S
S.E. Hinton
Rumble Fish
Russel James, called “Rusty James”, is a fourteen – year – old boy who lives in a crappy region. Although he stays together with his father, who has nothing better to do than to go into bars and to drink, and although his older brother and mother have left, he is a tough boy and very streetwise. Rusty James uses to play pool at Benny’s and meets his friends there. Among them is Steve, as well 14 years old, but he is a lot weaker and hates to fight.
Rusty is the number one at Benny’s, he knows that no one is stronger than him and all the other know it, too.
One day, Rusty is said that a guy named Biff is waiting for him to fight him. Rusty likes the feeling before a fight. He gets enraged and prepares mentally for the fight, pushing himself up and getting blind, just seeing red in front of his eyes. Yes, there’s nothing better than a good, fair combat … Arriving with his friends at the place where Biff is waiting, the two start to threaten each other. Then Biff pulls out a switchblade and Rusty gets annoyed by his stupidity to think the fight would be fair and without any weapons.
Although he is not armed he manages to win the fight. Suddenly Rusty James’ brother appears: The Motorcycle Boy.
He is called motorcycle boy because of his great passion for cycles. Everyone respects him, he has no friends, just enemies and admirers. No one, except himself, knows how many people he has killed in gang fights. He is known as the toughest fighter out there, and it’s also known that he does not drink or take any dope.
Instead he uses to read, although being colour – blind and sometimes a bit deaf. When James does not pay attention for a moment, Biff grabs his knife and cuts his side. As the blood spills out of his wound, the motorcycle boy takes Biff’s hand and breaks his fingers. After that both go home, the wound is not as deep to be dangerous; Rusty James has had worse cuttings… Rusty James likes his brother to be here, although he and everyone else thought that the motorcycle boy is gone forever. For Rusty he is the coolest person in the world and his great model, because everyone has respect and fears him. He wants to be exactly like him and follow his example.
When Rusty James, the motorcycle boy and Steve go out one night to have fun, the cycle boy tells him that he has met their mother in California. James can’t believe it since he can’t remember his mother. They play pool in a pub and when James closes his eyes for a short period, he notices that the motorcycle boy has disappeared. Steve and James leave the pub and walk along a dark road, as suddenly two dark figures appear. They hit James on his head, so hard he nearly dies, then want to kill Steve as well. But the motorcycle boy appears again and rescues them.
Since this incident, Steve does not want to hang around with James any longer, he has been beaten by his parents for coming home that late.
James keeps hanging around with the cycle boy, one day the cycle boy spends the whole time with looking at fish in a pet shop. He tells Rusty about Rumble Fish, a species that would even kill members of their own species, if they could. Late in the night he breaks into the store again and frees all the animals, looking as calm as ever. Rusty James wants to convince him to run away, but the motorcycle boy goes deaf again. When the policemen arrive, they shoot him.
They say there was a warning shot, but how could he hear it when he goes deaf sometimes? Rusty gets shocked … As he is thrown against a police car he can not hear his own voice and any other sound, seeing all the lights of the police cars just grey …
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