Rumble Fish

“I could tell he was trying not to look for the other scars. They’re not real noticeable, but they’re not that hard to see either, if you know where to look.”

Rusty-James notices that his long-lost friend Steve cannot help but fixate on his facial scars. The scars, which are neither distinctive nor invisible, are a metaphor for Rusty-James’s violent past, which is distant and obvious simultaneously. Steve, who wants to reminisce, looks at the scars to confirm that he has in fact found his old friend, despite the fact that they are not in the neighborhood where they grew up. The scars indicate that Rusty-James cannot outrun his past despite his wish to forget it. 

“There hadn’t been a real honest-to-goodness gang fight around here in years. As far as I knew, Steve had never been in one. I could never understand people being scared of things they didn’t know nothing about.”

At the beginning of his reminiscence, Rusty-James remembers that he was eager to see the type of gang fight that had made the Motorcycle Boy’s reputation. The term “honest-to-goodness,” which normally refers to wholesome pursuits, indicates Rusty-James’s craving for the supposedly more authentic experience his brother enjoyed, and his sense that he has been deprived of this. His comment about Steve’s judgement of an event he knows little about is ironic, as he himself knows little about the full repercussions of gang violence. In the course of the novel, he will change his mind about this topic.

“We were on the bridge, right where the Motorcycle Boy used to stop to watch the water. I threw my cigarette butt into the river. It was so full of trash that a little more wasn’t going to hurt it any.”

This passage shows Rusty-James and Steve inhabiting the rundown neighborhood where the Motorcycle Boy made his name. In stopping at the place where the Motorcycle Boy used to watch the water, Rusty-James plants himself in his brother and hero’s territory. The trash-filled state of the river indicates that the place is going to ruin, but while Steve judges the place harshly, Rusty-James relaxes, knowing that the river’s polluted state means the addition of his cigarette butt will not harm it. His ease in this state fits in with his preference for thinking about living in the present rather than planning for the future. 

“Steve looked like a rabbit. He had dark-blond hair and dark-brown eyes and a face like a real sincere rabbit. He was smarter than me. I ain’t never been a particularly smart person. But I get along all right.”

This image comparing fair-haired Steve to a rabbit stands out for its tenderness. The rabbit—a fuzzy, sweet-looking rodent—is the diametric opposite of the tough, fierce creature Rusty-James wants to pass himself off as. While he thinks that Steve is weaker than him, he acknowledges that his friend has the advantage of being “smart.” The period that follows this statement indicates Rusty-James’s certainty that it is true, while the conjunction “but” that begins the next sentence puts on a front that compensates for this lack of ability.

“She was mad about something. She wanted to start a fight. She wasn’t mad about me coming over when I wasn’t supposed to, but that was what she wanted to fight about. It seemed like whenever we have fights it was never over what she was mad about.”

This passage reveals the poor communication between Rusty-James and his girlfriend Patty. They are unable to address their issues directly, instead resorting to sniping about less important things. This lack of honesty draws attention to the fragility of their dynamic. The short sentences also convey how Rusty-James sniffs out the truth behind Patty’s false dialogue. His ability to tell that she is mad about a different topic than the one she brought up reveals acute emotional intelligence. 

“I love fights. I love how I feel before a fight, kind of like I can do anything.”

This passage illustrates Rusty-James’s sense of invincibility prior to a fight. The thought of potential glory and the adrenaline running through his veins are almost a greater reward than the victory itself. This statement will prove ironic when the fight itself damages him both physically and psychically.

“My old man, he got a regular check from the government. He had to go down and sign for it, but it wasn’t very much and sometimes he’d forget to give me some of it before he drank it up. I did a lot of scrounging around.”

This passage illustrates how Rusty-James’s needs compete with his father’s drinking problem. This is one of many instances that alert us to his father’s inadequate parenting, which affects how the boys have turned out. The father, who relies upon a welfare check as though it is an allowance and then drinks it up, is in a childlike state himself and unable to guide Rusty-James. As a result, Rusty-James has to take on the adult role of supporting himself by whatever means he can.

“I was so mad at Steve for going off and leaving me that it took me about three blocks of fast walking to see that he was crying. That scared the hell out of me. I’d never seen anybody but girls cry, and I couldn’t ever remember doing it myself.”

Rusty-James is aghast at the tears that he thinks emasculate his friend. The phrase “anybody but girls” indicates the rigid gender roles Rusty-James believes in, which separate women and men into different strata of humanity. The idea that a boy could cry is threatening to him because it punctures the gendered expectations that have made up his world to this date.

“I always thought he was the coolest guy in the world, and he was, but he never paid much attention to me. But that didn’t mean anything. As far as I could tell, he never paid attention to anything except to laugh at it.”

The image Rusty-James has of the Motorcycle Boy is that of a man who is cool, both in the sense that he is hip enough to have influence with his peers, and also in the sense that nothing seems to affect him. His laughter is the physical symptom of this detachment from other people and situations. In this respect, Rusty-James feels that the Motorcycle Boy is his polar opposite, since he feels affected by everything. Rusty-James is even content to be one of the things that the Motorcycle Boy doesn’t seem to notice, because it supports his comfortable view of the Motorcycle Boy as entirely above the fray. 

“I was hoping they wouldn’t get started in on one of their long talks. Sometimes they’d go for days like they didn’t even see each other, and sometimes they’d get started on something and talk all night. That wasn’t much fun for me, since I couldn’t understand half of what they said.”

Here, Rusty-James introduces the fact that he feels isolated in his family because he cannot keep up with his father and brother’s conversations, which are pitched beyond his intellect and knowledge. The unpredictability of their dynamic—his father and brother either ignore each other or become completely engrossed in conversation—adds to the feeling of insecurity Rusty-James experiences at home. 

“That afternoon turned out to be more interesting than I’d bargained for. I got expelled, and Patty broke up with me.”

In this succinct passage, Hinton conveys the trouble the hero finds himself in during the course of a single afternoon. The understatement of the phrase, “more interesting than I bargained for,” adds a note of fatalistic humor, as the luck that has enabled Rusty-James to get away with bad behavior dries up quickly. The statement’s position near the midpoint of the novel also marks the turning point from which the hero’s downfall occurs. 

“It’s a bit of a burden to be Robin Hood, Jesse James and the Pied Piper. I’d just as soon stay a neighborhood novelty, if it’s all the same to you. It’s not that I couldn’t handle a larger scale, I just plain don’t want to.”

Although the Motorcycle Boy has mythic status in his neighborhood—akin to that of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who was so charming that all the children followed him, or Robin Hood, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor—he does not enjoy his notoriety. In fact, the use of the word “burden” indicates that he finds it an impediment to his happiness. This is one of a few hints that the Motorcycle Boy’s reputation is becoming unbearable for him.

“I tried to remember why I liked lots of people. ‘I wonder—how come? Maybe because I don’t like bein’ by myself. I mean, man, I can’t stand it. Makes me feel tight, like I’m bein’ choked all over.’”

While Rusty-James is conscious of his preference for crowded spaces over being alone and alert to the visceral, choking feeling in his body, he is mystified about the reasons for either. He thus risks vulnerability by opening up to Steve and the Motorcycle Boy, two boys who he feels are smarter than him, for insight. This indicates the turning point in Rusty-James’s character, where the desire to connect overpowers the wish to seem tough and impenetrable. 

“California […] is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she’s on top of the world, not knowing she’s dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.”

Hinton personifies California, the place where Rusty James’s mother lives, as a careless, vain, and self-destructive child. In the years of the hippie movement, California was a place that attracted the young with its utopian and rebellious experiments in living. This personified California could represent both the runaway mother’s behavior and Rusty-James's. Like California, Rusty-James’s body bears the marks of ruin, but he believes that he is invincible, and he is full of youthful enthusiasm for his rebellious cause. 

“The next thing I remember, I was floating around up in the air above the alley, looking down at all three of them. It was a weird feeling, just floating up there, not feeling a thing, like watching a movie […] And then I saw my body, laying there on the alley floor. It was a bit like seeing yourself in the mirror. I can’t tell you what it was like.”

Here, Rusty-James finds that words are insufficient in describing the out-of-body experience he has after being beaten unconscious. While the muggers are mistaken in believing that Rusty-James is dead, Rusty-James’s third-person view of his body indicates that he has entered a state that enables him to see himself as a stranger. In this moment of extreme weakness, his consciousness arguably floats between that of the living and the dead. This detour into the supernatural in a largely realist narrative indicates how close Rusty-James has come to death and the extent to which his lifestyle risks his being killed. The allusion to the mirror underscores this, linking Rusty-James to the fish who would kill themselves fighting their own reflection. 

“That was what scared me, what was scaring Steve, and what would scare anybody who came into direct contact with the Motorcycle Boy. He didn’t belong—anywhere—and what was worse, he didn’t want to.”

Part of the fear the Motorcycle Boy inspires in others involves his indifference to one of the most fundamental human needs—that of belonging. Without this need, he cannot fully empathize with others, or they with him, thus creating a gulf where mutual suspicion can take root. It is also clear that in his fundamental need to belong, Rusty-James will never be another Motorcycle Boy. 

“I had been scared before, but it was always something real to be scared of—not having any money, or some big kid looking to beat you up, or wondering if the Motorcycle Boy was gone for good. I didn’t like this being scared of something and not knowing exactly what it was. I couldn’t fight it if I didn’t know what it was.”

While Rusty-James feels able to cope with tangible, easily-defined fears by fighting against them, he finds that his conventional toolkit proves insufficient for this more elusive dread that he feels towards the end of the novel, when Steve refuses to accompany him in his pursuit of the Motorcycle Boy. Arguably, the fear stems from Rusty-James’s contemplation of a life devoid of all pursuits apart from following the Motorcycle Boy. For the first time in his life, he feels that he has run out of options to fight his destiny.

“‘You better let go of the Motorcycle Boy,’ he said. ‘If you’re around him very long you won’t believe in anything.’”

As Steve refuses to follow Rusty-James in his pursuit of the Motorcycle Boy, he warns him that such an activity will lead to the breaking of Rusty-James’s spirit. This is a final warning that the Motorcycle Boy is a dangerous influence, and that if Rusty-James does not “let go” of either his brother or his mythic image of him, he risks his health—both physical and mental. 

“Rusty-James, if there were still gangs around here, I’d be president, not you […] You’d be second lieutenant or somethin’. See, you might make it a while on the Motorcycle Boy’s rep, but you ain’t got his brains. You have to be smart to run things.”

Smokey delivers the damning verdict that Rusty-James’s lack of street smarts would make him an unfit gang-leader, thus denying that the Motorcycle Boy’s legacy has passed onto his brother. Smokey claims that he himself is more the Motorcycle Boy’s successor, and that Rusty-James, the second brother in his family, should also occupy the inferior position of second lieutenant in a gang. This is a shocking moment for Rusty-James, as he sees how his status has changed in the eyes of others. 

“‘Nice colors,’ I said, trying to keep up the conversation. I had never seen the Motorcycle Boy look so hard at anything. […] ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘That makes me kind of sorry I can’t see colors.’ It was the first time I’d ever heard him say he was sorry about anything.”

The Motorcycle Boy’s keen interest in the Siamese fighting fish is unusual. He expresses wistfulness that his color blindness will not allow him to perceive the colors that his brother takes for granted. This is a portent of a change in the Motorcycle Boy’s mood, which will lead to the drastic act of burglarizing the pet shop and then to his death. It is both the fishes’ beauty and their fighting nature which stops him in his tracks. 

“Every now and then a person comes along who has a different view of the world than does the usual person. Notice I said ‘usual,’ not normal. That does not make him crazy. An acute perception does not make you crazy. However, it sometimes drives you crazy.”

When Rusty-James asks his father whether his mother was “crazy,” his father replies that she was merely unusual, with a different view of life than most people. In proposing that she and the Motorcycle Boy are more misfits than mentally ill, the father provides a more complex idea of sanity than Rusty-James has previously contemplated.  

“I stared straight ahead at the flashing light. There was something wrong with it. There was something really wrong with it. I was scared to think about what was wrong with it, but I knew, anyway. It was gray. It was supposed to be flashing red and white and it was gray. I looked all around. There wasn’t any colors anywhere. Everything was black and white and gray. It was quiet as a graveyard.”

This passage describes how Rusty-James discovers that he is suddenly color-blind like his brother. Hinton conveys his creeping, slow realization of this fact by showing his perception of something being wrong with the flashing light. The color gray, the least vivid in the spectrum, clouds his vision as he enters a blander state of existence following the Motorcycle Boy’s death. The color blindness is part of a catalog of physical changes that show how Rusty-James has come to share his brother’s embodied experience. In a supernatural manner, the Motorcycle Boy’s death has led to the transference of his qualities to his brother.

“‘I made up my mind I’d get out of that place and I did,’ Steve went on. ‘I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell till you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life you just have to work till you make it.’”

In the final chapter, Steve cites his American Dream philosophy—the belief that hard work and direction breed rewards. However, Steve is the novel’s sole example of the so-called ubiquitous American Dream. All the other characters, who are less sure of where they want to go, find that this dream eludes them. The novel is a testament to the experiences not of dreamers, but of people who make life up as they go along.