Rule of the Bone Read Free

and I naturally think he’s been whaling on her which he’s been known to do so I shove my bike right into his stomach and the handlebars hit him in the face and knock off his glasses and suddenly everybody is screaming, me included. My stepfather yanks the bike out of my hands and throws it back down the steps and this makes me go crazy and I start calling him all the worst names I can think of like faggot and fucking asshole while he’s grabbing me by my arms and pulling me inside the house and telling me to shut the fuck up because of the neighbors and my mother is yelling at me like I’m the one who was whaling on her and tossing kids’ bikes around not her own husband for chrissake.
    Finally the door’s closed and we’re all panting and staring at each other and he says, Get into the livingroom, Chappie, and sit down. We have some news for you, mister, he says, and that’s when I remember the coins.
    On the coffeetable is the briefcase and it’s closed and for a second I think it’s the one with the rifle but no, when my stepfather flips it open I see right away it’s the one with the coins and I realize for the first time that there aren’t very many of them left. It was kind of a shock. None of the plastic bags had more than a few coins inside and some of the bags were completely empty although I didn’t remember emptying any and leaving them in the briefcase but it definitely looked like that’s what I had done. Dumb. My mom sat down on the couch and looked at the open briefcase like it was a coffin with a body in it and Ken said for me to sit in the chair which I did while he stood between me and the table and crossed his arms like some kind of cop. He had his glasses back on and was calmed down a little but was still steamed I knew from me hitting him with the bike.
    I felt like a pathetic jerk sitting there looking at those few remaining coins. I remembered how I’d felt the first time I opened the briefcase and saw inside an endless supply of weed like it was the goose that laid the golden egg. My mom started crying then like she does when I really fuck up and I made a move to get up and comfort her by apologizing like I usually do but Ken told me just to sit there and shut the fuck up even though I hadn’t said anything yet.
    Chappie, this is the worst thing you’ve ever done! my mom said and she started sobbing harder. Willie the cat tried to get on her lap but she pushed him away hard and he got down and left the room.
    Ken said he didn’t give a shit anymore what I robbed from other people or how much dope I bought, that was my problem not his and he’d given up on me anyhow but when I stole from my own mother that’s where he drew the line especially when I stole something irreplaceable like those coins. He said I was goddamned lucky I hadn’t taken his rifle because he definitely would have called in the cops. Let them handle it. He was sick of feeding and housing and clothing a freeloader and a thief and a drug addict and as far as he was concerned if it was up to him he’d boot me out of the house this very minute except my mother wouldn’t let him.
    I said to him, I thought they were your coins, and he reached out and slapped me real hard on the side of my head.
    They were your mother’s , he said real sarcastic and she went sort of crazy then, screaming about how the coins had been her mother’s and she’d given them to her years ago along with other precious and sentimental items and someday the coins were going to be mine and really valuable but now I’d gone and stolen them and sold them and spent all the money on drugs so she’d never be able to pass them on to me. Never.
    They were only coins, I said which was stupid but I didn’t know what else to say and I was feeling really dumb anyhow and lowdown so why not say something that sounded like I felt. They weren’t worth much anyhow,