Rule of the Bone

by Russell Banks

  I was having a pretty good time just chilling by the pool smoking a J and packing back Red Stripes and watching people. I hate it when people sing Happy Birthday and clap but actually I was kind of waiting for the birthday cake to come out with the usual candles and all. I guess I’d figured it was going to be one of those Big Public Moments like where in front of a whole lot of people you mark the end of one life and the start of another even though I was only turning fifteen not twenty-one or forty and this wasn’t like a retirement party. Still, I was imagining a scene with Pa taking the mike from Jason and making a little speech to everyone about how his only son Bone after a terrible childhood in the States had found his way to him at last for protection to be raised by him into manhood here in Jamaica and I-Man would lean over while Pa was talking and say to me, Whole new world, Bone, whole new ex-peer-ience, and maybe after Pa finished his speech with a tear in his eye he’d come over and hug me and say, Welcome home, son, and just then Jason and maybe Jan would carry this huge cake out with fifteen candles blazing and Evening Star’d hold up her glass and start singing Happy Birthday to Bone and everybody’d join in, even the little kids who didn’t know me.

  But it got later and later until eventually people started leaving except for the ones who’d crashed in the garden and bushes or passed out on the couches and pool chairs. Most of the booze and food was gone, even the mannish waters and the goat although there was still quite a lot of the Ital food left because not everybody likes that stuff, Jamaicans included. The dogs were wandering around looking for scraps and the cats were licking off the plates and up on the tables prowling among the leftovers and Jan and Jason were dancing real slow to a Dennis Brown song all wrapped up like snakes fucking which kind of made me sad even though I liked both of them better than the rest of the campers. I’d caught a glimpse of Cynthia the college professor tiptoeing off hours ago with Buju from I-Man’s posse, and the others, Prince Shabba and Fattis’d left without him. Toker I think’d split with Pa’s white friends in one of the Benzes for another party at the Holiday Inn. There was a cool breeze blowing that’d snuffed the last of the torches and knocked down two-thirds of the Happy Birthday to the Bone!!! sign so it just said Happy and the ten or so balloons that hadn’t been popped by the little kids earlier had gotten soft and wrinkly and paper plates and plastic cups were floating in the pool.

  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 laundryroom 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 ta
ken 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?

  You think I shouldn’t?

  Up to you, Bone. But I-and-I headin’ fe de Cockpit now. I didn’t know what the Cockpit was exactly unless it was the little village in the boonies he’d talked about back in the schoolbus when he was homesick and all which if it was I had a pretty good mental picture of the place and at that moment it seemed to have a lot of advantages over the Mothership especially since I wasn’t as interested as before in like turning into Baby Doc so I said, Yeah. Yeah, I’m comin’. Lemme get my stuff first and I’ll meet you out back.

  He said Irie and took up his Jah-stick and stepped outside into the moonlit backyard while I ran upstairs to my room where I tossed my old stuffed bird and the classical CDs which I still hadn’t listened to and my few articles of clothing into my backpack. I was headed back down the hall toward the stairs when I looked over the railing and down and saw Pa with his gun in his hand walk through the door into the livingroom where he stood in a patch of moonlight and sniffed and looked around like he was a snake planning his next move. Just then the door to his and Evening Star’s bedroom opened and she came out into the moonlit livingroom all naked and the two of them faced each other with me up above in the darkness looking down.

  C’mon, Doc, she said in a low patient voice like she was calling in one of her dogs. C’mon in to bed now. Party’s over.

  Bone saw you and the nigger, he said.

  She sighed like she was real tired and said, Yeah. I know.

  I’ll have to kill him, you understand. Or have him killed.

  Not tonight, darlin’. C’mon in now.

  Then he said like she looked pretty good standing there naked in the moonlight and she laughs and says he looks good too because of the gun in his hand which turns her on, and they start walking slowly toward each other with him already unbuckling his belt with his free hand so I take this opportunity to tiptoe back to my room at the far end of the hall. I went straight to the one window and opened it and crawled out onto the roof of the laundryroom and with my backpack on I swung out and went hand over hand along the overhanging branch of this big breadfruit tree back there and then shinnied down the trunk to the ground where I-Man stood watching in the shadows.

  Ready, Bone? he said.

  Lead on, man. Babylon’s behind us now, I said and he made his little chuckling laugh and turned and led me into the bush.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BONE GOES NATIVE

  It was late the next afternoon before we finally got up to Accompong in the Cockpit Country which turned out to be like I’d thought, I-Man’s hometown that he’d been so homesick for back in the States. It took about four different rides to hitch in because Accompong is a long ways from Mobay and not many people go there so we had to spend a lot of time just chilling by the side of these winding country roads and rode sometimes in the back of pickups and had to walk the last four or five miles uphill from the main road in to the village. When we got there it was sort of the way I’d pictured, basically a single dirt street with grass growing in the middle and a dozen or so cabins and small houses and a few more you could see scattered around in the jungle and all these little veggie gardens and banana trees and kids running around in underpants and old guys snoozing in the shade of a breadfruit tree and goats and the occasional pig and females carrying baskets of yams on their heads or plastic pails of water from the well.

  One reason they call it Cockpit Country must be on account of the way the land looks. For miles and miles around as far as you can see they have like these huge deep craters or pits where the ground dropped out way back in ancient times and they’re all covered with trees and vines and thornbushes and so on and the people who live up in the Cockpit are more like ridge runners than they are mountain climbers and don’t like to go down into the craters unless they have to for a lost goat or kid or to hide out from the cops or their other enemies. Due to the hundreds of caves down in the pits and the thickness of the bush hiding out is basically what people have been doing up there for like hundreds of years, I-Man explained to me. The people who live there are called Maroons, he said because of the reddish tint to their skin which the truth is I couldn’t see, they all looked like regular black people to me only darker. But they’re all descended from these incredibly tough Africans who were called Ashantis and after they were captured in Africa and shipped over to Jamaica they escaped into the bush the first chance they had and then kicked ass when the white slavecatchers came after them until finally the slavecatchers said fuck it and went back to their sugar plantations on the coast and just let the Maroons live out there on their own and said don’t send us any more of those Ashanti warrior types and that’s when the Queen of England signed a peace treaty with the head Maroon whose name was Cudjoe.

  Nowadays though the place was full of ganja growers and miscellaneous criminals who were raised here and went to the city and fucked up and came back plus some regular Jamaican farmers and suchlike but they still pretty much lived like their Maroon ancestors and didn’t have electricity or running water or TV or cars or any of the other modern conveniences. Also a lot of Rastas had their groundations up there in the Cockpit and I-Man said the real reason it’s named Cockpit is because it’s always been the place where the Rastafarian ascendants of the old African Ashanti warriors sattar fe control de universe.

  All the way up from Mobay throughout the long night after we’d made our escape from Papa Doc and the greathouse and while we chilled by the side of the road out of Mobay waiting for a ride I-Man was really into teaching me this stuff about the Maroons and Accompong and the old Ashanti warriors, like he’d decided I was ready now to learn these things and use them in my daily life even though I was still a white kid from America. But I was feeling weird and guilty from when I told Pa about how I-Man’d hooked up with Evening Star which was why we were on the run in the first place and I-Man wasn’t making it any easier by treating me like his favorite student or something.

  I hadn’t figured out yet why I’d done it and I couldn’t ask I-Man the way I usually did when I couldn’t figure something out so I
was slipping into blaming white people generally and saying to myself I must’ve done it because of my background in lying and betrayal that I’d learned as a child from my stepfather and other adults who all happened to be white. I-Man’d be running on about the old Ashantis and the slavecatchers and how they’d hunted the Ashantis down with these humongous man-eating dogs from Panama and I’d be thinking, Fucking Babylon, man, white people really suck, you can never trust them, et cetera, like that was letting me off the hook for almost getting I-Man killed by my own father.