Russell Banks: Rule of the Bone

Chappie, he says to me, what the hell are you doing here again? I tol’ you to keep your little punk ass out of here.

Hey, it’s America, jerk-off. Remember? Land of the free, home of the fucking brave, man.

Don’t give me no shit. You’re loitering. Now g’wan, before I toss you out with the garbage.

Where you scoring for weed now, man? I ask him just to remind him of the true nature of our relationship which he seems to want to forget. You still smoking them blunts? I say.

Chappie, he says to me, don’t fuckin’ antagonize the cops. It’s dumb.

You’re only a rent-a-cop, man. I’m waiting to meet somebody, I say.

Wait outside. Do it now, he says and he spins me around with one hand which he can do because he’s a sizable dude and I’m small for my age anyhow. He says, That’s a nice shearling jacket you got, Chappie. Who’d you rob it off of?

I got it last year from my mom, asshole, I tell him which happens to be true and I ease off in the general direction of Sears.

Yeah, sure, he says and laughs and heads slowly in the opposite direction. Walking his beat. He knows I’m only changing seats, moving to another crossing in the mall and he’s not especially worried because it’s kids like me that make his otherwise boring job interesting.

A few minutes later I’m walking past Victoria’s Secret, the same ladies’ fancy nightgown and underwear store where Bart busted me for shoplifting last month so I look inside with a special interest in the place and I notice the little girl in the red dress from before. Only this time she’s with somebody, this potbellied dude with a big soft nose and pockety skin and thin black strands of hair that he’s combed sideways over his head like a bar code. He’s got the kid by the hand like he’s her uncle. Not her father. It’s like they’re supposed to be shopping for a present for somebody only I can’t figure who. This guy was not the type who had a wife or a girlfriend even, he was all rumpled and the buttons of his navy peacoat were crossed up.

I don’t know what but something about the guy held my attention, like I knew him from someplace else although I didn’t. I watched them through the glass and the guy bought what looked like ladies’ pantyhose stockings, a whole bunch, six or seven packages of them and while he blah-blahs the salesgirl in this over-friendly way the kid just stands there beside him like she’s half asleep or maybe stoned. But she’s too young to be high, I think. I figure maybe they’re traveling someplace, like from Canada and she’s tired. Must be Canadians, I think and then when I start to move off they come out and the guy gives me this long stare, like What the hell are you? He doesn’t say anything but it’s like he’s never seen a kid with a mohawk or nose ring before which is probably true for Canadians.

I don’t know why I thought he was a Canadian. My stepfather is supposedly from Ontario but the guy didn’t look anything like my stepfather who except when he’s drinking is this neat and trim sort of person, a control freak with a crewcut and creases in his jeans who my mom thinks is God and I’m supposed to try and be just like him. Right. Naturally he thinks I’m a total loser which is okay because his idea of a real man is Arnold Schwarzenegger or General Schwarzkopf or anybody with a name with Schwarz in it because he’s basically a Nazi with a drinking problem plus a few others is how I see him. What bums me is that my mom bought that crap and kept telling me I was lucky to have Ken for my stepdad when I knew it was the opposite and he knew it too.

You got a problem? I say to the Canadian because of the way he looked at me and he smiles and says not at all and takes the little girl by the hand and walks off, real relaxed. I watch them for a minute wondering why they seem so laid back and all, especially him if they’re traveling so far from home because even if the border is only about an hour from here Canada is a huge place and they look definitely funky, like they’ve been on the road for a week and you’d think they’d want to get where they’re going. Plus him buying the packages of pantyhose is strange, unless they can’t get those in Canada.

Anyhow I didn’t exactly have anything better to do that night so I followed them, keeping back a ways and out of sight. I guess I was only curious about the guy but also I was thinking maybe he has cigarettes. It was cold outside, I remember and snowing. I thought maybe he’s driving one of those big RVs or a van that they’re sleeping in and he’s parked it out in the lot and he’ll let me crash there till tomorrow or till the bikers run out of speed and Russ and I can get back into our crib over the Video Den in Au Sable. So I follow the guy and the little girl in and out of the Wiz and then the Foot Locker where the guy actually buys the kid some socks which she puts on right there in the store while he waits and looks around and almost catches me watching and after a while I realize that I’m all hyped up, I’m like peaking out at a million RPMs and my heart is hammering in my chest and my hands are all sweaty. I didn’t know what was happening at the time but suddenly it was like I’m looking down this tunnel at the Canadian guy and the little girl, especially at the little girl who I was really worried about now, like some terrible thing was about to happen to her and she couldn’t see it coming but I could. I wanted to tell her something important about people but I didn’t want her to have to know it yet, she was too young still.

It’s weird but as long as I didn’t look directly at her and watched the guy with her instead, her uncle or whatever, I didn’t flip out, all I was into was maybe bumming a smoke from the guy. But the second I switched over to the kid it’s like something terrible is about to happen, this huge heavy ugly gray thing shaped like a tyrannosaurus rex or the country of Canada on the map is hovering over the entire United States of America and is about to fall or break apart and avalanche down on me and cut off my breath, so I start to breathe in and out real fast like I remember once Willie the cat did when he had a hairball in his throat and got all humped over with his head down next to the livingroom carpet making these quick little gagging noises. My stepfather walked in from the kitchen and gave him a kick across the room because he was afraid Willie was going to make a mess on the carpet so Willie threw up in my closet instead and I never told anyone. I just cleaned it up myself.

Basically people don’t know how kids think, I guess they forget. But when you’re a kid it’s like you’re wearing these binoculars strapped to your eyes and you can’t see anything except what’s in the dead center of the lenses because you’re too scared of everything else or else you don’t understand it and people expect you to, so you feel stupid all the time. Mostly a lot of stuff just doesn’t get registered. You’re always fucking up and there’s a lot that you don’t even see that people expect you to see, like the time after my thirteenth birthday when my grandmother asked me if I got the ten dollars and the birthday card she sent me. I said to her I don’t know and she started dissing me to my mom and all. But it was true, I really didn’t know. And I wasn’t even into drugs then.

The little girl in the red dress was wearing binoculars over her eyes like I did when I was her age and she couldn’t see that she was in danger any more than I could have seen it back then, only it was different for her now because she had me to help her and I didn’t have anyone.

They went into the food court and I followed a little ways behind and when they stopped at the Mr. Pizza and ordered slices I suddenly got too hungry to hang back anymore so I came up behind the guy and I go like, Hey, man, you got some spare change so I can buy me a slice, man? I haven’t eaten all day, I tell him which is basically true except for some cold french fries in Russ’s car this morning that he gave me.