is black or at least brown and the couple is getting out of this big mud-spattered Range Rover and walking over to I-Man who greets them like he knows them from before. I could tell instantly they weren’t tourists. They were both older, like in their forties and tanned like they’d been living in Jamaica a long time and incredibly cool-looking, definitely cooler than any white people I’d seen here so far.

The guy was real tall and skinny and clean-shaven but with a long ponytail and wearing a tan safari jacket and one of those great-white-hunter helmets like you see on lion tamers and reflector sunglasses. The woman had a Rasta tam on her head with brown matted dreadlocks sticking out and was wearing all these Rasta bracelets and necklaces and even though she was on the heavyset side and older she was surprisingly sexy even to me because of her red and green striped belly dancer pants with only a yellow bikini bra on top, plus she had great tits.

I’m watching from across the market and I-Man passes the tall dude a brick of sens and the guy hands him some money and everybody does a power handshake even I-Man and the woman and touches fists a couple of times and then when the couple turns to go back to the Range Rover the man pulls off his shades and helmet and wipes off his face with his sleeve and suddenly my mouth goes dry and my eyes practically bug out of my head.

I know him. I know his face, way down deep inside me, like in my chest I know him. And for the first time I understood why I’d decided to follow I-Man to Jamaica. I knew he’d be here. It’s my father! My real father! My mouth flopped open and I couldn’t say anything but in my mind I’m like calling him in this little boy’s voice, Daddy! Daddy! Over here, it’s me, your son Chappie!

I didn’t once think it might be a case of mistaken identity, I knew absolutely it was him. I’d recognized his face the second I saw it from how I remembered it when I was a little kid and from the picture my grandmother had and he still looked a little like a tall thin JFK even with the ponytail. I remembered him from when I was with him all the time and he was still married to my mom and life was perfect. It was definitely my real father!

I started running then, dodging around people and jumping over goats and chickens in cages and shoving my way up and down the long jammed aisles until I finally got to the other side of the huge tin-roofed market building where I blew by I-Man just as my father and the white Rasta woman slammed the doors of the Range Rover only about a hundred feet beyond and drove out of the lot between a bunch of buses onto a narrow street. My father was driving and they weren’t moving very fast due to the mud and deep ruts so I ran after them, right down the middle of the street with people jumping out of my way and dogs barking as I blasted past running faster than I’ve ever run before, stretching my legs out in front of me as far as they’d reach and pumping my arms and hollering, Wait up! Wait up! It’s me, it’s your son Chappie!

I chased them down one street and then up another and was only a few yards behind them and even got close enough almost to jump onto the back bumper where I could’ve hung on to the spare tire and ridden there, when they turned onto a bigger street and the Rover speeded up some but I kept on running after and hollering even though my chest was burning and my legs felt like iron… I slipped once and fell down and scraped myself and got mud all over me but I scrambled back up and saw them still ahead of me but further away now and I ran after them anyhow but limping and both knees and the palm of one hand bleeding from when I fell. They got to the center of the town where there’s this big traffic circle but when I came to it the Rover was already on the far side with a big fountain in between us and it turned off there onto like a highway that led out of town and I heard my father shift into fourth gear and hit the gas and the Rover disappeared around the bend probably doing fifty already.

For a long time I stood there with my heart pounding and my chest on fire and the only thought in my head was that at last I’d seen my father. My real father! Finally after all these years I’d come to Jamaica not knowing that I was looking for him even and then one day completely by accident I’d found him. And even though I’d lost him again I knew it was only temporary this time. I was bleeding and muddy and all but I felt like I’d finally woken up from one of those nightmares that trick you into thinking you’re awake and this is really happening. It was like this incredible relief.

After a minute or two of just standing there by the fountain like an idiot child sweaty and panting and bleeding from the knees and hands I came back to my senses and turned around and walked slowly back through town. As I walked people who must’ve seen me when I was running came up and patted me on the back and made sorrowful faces like they knew somehow that it was my father I’d been chasing and that I’d lost him again. I didn’t think I had though since this was the closest I’d ever been to finding him and now we were at least on the same island together but it was nice they sympathized. In the States the whole thing would’ve been a big joke.

Finally I made it back to the marketplace where next to a table with all these Rasta carvings of African lions and noble black men with dreadlocks and such I saw I-Man standing in the shade smoking a spliff and chatting up the woodcarver who looked a lot like one of his own statues. There was this cop there, a young red-striper who seemed more interested in me than I-Man’s spliff and when I came up the cop says right away, You know ‘im?

Who? I-Man? Yeah, I guess so, I said thinking maybe it’s a trick and he’s going to bust the both of us or something although so far I hadn’t seen any signs that selling ganja was illegal in Jamaica except maybe in stores and even in stores you could buy it if you talked to the right guy.

No, mon. I mean the white man. Doc. You know ‘im?

Yes I do, I proudly said.

So why’re you chasin’ him, mon?

He’s my father. Only I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I’ve been living in the States and he didn’t know I was coming back to Jamaica. That’s why he kept going, I said. He probably just didn’t see me.

Doc be cool, I-Man said. Him come an’ go alla time, fe trampoosing all across de lands, him settin’ de pace. Time, material an’ space, mon, gas, clutch an’ brakes. Technology controls, Bone, techno set de pace.

I said for them to c’mon, cut the shit and tell me what’s up with Doc because I only knew what my mom and my grandmother’d told me which wasn’t all that much and the cop laughed and said the same as I-Man, Doc be cool. Didn’t know he had a son in the States though.