Rule of the Bone

TWO. ALL IS FORGIVEN

Things went smoothly more or less like that for the rest of the summer and all fall. Unbeknownst to me however I was developing a criminal mentality. Dealing skunk to the bikers and so on I knew was illegal but that didn’t make it a crime so it wasn’t on account of committing any actual crimes that I became a criminal, it was because of my changing attitude toward my mom and Ken and other regular people.

I didn’t go to jail for it or anything but I think of the time I got caught shoplifting at the lingerie store up at the Champlain Mall in Plattsburgh as the true beginning of my life of crime. I mean, that was when I first saw myself as a person who was a criminal. It was coming up on the first Christmas after my mother and Ken’d kicked me out of the house and I was still fourteen and crashing at Russ’s place with the bikers down on Water Street in Au Sable Forks. They were still letting me sleep on this ratty couch they had because I kept them supplied with weed lots of times on credit even but mostly when I hung out there I stayed in Russ’s room. The bikers were older than us and heavier into drugs. I saw one of those guys once rub a line of coke straight into his eye which kind of grossed me out. Plus they drank a lot.

Russ was sixteen and worked days part time at the Video Den so nights we used to ride up to the mall in his Camaro and I’d deal a little weed to the other kids and we’d hang out till the stores closed and hit on the girls. But mostly nothing was happening so we’d sit around on the benches and watch all these cheesy couples doing their Christmas shopping. At Christmas the malls’re filled with people who feel rotten because they don’t have enough money so they fight a lot and yank on their kids’ arms. The carols and blinking lights and the guys in Santa suits are supposed to make you forget your troubles but in reality it’s the opposite. At least for me it was which is one of the reasons I liked to get high before we went there.

This one night about ten days before Christmas I didn’t have any weed and I was thinking about my mom and Ken, how it would be the first time they’d be alone and I wondered what they’d do on Christmas Eve. What they usually did was get smashed on this eggnog and bourbon mixture that my mom said was her mother’s secret recipe and watch TV specials. Around eleven when the news came on I’d open the presents we’d got for each other and hug and say thanks and then they’d go into their room and pass out and I’d smoke a fatty in the bathroom and watch MTV with Willie till I fell asleep. It was okay but not exactly ideal. But we had a tree and lights in the windows and all and last year was cool because I got this excellent suede shearling jacket from my mom and Ken gave me a Timex watch. So I could start coming home on time, he said. I got her one of those long silk Indian scarves that she seemed to like a lot and for him I got a pair of lined driving gloves. Everybody was happy, in spite of the eggnog.

But a lot had happened since then. For one thing, the main thing that’d happened was me getting kicked out of the house. But it also had to do with my mohawk and getting my ears and nose pierced and screwing up in school and even though they never caught me at it my mom and Ken’d known all along I was heavy into weed which was why I’d stolen the coins in the first place. When I left home it was sort of by mutual agreement, I guess.

They would’ve let me come back if I’d wanted but only if I could be a different person than I was which was not only impossible but unfair because I didn’t know how to keep myself from getting into trouble anymore. I must’ve crossed a line but didn’t know it way back when I was a little kid like five or six after my real father took off and Ken moved in.

I knew it was hopeless but I started imagining this scene anyhow. I get Russ to drop me off at my mom’s and Ken’s house. All my stuff including my trademark dirt bike is in Russ’s Camaro and we unload it and set it on the sidewalk. But also I’ve got this huge bag of presents for my mom and my stepfather, truly excellent items like a toaster oven and a microwave and maybe some jewels and a fancy nightgown for Mom and for Ken I’ve got a Polaroid camera and a portable sander and a Polo ski sweater. Then Russ takes off and I’m all alone on the sidewalk. The house is dark except for the string of lights around the front door and the deck railing in back and electric candles in the windows and I can see the Christmas tree lights blinking through the curtain in the livingroom where I know they’re watching the Cosby special or something. It’s Christmas Eve. It’s snowing a little. They’re really sad because I’m not with them but they don’t know how to let me come home without acting like what I did to them doesn’t matter— stealing the coin collection and smoking grass and getting a mohawk and all and living with Russ and the bikers and not going to school anymore which they probably know about by now and dealing weed for Hector the Hispanic guy at Chi-Boom’s which they don’t know about although I wonder what they think I’ve been living on all these months, charity? Also they don’t know that so far I haven’t gotten a tattoo even though Russ has this very cool tattoo on his forearm and is always after me to get one.

So in this scene I go up to the door and knock and when my mom comes out I say, Merry Christmas, Mom, just sort of flat and normal like that and hold out the bag in which all the presents are wrapped in this incredible shiny paper with bows and everything. She starts to cry like she does when she’s excited and my stepfather comes to the door to see what’s the matter. I say the same to him, Merry Christmas, Ken. And I show him the bag of presents too. My mom opens the door and takes the bag from me and passes it back to Ken and gives me a big maternal hug. Ken shakes my hand and says, Come on in, son. We go into the livingroom and I distribute the presents to them and all is forgiven.

They don’t have any presents for me which embarrasses them naturally and they apologize but I don’t care. All I care is that they really like what I got them and they do. Later we’re drinking eggnog and watching TV and Ken looks out the window and sees my bike and all my clothes and things out on the sidewalk with the snow coming down and he says to me, Son, why don’t you bring your stuff inside?

When I got busted for shoplifting it was in this fancy lingerie store called Victoria’s Secret and I was already out of the store with a silky green nightgown stashed in my jacket pocket. The security guard, a black dude named Bart who I actually knew personally and had once sold some grass to put the arm on me and turned me around and took me into an office in the back where the manager of the store and the head security guy were and after they hassled me for a while I finally told them my mom’s name and telephone number. Bart, the black guy who’d busted me had to go back on patrol and when he left the office I looked at him real hard but he didn’t care, he knew I couldn’t pin him for anything without pinning myself worse. And then of course a half hour later here they come, my mother and my stepfather, her looking frightened and upset and him just pissed off but neither of them talking to me, only to the store manager and the head security guy. While they talked they made me sit by myself in a storeroom next to the office where I stared at the No Smoking sign and kept wishing I could get high and a few minutes later my mother came out wringing her hands and her face all red from crying.

She says, They want to arrest you! And Ken agrees with them. He thinks it would be good for you, she says. But I’m trying to explain that we’ve all had a lot of trouble on the homefront this year and you’re just reacting to that. She goes, I’m trying to get you off, do you understand? Do you?

I said, Yeah, I understand.

Then she said, If you will march in there and say you’re sorry and say that you’ll come home with us and stay away from the mall, I think they’ll forget about the shoplifting. And Ken will go along. He’s upset, naturally, and very angry and embarrassed, but he’ll get over it if you’ll make some amends and stay out of trouble. This could be your last chance, mister, she says to me. Come on, and she took me by the arm and led me back into the office where my stepfather was joking with the store manager who was a bald middle-aged guy in red suspenders and bowtie and the head security guy who had a gun strapped to his waist, a real cowboy type, probably an ex-cop. The three of them are buddies now and they look at me and my mom like we’re insects.

Go ahead, my mom said to me and she pushed me forward a step. Just tell them what you told me.

I hadn’t told her anything but I knew what she wanted me to say. I felt weird, like I was in a movie and could say anything I wanted and it wouldn’t make any difference in the real world. They were all staring at me and waiting for me to say the desired thing but I looked down at my feet and said, My friend was going to lend me fifty bucks but he didn’t get paid in time. I don’t know why I said it but it felt good when I did, almost comical.

See, there you go! my stepfather says to his buddies. The kid doesn’t know right from wrong! What the hell did you want with a woman’s negligee? he said and laughed and held up the gown with his thumb and one finger like it was a porno costume or something and I was supposed to wear it.

No way I was going to answer him so I just stood there and after a minute or two with no one saying anything my mother grabbed me by the arm and led me back out to the storeroom. Listen, mister! she said, really upset. I’m going back in there one more time, and remember, I’m the one putting myself on the line for you! If I get them to let you go, you have to promise me that you’ll come home with us and that things will be different. I mean it, different! Do I have your word on that? Do I?

Yeah, I said and she left and went into the office. I could hear them arguing through the wall, my mother’s voice high-pitched and pleading and my stepfather’s voice low and grumbling and once in a while some comments from the store manager or the security cop. It seemed like hours but it was probably only a few minutes before my mother comes out all sad smiles now and she gives me this big hug and kisses me on the cheeks. She held both my hands in hers and looked at me and said, It’s all right. They’re going to let you go. Ken finally came over to my side on this, but like he said, it’s your last chance. Come on, let’s get out of here, she said. Ken’s going to meet us out front by the Sears entrance with the car. My goodness, she says smiling. You’re getting so tall, honey. It wasn’t true of course, I wasn’t even as tall as her and she’s short.

Then when we walk out into the mall I see Russ sitting on a bench over by the fountain chilling with a kid I didn’t know and a couple of girls from Plattsburgh High who’re smoking cigarettes and pretending that the guys aren’t there. Listen, Mom, I said. All my stuffs over at Russ’s place, okay? I’ll go by there with him and bring it over. You and Ken go ahead without me.

She seemed a little confused. What? Why can’t we just stop off there with you and get it now? You don’t need to go with Russ.

No, no, I said. The place is locked. I got to get it with Russ. I don’t have a key. Besides I still owe him twenty bucks for the rent. And I can’t get my stuff till I pay him. Can you give me twenty bucks, Mom?

I was broke and out of weed but I knew Russ was holding. I was already thinking about getting high with him and the girls he was talking to and riding around Plattsburgh in his Camaro.

No, she said. No! Of course I can’t give you any money! I don’t understand. Don’t you know what just happened in there? Don’t you know what I just went through?

Listen, Mom, just give me the money. I need the money.

What are you saying?

Give me the money.

What?

The money.

She looked at me in this strange fearful way, like she didn’t recognize me but almost did and I got this sudden new feeling of power and didn’t even feel guilty for it. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty and passed it over.

Thanks, I said, and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. I’ll be back later, after I get my stuff from Russ’s.

She put her hand to her mouth and took a few short steps away from me, then turned and disappeared into the crowd. And as I crossed over toward. Russ and the other kids I remember saying to myself, Now I’m a criminal. Now I’m a real criminal.