Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [114]
And what was silly was that it had been unnecessary. She had been mourning her lampoon of a teen marriage, and then the moment she returned to New York to reclaim her husband, it was as though all her fears had been made up. Another, more paranoid, more self-destructive and hormonal Eliza had invented them. And this Eliza, the Eliza she truly was, was being greeted by her groom with a kiss, a brotherly kiss but an earnest one, and she was enjoying the scrape of his stubble on her cheek, and the patting of her belly, as though it were a cocker spaniel he was meeting for the first time. “What are you doing here? You got so big!” They were standing on the stoop in front of Rooster’s building on Avenue B, everyone embracing, the boys calling one another uncouth nicknames. It was as though Johnny had just been away on a business trip. He had just been away on a business trip!
Johnny had been making Rooster dinner when the caravan had arrived in New York. A mashed banana and peanut butter, sprinkled with Grape-Nuts. It was Roo’s favorite, innocent as baby food. This they had planned to eat on the Murphy bed out of Roo’s grandmother’s Depression glass bowls while they watched The Wonder Years on the rabbit-eared TV. For a while there, in the sanctuary of Rooster’s studio, they had been the householders, one husband taking care of the other.
Then the buzzer had buzzed. “Don’t come up,” he’d said. “I’ll come down”—as startled and ashamed as if he’d been caught midfuck. Downstairs, his friends’ bright, eager cars were double-parked at the curb. There was his pregnant, radiant wife, carrying his dead brother’s child, and who gave a shit that the guys had gotten into a little trouble with Tory Ventura while Johnny was gone. The prospect of returning to these simple, juvenile crusades, of breaking out of the contaminated apartment for the open road, was suddenly too sweet to resist.
And on the road, Johnny could track down Ravi. A man in a house in Miami—it was a treasure hunt he could win, a tangible destination in the intangible summer that lay before him. His brother’s father—didn’t he owe it to Teddy to find him?
He’d broken it down for Rooster over breakfast at a diner on Second Avenue, where they could be alone.
“Teddy’s dad could be helpful with the baby,” Johnny said. He didn’t say, He could have money.
“So take me with you,” Rooster said. “I never been to Florida.” A road trip; palm trees; Army of One and the Green Mountain Boys, reunited for a summer tour. Johnny could play with both bands. This time he really would need to fill in for Army’s new singer, who was doing a study-abroad summer semester in “fucking Paraguay.”
But Johnny was tired of doing double duty. He was tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. In a year, maybe less, maybe more, Rooster would be dead. And Teddy’s baby would be alive.
“You got to understand,” Johnny had said, mashing his toast under his fist, “you’re not the only person who needs looking after.”
Rooster skated his thumb over the bread crumbs on the table. His own toast was untouched. He didn’t have much of an appetite these days. “I’m not sayin’ you need to look after me,” he said quietly. “I’m sayin’ you need to look after you.” He squinted at Johnny, his eyes as black and wet as a lamb’s. The skin beneath them was shadowed with gray.
But Johnny had paid the bill and said good-bye and climbed into Jude’s van, and now he was steering it over the bridge, heading for the New Jersey Turnpike and points south. Their van. Their baby. Their punk rock child.
“I still like Annabel,” said Eliza. She passed the peanuts to Jude. Later, each of them would remember these sun-dappled minutes in the van, the last stretch of peace they’d have together before pulling into the dense, slippery traffic of the highway. Not far past the bridge, the cars slowed for the toll. The lanes separated, rivers into rivers, and along the booths ahead, the green and red lights blinked a distant