Rule of the Bone

Bone and I-Man take up residence at Starport and get to know the household. Paul works in Kingston several days a week, but is there the rest of the time, and Evening Star holds constant parties for Americans and other tourists who come and go. Bone takes note of the young Jamaican men who hang around who are prostitutes in all but name; the power dynamic between the men and the white tourist women they have sex with troubles Bone. The visitors treat Bone like a curiosity, but they are often impressed by I-Man, who tells them stories of knowing Bob Marley and other prominent Kingston reggae figures. For I-Man, Starport is an ideal situation: He sells marijuana to the tourists, recruits the young men to sell in their neighborhood, and makes a decent profit while living comfortably.

When Doc is in town, they hang out together, and he takes Bone on errands, including criminal activity like buying cocaine. At one point, Doc apologizes for abandoning him, saying it was all his mother’s fault: If she hadn’t wanted him to go to prison for nonpayment of child support, things would have been different between them. One day, Evening Star and Bone are talking about his astrological sign, and she realizes that it’s almost Bone’s birthday. She decides they’ll have a big party for him. As Evening Star prepares for the party, Doc and Bone go with a man named Jason—one of the Jamaican men who hangs around the house—to buy a gun. They never find the seller, but it’s clear that Doc intended to purchase the gun for Jason so that Jason would owe him a favor that might require violence.

The party begins, and it’s a large feast for the whole neighborhood. I-Man’s posse comes, as do some rich people from Kingston that know Doc, and it’s a loud, raucous event. Bone has a good time, but starts to wonder if there will be a birthday cake. Even though he doesn’t like being the center of attention, the fact that there’s never any specific moment during the party that acknowledges him sours his mood. At the end of the night, Bone wanders around; the birthday sign that was put up for him has fallen, and the whole house is a wreck. As he’s wandering around, thinking that maybe there was a cake but that everyone was so drunk and high that they forgot, he stumbles upon Evening Star and I-Man having sex. Bone gets angry, and outside he throws a beer bottle into the night, scaring a dog. Then he stumbles on his father, who he thought had left for the night.

Doc asks him what was wrong, and Bone confesses to what he saw. Doc says calmly that now he has to kill I-Man and goes to find his gun. Bone lies about where he saw the two having sex, and Doc heads out to find them. Then Bone returns to I-Man and tells them he has to leave now. I-Man is fairly unconcerned, but agrees to go, saying he’s going to Cockpit. Bone doesn’t know where that is, but he agrees to go with him instead of staying with his father. After briefly running into Evening Star and Doc, who still wants to kill I-Man but is convinced to let it go for now, Bone sneaks out of the house and leaves with I-Man.

Bone learns that by Cockpit, I-Man meant Accompong, his hometown. It’s a very rural town in Jamaica. It’s called Cockpit Country because of the geography, which is pitted with craters and cave systems, and the people who live there are descended from the Ashanti warriors who rebelled against slavery and became independent people in the 1730s. Bone is inspired by the history of I-Man’s people and connects it to the way I-Man lives and carries himself.

Bone feels guilty about telling Doc about I-Man’s sexual encounter with Evening Star; he feels that it was a moment where he declared his allegiance to the wrong person, and he doesn’t know why he did it except that he comes from a long line of betrayers and liars, which he connects to Whiteness.

I-Man sets Bone up in a campground out away from town to watch a marijuana crop, which Bone realizes is a form of protection: White strangers are not necessarily welcome. Bone is comfortable up there, spending his time learning the history of Rasta and African culture from I-Man when he comes to visit. On one such visit, I-Man notices Bone messing with his now-long hair and helps him put it into dreadlocks. Bone starts to feel that he’s truly become a brand-new beggar.

The night before harvest time, I-Man and three of his posse (Terron, Elroy, and Rubber) take Bone to a secret cave “fe see in de true lights of I-self” (314). Bone and the group walk in the darkness down into a crater and into a pitch-black cave where Bone has to follow I-Man by the sound of his footsteps. Finally, they arrive at a large cave that Bone thinks looks like the inside of a skull, which is painted with tribal artwork. A special type of marijuana is produced, and they all smoke.

Bone proceeds to have a prolonged hallucination. In it, he’s driving an oxcart loaded with sugar cane. He comes across a slave auction, which horrifies him, and he notes that the people arrived fresh from Africa are terrified because “to them this isn’t normal yet” (320). He drives on to a sugar factory where his cart is unloaded. There, he witnesses a brutal beating of a Black woman that everyone treats as business as usual. He’s then accosted by a muscular white man that forces Bone to perform masturbation on him.

The hallucination continues like this, with the cart being loaded and unloaded. Every time he’s around Black people things are calm, but white people are always accompanied by violence. At the end of the day, Bone is forced to serve white people at a large mansion. Once they go to bed, Bone goes outside, where he sees his friends carrying bloodied machetes. The other Black people from Bone’s vision arrive, and they all march toward the house.

As violence erupts in the house, Bone watches. When he sees a very young white boy running away, he grabs him. The two hide as the house burns and the Black people start leaving; when a group of white people on horseback arrive, Bone is sure they are going to kill him, until he is tapped on the shoulder by I-Man, who asks if Bone is leaving. Bone says he can’t leave the boy behind, and I-Man gives his common refrain: “Up to you, Bone” (326).

Bone releases the boy, who runs to the white men and points to where Bone is hiding. Bone runs toward a tunnel, which he sees he can squeeze into. The tunnel goes for a long time, and Bone heads toward the sound of drumming for hours. He emerges back in the cave with I-Man and the rest, and they gather everything up and leave.