Rumble Fish

This chapter flashes back to when Rusty-James and Steve were best friends in junior high school. This earlier period constitutes the narrative’s main chronology.

While Steve is studious and cautious, Rusty-James puts on a tough-boy front and is continually getting into fights. They are at a diner named Benny’s Billiards with two other kids, B.J. Jackson and Smokey Bennet, when Rusty-James learns that someone called Biff wants to meet him over “somethin’ [he] said to Anita at school” (7). It is clear that Biff, who invites Rusty-James over to a vacant lot, intends to fight. Steve is afraid of a potential gang fight and warns Rusty-James of trouble. Rusty-James argues that he has to go to protect his “rep” (9)—shorthand for “reputation”—but that Steve does not. Steve insists that he will be there and then mentions the Motorcycle Boy, an important figure who has disappeared from Rusty-James’s life for a long period of time. When Steve sees that Rusty-James is anxious about the Motorcycle Boy’s absence, he notes that he himself will leave their failing neighborhood as soon as he can. Rusty-James is defensive about where they live, although he admits to himself that he enjoyed the time when his father took him beyond the neighborhood to the zoo. Rusty-James reflects that despite his toughness, he can get attached to people to a worrying extent. 

Rusty-James goes over to his girlfriend Patty’s house before the fight with Biff. While they are making out on the sofa, he suffers an episode that sends him into a trancelike state. This indicates that the memory troubles mentioned in the first chapter are already beginning.

He goes to the fight with Smokey and B.J.; Rusty-James is the “number-one tough cat in [the] neighborhood” (15), and the others are his subordinates. Steve is not yet there when they get to the vacant lot.

Biff is high on drugs and has a knife. As the school confiscated Rusty-James’s knife, his subordinates supply him with a bicycle chain. The fight is violent, with Biff ending up with a bloodied, swollen face while Rusty-James sits on his gut, asking if he gives up. Just then, the Motorcycle Boy (who transpires to be Rusty-James’s older brother) comes over to express his disappointment that they are all still fighting. Once the most notorious fighter of all, he hoped that the period of neighborhood fighting was over. Meanwhile, Biff manages to slit Rusty-James’s side with his knife, and Steve shows up.

Rusty-James asks the Motorcycle Boy where he has been. He says he was on his way to California, though he “never got past the river” (22). Rusty-James does not understand what he means.

At home, the Motorcycle Boy discovers that Rusty-James is bleeding, and that his cut is deep enough to make his ribs visible. The Motorcycle Boy pours wine over the cut to sterilize it. He then reveals that he has been expelled from high school despite having good grades and not making trouble (unlike Rusty-James, who finds reading difficult, the Motorcycle Boy is an avid reader). When Steve says that he should go home, Rusty-James, who has a fear of being alone, asks him to stay. When Steve goes, Rusty-James is relieved to find that the Motorcycle Boy, his idol and favorite person in the world, is still there; it seems that the Motorcycle Boy’s unexplained absences are frequent. 

Rusty-James goes to school even though he is bleeding. His gym teacher, Coach Ryan, offers to give him $5 to beat up Don Price. Rusty-James recalls that six months earlier, someone offered the Motorcycle Boy $400 to kill someone, but he did not accept.

After school, when the presence of Patty’s mother ruins Rusty-James’s plans to visit with his girlfriend, he goes to find Steve at Benny’s. Steve is upset because his mother has had a stroke. He is not in the mood to hear Rusty-James’s story about Coach Ryan. Rusty-James, who cannot remember his own mother, finds it difficult to empathize with Steve.

The two end up in a scrape when Rusty-James steals some hubcaps that will earn him $20. Rusty-James is short of money because his alcoholic father spends all his income on alcohol, and he finds the Motorcycle Boy too intimidating to ask for a loan. There is a chase as Rusty-James and Steve outrun their pursuers. Steve dumps the hubcaps because he thinks that stealing is bad. Rusty-James, on the other hand, thinks that the fact that the hubcaps were stolen to begin with diminishes the malice of his own crime. Once they’ve escaped, Rusty-James discovers that Steve is crying and does not know how to react. Steve tells him to shut up when he tries to help.