Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [102]
By night the town goes black and gold, the lake a riot of waves woken from months beneath the ice. Across Main Street, an army of boys marches eastward. They’re hard to distinguish, clothed darkly against the dark streets. Ronald Reagan in a JUST SAY NO T-shirt, Kram also in green, an I L♥VERMONT shirt he found at the Salvation Army. A crowbar, a spring billy, pepper spray, a couple of baseball bats. A striped sock filled with three rolls of quarters—city weapons they wield with the workmanlike purpose of New Englanders. They won’t use any of them but the BB gun, a relic Kram used to train on squirrels but now wouldn’t point at any animal but a person, and now reverbs off the blue-jeaned buttock of some guy no one knows the name of. He’s taking a leak behind the Dumpster of Wayne’s Billiards, so drunk he doesn’t seem to feel the impact, just falls over obligingly, heavy as a grandfather clock.
Fifteen
Eliza,” Harriet said, “it’s nearly one o’clock.”
Eliza rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. She was in Prudence’s bed, not the trundle, which Harriet had finally insisted on, for the baby’s sake.
“I think the lettuce is ready to be picked. Should we make a salad for lunch?”
“I’m not hungry,” Eliza said, and then cutting Harriet off, “the baby isn’t hungry, either.”
Harriet sat down on the edge of the mattress. She didn’t have the energy to do this again, to assemble the mystical code of words that would get this child out of bed.
“What do you think he’s doing down there?”
“Down where, honey?”
“Johnny, down in New York. It’s been like two weeks.”
“Should we call him?” Harriet suggested brightly.
“I did. There was no answer at Rooster’s.”
Harriet folded her hands in her lap. For years, before she herself became pregnant, she had hated the sight of pregnant women. She had imagined they were all members of the same smug sisterhood, waddling down the aisles of the supermarket, blissed out on their own estrogen. She had never known a pregnant woman who did not want to be pregnant. She wondered now if this is how Jude’s mother had spent her nine months.
“Eliza, I think it’s time we got you to a doctor. Sooner or later, your mother’s going to come for you.”
Eliza said nothing. She lay her arms across her eyes. The cat that had followed Harriet into the room hopped up onto the bed and nestled into Eliza’s armpit, and Eliza reached blindly to pet its head. Harriet did not have a pamphlet. She had nothing to leave behind.
Wasn’t there new medication? Johnny asked. Wasn’t there treatment? But Rooster couldn’t possibly afford it. Even if he could, Rooster wondered, would taking AZT weaken his straight edge credibility?
“True till death,” he tried to joke, stroking the letters tattooed across Johnny’s chest. Rooster’s cheekbone, sharp as an arrowhead now, gouged Johnny’s shoulder.
Johnny didn’t laugh.
Rooster was right—it was the waiting. To distract himself, Johnny thought of the baby. Up, up, up, busy, busy, busy, that was the trick. The baby was already an angel, Teddy’s golden-winged redemption, and now maybe it would be Johnny’s, too. In three months, Johnny would be a father. His name would be on the birth certificate. John Martin McNicholas. No matter that it wasn’t true or that one-third of the name was invented. All names at some point were invented. They would invent a name for the baby. The baby would be invented, too.
Johnny rolled over onto his elbow and said, “How do you find out the name of someone’s father?”
“Someone?” Rooster said.
Johnny had been thinking lately about Ravi, where he was, who he was. He was the only other person, besides their worthless mother, who would be related to the baby. If Johnny was sick, Ravi would be the only one. Surely Ravi was alive. Why else would Queen Bea have bolted after Johnny clued her into Teddy’s plans? What staggered Johnny was that he was the one who had scared her away, as though she believed Johnny could magically produce Teddy’s father if he put his mind to it. The only useful information