Rule of the Bone (28 page)

They're looking real pissed all three and in a wicked rush. Nighthawk grabs me by the shoulder and says, How the fuck d'we get outa here, kid! and the white guy who I guess is the American with the money says, Jesus, who's
this
? and that's the moment when I realized that something terrible'd happened.

Jason looks at me like he doesn't recognize who I am but Nighthawk says, Doc's kid the Rasta told me.

The white guy in the safari jacket goes,
Doc's
kid? Doc doesn't have any white kid, for Christ's sake. The fucking Rasta's fulla shit.

No, I seen him last night, Nighthawk says. He was workin' for the Rasta.

The American guy says, Well, get the little bastard to tell us how to get the fuck outa here and do him. And hurry the fuck up, he says and steps back like he doesn't want to get any of my blood on his jacket.

Nighthawk shoved me back against the wall and I banged off of it and fell down and when I looked up he was standing over me with the barrel of his Uzi staring me in the eye. C'mon, kid, where's the fucking exit?

I said to go out the door behind me and keep bearing left which was approximately correct and as close as I could say anyhow. I can lead you out better than tell you though, I said.

Just then Jason put his face down by me and said, Bone? Dat really you wid all dem dreadlocks, mon?

I go, Yeah. Wussup, Jason.

He smiles and turns to the American and tells him I'm Doc's kid all right and I used to live with Doc up on the hill but I ran off with the Rasta last summer.

Fuck!
the American says.

Then Nighthawk says, We shouldn't do a white kid anyhow, man. No matter whose kid he is. Too much trouble, especially since he's American. The tourist board'll go nuts.

Yeah, fine. The fucking tourist board. Look, do what you want. I don't actually give a shit one way or the other, the whole fuckin' island's a fuckin' monkey house. I'm outa here tonight anyhow.

He moves for the exit and then to me he says, Kid, if you're smart you'll go back to Doc's house and you'll stay put there till you grow up. If you was one of Doc's black kids you'd be dead meat by now. I don't give a shit myself. Next time you might not be so lucky.

I go, Thanks for the advice, man, and he shook his head like he'd gotten real sick of me fast and disappeared into the next chamber. Nighthawk lowered his Uzi and followed him. When Jason got to the door he turned back and said, See you up on de hill, mon, and gave me a toothy smile that actually looked friendly and was gone.

After I couldn't hear the American and Nighthawk and Jason anymore and figured by now they'd found their way out I stood up and brushed myself off. I pretty much knew by then what I was going to find but I went looking for it anyhow. I headed for the rooms way at the back where I myself would've run if three guys like these'd showed up with guns and no plans to pay me for my services. In one of the rooms when I pushed the curtain away I saw poor old Prince Shabba lying facedown in a pool of blood with a bunch of holes in his back where the Uzi'd really ripped him up.

I stepped around his body and went into the next room and there against the far wall was I-Man sitting on the sandy floor all slumped over with his skinny little legs sticking out and his eyes and mouth open. His face was empty inside though. I-Man was gone, flown off to Africa. There was a jagged hole in the center of his forehead and a whole lot of blood running down the bamboo wall behind his head into the sand. Oh man, it was a horrible sight. Especially that single dark blue bullet hole which I could see had been put there by Jason's niner.

You can understand if I just keep talking here, okay?

I didn't know what to do then. I wasn't scared or anything although I probably should've been. All I wanted was to get out of there, to get as far from the ant farm as I could, so I could think about everything and try to make sense of my feelings and thoughts which at that moment were the most mixed up they had ever been in my life. Somehow the whole terrible thing felt like it was my fault and there was no way left for me now to make it right.

When I got back out to the yard I-Man's box was sitting on the ground finally silent and dead as ol' I-Man himself. I picked it up and put it on my shoulder and took up I-Man's Jah-stick and walked back up the path to the road where the Benz'd been parked and started hiking in the direction of Mobay. It didn't make me feel any better to think of I-Man as flown off to Africa. Actually when it came right down to it, like now, I didn't believe any of that shit.

When you're in a country full of black people and you're a white kid and don't want to stick out the best thing is to go hang where the white folks gather. Which in my case was Doctors Cave in Mobay, this private beach club with a bunch of fancy shops and restaurants in the neighborhood and white people all over the place strolling hand in hand and buying things and getting suntanned and feeling safe from attack or deception by the natives. Plus since I didn't have any ganja to sell now it was an excellent place to spare-change a few bucks while I figured out what to do next.

That first night I crashed in the back seat of an unlocked Volvo I found in the lot behind the Beach View Hotel on Gloucester Avenue and the next morning after I'd successfully scored for change a few times despite my dreads with my story about being left behind by my teenaged Christian tour group I was sitting on a bench eating a meat patty for breakfast and reading a copy of the
Daily Gleaner
I'd found in a trashcan, and over on the second page I saw a little article stuck in the middle of all these other articles about shootings and machete choppings and suchlike about two unidentified men found shot dead in Mount Zion. That's the name of the town the ant farm was in so I knew it was about Prince Shabba and I-Man. Like no way I was going to go to the cops and identify their bodies, but I did think I ought to hitch out to Accompong maybe and tell I-Man's old lady and Rubber and the guys what had happened, so that's what I did.

I was all burdened down by guilt feelings then, partly on account of not being able to help I-Man at the moment when he most needed me although I don't know what I could've done to distract those dudes so he could get away. Still I might've thought of something. I'm a pretty good talker especially when it comes to bullshitting white people. That was the other thing that had me all twisted up. Whiteness. Even more than being Doc's son it was my white skin that'd saved me from being blown away like Prince Shabba and I-Man. I knew if I wasn't white, if I'd been a real Rasta-boy like I'd been pretending to be I'd be dead now.

When I got out to Accompong that afternoon though, right away I saw it was a mistake. They didn't need me to bring the news. I probably should've realized it but everybody already knew what'd happened at the ant farm— Jamaica's a really small country and news travels fast even without telephones especially when it concerns somebody as well known on the ganja circuit as I-Man. Anyhow I went to I-Man's old lady first but she wouldn't even talk to me. I'd never actually learned her name, I-Man'd only called her his ‘oman and introducing people to each other by name wasn't his style exactly but I was ashamed I'd never even asked. She was a short stocky lady with a hard face and when I knocked on the door to her and I-Man's cabin she came to the door with a little pick'ny-kid on her hip and when she saw who it was she just waved me away like I was a fly and closed the door in my face.

Everybody else in the village, the guys hanging out at the general store and the bar and the kids who used to be real friendly all just turned away when they saw me coming or watched me from a distance with cold dark faces. It was grim. Finally I went out to I-Man's groundation where I found Rubber watering the baby plants by himself but even he didn't want to see me or talk about what had happened. I tried a couple of times to act friendly like before and introduced the subject by saying stuff like, You heard about I-Man I guess, but he just nodded and went on with his work like I wasn't there. It looked like he was taking control of I-Man's plants and didn't want me around to help him or even witness it.

People weren't like making physical threats against me or anything but for the first time it felt dangerous up there amongst the Maroons and I figured it'd be best if I got out of there before dark so I went up to my old cabin and got my backpack and my belongings. While I was there I saw my old machete leaning in a corner that I-Man'd given me and taught me how to use for all the different tasks. I'd used it as a plow and a shovel and a hoe and an ax and a gigantic jackknife and a sword all in one, and I thought, man, I've earned that at least, so I took the machete and the sharpening file too. I didn't say goodbye or anything to Rubber, just walked off toward the village and then down the long slope to the main road.

When I got out to the road I set my pack down and IMan's box and leaned my Jah-stick against them to start hitching but for a while there weren't any vehicles coming so I checked out my machete and started sharpening it with the file. Pretty soon it was like razor sharp and I tried that old hair test where you pull out a hair and slice it in half and then all of a sudden I'm sawing off all my dreadlocks one by one. It only took a minute and they were gone, lying at my feet like a pile of dead snakes. I leaned down and scooped them up in my hands and carried them back into the bushes a ways and laid them gently on the ground there and patted them like saying goodbye to a sweet friend or a pet you have to abandon. Then I came back to the road where my stuff was and continued hitching and the third car that passed stopped and picked me up. It was a Baptist minister, a fat black guy sweating in a suit and tie who drove me all the way in to Mobay singing hymns in this deep loud voice and dropped me off right in front of Doctors Cave.

That night I couldn't find any unlocked cars behind the hotels along the Gloucester Avenue strip and finally real late I sneaked onto the St. James Hospital grounds which're like a park with a fence around it and camped under some bushes near the fence so I could climb back over and hit the street real quick if I had to. For a while I lay there with my head on my backpack for a pillow thinking about my troubles and how much I was missing I-Man already and what a little turd I was for trying not to be white when all the time I'd been enjoying many of the benefits of the white race, like still being alive for instance. I thought no wonder the Maroons were pissed at me, they probably figured I'd helped set the whole thing up and was working for Nighthawk and was only coming back to Accompong to try and rip them off a second time.

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.