Rumble Fish

Rusty-James goes to a free clinic on the pretense that he has bumped his head and needs aspirin. However, when the doctor insists that he should go to the hospital and get X-rays and tests done, Rusty-James refuses, despite his unusual physical symptoms such as ear-ringing and hearing loss. He leaves the doctor’s and steals a bottle of aspirin from the drugstore. He takes seven of them and feels a little better.

He goes by Steve’s house and sees that Steve’s father has beaten him up for returning home late with a girl’s makeup all over his shirt. He proposes to Steve that they go and follow the Motorcycle Boy around for a while. When Steve asks why, it catches Rusty-James off-guard: “I hadn’t really thought about why myself. It just seemed like something that needed doing” (70). When Steve refuses, Rusty-James is scared; the turbulent state of his mind, which is “seeing things through distorted glass” (70), unnerves him. Steve insists that he will not help Rusty-James, and that the Motorcycle Boy is “nuts” (71). Rusty-James gets angry and defensive, but Steve says that he has to look after his own future interests at the expense of looking after his friend.