Russell Banks - Rule of the Bone

The little girl had her slice in one hand and a Coke in the other and she was looking for a place to sit down. I smiled at her like we’re pals from before but she didn’t change her expression which was as serious as a spoon so I’m thinking what the hell, she’s scared, she doesn’t know friend from foe anymore, I can relate to that when suddenly it’s like a hot white light has been thrown on my face warming my cheeks and forehead and almost blinding me with the glare. The Canadian guy is looking at me, he’s staring directly into my eyes almost which people never do with me, not even kids because of my mohawk I guess and my earrings and the nose ring and plus I try to discourage that type of looking. But this caught me by surprise probably because I was distracted by the little girl when the guy hit me with all the attention and before I can shove it back at him he’s already talking a mile a minute which is definitely not like any Canadian I ever met.

Hey, you poor kid, you really do look like you’re starving, he says to me. He goes, I’m gonna buy you some supper, young man, I’m gonna buy you something solid to eat, something to get some meat on those young bones, he says stepping back and taking a look at me and shaking his head.

I must’ve made a mistake, I think. All that stuff about the little girl being in danger and this guy, being some kind of Canadian weirdo was only in my head, a product of my fevered imagination and I just thought it all up because of what I know about my stepfather who is from Ontario and what I remembered feeling when I was a little kid myself. The guy’s just a normal American, I think, who happens to talk a lot. And he likes me. And he’s real interesting too.

What would please you, my good man? he says to me. You’re skinny as a rail underneath that jacket.

I told him anything and he ordered me a slice and a Coke, same as the girl which is not so much if I’m starving so I ask him for a smoke while we’re waiting and it turns out he’s carrying Camel Lights which sort of proved he’s American. When my order came he carried it over to the table where the little girl was and introduced me to her. He said her name was Froggy, aka Froggy the Gremlin.

Hi, I say and tell them my name. Froggy doesn’t seem to register anything.

Me Buster, the guy says pointing to himself with his thumb and I laugh.

Buster! No shit. How come Buster?

He goes, Hi-ya, kids, hi-ya, hi-ya, hi-ya! My name’s Buster Brown and I live in a shoe. And that’s Froggy the Gremlin, he said waving a hand at the girl who was mainly ignoring the guy like she was used to this stuff. Look for her in there too! he says.

He talked like that, in circles basically and different voices while I ate my slice and smoked my cigarette and mostly didn’t say anything. I noticed the little girl Froggy, she didn’t say anything either. She just kept her eyes on her food and chomped her way through to the end and then looked out at the people walking past in the mall.

I asked Buster if Froggy was his kid and he goes, More than my child, Chappie, and less. She’s my protégé. I have had dozens of protégés over the years and they keep me rising like a phoenix from the ashes of my past. My protégés are my once and future acting career.

Cool, I say. What’s a protégé?

Those who can, do, Chappie, and those who can’t, teach. I could once but I can’t now, and thus I teach. I was an actor once, my boy, not a very famous actor but a success nonetheless. I had my share of film and TV roles. Now, he said, now I train young actresses and actors, now I make protégés of young people like Froggy the Gremlin here and the process like a heart transplant prolongs my own life as an actor extending into the indefinite future my own early gifts and training.

You probably can’t understand any of that, he says offering me another cigarette. You’re much too young.

I’m thinking no way this guy’s an actor, not with those pockmarks and a nose like a mushroom although when he was young with a full head of hair and no potbelly he might not have been too bad-looking. His way of talking was cool though. I liked listening to him and it didn’t really matter to me whether he was telling the truth or not. When he talked he looked right at me and made me feel like there was this spotlight on me and I was standing in the middle of a stage and anything I said would be listened to carefully and treated with total respect.

He said back in 1967 when he was a very young man he had been in this movie with Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda called The Trip, I guess some kind of travel movie but I had never heard of it although I had heard of Jack Nicholson from Batman so I was pretty impressed. He asked me, what about me, wouldn’t I like to become a TV star in New York City and Hollywood but I said no way.

I knew he was only this old gay guy hitting on me which I didn’t care about because he was so interesting to listen to but also because I felt like I was baking in the sun with all the attention he was paying to me and of course he was feeding me cigarettes and even bought another slice of pizza for me, this time with pepperoni.

I wasn’t afraid of Buster, not for myself anyhow even though he was a lot bigger than me because usually with these guys you just tell them what you’ll do and what you won’t do and they go along more or less. But I didn’t know what was the deal with little Froggy. She was like dreaming at the table with her eyes open and I figured the guy must’ve been dosing her with something, ‘ludes or pink ladies maybe but if I could get him to switch off of her and on to me then somebody like Black Bart the security cop would probably come by and latch onto her and get her back to wherever she came from.

It was like a plan from a movie or a TV show, I know but those shows are usually based on reality. Also I was really getting off on the guy Buster Brown and I was even starting to feel jealous of Froggy in this weird way so that if Black Bart didn’t come along and find her and take her to the lost kid office or wherever I didn’t care, as long as I could take her place with Buster.

So how come Froggy never talks? I asked Buster and he went off on this number about how frogs don’t talk, they croak or they keep you up all night cheeping and peeping and then he was talking about all the different types of frogs there are until I practically forgot my question. That’s how he handled questions. He constantly changed the subject and he talked about you yourself a lot and that kept you from thinking too hard about him or Froggy. It’s funny, he was so ugly-looking he made you feel handsome which is normal but he was so smart he made you feel smart too instead of stupid like smart people usually make you feel, like my stepfather for instance and teachers I have had.

At one point while he was rapping away I noticed Froggy get up from the table and take her tray and paper trash over to the barrel. She dumped her stuff and set the tray onto the pile there and started walking, heading back down the mall toward the fountain where I’d first seen her. It wasn’t like she was sneaking off or anything and Buster didn’t seem to care one way or the other although I didn’t think he actually saw her leave. He must’ve known that she was gone, once she was gone, but it was more like after I came onto his scene the little girl didn’t exist anymore so it didn’t matter to him if she was gone or not. Which was fine with me for various reasons so I wasn’t going to be the one who pointed out to him that his protégé had split and what did he think of that? I just moved in and took her place, so to speak.

I was wondering if Buster was high, coke I figured because of how he talked and could I get a little taste, when he asked me did I want to do a screen test?