Rule of the Bone Read Online Free

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 ChiBoom’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