Rule of the Bone

by Russell Banks

  It was hard to fall asleep, due to my turbulent thoughts of course but also from the ambulances coming and going plus the action on the street, mostly drunk or stoned tourists heading back to their hotels from the beach bars. But finally it quieted down and I was just starting my nod when I heard a cop whistle and heard somebody running real hard. I peered out through the fence to the sidewalk which was right next to it and here came two little Jamaican kids maybe ten or twelve years old running like mad and half a block behind them a red-striper was in hot pursuit with his gun out blowing his whistle and hollering for them to stop or he’ll shoot. As the kids race past where I’m hiding the one in front tosses something over the fence and it lands almost on my head, a ladies’ pocketbook and then they’re gone and not till the cop runs past a few seconds later and I can’t hear them anymore do I pull the pocketbook up to me and take a look inside.

  It was the usual ladies’ items, makeup and Kleenexes and suntan lotion and also a suede wallet with a snap but when I open it it’s empty, no money, no credit cards, until I look inside this one compartment and find a Kentucky driver’s license with a picture of a good-looking silver-haired woman on it and also a telephone calling card from AT&T. Excellent discovery, I’m thinking. If only I had the woman’s phone number I could use the card and reach out and touch someone, although up to that moment there hadn’t been anybody I’d wanted to reach out and touch except I-Man and not even AT&T could connect me to him now. Then I noticed this little black address book and inside the woman had foolishly filled in the ID section and there was her home phone number. Cool. Now I could call anybody in the world if I wanted to, at least until the woman from Kentucky reported her card was stolen.

  I went into my backpack and pulled out my own wallet, a little canvas job that I always kept there because it didn’t have anything in it except my phony ID and a few phone numbers people’d given me over the years and the clipping about the fire from the Plattsburgh newspaper, and there it was, Russ’s Aunt Doris’s number in Keene, New York that he’d given to me the day he split off from me at the Ridgeways’ place on East Hill. I hadn’t thought of it until that exact moment but once it was possible, once I like had that lady’s AT&T card and her home phone number in my hand all I could think about was hearing my ol’ compadre Russ’s voice in my ear.

  I shoved all my stuff further under the bushes so you couldn’t see it unless you knew exactly where to look and walked across the hospital grounds straight into the lobby like I was there to visit my mom who was a patient and I did not realize it was after hours. But there was nobody in the waiting room except this nurse at the reception desk who was half asleep and she didn’t even look up as I crossed the room to a pay phone by the elevator door.

  I put all the numbers through and the phone rang and rang way up there in upstate New York and I thought, Shit, it must be really late there and they probably don’t even know where Russ is now. I was about to hang up when I heard Russ himself say H’lo?

  It’s me, man. Wussup.

  Who.

  Me. Bone, for chrissake! My voice must’ve changed, I’m thinking.

  Who? he said again so I finally had to tell him Chappie but when he heard that it really flipped him out and he goes, Wow, Chappie, no shit, where the fuck are you, man? and so forth.

  I told him Jamaica and he said you mean the country? and I said yeah and that blew him away for a while. When he finally came back I tried to tell him a little of how I got there but as soon as I started I realized there was no way I could fill him in even if I had a year to do it. Too much had happened. Plus I’d changed in ways that even I didn’t understand yet. Russ who was pretty smart was never what you’d call sensitive when it came to other people’s lives so I mainly asked questions and when the conversation came back to me and what’s happening in Jamaica and drugs and babes and all I just got vague and changed the subject.

  I was surprised he was still at his aunt’s but he said he’d gone to work in construction last summer for his uncle and stayed there because they’d let him live in a room in the basement. I’m like a fucking mole in a hole, man, he said. His mom’d basically washed her hands of him which was mutual, he said and everything that’d happened in Au Sable, the fire and all had blown over and been forgotten and he’d even gotten his old Camaro back.

  Guess what my first job with my uncle was, he said. Beats the shit out of me, man, I said already pretty bored but starting to hatch an interesting new idea. Hey listen, I said, there’s something I need to ask you, man.

  My first job, right? I hadda clean up the Ridgeways’ place that we trashed, you remember that? Oh man, was that place a fucking mess and it looked like you did some heavy damage on your own, man, after I split. Lots of busted windows, man. But don’t worry, I never mentioned it was us. Or you.

  Thanks. Listen, Russ—

  Oh an’ wait till you hear this, man. This’ll fuckin’ cheer you up. Your mom and stepdad? They split, man.

  They got divorced? I said really psyched.

  No, no, dipshit, they split. They moved away.

  Oh. Where?

  He didn’t know. Someplace out near Buffalo where my stepdad got a job as a prison guard which sounded like the perfect job for him. I asked him when and he said right after my grandmother died.

  Grandma died? I said.

  Oh man, wow, like I’m sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t’ve known that. How long you been in Jamaica, man? That happened in the fall, October I think. Heart attack or something, he said. He didn’t know the details, he’d only heard about it from his aunt who knew him and me were friends.

  That pretty much settled it. My mom and my stepdad were gone which made my hometown of Au Sable all of a sudden look seriously tempting especially since Russ was doing okay over in Keene and we could still hang. Grandma was dead which made me sad and all but not too much because we hadn’t exactly been buddies and besides it freed me from any possible future connections to my mom and stepdad. They wouldn’t even know I’d come back. Any life I ended up leading in Au Sable now would be my own. I could even go back to school if I wanted. What had been only an interesting new idea now turned into a plan.

  Listen, man, I said, I want to come back. I’m ready to come home now.

  He was shocked. Here? Gimme a fucking break, he said and went on about what an asshole place Au Sable was and how everything and everyone there sucked the big one.

  But I said no, it’d gotten too tense for me here and I needed to come back to the States and lead a normal life and get my shit together for the future. I was even thinking about college someday, I said although actually that thought’d never crossed my mind in my whole life until I said it and I might’ve been lying. It was a moment of weakness and I was pretty confused right then.

  But I don’t have any money for plane fare, I told him so I was wondering if he could maybe loan me three hundred bucks say and I’d pay him back as soon as I got a job which I’d do right away, probably at the mall.

  Now he was really shocked. Stunned. You’re shitting me, man! he said. The fucking Plattsburgh mall? And go to school? In Au Sable? When you could be kicking back in fucking Jamaica drinking excellent rum and cokes and smoking humongous spliffs of ganja and screwing Jamaican babes under the tropical moon! I heard Jamaican babes are the best, man, and they really dig white guys. That true?

  Russ, it’s not like you think, I said. Nothing is.

  Yeah, sure, for you maybe but if like the two of us were down there together, man, everything’d be incredibly cool. You’re too young to be there alone, man. There’s like too much you don’t know yet. I’m seventeen now and can kind of show you the way, you know what I’m saying? I’ll tell you what, Chapstick. I’ll raise some money, I’ll sell my Camaro, that’s how much I love you, man, only I’ll come there instead of you coming here. This place rots, man. It truly rots. And besides, my aunt and uncle’re trying to get me the fuck outa here anyhow. They want their basement back and they’re always on my
case to like join the fucking army. But I got this guy I know, he’s willing to give me seven hundred bucks for the Camaro. Cash. It’s a piece of shit anyhow. I’ll sell it and be there in two days. Less, even. I’ll fucking be in Montego Bay tomorrow. Like where’ll I meet you, man? Just tell me where we can hook up and I’ll be there. We can deal a little ganja, hang out on the beach, screw all the local babes and fucking party, man! And if you still want to be a wuss and like come back here and work at the mall flipping fucking burgers at McDonald’s and go back to the little red schoolhouse, fine. Do it. I’ll even pay your way home.

  I didn’t think he’d show up in Jamaica tomorrow, or ever. I didn’t even think he’d sell his Camaro but I said okay anyhow and told him I’d be hanging out by the clock tower in the main square in downtown Mobay. It was a place I almost never went and now would avoid completely, just in case.

  Mobay, huh. That what they call it?

  Yeah. Montego Bay.

  Cool. You just hang there, man, and if I’m not in Mobay by the clock tower tomorrow night I’ll be there the next. And Chappie, he said.

  Yeah?

  Line us up a couple of buff Jamaican chicks, man. I got a permanent boner these days and it needs some of that black pussy to stroke it.

  Yeah. Sure.

  All right! he said.

  I told him 1 had to go then so I said goodbye and hung up, wondering if Russ’d always been such a dickhead only I hadn’t noticed on account of I was a dickhead myself. And I was pissed, pissed at Russ for everything he’d said and at myself for being such a wuss and wanting to go back to Au Sable in order to get my shit together like I couldn’t do it just as good here or anywhere in the world. I’d been sad and lonely though when I’d called Russ due to everything that had happened and I couldn’t blame him for not having the equipment to understand. He was who he was. But if I was sad and lonely when I called him I was even sadder and lonelier now.

  I flopped down in this plastic chair next to the phone and was putting Russ’s aunt’s phone number back into my wallet when this other piece of paper slipped out and fell to the floor and just then a little breeze crossed the lobby and blew the paper across the room like in a dance. I was almost too bummed to do anything about it but I got curious suddenly about what was on the paper so I stood up and chased it across the the floor of the lobby toward the open door and managed to snatch it up just as it got to the door. Then I took a look. It was my own handwriting and said N. Riley who I’d never heard of with what looked like a telephone number and area code I didn’t know, 414.

  I’m not usually superstitious but I guess I was kind of spacey then from not having smoked any herb for two whole days almost and my idiotic conversation with Russ. It’s a message, I’m thinking, a secret coded message sent from I-Man imitating my handwriting with instructions about what to do next and as usual he wants me to do some headwork on my own in order to get it. I’m thinking maybe 414 is the area code for Jamaica and I-Man’s secret name is N. Riley and like the N. stands for Nonny after the old Maroon female warrior who could catch the British bullets with her pussy and fire them back from her ass, and the letters in Riley are supposed to be rearranged. I studied them for a minute and came up with I-LYRE which made complete sense if it really was a message from I-Man since a lyre is like a harp that angels use. By now I was really psyched.

  I went straight to the phone and punched the numbers in, using the AT&T card of my Kentucky friend like before. Man, I’m thinking, this is going to be wicked incredible. I was so stoked to hear I-Man’s voice again that when a woman’s voice came on and said, Yeah? I just blurted out, Lemme speak to I-Man.

  Who?

  Then I realized of course I-Man wouldn’t be using his own voice anymore so I said, Jeez, I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t sound rude. Is this like. . . Nonny?

  Yeah. This’s Nancy, she says and something about the voice is familiar. It’s slurred and a little buzzed like it’s coming through a cheap speaker even though it’s a clear enough connection.

  Ah. . . this isn’t Nonny?

  It sure ain’t, honey. I thought you said Nancy. Sorry ‘bout that. But you can talk to me if you want, she said and laughed like a crackhead, a little off. I remembered then.

  The area code 414 was for Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I was talking to Nancy Riley. Sister Rose’s mother.

  Yeah, well. . . I guess I’m calling for Sister Rose actually. Sister Rose? You mean my Rosie? Jesus Christ, whaddayou, some kind of church or something? I don’t need this—

  Wait, don’t hang up! I’m like a friend of hers, of Rosie. I’m the one who sent her home to you, I’m the one who got her away from that guy Buster Brown. Remember? I. . . I’m just calling to see if she got there okay and all.

  Oh yeah, she says. You’re the kid with the money. Yeah, she got here fine. You know, that was Buster’s money, I found out, and you stole it off him. If he ever finds you, kid, he’ll fucking kill you, believe me.

  That’s cool, I said. So is Rose there? Can I speak to her?

  No.

  No I can’t speak to her or no she’s not there?

  There was a long silence. I’m thinking if I ever get back to the States I’m going to find this woman and kill her and then I’m going after Buster. Finally she says, Both.

  Both what?

  You can’t speak to her and she’s not here. Rose. .. Rose passed on last September.

  I didn’t know what to say to that so for a long time we just listened to each other breathe. Then I said, C’mon. Sister Rose didn’t die.

  She was real sick when she got here. That was one sick little girl you put on the bus, mister.

  The fuck she was! What’d she die of, bitch?

  Pneumonia, if you want to know. And you don’t have to talk to me that way. I’ve been through hell. I tried to save her but I’m sick myself, you know what I’m saying? Rosie was my little girl but they took her away from me like it was my fault she was sick. It was yours though. You never should’ve put her on that bus. That’s what did it, she said.

  I did some deep breathing so I wouldn’t lose it on the phone and calmly asked her where was Rose buried. I knew someday I’d be able to go there and put flowers on her grave and I would, but I didn’t tell her that.

  The woman obviously didn’t even know where her own daughter was buried and just said it was none of my business unless I was willing to help pay for the funeral costs. It’s expensive, you know, and I’m broke, mister. I don’t even have enough money to put a little gravestone up. You could help with that, if you’re really her friend like you say. Five hundred bucks’d cover it, I think. You could just put it on your credit card and like wire it to me.

  Lady, I said, for what you’ve done you should burn in hell forever.

  Yeah, well, fuck you too, she snarled. I already am burning in hell. And I hope Buster finds you and cuts your balls off, she said and hung up.

  For a few minutes I stood there in the hospital lobby with the receiver in my hand looking at it like it was a bug. Then I set it on the hook. I had I-Man’s message in my other hand and still thought of it as I-Man’s message even though it was about Sister Rose and not him or me so I put it into my mouth and chewed it up and swallowed it.

  Later I was back under the bushes on the hospital grounds lying with my head on my backpack and trying to organize my thoughts and keep my feelings out of it at least long enough to decide what to do tomorrow so I could fall asleep tonight. My main man I-Man had flown back to lie beside his ascendants in Africa where I could never go. And all the doors of Accompong were closed to me forever and the ant farm was a busted-apart house of death that I never wanted to see again. Sister Rose was gone to wherever little kids go when they die, and I was too old to go there now and start life over with her—I almost wasn’t a kid anymore and knew too much and was too strong and wily now to die without a struggle. And Russ, my homeboy, ol Russ was basically off my screen. Permanent. My moment of weakness had passed over me like a dark c
loud and gone and with Grandma dead and Mom and my stepdad moved to Buffalo, even though it would be more peaceful for me in Au Sable there was no more reason for me to go there than anywhere else in America. Au Sable was a town like any other where I’d be just another homeless kid scraping by trying to stay off drugs and not catch AIDS. Forget-tee, I said to myself.

  Here in Jamaica though I was a foreigner and an illegal alien and white besides and I couldn’t spare-change on the streets of Mobay many more days before the red-stripers busted me for vagrancy, and without a reliable source of ganja anymore I couldn’t deal to the tourists for a living and raise enough money to rent a regular room. Things were truly grim. I’d never been so bummed.

  I hated doing it but it was time to take the American guy’s advice. Time to head for the Mothership.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BONE’S REVENGE

  In the morning when I woke up to the sound and diesel smell of trucks and buses blatting past on Gloucester Avenue next to my head practically I didn’t know this would be my next-to-last day in Jamaica, but I wouldn’t’ve done anything different if I had. I would’ve gone up to the Mothership anyhow same as I did and I would’ve pretty much done up there what I did irregardless. I told myself I was going because like the American guy said at the ant farm, it was the only place on the island where I was safe now but actually I had some unfinished business with my father, with Doc, with Pa, and that’s why I went. I didn’t know what the unfinished business was exactly but I was pretty sure it had to do with me betraying I-Man to him the night that I-Man hooked up with Evening Star, the night of my birthday party. That was like a sin which is different from a crime and it still weighed heavily on my mind so to speak and I guess I wanted to somehow undo it if I could, especially now that I-Man was dead and I needed my father, Doc, Pa, for that.

  I spare-changed for a while and by mid-morning had a few bucks in my pocket plus a meat patty breakfast under my belt so I cut over to the marketplace where I caught a bus like I-Man and I’d done the first time and rode up out of Mobay on the long winding road to the village of Montpelier and got off by the little grassy lane that led up to the Mothership. It was a real pretty day with a fresh breeze blowing and the sun out but not too hot and the local people as I passed them were friendlier toward me than I remembered from before, I guess on account of my Jah-stick and backpack and the box which maybe made me look like I’d come from a far place like Australia and was returning home. Or probably they just remembered me from my birthday party last summer and were glad to see me back again. I liked the local people, the farmers and suchlike and the women and kids who lived in the little houses and cabins in the bush all around the greathouse on the hill and who it’s possible were the descendants of people who’d been the slaves there, and it made me happy that they seemed to remember and like me too, so when they smiled and waved I smiled and waved back like mad and shook my Jah-stick in the air like it was a spear and I was on a sacred mission to deal with the dragon in his cave who’d terrorized the villagers for centuries. That’s a fantasy, I know but that’s how I think sometimes.