At the age of 14, Rusty is hanging out at Benny's, playing pool with his friends when he learns that Biff Wilcox wants to kill him.

Rusty seems to think that Biff wants to kill him for the comments he made about a girl named Anita.

Later, Rusty arrives to fight Biff and is accompanied by his friends Steve, Smokey Bennet, and B. J. Jackson.

Biff's erratic behavior leads Rusty to believe that he is on drugs, which causes him to worry that the fight will not be a fair one.

Motorcycle Boy steps in and ends the fight by breaking Biff's wrist.

After school, he steals a set of hubcaps from a car near Benny's, while Steve talks about his mother's recent hospitalization.

The owner of the car notices the theft in progress and begins chasing the boys, accompanied by a couple of his friends.

He recruits Motorcycle Boy and Steve to go out drinking to help him forget this terrible day.

After watching Motorcycle Boy play pool, Rusty and Steve get separated from him and end up in an unfamiliar part of town.

Instead of being angry, Rusty envies Smokey for being smart enough to think up that kind of a plan.

Later that night, Motorcycle Boy breaks into the pet store and starts setting the animals free.

Motorcycle Boy grabs the rumble fish and heads for the river as police arrive.

Rusty-James is 14, and he has already started drinking, smoking, gang-fighting and playing pool for money, all of which is considered normal in his group of friends.

Rusty-James says that he and his older brother The Motorcycle Boy look alike (though nobody else thinks so), with the same "odd shade of dark red hair, like black-cherry pop" and eyes.

Rusty-James says that his memory is screwed up sometimes; that's why at the very start of the book he has trouble remembering who his old-best friend, Steve Hays, is.

The Motorcycle Boy, whose real name is never mentioned, is Rusty-James' older brother.

They have a knife-fight where Rusty almost wins but is distracted by the arrival of The Motorcycle Boy; when Rusty-James looks at The Motorcycle Boy, Biff grabs the knife and slashes it across Rusty-James' side, leaving a long gash.

Motorcycle Boy tells Rusty-James that the reason he can't stand to be home alone is that when their mother left, she took Motorcycle Boy with her and his father went on a three-day drinking binge, and Rusty-James (age 2 at the time) was left alone to fend for himself for that time.