Rumble Fish

by S.E. Hinton

See, 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 any attention to anything except to laugh at it.

It was hard for me to respect him, since he didn’t do anything. He drank all day out in bars, and came home and read and drank at night. That’s not doing anything. But we got along okay, so I couldn’t hate him or anything. I didn’t hate him. I just wished I could like him better.

The Motorcycle Boy didn’t have any friends, I realized when I got over being sad about Weston. He had admirers and enemies, but I’d never heard anybody claim to be his friend.

He was smiling, but not happy. He never smiled much. It scared me when he did.

All my life, all I had to worry about was real things, things you could touch, or punch, or run away from. 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.

And when he finally left the place, I followed him the best I could, even though he didn’t even see me

anymore. It seemed like the only thing I had left to do.

He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made a perfect knight, in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.”

I looked at Steve again. It was like seeing the ghost of somebody you knew a long time ago.