amends and decides to take his mind off of the matter instead.

Physically, Rusty is large and can hold his own with most of the characters in the book. His best friend is short and has a smaller build. Rusty chooses to smoke and drink, while his best friend doesn't. Rusty doesn't look like his sibling, the Motorcycle Boy (though he wishes he did), other than the fact that they both have red hair. Much of his behavior, like fighting and drinking, seems to be similar to his father and brother, until the end of the book when he decides to break the cycle and stop fighting and drinking.

Rusty-James is the younger brother of Motorcycle Boy in S. E. Hinton’s acclaimed, violent, and action-packed coming of age novel Rumble Fish. He’s the main character of the novel, who, at 14, has already started to drink, play pool, smoke, and is the leader of a small, dying gang.

The story revolves around Rusty-James’ struggle to live up to Motorcycle Boy’s reputation, and his longing for the glory days, when gang warfare was more active than it is in the industrial town in which the story takes place.

Virtually an orphan, with his mother gone, a father who drinks, an education that is meaningless for him and relationships that lack substance, he allows himself to be drawn into one last gang fight in which his older brother is killed and he is sent to a reformatory.

The title comes from a scene towards the end of the book where Motorcycle Boy is in a pet store staring at some Siamese Fighting Fish which he calls Rumble Fish.

Rusty James is fourteen but he acts much older. Like his father he smokes and drinks. Rusty James is detached from his girlfriend the same way that his father is detached from him and his brother. Rusty James and his brother scavange and steal and don't work for a living, the same way that Rusty James' father is on welfare. Rusty James and his father seem to be content in the place where they are, neither of them are trying to get out by getting a better job, or in Rusty James' case, an education. Rusty James is scared that people are going to leave him, the same way that his father is; after his wife (Rusty James' mother) left, the father and son both are shut off. However, unlike his father, Rusty James has his brother and his friends, his father only has alcohol. His father is like a zombie, Rusty James is as well, they are both emotionally detached.

At the beginning of Rumble Fish, Rusty-James is spending time on the beach, having recently gotten out of the reformatory. On the beach, Rusty-James runs into his old friend Steve.

The novel utilizes a frame-narrative, with the bulk of the story actually taking in the place in the past. Rusty-James recalls the events when talking to his friend Steve; however, Rusty-James seems to be disgruntled as he remembers these events. In fact, it becomes clear at the end of the novel that Rusty-James fully intends to forget these events in order to live as much at peace as possible.

As Rusty-James and Steve continue their reminiscences on the events leading up to Rusty-James placement in the reformatory, it is revealed that Rusty-James's brother, Motorcycle Boy, was fatally shot by the police several years ago. In response, Rusty-James had thrown a fit and was arrested by the police.

The novel also ends at the beach, with Rusty-James and Steve discussing future plans to get together. Rusty-James tells the reader that he has no intention of seeing Steve again, for he aims to completely forget about the events that led up to his brother's death.

In the novel Rumble Fish, Rusty-James and his older brother, Motorcycle Boy, live with their alcoholic father. Their mother left many years ago when the two boys were still young. The mother was an irresponsible and uncommitted person, as suggested by the father's remark that she married him "for fun, and when it stopped being fun she left."

What makes the character of the father unique is that he speaks eloquently despite his drinking habit. In other, similar stories that feature alcoholic or drug-addicted parents, the parents are often depicted as abrasive, violent, and uneducated. In Rumble Fish, the father had attended law school before he met the boys' mother. He also has a wide vocabulary and provides articulate quips despite his daily consumption of alcohol.

The father is detached from his sons' lives, almost as if they are simply tenants in the same house rather than a loving, tight-knit family. The fact that the father is distant from the boys makes Rusty-James's close relationship with his older brother even more understandable. Motorcycle Boy became the father figure in Rusty-James's life.

When the story opens, Rusty James is on a beach in Southern California. By chance, he meets Steve, a friend he hasn't seen in five or six years.

Steve is surprised to see him and tells Rusty James that he is going to college in the area. Apparently, Steve is studying to become a high school teacher. As they converse, it is apparent that Steve wants to reconnect with Rusty, but Rusty isn't too keen on reminiscing about the past with his former friend.

Soon, Steve asks about the reformatory and how long Rusty was in for. Rusty answers that he was at the reformatory for five years; however, he doesn't really like to think about that period of his life. He tells Steve that he was once sent to solitary confinement, but Steve reacts awkwardly. Eventually, the two young men discuss Steve's scars and how he got them.

The conversation ends with Steve reiterating his desire to get together for dinner and to introduce Rusty to his girlfriend. Rusty humors Steve but has no intention of getting together with Steve and his girlfriend. We discover his true sentiments at the end of the book, in Chapter 12, when he maintains that:

“I waved back. I wasn’t going to see him. I wasn’t going to meet him for dinner, or anything else. I figured if I didn’t see him, I’d start forgetting again. But it’s been taking me longer than I thought it would.”

Much of the blame for Rusty-James' adolescent criminal activity lies with his family upbringing. Rusty's mother, who apparently suffered from criminal tendencies herself, abandoned the family and left Rusty alone for three days when he was just two years old. Rusty's father, a former attorney, is a jobless drunk who gives his sons little support or fatherly guidance. Rusty-James idolizes his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy, a respected former gang leader who loves to steal motorcycles and travel for months at a time. The mysterious Motorcycle Boy (whose real name is never given) is rumored to have killed a junkie, and threatens to break Rusty-James' arm if he ever uses drugs. Poverty and a lack of self-respect are other reason's for Rusty's actions. Rusty-James' family serves as some of the poorest role models possible, and Rusty--who hates being alone--finds the streets a better place to inhabit than his own home. Rusty's love of fighting and stealing stem from a desire to live up to his older brother's former stature, and he seems to think that by doing so, the Motorcycle Boy--and other gang members--will respect and admire him as well.

In Chapter 1 Rusty-James runs into Steve at the billiard hall. They exchange pleasantries and comment on how much the other has changed in the five or six years since they had last seen each other. Rusty begins to become uncomfortable and then Steve brings up the last time he saw Rusty and who he thought he was.

"You know who you look just like?"

"Yeah," I said, and I remembered everything. I could of been really glad to see ol' Steve, if he hadn't made me remember everything.