Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [36]
Jude said nothing. In addition to Black Flag, the Nintendo music was still playing. Mario had fallen off a cliff and the black GAME OVER screen was flashing.
“I’m sorry,” Les said. “Do I have the right bedroom?” He lowered the volume on the stereo himself, then walked over to the TV—he knew right where the button was—and snapped it off. “She said you weren’t talking, but Christ. You dropped your thing,” he said, picking up the game controller and handing it up to Jude.
“You look different,” Jude said. He didn’t extend his hand. Les put the controller on the bed. “You’re bald.”
“Yeah, well, you look a little different, too. What’s with the hair?”
Jude put a hand to his mangled locks. He’d forgotten he had hair.
Les was shrugging out of his wet clothes, his head bent to his waist, tossing them on the rug in a soggy pile. “You got some dry clothes your old man could borrow?”
Naked to his underwear, Jude’s father was goose-bumped and hairy. He had wide, square shoulders and a long torso, kidney-shaped love handles hanging over the waist of a pair of red briefs. His arms were white and meaty, his legs football-coach stout. Jude recognized the lightning-shaped scar on his ankle, the one he’d had since he nicked himself with a chain saw, barefoot, while slicing their bathtub couch in half. Grudgingly, Jude eased down from the top bunk and went to his dresser. He found his navy blue sweatshirt, the one with the pocket he’d hidden the pot in, and a matching pair of sweatpants. He held them out to his father.
“So, I hear you’ve been stealing large amounts of illegal drugs.” Les stepped into the pants, almost losing his balance, and after sniffing the sweatshirt, pulled it over his head. “You making a habit out of that?” His hair was sticking up like Jude’s now.
“Not really,” Jude said, climbing back up to the top bunk.
“That’s good.” Les sank into the bean bag chair in the corner. It made a sound like a ball deflating, swallowing him up. “Smoking pot is one thing. Stealing it is another. I’m very sorry about your friend Teddy.”
Jude crawled back under the covers and pulled them tight to his chin. “Why?” he said to the ceiling. “You didn’t know him.”
“I’ve met his brother,” Les said, and Jude remembered with reluctance that it was Les who had paid for the funeral, who had lent Johnny his van.
They were both quiet for a while. On the record player, the last song ended, and the arm crossed back to its resting pose. When Jude looked down at his father, his knees were spread wide and the crook of his elbow was covering his eyes. Was he sleeping?
“Why didn’t you just come in the front door? Why’d Mom send you the key?”
Les let his arm drop to his lap. His gray eyes were small and glazed. He was exhausted, or high, or both. “For safekeeping,” he answered. “She was afraid she’d break down and unlock you.”
It was February. Black History Month, the Winter Olympics, Valentine’s Day carnations sold in the cafeteria for a dollar apiece. Prudence had no valentine, but she had long entertained the notion, as far-fetched as she knew it was, that her father might return, and that he’d bring her flowers—an offering, an apology.
But when he appeared in the kitchen one day, he was carrying only a pair of shoes, as though he were curious what was in the fridge. Her mother had warned her he was coming—her parents had agreed it was best that Jude live with his dad for a while—but still it stung that Les had come to see her brother,