Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

The place looked pretty grungy but at least everybody’d had a good time, I was thinking but I still wondered about the birthday cake, like if maybe there’d actually been one but Evening Star’d just forgotten about it on account of the great success of her party. I wandered around the grounds for a while looking for somebody to talk to but everybody was gone now or passed out. I figured Pa must’ve left with the white dudes and gone down to the Holiday Inn party too. Finally I went into the house, bypassed the livingroom and walked out to the kitchen to check. But there were just piles of dirty pots and pans from the cooking. No birthday cake.

No big deal, I said to myself and I opened the fridge and pulled out practically the last beer and I’m like looking around for an opener when I hear these sick-sounding groans from the room next to the kitchen which is where the laundry is and a cot and shower and toilet for the guy who takes care of the gardens. Maybe it’s Jan puking or somebody else who needs help, I think so I push open the door and go in. The room is dark but with the door open there’s enough light from the kitchen for me to see Evening Star on the cot on her hands and knees with her lace dress up around her waist and I-Man with his pants down banging her from behind. He’s half her size and it’s not a pretty sight.

Then Evening Star turns and over her shoulder she catches me looking and she scowls and says Shit! but I-Man just keeps on whaling it to her like he’s about to come so I let the door slowly close and back out of the kitchen feeling hot and red in the face and incredibly pissed off but confused because I don’t know what I’m pissed at. It’s everything I guess. The no birthday cake and I-Man banging Evening Star and my father gone without even saying goodbye. When I got out onto the porch I saw I was still carrying the unopened bottle of beer and I threw it as hard as I could into the darkness in the general direction of the pool.

I heard it smash against the tiles and one of the dogs, the Lab I think yelped like maybe some glass had hit it which made me feel like a piece of shit. I ran over to the pool but the dogs were gone, even the cats. There was brown broken glass everywhere though. I didn’t know what to do then. I guess I should’ve cleaned it up but I didn’t.

For a while I walked around in the flower gardens below the house. The moon’d come out and in the moonlight the white animals with their red eyes and mouths started to spook me. Up above the gardens the wind in the palm trees sounded like the low mournful voices of the ghosts of the thousands of African slaves who’d been born there and worked in the cane fields down below for their whole lives being whipped and manacled if they tried to resist or escape and then they’d died generation after generation like for hundreds of years and had been buried someplace out back in the bush where no one remembered now because the jungle’d covered everything up so you couldn’t go and put flowers on their graves even. The wind was the saddest sound I’d ever heard and I had to get out of there before I started sobbing.

I was crossing the darkened livingroom headed for the stairs and my room when I heard my father’s voice coming from his chair in the corner. That you, Bone?

I said yeah but didn’t stop and he goes, What’s happening, son? I turned then and saw the light from his cigarette and went over and sat down in the chair next to him and I guess sighed because he said, What’s wrong, son?

Nothin’, I said. Well… something.

He laughed, a little too loud, like he does when he’s been snorting awhile. Some sweet yellow gal break your heart, son?

I told him then. It was wrong and I knew it as soon as I did it but I couldn’t help myself. Plus I didn’t think he’d react the way he did. Actually I didn’t know how he’d react and I didn’t think about it one way or the other. I told him just to tell him. I said it flat out, that a few minutes ago I’d walked up on I-Man fucking Evening Star.

At first he was calm and said Oh? and asked like did they see me and I said yeah but when he asked where did I see them fucking his calmness scared me so I lied.

Down below. In the flower gardens, I said.

He wanted to know exactly so I said I wasn’t sure, maybe near the statues of all the lambs and foxes and so on. Next to the big birdbath, I told him which happened to be down near the gate and as far from the house as you could get without going onto the road. What’re you gonna do? I asked.

Well, Bone, I’m going to have to kill him.

Jeez. How come?

Why? Because what’s mine is mine. That’s the rule I live by, Bone. And when some little nigger comes into my house and takes what’s mine, he has to pay. He has to pay and pay, many times over. And the only thing that nigger owns is his worthless life, so that’s what he’ll have to pay with.

Jeez, I said. That’s pretty harsh. He got up from his chair real slow and creaky and I said, I thought this was Evening Star’s house.

She’s mine, Bone. So whatever she owns I own too. He walked into his bedroom then and came back out a few seconds later and when he got close to the door the moonlight glinted off the gun in his hand and his face which was gray and cold as ice. Down by the birdbath you say?

Yeah. I was really freaking now and wishing like mad that I’d never said anything but it was too late. Listen, Pa, I think I’ll stay up here if you don’t mind, I said.

Up to you, Bone. I can understand that, he said and he stepped outside and in a flash I took off for the kitchen and the laundry room in back. When I got there I-Man was buckling his pants up and Evening Star was gone.

Bone! he says only mildly surprised to see me like he didn’t know yet that I’d walked in on him and Evening Star. Wussup, mon? he said and strolled into the kitchen like he’d just taken a piss outside and planned to check out the fridge for a late-night snack.

Listen, you gotta get outa here, man. Doc’s after your ass, I said. He didn’t seem to register, just lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips, then reached for the handle to the fridge.

He’s got a gun, I said. That got his attention.

Serious t’ing? Where him at?

Down in front by the birdbath, I said. He’s fucking deadly cold, man. And he’s got his piece.

Why Doc wan’ t’ kill I-and-I, Bone?

For screwing Evening Star, for Christ’s sake! Why d’ya think? Hurry the fuck up and book by the back way, I told him. There were some old paths crisscrossing through the bush there that the local people used instead of the road when they came over the hill on foot.

He nodded and walked slowly to the door to the backyard and then stopped and turned to me. How Doc come to understand dat I-and-I jukin’ Evenin’ Star?

Yeah, well, I dunno about that. Maybe she told him. Maybe he like saw you himself. He was right here at the time, man, sitting out in the livingroom twenty feet away and even though he was coked to the gills his senses were alert, man. He might’ve even heard you.

Fe trut’, Bone?

Yeah, the truth. Now get the fuck outa here, man. For Christ’s sake, book it, willya?

You comin’, Bone?

Where? Not back to the ant farm, man. That’s the first place he’ll look for you.

Not de ant farm. I-and-I goin’ to Jah-kingdom. Up into de Cockpit, Bone, where I-and-I mus’ sattar ‘mongst mi Maroon brethren-dem and be I-lion in I-kingdom, mon. Time come, time go, time fly away, Bone, but I-and-I mus’ return to Cockpit Country. Mus’ return I-self to de mos’ fruitful land of I-birth, de home of all de African I-scendants in Babylon. De Babylonians-dem cyan’t come in dere ‘mongst de Maroons. You comin’? he asked again. Or you stayin’ on de dis a-yere plantation wi’ Papa Doc?