Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [35]
He hid the stash as Harriet would, nesting it inside a jacket, then inside his backpack, then under the bed. Then he went to the bathroom and stepped into the shower, but the water hurt his skin too much to stand under it. He sat on the floor of the shower, leaning his head against the tile, half sleeping in the steam.
When he returned to his bedroom, he found that his bed—both bunks—had been made. Lying atop the fresh sheets of the bottom one was the plastic bag. Except for a glaze of fine, green dust, it was empty.
Delph came over the next evening. He did not bring pot. “Guess who came into the store today.” He sat leaning forward in the desk chair, his elbows on his knees, rubbing his palms together. “Hippie.” He’d been looking for Jude, Delph said—did he know where he was? “I’ll hand it to you, dude—you have some balls.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“That there was no way a trustworthy guy like Jude Keffy-Horn would have swiped his weed.”
“Thanks,” Jude said.
“No sweat. But you know what this means. Tory won’t be far behind.” Delph looked at his hands. “You know better than anyone that you don’t want to piss off Salvatore Ventura.” Jude could see he was struggling. Delph didn’t want to get involved in Jude’s problems, but because he’d left Jude and Teddy hanging at Tory’s party, he already was. “I’d lay low for a while. That’s all I’m saying.”
Delph left it at that, climbed out the window and down the fire escape, and when Jude woke up the next morning, his mother was outside the window, standing on the same landing. She was fastening to the railing of the fire escape what seemed to be a padlock, which was looped through what seemed to be a chain, which was looped, tight as a fishing line, through the handle at the bottom of the window. Jude watched her through the glass. “It’s for your own good,” she called, her voice nearly swallowed up by the wind outside. “And don’t you dare try to break the glass! You’ll bleed to death.”
Jude suspected his mother wanted not only to lock him in but also to lock others out, and through the teeth of his anger, he was grateful. Should Hippie or Tory or one of their comrades pay him a visit, Jude would be bolted safely inside.
He stared at the belly of the top bunk. He was so sober he could feel every particle of his fear, as distinct as the hair on his arms.
So when a man appeared at the same window several days later, Jude thought he might be hallucinating, a trick of a mind gone unstimulated for too long. He was listening to Wasted . . . Again on the stereo and playing Mario, the cord stretched up to the top bunk. A sound like a key in a door fluttered in his ear, then a series of minor crashes across the fire escape. Jude turned drowsily around, and as he watched a person climb through the window, the game control slipped out of his hands and off the bunk, then clattered to the floor. It was snowing outside, a soft, steady snow, and when the man emerged fully in the bedroom, there were snowflakes in his beard, crystalline, whole. He was wearing a pair of Carhartt’s, a white linen shirt, a lined denim jacket, and a New York Yankees cap. Only when Jude saw the shadowed eyes beneath its brim did he recognize the man as his father.
“Sorry,” said Les, blinking away the snow. “Didn’t mean to alarm you.” He held up a key in one hand and the wet padlock in the other. “Your mother sent it to me.”
Jude sat straight up in bed, his head almost grazing the ceiling. “What are you doing here?” His heart was slowing, relieved—he’d been certain that the person at the window had been sent by Hippie.
“Kidnapping you,” Les answered, dancing his fingers in the air. “I’ve come to take you away from this suicide trap they call a town.” He took off his hat and shook the snow from it, revealing a crown of matted hair, cut short now, and a glossy bald spot. He smelled of cigarette smoke. “Don’t tell the girls I’m here yet, okay? I want a few minutes with you first, man-to-man. Man-to- crazed-teenager.” He looked around the big, unlit room, at the wool rug, the yellow bean