Rule of the Bone

by Russell Banks

  He spoke real slow and his voice was sadder than I’d ever heard him and I thought I was going to cry without even knowing for what but I kind of knew what was coming. I got up and went down to my end of the schoolbus where my pack was and got my old stuffed bird, the woodcock and took Buster’s roll of bills out of it. I didn’t know how much was there, I’d never bothered to count it probably because I felt guilty for stealing it even off of someone as evil as Buster. It was dirty money made from kiddie porn probably or worse although Buster’d claimed he’d gotten it from producing rap concerts which I’d never believed so I’d kind of decided not to spend it except in ways that were completely clean like buying Sister Rose’s bus ticket. I lit a candle there by my mattress and counted it out, seven hundred and forty bucks which was a lot more than I’d figured.

  Then I went back to where I-Man was still playing his Jimmy Cliff tape. It’s the sound track of this famous Jamaican movie The Harder They Come actually which I never saw but I heard it was incredible. I put my candle down on the floor and handed him the money, all seven hundred and forty bucks of it. He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips which was how he always said thanks for any favor, small or big and folded the bills without counting them and put them in the pocket of his shorts. He said, Heartical, Bone. Then he smiled and said he’d be going to sleep now, he’d have to rest I-self for the long trampoose home was how he put it and I said sure, me too.

  I’ll be going with you, I said. Only as far as Burlington on the Vermont side of the lake though, where the airport for international flights is. I’ll wave you off, man. I’ve never done that before.

  Excellent, he said copying me which was his cool way of thanking me again for the money although giving it up hadn’t exactly been a big sacrifice on my part. I was actually glad to get rid of it. But I was already missing I-Man more than I’d ever missed my own mom even or my real father and when I went back to my mattress and blew out the candle I cried to myself like a little kid as quiet as I could although I knew I-Man could hear me. But he was the type of person who was wise and kind enough to just let me cry and not embarrass me by trying to make me feel okay about everything which is one of the reasons I loved him and so I did until just before dawn as the sky was starting to turn gray over Vermont in the east where in a few hours we would be going on the ferry, I finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CROSSING THE BAR

  The next day was bright and warm, a good day for traveling at least for I-Man it was and I ran around behind him trying to catch up with his pleasure while he bopped through the bus packing his stuff into a blue plastic flight bag and walked me one last time through his garden and gave me final instructions on how to harvest and dry his ganja crop and take care of the vegetables although I pretty much by then knew how to run the plantation on my own.

  At one point he got sad for a few minutes I think mainly on account of not being able to see all his crops come to their fullness as he put it and he took a few leaves off of each ganja plant like for souvenirs and nestled them inside his red and gold and green tam among his coiled dreadlocks.

  He wanted to leave his boom box and the reggae tapes that he’d got from Jah Mood with me as a sort of present but I could tell he really wanted to take them home with him so I said forget it, man, I won’t have any trouble replacing them and you probably will so he raised his eye-brows and pursed his lips like he does and dumped the tapes into his flight bag. Then after a breakfast of refried Ital beans and hot sauce and leftover roasted dreadnuts and chicory tea we sat on the steps of the old schoolbus and smoked a spliff together and finally took off for the ferry dock downtown.

  I’d packed a few things into my backpack myself, clothes and my stuffed bird and so on, personal items in case I ran into an opportunity to explore the state of Vermont a little although I wasn’t actually thinking too much about my future just then, it was too scary and lonely to contemplate any possible futures without the company and teachings of I-Man to guide me so I was just going to float awhile on an hour-to-hour basis and see what developed.

  When I mentioned that to I-Man he said I was on my way to being a brand-new beggar and gave me this warm smile. No plans, no regrets, he said. Praise an’ thanks mus’ be sufficient unto ev’ry day.

  I said yeah but it’d be hard to do that the rest of my life. Making plans and having regrets, man, they’re like second nature to me.

  Y’ first nature, dat be what you got to come to, mon, he explained and I made a mental note to remember his words which I was doing to just about everything he said that morning since I never expected to see him or hear from him again. I didn’t think I-Man’d be much of a letter writer.

  He was carrying his box which was pretty big—it was like this humongous quadraphonic the size of a regular suitcase—on one shoulder and his flight bag slung over the other and in his free hand he lugged his Jah-stick which was this incredible long snake with the head of a dreadlocked lion at the top that he’d been carving all summer while we sat around the bus at night exchanging views. The Jah-stick was about a foot taller than he was and made him look like this old African prophet or something which I guess is what he had in mind because he didn’t really need it for anything else.

  When we got down to the ferry dock and there were other people waiting around who were like staring at us I saw I-Man for the first time in months the way he must look to straight people who aren’t used to seeing even regular black people let alone African prophets and I realized that he sure was one weird-looking little dude and I probably was myself although not as weird-looking as him because I was only a white kid. But I was wearing my doo-rag and we both had like these baggy surfer cutoffs on and our old faded orange Come Back To Jamaica tee shirts and our homemade sandals and a bunch of hand-woven bracelets that I-Man’d showed me how to make out of the hemp we’d found growing wild in the ditch at the end of the field one day.

  We were cool though and I liked how people’d flick us with their eyes and then when they thought we weren’t paying any attention they’d elbow each other and stare and I was wishing I had a couple more tattoos like maybe a Rasta lion or Jah Lives or a green ganja leaf to flash with. I was thinking I’d get some after I-Man was gone, like for helping me to remember these days when they were long gone. The crossed bones on the inside of my forearm even though it was the source of my name seemed kind of cold and harsh to me and too connected to my past life back when I was with Russ and before I’d met I-Man to make it known to people that I was now in the process of becoming a brand-new beggar. The bones was like Mister Yesterday’s tattoo but that was okay I guess, it wasn’t like I’d lost my memory or anything.

  In about twenty minutes the ferry came and I-Man bought the tickets peeling the bills off of Buster’s roll like he was an experienced big-time spender. I was surprised by how huge the boat was, a triple-decker luxury ocean liner, the Love Boat practically bringing a load of tourists and their cars over from Vermont twenty-five miles away and taking another load back. They were mostly families on vacation in stationwagons piled high with folding chairs and ice chests and grills, fatback suburbanites with sunburns and their fatback kids who looked sick of having to enjoy their parents’ idea of a good time. There were some sporty young couples too though who drove aboard in Audis and Beemers and Volvos and suchlike and groups of college kid types in their parents’ cars and some overweight middleaged bikers in shiny new leathers out on a cruise, the Mild Ones Bruce used to call them who rode Jap shit with sidecars, plus a few pickups and RVs and a small number of people who walked on board like us. Most of them though were exercise freaks with money and tans, slim people in J. Crew shorts and tee shirts printed with fortune-cookie political advice carefully wheeling their ten-speed bikes aboard like greyhounds, plus a bunch of whole-earth hikers with beards and ponytails and high-tech backpacks and huge suede tractor-tire shoes looking righteous and environmentally safe all over like they’d been recycled in a previous life.


  More than before like at the mall and so on I really felt out of it here. I felt different from everyone else like I was watching a science show on the Discovery channel, Life Styles of the Mindless Wusses or something and anyhow after all these weeks of being crashed at the schoolbus and all I wasn’t used to mixing with so many people, especially straight people and it made me nervous and a little paranoid so I said to I-Man who actually looked like he was enjoying himself watching the wusses and being watched back, Let’s go up on top and check the scenic splendor, man.

  He smiled and said excellent and up the stairs we went ahead of the others and got good seats on the top deck way in the front of the ship where I-Man as soon as we sat down pulled his stash out of his flight bag and rolled a fat spliff and lit up like we were back home at the plantation and all alone.

  I was scared we’d get busted naturally but didn’t say anything. I-Man being a Jamaican and all maybe didn’t know the ways of Americans yet I thought, but he was older than me and a lot wiser about people in general and I hadn’t seen any cops on board so I said to myself what the hell, let come whatever comes, Jah rules, et cetera and when he handed the burning spliff across to me I took a big hit and went with it and was high in a second and by the time the boat was moving out onto the glistening waters under a cloudless blue sky I was moving too.

  We got up and walked as far forward as we could to a little fence where we could look down and see the whole boat below us and we gazed out as far as Canada in the north and as far south as Ticonderoga practically and the Green Mountains in front and the Adirondacks in back and all around us were the glittering waters of Lake Champlain. I could feel the engine chugging under my feet like somebody was playing a huge drum down there in the hold. The wusses seemed to’ve disappeared or actually they’d like turned into the crew of the Love Boat and were harmless now and me and I-Man were the first mate and the captain of our own ship crossing the ocean with seagulls darting around overhead and little green tree-covered islands dotting the water as we pulled away from the continent into the open sea.

  I looked back over my shoulder at New York State and the city of Plattsburgh watching my past get smaller and smaller in the distance while next to me stood I-Man the prophet with his staff in his hand staring into the future. We’re crossing out of Egypt into the Promised Land, I thought like I was becoming some kind of baby Rastafarian myself. That was the effect of hanging with I-Man obviously and I didn’t know if it was good or bad especially since I had such a dim view of white Rasta kids like Jah Mood but I had to admit it was hard not to go slipping and sliding into his way of thinking and talking on account of it being so much more interesting than the way most people are raised to think and talk especially us white Christian Americans.

  I remember thinking you live from moment to moment and the moments all flow into one another forwards and backwards and you almost never catch one like this that’s separate from the rest. It felt like a precious diamond and I was holding it up to the sunlight between my thumb and forefinger and all these cold blue and white and gold colored sparks of light were jumping off of it.

  I turned to I-Man and said to him then, What d’you think, man? Maybe I should go to Jamaica too. You know?

  He nodded but he didn’t say yes, no or maybe. He just kept looking at the distant shore like Columbus or something with the birds all wheeling and diving overhead and the front of the boat plowing through the water.

  What d’you think? I asked him.

  Up to you, Bone, he finally said.

  Yeah, I guess it is. I should do what Jah wants me to do. That’s what I think. Jah rules, I declared.

  Fe trut’. You got to.

  Yeah but how do I know what that is? How do I know what Jah wants?

  Jah don’t trouble wid de small t’ings, Bone.

  I decided then to leave it up to Jah anyhow which is not quite the same as deciding whether to go to Jamaica, I know but it was as close as I could get. I said, If Jah makes it so there’s enough of ol’ Buster’s money to buy us two tickets, then we’ll go ahead and buy two tickets and I’ll go to Jamaica with you. If not, I mean if there’s not enough money then I’ll just check out Vermont for a few days and hitch on back to the plantation.

  That was cool with I-Man, I guess. He nodded anyhow but he didn’t say anything. I think he would’ve liked it better if I hadn’t bothered Jah with the small shit. But that was my Christian upbringing. It’s not easy, changing religions and no matter what I-Man said just to be polite I knew I was still a long ways from being a brand-new beggar. Plus when you get down to important moments in life like this your upbringing always seems to kick into over-drive no matter what religion or philosophy you happen to prefer as an adult or as an older kid like me. In a crunch us Christians like to think God even sets the price of airline tickets.

  Anyhow we got off the ferry at Burlington about an hour later and got some directions from a cop who looked at first like he wanted to bust us but I-Man had this royal bearing and all like he was the President practically or a movie star so the cop just told us how to get to the airport and even said, Have a nice day, fellas. Which is how they talk in Vermont. I think Vermont’s a lot like California only cold and without many people.

  When we got to the airport which is about three or four miles up on the heights above the town I-Man said Delta was the kind of plane he’d ridden on before so we walked up to the Delta ticket lady and right away found out that in less than an hour we could get a plane from Burlington straight to Montego Bay with only one stop in Philadelphia or someplace and another in Miami. You won’t have to change planes, she said. Plus thanks to Jah’s attention to detail Buster’s seven hundred and forty bucks was enough to cover the cost of two tickets with even a few bucks left over.

  I-Man looked at me and he goes, Well, Bone? You comin’?

  I waved him to step aside so the Delta lady couldn’t hear us and whispered, Do you think it’s wrong for me to be using Buster’s dirty money for this? I’m like worried, man. Sending Sister Rose home to her mom was one thing and sending you home is sort of like the same. But using it to send me away from home, that’s another, isn’t it?

  He shrugged like he didn’t really give a shit.

  Help me out on this one, man. I’m only a kid and spending dirty money is new to me. Is this what Jah wants?

  He said, Jah knows you, Bone, but you don’t know Jah. Not until you first know I-self. Him cyan be no daddy fe I-and-I. I-and-I mus’ fin’ him own daddy. Then he kindly pointed out that I’d already made my decision back on the boat.

  I said, Okay, go ahead, man, buy two, and he handed the whole roll of bills to the woman behind the counter.

  She scooped up the money and counted out the bills and gave I-Man the change and started punching a bunch of keys on her computer. Let me see your passports please, she said and me and I-Man looked at each other and both of us raised our eyebrows the same way. Like, Passports? He was an illegal alien and I was a homeless youngster missing and presumed dead, practically a milk carton kid and it suddenly looked like the truth was about to come out.

  He leaned his Jah-stick against the counter and went rummaging through his bag and pulled out this red Jamaican passport which’d probably been stamped when he came to America to show he’d only been allowed in for picking apples in New York and cutting cane in Florida and couldn’t go home until the company said so. They’d want their money back for the ticket they’d bought for him to leave Jamaica in the first place and the computer’d probably have a bill for it next to his passport number. That’d be the end of my ticket money. Besides, all I had instead of a passport was this phony ID I’d once bought off a kid at the mall that said I was eighteen but except for Art the tattoo guy no one believed me whenever I tried to use it which I only did a couple of times. But I figured what the hell, Jah’s will be done and pulled the ID out of my backpack and slapped it down on the counter next to I-Man’s passport.

  The Delta lady picke
d them up but at the same time she happened to see I-Man’s Jah-stick which I guess distracted her because she just glanced at my ID card and his passport at the same time keeping one eye on the stick until she says to I-Man, I’m sorry, sir, but you won’t be able to take that on board the aircraft with you.

  Mus’ be, he said.

  I’m sorry?

  It’s like a religious item, I said. He’s a priest.

  A what?

  I was pretty paranoid by then and also still a little high from the spliff on the boat which didn’t help and so I like go off on this long rap about how I-Man can’t be separated from his Jah-stick on account of he’s like the Pope of Rastafarianism, a world renowned religious leader par excellence and besides it’ll protect the plane and the rest of the passengers and all which confused her and by then there was a bunch of other people in line behind us who even though they were from Vermont they were getting restless.

  I go, The stick’s alive, man. Nobody can touch it but him without getting bitten.

  She smiles like yeah sure and grabs the stick and yells, Ow-w! and lets it go instantly and sticks her hand in her mouth like a little kid.

  I-Man took his Jah-stick then and his passport and his bag and boom box and I grabbed up my pack and ID and our tickets and boarding passes and we split from there without another word. We found our gate and went through the x-ray machine and sat down to wait for the boarding announcements.

  Finally after a few minutes of just sitting there I turned to him and said, How’d you do that, man?

  Do what?

  You know. Get the stick to bite her. How’d you do that? He just shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t know and didn’t care either.