Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [92]
Rooster smiled again. “Fuckin’ Vermont.” Vahmont. Jude had never heard so much New York in his state’s name before. “Never thought I’d be playin’ here.”
Across the street, Hippie was joined by one of the fat girls, and she took out a cigarette for Hippie to light.
“Thanks for coming up, man.”
“Thanks for lettin’ us crash.” Rooster shrugged. “I didn’t think we’d see you again after Johnny left.”
Jude said, “Your new singer sounds good, though.”
“Yeah, but he can’t tattoo worth a shit.” In the wan light of the lamppost, Jude could see the dark contours of the tattoos on Rooster’s arms, as thickly woven as Johnny’s. He looked thinner than Jude remembered, his shoulders bony through his T-shirt. “So, where’s the child bride?”
Normally Jude tried not to wonder what people must have thought of the whole arrangement: husband and wife and Jude, living under Jude’s mom’s roof. He tried not to think about what he thought about it. At first Eliza had included herself in the activities of the boys in the basement. She presented them with a tofu cheesecake she’d baked. She clapped encouragingly from her seat at the top of the stairs. But the louder and more crowded their practices became, the less she was around.
“We sent her home early,” he said, even though she’d left on her own after the Green Mountain Boys had wrapped up, turning the cash box over to Johnny. “She needs her rest.”
“’Course,” Rooster said. Someone else exited the building; the noodley strains of Phrog swelled out into the night air, then hushed again when the door swung closed. The last of the day’s light had been drained from the sky—it, too, was bruised tattoo blue—and now it was shot through with the faintest stars. At the bottom of the hill, the Adirondacks floated on the blade of the lake. “That picture is so pretty,” Rooster said, “I just want to fuck it up.”
It wasn’t a cigarette Hippie was smoking, but a joint. Jude could smell it from across the street. Hippie’s apartment had smelled like that same breed, and Jude remembered the night they’d bonded over that smell, Hippie lighting the bowl while Jude hit his bong, Hippie telling Jude what a bummer it was about Teddy. I heard he choked on his own vomit, like Hendrix. That true?
“That Hippie?” Rooster nodded his head at him.
“That’s him,” said Jude. “Johnny says to leave him alone.”
Rooster shook his head. “Johnny’s gettin’ posi on me. He’s just jealous you got a new guitar instead of payin’ off some fuckin’ dealer.”
Jude looked from Rooster to Hippie and back again. He felt dangerously unhinged without Johnny at his side to hold him back. “You seen Delph and Kram?” he asked Rooster.
Rooster pulled at his bottom lip. It was what Johnny did when he was thinking. “I know some guys. Came up from D.C. You see the guy up front in the Champion sweatshirt?”
“How many?” Jude asked.
“They’re good guys,” said Rooster.
When he returned a minute later, nine guys were panting at his side. Their T-shirts were soaked, their hair spiky with sweat. Delph and Kram, plus the three other guys from Army of One. Two more, with Xs shaved in the back of their heads, Jude recognized from laser tag in New York. The other two were the guys from D.C.: the guy in the Champion sweatshirt and another, who was missing both front teeth. Alone, they were not formidable—most of them looked too young to drive—but together, they resembled a band photo: hostile and bored. “You guys know Jude?”
Jude whipped off his mask.
“Where is this pussy?” they wanted to know.
Then Jude was leading them across the empty street, their sneakers scuffing the pavement, toward the dark lawn of the high school. They were in the middle of the street when Hippie looked up and saw them. He seemed to be counting. Eleven. Eleven against one. Two if you counted the girl.
Then he recognized Jude. “Whoa,” Hippie said, holding up his hands. A joint was still burning in one of them. “Look who it is. What are you, some kind of skinhead now?”
Jude stepped onto the sidewalk, smiling hugely. He couldn’t help himself—his heart felt like a coil ready to