Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [129]
“Jeezum,” said Kram, who was standing in the kitchen, eating breakfast. His hand was stuffed into a box of cereal as if into a mitten. “Where are you guys going?”
In the subway station, rather than jumping over the turnstile, Johnny deposited a token for her, and then another for himself. She didn’t mind that, on the train, instead of talking to her as Jude would, he read a discarded copy of the Post. They appeared as ordinary as any other young couple on the subway—the husband looking sternly at his newspaper, the pregnant wife beside him peering into her compact. One of the ads at the top of the subway car was for a women’s hospital. In it, a woman with her eyes closed held a newborn to her shoulder. The mother looked wise and serene, as though she’d been injected with some celestial barbiturate. Eliza wondered if Johnny had chosen a doctor from this hospital and hoped he had.
By the time they got out at Astor and climbed the stairs to the street, Eliza was exhausted. On the walk east across St. Mark’s, she had to stop to rest in the shade. They passed a police car parked on the street, and on the next block, two more. At Avenue A, police vans and trucks blocked the entrance to Tompkins. Beyond them, a herd of cops milled inside the otherwise empty park.
“Where are all the homeless people?” Eliza asked.
“Where do you think? They kicked them out.”
They continued walking across Seventh Street now, past the other people who’d stopped to see what was going on. Some of them were trying to get the cops’ attention; two men hanging over the fence were chanting, “Pigs out of the park!”
“You guys going to be here tomorrow night?” Johnny asked them.
“You know it, Mr. Clean.”
“What’s going on tomorrow night?” Eliza asked, her shoes pinching her feet.
“We’re demonstrating. I want you to steer clear.”
“What are you demonstrating against?”
She stopped to catch her breath, and after a few steps Johnny turned around. “Eliza, this park is home to a lot of people. They just got kicked out of it.”
“But they’re not supposed to be there.”
Johnny spit out a laugh. He looked at the park and shook his head. “Where are they supposed to be?”
They said nothing else as they finished their walk. Twice, Eliza slowed in front of one of the more attractive buildings on the street, one with scrollwork or arched windows, hoping this was it. The building they finally stopped at was between C and D, around the corner from Johnny’s old place. The plywood in the two first-floor windows gave the building a sleepy expression. Across one of its closed eyelids, red letters spelled HOME SWEET HOME. Johnny did not smile at this as he nudged a toppled bicycle out of their way with his shoe. They climbed all five flights of stairs.
“You weren’t kidding,” said the landlord who buzzed them in. “This girl’s got one in the oven.”
For the first few minutes in the apartment, Eliza’s imagination worked hard to transform it into an acceptable place to live. It was an airy, tall-ceilinged space, probably a factory converted at some point into a loft. The walls were indeed brick, and the graffiti could be painted. The broken windows could be replaced. She tried to picture herself with a broom, and Johnny with a hammer, the two of them building a home here. In the kitchen, the cabinet doors and drawers had been removed, and Eliza found their blackened remains in the middle of the charred floor, beside a bare mattress and a single spoon.
Johnny came up behind her and put a hand on her waist. “A little scummy, you think?” he said into her ear. His voice, and the way he leaned close, were conspiratorial, creating for a moment a private space between their bodies. She gave him a thin smile, relieved somewhat, her heart quickening at the same time.
“You ain’t going to find lower rent in Alphabet City,” said the landlord, hitching up his pants.
Johnny asked, “You got electricity in this place? Hot water?”
“Hell you think?” said the landlord. “My brother let the place go off the grid, but