Free Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton Page B

like he knew I got it in a fight somewhere, like he had seen so much of the same thing he knew that lecturing me wouldn’t do any good.
    â€œNope,” I said.
    â€œNope what?”
    â€œI ain’t goin’ to the hospital. Just give me somethin’ to make it quit hurtin’.”
    And just as I said that, everything turned kind of gray and this ringing in my ears got so loud I couldn’t hear and I had to grab onto the table to keep from falling off.
    The doctor straightened me up and said, serious-like, “You are going to the hospital, kiddo.”
    He left the room for a minute, to get some papers or something, and I got out of there pretty quick. I wasn’t planning on any hospital stay. I’d been there before.
    I swiped a bottle of aspirin out of a drugstore on the way home and took about seven of them. I felt a little better after that. I knew where I could get some downers that would fix me up fine, but the Motorcycle Boy classified downers as dope. I could always say I got them legit from a doctor, but I doubt that I could fool him. I didn’t want to risk it. After last night I’d believe he could cut my throat without thinking about it.
    I went by Steve’s house on the way home. I knew where he lived even though I’d never gone there. His father had to be at work, though, and his mother was in the hospital, so I thought I’d be safe enough.
    He saw me coming up the sidewalk, because he was holding the screen door open when I got up the steps.
    â€œGood Lord!” I said when I saw him. “What happened to you?”
    â€œI was supposed to be home at ten o’clock last night,” he said flatly. “I got in at six this morning.”
    â€œYour father did that?” I couldn’t believe it. I’ve come out of gang fights looking better than he did.
    â€œCome on in,” he said.
    I’d never been in his house before. It was real nice, with furniture and carpets and stuff sitting on shelves. It was nicer than Patty’s house, but then, she had those little kids tearing up everything. I sat down on a sofa, hoping I wasn’t messing anything up. You’d think it would have gotten sloppy, with his mother in the hospital for so long.
    â€œYour father did that to you?” I asked again. I thought maybe I had missed something last night, that those two punks had worked him over. I didn’t remember much about the morning, or going home. I think it might have been then that my memory went goofy on me.
    â€œDon’t tell anybody, huh?” he said. “I’m gonna say I got it last night, across the river.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. It was hard for me to imagine anybody hitting Steve, anybody besides me, I mean. I had gone to a lot of trouble making sure nobody hit him. It made me mad. He was my friend. Nobody had any right beating him up like that. What difference did it make if he came home at ten or at six? He got home, didn’t he? Why did people get upset about stupid stuff like that? I tried picturing my father beating me up, and couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even imagine him telling me when to be home.
    â€œHe didn’t mean to hit me so much,” Steve said. But he was just repeating something he’d been told. “He’s been worried about Mom. I didn’t need to worry him, too. I just didn’t think about that.”
    It was like he had been brainwashed, repeating that stuff. I tried to figure out why Steve wasn’t mad about getting knocked around like that. If somebody had done that to me—
    â€œWhat really set him off,” Steve was saying, “was that orange junk all over my shirt. I guess that girl, that girl was wearing a lot of makeup, I guess. I don’t remember her being orange.”
    We sat there without saying anything for a long time. Finally Steve said, “What’d you come over for, Rusty-James?”
    I opened my mouth, and closed it,