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 .
