Rule of the Bone Page 6

  I’d pull my blanket over my head and think of my mom just getting up and coming out to the kitchen in her old flannel robe and fuzzy pink slippers to make coffee and feed Willie the cat. My stepdad would still be snoring in the back bedroom and my mom with these few minutes to herself would flick on the kitchen TV and watch the Today show and let Willie sit on her lap while she sat at the table and drank her coffee and smoked her first cigarette.

  Willie I truly did miss and sometimes I thought about bringing a kitten back to the squat. They were all over town that time of year and people would give you a whole litter if you wanted. But I didn’t trust the bikers not to kill it. So I’d just lie there on the couch all morning and let myself miss ol’ Willie instead.

  Meanwhile out in our kitchen Bruce would be standing in his jockstrap at the sink full of old caked dishes and pans shaving the stubble off his huge chest and washboard belly preparing for his daily pump at Murphy’s Gym, and in the bathroom some weird thin gray-skinned pimply guy with a motormouth Bruce’d dragged back to the squat from Plattsburgh the night before was shooting up without the decency to close the bathroom door while he did it. Russ was in his crib with the door locked on the inside where he slept until late afternoon which he said he did because daytime was the only time the squat was quiet enough to sleep but I think he was starting to dip into the crank he was selling and liked to stay up all night yackety-yakking with his customers.

  Russ was into the big subjects anyhow, God and the Universe and so on even when he wasn’t high but the meth made it seem like all those things were linked together in this gigantic cosmic conspiracy, like algebra only real and since I wasn’t very interested in math or any of the big subjects in the first place and it was all way over my head anyhow due to my youth Russ liked talking to the other guys instead especially when they were wired on crank. To me it was just talk but to them it was reality.

  Most days I hitched up to the mall and hung there with some kids I knew until it closed and Black Bart the security cop or one of his little helpers ran us out and then I’d hitch back to Au Sable and crash at the squat and except when they wanted some of my weed the men of Adirondack Iron pretty much ignored me, like I was their mascot or something. They teased me about my mohawk a lot because to them it was retro but to me it was like my trademark. It was how people knew me.

  Once Joker was going to cut it off. Get bald, man, he said, you look like a fucking hippie. Who’s got some scissors, gimme some fucking scissors, he said and he grabbed me by the arm so I couldn’t move.

  Nobody had any scissors naturally. Use a knife, one of the guys said. Scalp the little motherfucker. He looks like a fucking Indian anyhow.

  You cut my hawk, man, I’ll slice off your balls while you’re sleeping, I said to Joker.

  Luckily Bruce was there and intervened. He grabbed onto Joker’s choke collar and said, Release, Joker. Release! Chappie here’s my little buddy and I like him the way he is. He’s my little banty rooster, he said and ruffled my hawk.

  Yeah, well fuck you too, I said and he laughed but Joker backed off permanently on the hair thing although he still tried to scare me whenever he had a knife in his hands which wasn’t that often however since he preferred holding guns.

  Then one night I hitched back from the mall late with this guy from town who worked at Sears and all the way home to Au Sable he played classical music from this station in Vermont which was cool and unusual and got me thinking a lot about my mom and Willie and my previous homelife but not my stepfather, so when I came up the stairs to the apartment I was feeling incredibly mellow. This was in April and most of the snow had melted and the black oily water had run off into the river and the mud had dried out and the air was warm and wet even at night and I could smell the buds of the trees and bushes, lilacs and such and the sound of the river a half mile away made me think of little kindergarten kids in a playground for some reason.

  The door was locked which was not normal so I had to bang on it awhile until finally it opened a crack and Russ peeks out. It’s only Chappie, he calls back.

  Lemme the fuck in, I say.

  He goes, Wait a minute, and locks the door again. So I wait and pretty soon he comes back and lets me inside my own apartment for Christ’s sake. What the fuck’s going on? I say. Right away I notice it’s kind of dark. There’s only candles burning in the livingroom and all the lights in the apartment are off.

  Russ says, Just be cool, man.

  We go into the livingroom and Bruce and Joker and Roundhouse are there and two other guys who’ve been staying at the squat lately, this guy Packer who’s from Buffalo and has a classic ’77 FLH with chrome drag pipes and everything and his buddy Raoul who drives a piece-of-shit Chevy pickup and is one of those bikers without a bike like Joker which always seems to put an edge on them, like they’re pissed off at guys who do have bikes and also at guys like me and Russ who don’t particularly want one. I’d barely graduated from skateboards and dirt bikes back then and Russ of course had his Camaro.

  You holding? Bruce says to me. All around the livingroom were these big unopened boxes that said Sony Trinitron and Magnavox and IBM on them and the guys were sitting around looking tired like they’d just finished lugging the boxes upstairs.

  I had a bag of tropicana in one pocket for myself and another in my other pocket for sale so I said sure and passed it over. Forty bucks, man, I said. That’s what it cost me, I said which wasn’t quite true since I’d paid Hector twenty for it. What’s with the boxes? I asked him.

  Nobody answered. Then Bruce says to Packer, Give the kid thirty bucks, and to my surprise he did. I’m thinking I should’ve said fifty on account of it was tropicana not northcountry homegrown and maybe I’d have gotten forty and then I could’ve bought my shearling jacket back from Russ.

  Bruce stoked up a bong and they all proceeded to get lifted for a while and didn’t offer any to us which was boring so Russ and I went into his crib and split a blunt by ourselves. What’s the deal with the boxes? I asked him.

  Be cool, man. Like, you shouldn’t’ve said anything out there. It’s TVs, man. And computers and VCRs. All kinds of shit. Brand new.

  This was excellent news because we didn’t have a TV or a VCR in the squat although I didn’t care one way or the other about a computer. But a VCR would be good because I hadn’t watched a video since Russ lost his job at the Video Den. And I was missing my MTV, especially late-night shows like Headbangers Ball and other heavy metal programming.

  But the electronics were not for our personal use, I quickly discovered. Bruce and the guys were stashing the stuff until they could deliver them to a guy from Albany he’d met who had a warehouse and sold them wholesale to these Arabs and Jews who had stores down in New York City. Bruce and the guys were paid by the pound, Russ explained. So much for TVs, so much for computers and so on and the boxes couldn’t be opened because they ended up being sold in New York as brand new with guarantees and everything.

  Where’d they get them? I asked.

  Service Merchandise, man. Up to the mall.

  No shit. How’d they get them though? They just break in and steal them?

  Naw, man. Took ’em right off the loading dock while the store’s still open. They just drove up earlier tonight in Raoul’s pickup alongside real customers picking up the shit they’d actually paid for and filled the truck, man, and drove off. The security guy, the black dude, Bart, he arranged it. Bruce worked it out, it’s his deal.

  Cool, I said and took a big hit off the blunt.

  Russ said, Yeah, I’m trying to get the guys to cut me some of the action. There’s a shitload of money in this and with Black Bart on the inside there’s no way we’ll get caught, man. There might even be something in it for you too.

  Cool, I said but I was thinking it was wrong to be stealing stuff on this scale. It was different from me stealing some old coin collection from my mom or the Christmas shoplifting that I got busted for when I was only trying to get back in her g
ood graces. Besides I’d gotten swiftly punished for both those crimes and as long as I stayed away from home I didn’t feel guilty about them anymore. This was different and the punishment to fit the crime was going to be heavy so I didn’t want any part of it. Plus I’d already done enough in my life that was wrong and didn’t need any more.

  So it was only Bruce and his gang, Joker, Roundhouse, Raoul and Packer, and Russ if they’d let him, not me who were into stealing the TVs and stuff and for a while every few nights they brought more of it back to the apartment until the place was like a warehouse and all the rooms were filled with these huge cartons so that we had to climb over them just to get in and out. I guess the guy from Albany wasn’t ready for delivery or something. The door stayed locked and nobody else was allowed in the place anymore except me and Russ, probably because Bruce and the guys were afraid if they kicked us out we might go home to our parents and tell them or the cops and besides we were more or less responsible for keeping them in drugs. One or two of the bikers were always in the apartment on guard, usually stoned or asleep though and they sent me and Russ out for food and smokes and on minor errands besides drugs which for once they paid us for.

  There was a fair amount of money flowing then, expense money from the Albany guy I figured or maybe some sales to private individuals on the side so for the first time I had enough cash on hand to indulge in some amusements at the mall like video games and the occasional movie. Russ bought a set of new sheepskin seatcovers for his Camaro at Pep Boys and screwed a girl who was a senior at Plattsburgh High on them the first night and told me about it later. It sounded like fun but I still wasn’t ready for that.

  Russ talked a lot about the TVs and all. The whole deal really had him stoked and he wanted to be a partner in crime with the bikers and bring me in as a partner too but the men of Adirondack Iron were not interested in cutting Russ or me a piece of their pie so to speak and they got very pissed off whenever Russ tried to talk them into it especially Bruce.

  Then one night when they were lugging another load of boxes into the apartment Russ ran down to help them and grabbed onto a box and Bruce said, Get the fuck outa here, kid! Don’tyou ever touch this shit! You understand me? Ever!

  I was standing at the top of the stairs holding the door open for Raoul and Joker to carry this huge 27 inch Zenith inside and I’m thinking Russ should not push this, Bruce is the one guy not to cross. But Russ keeps it up. He goes, Hey, c’mon, Bruce, I’m cool, and besides, I’ve already been incriminated. You might as well make me a partner and put me to work like the other guys. Adirondack Iron, man! he says with a grin and gives Bruce a power salute with his tattoo showing.

  I start down the stairs to see if maybe I can distract Russ or something before he gets in too deep but Bruce has already gently set the box he was carrying on the tailgate of Raoul’s pickup as if to free his hands to beat the living shit out of Russ and he says, Just what the fuck do you mean incriminated?

  Well, you know what I mean, like I’m in the presence of stolen goods, man. So I’m an accomplice to a crime. I mean, I could always say I didn’t know what was in the boxes or where you got them, but who knows, they might not believe that.

  Are you threatening me, you little asshole? Are you?

  Moi? Mais no, man! All I want is the same as the other guys’re getting, since I’m running the same risk as them. You can use the help anyhow. Like, whaddaya say to only a half a share? Since I’m a minor and all and can’t be charged with a felony.

  Bruce sees me on the stairs a few steps behind Russ and he says. What about you, Chappie? You in on this shit too? Are you threatening me like this asshole?

  I didn’t want to abandon Russ so I tried to answer in a way that might help him without necessarily hurting me. He’s just high, man, I say which was true anyhow, Russ had been gobbling inhalers all afternoon and was speeding pretty good. C’mon, Russ, let’s go cool out, I say and grab his arm but he yanks it away.

  Nobody’s threatening nobody, he says. I’m negotiating, that’s all.

  Bruce goes, I don’t fucking negotiate with assholes. I fuck ‘em. I fuck ‘em with my fist. He leans in real close to Russ then, Do you know what that is, kid? Fist-fucking?

  I don’t know if he did, I sure didn’t but it sounded real undesirable so I said, He knows, man, don’t worry, he knows. He’s only high, I said and grabbed Russ by both shoulders hard now and practically dragged him away from Bruce although Russ didn’t resist this time and was secretly glad probably that I was there to save him without him having to back down on his own.

  Although he didn’t admit it of course. He acted like I had saved Bruce’s ass instead of his. I got him into the driver’s seat of his car and pretty soon we were driving down 9N along the Ausable River toward Jay and Keene, country villages where everyone had long since gone to bed. Russ’s Camaro was the only car on the road, a good thing because he was wired and pissed and the combination made him a good talker but a lousy driver. But he didn’t object or even seem to notice whenever I reached across and adjusted the steering wheel and got us back onto the road which was pretty narrow and windy and had the river on our left.

  Russ wanted to get even but he also wanted to make a profit at it and he had this new idea how we could get both, although I definitely did not like his use of we. What we gotta do, he said, is take one or two VCRs at a time and sell them ourselves. Just the VCRs, man. They’ll never miss them, those assholes don’t even have an inventory. The VCRs don’t take up much room, we can stash them in my trunk until we unload them. We specialize in VCRs, see, and sell them one by one at half price. New they go for what, three hundred, four hundred bucks apiece. We’ll sell ‘em for one fifty, or less, even. No matter how much, it’ll still be one hundred percent profit. We can split two ways, seventy-five twenty-five, since I’ve got the car and I’ll be doing most of the negotiating with the buyers.

  Who’re you gonna sell ‘em to? I asked swerving the car back onto the road with my left hand and just missing a parked van and a whole row of maple trees.

  Well, lemme think. For about ten seconds he thought. Rudy LaGrande for starters, he said. Ol’ Rudy used to tell me how he wanted to rent out VCRs from the store only he couldn’t afford to buy new ones and used weren’t any good because you hadda keep paying to have ‘em fixed. Yeah, O1’ Rudy’ll probably want five or six at least.

  Bruce’ll notice five or six gone.

  Not if we take them outa the squat one at a time and from different stacks. We just walk out with ‘em early in the morning when whoever’s there is sleeping and the next day we take another and so on. Simple.

  I don’t know, man. It’s risky with those guys. They all got guns, man.

  Chapstick, he said, we’re already risking being busted so we might as well profit from it. Fuck those guys, man.

  Yeah, but it’s stealing.

  Stealing from thieves is not the same as stealing from straights. Remember, thieves are not victims, man. Besides, he explained, this is kind of a step up. Morally speaking.

  What d’you mean, a step up? I said and grabbed the wheel again and pulled the car back to the right and avoided hitting a railroad crossing sign by maybe a foot.

  From dealing to stealing, man. I mean, which is better? Think about it. They’re both fucking illegal so which is better? Didn’t your parents teach you anything?

  Not about the difference between dealing drugs to asshole bikers and stealing already stolen VCRs from them, I said. But that don’t mean there isn’t one.

  One what?

  A difference, man. I was thinking like Russ’d said there was a lot about right and wrong that my parents hadn’t taught me and now due to my situation I was having to work out most of it myself. Everybody, Russ and the bikers, Black Bart and Rudy LaGrande and probably Wanda too and that creep Buster Brown at the mall who tried to get me to act in his porn movie and my stepfather and maybe even my mom, everybody but me seemed to think the difference between right and wron
g was obvious. For them I guess what was right was what you could get away with and what was wrong was what you couldn’t, but it made me feel stupid that I didn’t know it too. It was like the difference between dealing small-load weed and dealing crank—there was one, I knew but I didn’t know what it was. The whole thing was scary. It made you feel like once you stepped across the line you could never get back and were doomed from then on to a life of crime. Since everybody stepped across the line and did a wrong thing at least once in his life then everybody was doomed. Everybody was a criminal. Even my mom. You had to be a cat like Willie or a little kid like I once was not to be a criminal and for a human being like I was now that was impossible.

  I decided that for the time being I didn’t want to be any worse a criminal than I already was so I told Russ I wouldn’t help him steal the VCRs from the bikers. He thought I was being stupid and a wuss but basically he was relieved I think, because now he could keep all the profits for himself although I had to convince him first that my lips were sealed so to speak. And they were. No way I’d fuck over my best friend, my only friend actually if you didn’t count Bruce and the bikers and some kids I knew a little up at the mall.

  We drove along for a while and then he said he was worried about me because of how I wasn’t taking advantage of opportunities to advance in the world.

  Yeah, I said, like stealing stolen VCRs from psychos with guns.

  It’s freight forwarding, man. That’s all. I’m into freight forwarding, and it don’t matter to me what I ship or where it comes from or where it’s going. That’s someone else’s problem.

  It matters to me, I said.

  Yeah, well, that’s the difference between us, Chapstick. Which is what worries me about you. You can’t spend your life dealing weed to Adirondack Iron, man. You’ve got to start thinking about the future. Biker gangs, they come and go, man.

  I said yeah but I didn’t mention that the main reason I hadn’t gotten one of those Adirondack Iron tattoos of a winged helmet on my arm was exactly that, biker gangs do come and go. They really aren’t your family.