Ten Thousand Saints (17 page)

J
ohnny gave him a key, said “
Mi casa es su casa
.” Played him No for an Answer, Straight Ahead, Wide Awake, Project X. Took him to his friend’s half-pipe on Houston, to the Cyclone at Coney Island, the elm tree in Tompkins where the first Hare Krishna ceremony had taken place, with Swami Prabhupada and Allen Ginsberg, to all the places he would have taken Teddy if he’d been the one alive and living in New York. He showed him how to empty the coins from a pay phone, where to find lead slugs for video games, how to suck subway tokens. (First you slipped a matchbook into the slot. Then you waited for someone to get his token jammed. Then when he left you put your mouth to the slot and sucked it out. One of the few useful lessons Johnny’s father had shared with him during their brief association.) Jude ate up everything. “What are these?” he asked, stabbing a chickpea from his chana masala at one of the many Indian restaurants down Johnny’s street. “They look like little asses.”

Now that the scene was exploding in New York, everyone had started to look the same—kids from Westchester and Connecticut loitering on the sidewalk in front of CB’s, sporting the band T-shirts they’d bought the previous weekend, looking for drunk kids to beat up. Johnny had tattooed every inch of their bodies—
SXE
on the inside of their lips,
X
s on their hands—and he was running dry. Even his own band, Army of One, which was as central to the scene as any other, which sported legions of fans who knew his lyrics by heart, who spit them back at him onstage, had begun to disenchant him. Not long ago, one of his customers, no older than Teddy, had asked him to tattoo
ARMY OF ONE
across his chest. Johnny had declined. “You’re going to regret that one, kid,” he said, and he realized then how fleeting the scene was. He believed ardently in all the virtues his own body was tatted up with, but his brother was dead, and one day Johnny would be, too. Permanent ink only lasted so long.

But now, here was Jude, wide-eyed and green and full of gratitude, and every word that came out of Johnny’s mouth was a marvel. The kid was an empty canvas. So he lived with a drug dealer. That couldn’t be helped. “When you going to take me to the temple?” he’d ask. “When you going to take me to a show?”

Johnny gave straight edge a soft sell, combining good-natured ridicule with a casual dose of guilt tripping.

“How you like living with your dad, Jude?”

“It’s all right.”

“I hear his weed is out of this world.”

“It’s pretty good.”

“So, how long you plan on walking around like a zombie? Like, indefinitely?”

“I guess.”

“Good plan, kid. Sounds like you got it all figured out.”

The band was practicing at Johnny’s place, waiting raptly in their positions. Nothing got them off more than watching the exhortation of a new kid, and they knew it had to be handled with care. They hadn’t objected when Jude had shown up smoking a cigarette; they’d even invited him to jam with them and agreed he wasn’t bad. “Taught him everything he knows,” Johnny said. He’d introduced Jude as an old friend, leaving out any mention of a brother. After they covered Minor Threat’s “Straight Edge,” the song that spawned the phrase, Johnny told Jude that Ian MacKaye had written it for a friend who died of an overdose, and that was the closest they got to talking about what happened to Teddy. Johnny could see it sinking in, though, the dots connecting before Jude’s frozen eyes, the straight edge constellation. Any day now, he’d be taking the plunge.

“You seen any of that girl Eliza?” he asked Jude after the band had left. “Your dad’s girlfriend’s . . . ?” Johnny’s cat Tarzan purred obscenely against Jude’s chest. Johnny reached over, picked up the cat, and placed him in his own lap.

“Just that once,” Jude said.

Ever since Johnny’s own father had ripped him off, he had been wary of anyone whose intentions appeared too pure. Eliza was no exception. She’d been with Teddy the night he died—surely she had been present for the cocaine, surely she could have done something to save him—but she’d sworn that they’d hardly spent any time together, that they had been split up at the party. The closest she’d been to him was when she’d helped him put in his contact lens. The idea of Teddy stumbling blindly through his last night on earth, and the intimacy, however brief, with which this girl had known him, had filled him with a loneliness that dispelled his suspicion.

T
he restaurant where Diane Urbanski had made a lunch reservation for four was a Japanese place on Amsterdam that Les called “schmancy.” Aside from the red floor pillows and the menu, the place had no pretense of authenticity—its single waitress was a blond woman dressed head to toe in black, and Prince streamed from the speakers. The building had an airy, industrial feel, with silver air ducts hanging from the high ceiling and walls cushioned with black leather, as if to protect diners from injuring themselves. Besides Jude and Les, however, the place was empty, a fact that didn’t prevent their waitress from seating them at the bar while they waited for the rest of their party. Diane and Eliza were late. They were always late, Les said. He took the opportunity to order another decanter of saki. It was a stormy March afternoon, and through the window, they watched the sky open up. They drank the saki from miniature cups that had the name of the restaurant printed in red on the side—
Rapture
. It looked as though it had been written in lipstick. “Crapture,” said Jude bitterly, which made Les chuckle.

By the time the woman entered the restaurant—shaking off her umbrella, high-heeled boots clicking on the tiles—Jude was full of a warm, heady fuel. Despite the umbrella, Di was soaked—her jeans dark at the thighs, black hair spilling from her braid—but her dark eyes were giant with relief, a nearly sensual pleasure from getting out of the rain. She was a petite, boyish woman, the size of Eliza, who was not there. Jude felt his own relief steam off of him. Di shook Jude’s hand vigorously and gave him a noisy kiss on each cheek. “I’m all wet,” she said, her British accent thick and throaty as she slipped out of her coat. “I’m so sorry.” Her perfume smelled like some sultry jungle flower.

They were seated at one of the low glass tables in the front window, Les and Di on one side, Jude on the other. Les made a show of getting down on the ground, exaggerating his drunkenness, saying his bones were too old to sit on the floor. “No Eliza today?” he asked.

Di shook her head somberly. “She’s not been feeling well. I fear it’s the flu. The flu frightens me
so
.”

Jude spread open his menu. Maybe Eliza
was
avoiding him. Maybe she was faking. Les recounted for Jude Di’s résumé, beginning with the flu that killed her grandfather. She was born in London, had moved to the States at eighteen to be a part of the New York City Ballet. Now she taught ballet to little girls at Lincoln Center. Les went on nervously, Di deflecting his praise.

“I don’t know why we couldn’t meet at Dojo,” Les said, frowning at the menu. “They have Oriental crap there.” It was becoming clear to Jude that, despite Les’s apparently bottomless pockets, his tastes were still those of a Lintonburg boy.

“They have better Oriental crap here,” said Di. She inserted her hand into the pocket of Les’s jeans, gemmed rings sparkling on her fingers, retrieved his cigarette lighter, and lit the two tea candles on the table. When the waitress came over, Di ordered without looking at the menu, then poured tea for all of them when it came.

“I’ve been dying to meet you, Jude, but you have to practically clobber this guy over the head to get your way.” With her black hair and powder white skin, Di looked almost Japanese herself. “Tell me how you like New York.”

“I like it,” Jude said. The tea tasted like dirt, but after the pissy aftertaste of the wine, he welcomed the warmth. Johnny drank tea. Herbal, no caffeine. “It’s a lot cooler than Vermont. There’s a lot more things to do. I like that there’s so much music everywhere.”

Di nodded appreciatively. “What sort of music do you enjoy, Jude?”

Jude put down his cup. “Lots of kinds, but mostly hardcore?”

“What does that sound like?”

“You know what punk is?”

“Darling, I’m from England. The Clash? The Sex Pistols?”

“Yeah, it’s like that,” Jude said, becoming excited, “but faster.”

“Faster?”
Di said skeptically.

“Why does it have to be so fast?” Les wondered. “What’s wrong with slow?”

“Darling, there’s such a thing as being too slow.”

“I know what I’m talking about here. I recall escorting your daughter to five or six hundred punk concerts. I don’t understand the hurry.”

“Your father’s a tough critic. If it’s not Creedence Clearwater Revival . . .”

“And in New York,” Jude went on, “lots of the hardcore scene’s straight edge, which means no one does drugs.”

“
Really?
Is it religious or something?”

“Well, sort of. Like, my friend Johnny said Gandhi once took a vow to abstain from eating meat, and drinking, and, you know, being promiscuous. It’s kind of like that.”

“Fascinating
.
”

Les gave a dismissive chuckle. “Straight edge? That’s what they’re called now? In my day, we called them squares.” He took out his cigarettes, lit one up, and scooted the pack across the table.

“It’s not like they’re too lame to do drugs,” Jude said, ignoring the cigarettes, suddenly defensive of Johnny and his friends. “Some of them are recovering addicts,” he said, using Johnny’s phrase. “Some just have parents who are addicts.”

“Well, I think that sounds like a wonderful organization,” said Di, waving away Les’s smoke and Jude’s remark as the waitress set down their food. Everything was cold and pink. Jude slipped out his retainers when Di wasn’t looking and hid them in a napkin under the table. “I wish Eliza would get involved in something like that. She never took to ballet. She’s not normally one for self-discipline.” She took a bite of something slippery-looking. “Salmon. It’s good. Try it.”

Jude captured a jiggly piece with his chopsticks.

“But, do you know, I believe she’s turned a corner? Knock on wood.” She knocked lightly on Les’s bald head. “She’s been positively
sober
. Doesn’t take wine with dinner. And quite
studious
. She barely even comes home anymore, stays at school all weekend to study.” She spewed a few grains of the rice she was chewing. “I wonder if she’s finally growing up,” she said. “Is it possible?”

Jude looked to his father, who was putting out his cigarette. Which of them was she asking? “Sure,” Jude finally said, with false enthusiasm. How did he know? He barely knew the girl.

“Or perhaps,” Di began. She stared dreamily into her plate, fiddling with her chopsticks.

“What?” said Les.

“Perhaps . . .” She looked directly at Jude. “I know she didn’t know your friend terribly well. But I do believe she was quite shaken by what happened to him. Having to speak to that detective. And having spent the evening with the two of you, just before it happened. That sort of brush with death can cause one to reexamine lifestyle choices. Don’t you think?”

Jude looked out the window at the rain-soaked street. Suddenly he was sure that Eliza had been with Teddy while Jude had searched the house for them, and there was nothing he could do about it then, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

“I’m sorry, darling. I certainly didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s okay,” Jude said.

“We’re so glad you’re here with us.” She gave Les a sideways smile and stole a roll of sushi from Jude’s barely touched plate. “Don’t you like your food?”

After lunch, they all took a taxi downtown. It was Jude’s first cab ride, and he studied the map of dick-shaped New York posted on the back of the driver’s seat. Here they were—Di showed him with a wine red pinky nail, leaning across his father’s lap—and here was where they were going. They were full of food and tea and wine, sleepy and dry. Out one window, Central Park sped past, and on the other side, blocks and blocks of gray. It was the sterile, efficient, adult New York Jude had figured didn’t exist, but somehow it was reassuring to him, the boundless span of this island. So many blocks between Upper and Lower—it made his stomach lurch with pleasure. They flew through the yellow traffic lights, rain blurring the bare trees, taxis kicking up puddles.

When the cab dropped them off in front of Les’s apartment, an ambulance was parked at the curb. One of the guys shooting up on the steps of the rehab center had OD’d, and the paramedics were sliding his stretcher into the back like a sheet of cookies into an oven.

Later, months later, when Jude thought back to the way it all went down—how did a burnout like him end up straight edge?—he’d remember that ambulance, just like the one he’d been unconscious inside. Its red cross, when viewed from the right angle, was an
X
on its side.

He didn’t follow his father into the apartment. Instead, he got on his skateboard and flew to Johnny.