Ten Thousand Saints (34 page)
“I liked you better before,” Prudence said. She was saying that a lot these days. “Before you went around beating people up. You were gentler,” she said, “like Teddy.”
Jude looked down at his hands. On the left one, across the inside of his knuckles, was a smear of pink. Lipstick.
H
e got out of there fast, jumped on his skateboard and headed downhill, gulping the painfully fresh air. He couldn’t stay home and wait for a knock on his door. He’d be arrested. Or he’d be killed—Tory had friends. Either way, he was in over his head.
They’d go on tour. That was what they’d do. Di would catch up with them soon, anyway—they had no choice but to run. They’d get in the van and go find Johnny and they’d get out of here. Once again they’d get the fuck out of Vermont. He didn’t realize how stupid it was to be seen out in the daylight until his board had carried him to Teddy’s. Three rights and a left.
The house was for sale now, and Jude felt strangely remote, as if he’d never been here before. There was Teddy’s window. There was the porch the band used to practice on. That was all. Not a flood of memories—a drought.
Slowly he made his way on hands and knees to the edge of the house and ducked under it. It was set up on cinder blocks, and Teddy and Jude used to hide out under here, smoking, drinking. Sometimes, when Queen Bea lost her keys, they’d crawl under here to push open the trapdoor that led to the kitchen. The crawl space was lower than he remembered—or he was bigger—and it was littered with unremarkable, half-buried treasures. Beer bottles, a child’s plastic shovel, a bottle cap, which bit into his knee. A blank paper card, the size of a lottery ticket, bleached white. Under where the kitchen would be, he found the trapdoor, but when he tried to push it open, it wouldn’t budge. He tried again, ramming it with his shoulder. Someone had nailed it shut.
How had he gotten so off course? It wasn’t Tory Ventura he wanted to punish. Jude sat panting in the dirt. Tory wasn’t the one who’d killed Teddy. He dug his fingers into the cool dirt. He clawed at it, the dirt coating his hands, rimming his fingernails, his tears coming in heaves, burning his face. He wiped a muddy track of snot across his cheek.
When Jude returned home, worn-out, filthy, there was no sign of anyone, but he was quiet anyway, treading softly up the stairs. He washed his hands and his face. Then he went to his sister’s room and tapped on the door. No answer. Slowly he pushed it open.
What day was it? Sunday? Monday? The bed was unmade, sheets spilling in a spiral to the floor. And what was that smell? On the floor were a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, a towel. It took Jude a moment to realize that the things were not his sister’s, but Eliza’s. Did he smell pot?
He rifled through Prudence’s backpack hanging on the chair and the first few drawers of her dresser before he thought to check the fire escape. As he crossed the room, he thought of something Eliza had told him once. The second time she was kicked out of school, when she was caught with drugs in the pool, she had been alone. This had depressed Jude greatly. Before that, he had imagined that she’d been partying with friends, maybe skinny-dipping, maybe with a guy. Now he pictured her floating on her back in the Olympic-size pool, at sea.
He found her behind the curtain, on the other side of the open window, wearing a pair of acid-washed cutoffs, a polka-dot bikini top, her white-framed sunglasses, and her headphones. A sun-darkened line orbited the planet of her belly, plunging south from her navel. She was smoking a joint in the early summer sun, and on her face drifted an expression of overdue bliss.
ON THE EDGE
XXX Fanzine XXX
FALL
1988, 2.50$
Interview with Jude Green and Mr. Clean of the Green Mountain Boys
ON THE EDGE: Your new seven inch [Army of Four] is totally hard. My favorite song is “Str8 or Die.”
MR. CLEAN: Thanks man.
JUDE GREEN: We all worked on that one.
OTE: What are you guys up to now?
JG: We’ve been touring all up and down the coast this summer. We were in New York for a little bit, we played a matinee with Youth of Today and Uniform Choice and Army of One at CB’s, that was a beautiful experience.
OTE: Your songs seem to promote a pretty strict straight edge lifestyle. And I heard about the fight at 9:30. Would you say your intolerant of other hardcore bands and fans that aren’t straight?
MC: No were certainly not intolerant. Were friends with some guys who are straight and some who aren’t. Were about inclusion, not exclusion. Yes there have been fights but there sort of typical. The thing at CB’s was just one of those things where some guy kicks you in the face and there was good-natured dancing and Kram just gets sort of sensitive. Well you’ve seen Kram, he’s our drummer, you don’t want to mess with him.
OTE: Do you think the incident contributed to the rumors about closing down the hardcore matinees?
JG: That’s not going to happen. Let’s face it the scene will never be without violence. If some guy isn’t respectful of us and he’s blowing smoke in our faces and that’s only happened two or three times, yeah, there will be some shit going down. Look at our song “Blowing Smoke.” I mean frankly you should know better than to start shit with us.
OTE: When did you start going by Jude Green?
JG: That started I think at CB’s, too, sort of as a joke you know like Kevin Seconds of 7 Seconds, but it stuck.
MC: Its not like I call him Jude Green or anything.
OTE: And how’d you get your name, Mr. Clean?
MC: Yea, some guys started that when I shaved my head. But I’m not really into nicknames. The way I look at it is, the atman in all of us is a pure force, without ego.
OTE: Is that Krishna consciousness or something?
JG: Yea, you know, like Ray Cappo’s into.
MC: Krishna isn’t a trend. He’s the Supreme Godhead, is the way I look at it, and my music, at least, is an expression of his love.
OTE: So all of you guys are into that?
JG: We’re straight in every way. A hundred percent vegan and we don’t do drugs of any kind. I don’t feel they have any place in my life, which I keep as pure as possible. The body is a temple and all that, but my temple is at the shows, with the people, you know what I mean?
OTE: OK, Mr. Clean, I’m sure lots of people have been wondering about this. What’s it like to be in the scene and be married?
MC: Oh, its wonderful. Its wonderful. To be on the road and be able to share that with someone you love . . . its just amazing.
OTE: So your wife is straight too?
MC: Oh, yeah, yeah. We both lead a clean lifestyle. Especially seeing as she’s expecting! [laughs]
OTE: So its true she’s pregnant?
MC: Our family will be expanding in September.
OTE: What about you, Jude? What’s your take on girls in the scene?
JG: I’d like to talk about the music, if that’s OK. Were talking to X-Ample about doing a split seven inch. That’s something cool.
OTE: That is cool. What about you, Mr. Clean? Will you be able to stay active in the band with a newborn baby?
MC: Oh, definately, definately. I can do both at once. I might not get much sleep, but I’ll be at practice!
OTE: That’s cool, brothers. I wish you all the luck in the world.
JG: Thanks, man.
OTE: True till death man.
JG: True till death.
MC: Hare Krishna. Thanks a lot.
photo courtesy of Ben Leblanc
Ben Leblanc
September 5, 1988
3rd per.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Have you ever driven up and down the eastern United States? Have you ever been to cities such as New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta GA? Well I have. These are just some of the many places I went this summer with a hardcore band called the Green Mountain Boys who are from Lintonburg. They range in age from 16 to 18 yrs. and follow the straight edge way of life. I take pictures for their zine and they needed someone to help with their equipment etc. which is how I got to be their roadie.
Not only did I get to see amazing sights such as the Empire State Building, I also slept on people’s floors, attended countless exciting concerts and learned life lessons such as how to change a tire. Before this I had never seen the ocean before and now I am proud to say that I have been swimming in the Atlantic. I also skated down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial which was amazing.
All in all I wouldn’t trade my summer for anything. It was a truely musical experience.
T
he high point came early. A day close enough to the Fourth of July, birds circling low over Manhattan, Don Fury’s studio on Spring Street. In Delph’s pocket were the five hundred dollars for which he’d sold his car. The Green Mountain Boys were freshly showered and freshly shaved, their clothes freshly laundered. They’d stayed up late tuning their guitars. They’d eaten a hearty breakfast at Angelica. Eliza was wearing her yellow summer dress, and a man on the corner was selling enormous Technicolor fruit, and they all stood on the sidewalk, waiting to be buzzed in. Jude was already in the future, looking back at himself.
B
ack in Lintonburg, Jude had packed up the band with his father’s gift for speed. It had taken under twenty-four hours to get the proper people in the proper vehicles; to fit their suitcases into the back of the van, Tetris-style; to fit the drum kit into the camper compartment; for Delph and Kram to quit their jobs, both without notice and without their final paychecks; for Matthew and Little Ben to beg permission from their parents to tag along; for everyone else’s parents to say no; for Little Ben to get his deposit back on break-dancing camp; to transfer all rec center business to Big Ben; to bid good-bye to Harriet, who did not try very hard to stop them. When they left, they left in a caravan: Delph, Kram, and Matthew in the Kramaro; Eliza, Jude, and Little Ben—who was now, inadequately, just Ben—in the van.
Of course she didn’t try to stop them. What could she do, short of putting the lock and chain back on his window, but watch from the door of the greenhouse as the cars pulled out of the alley, kicking up gravel and dust? Look at Eliza’s mother. Look at what happened when you tried too hard to dictate your children’s choices—they ended up running even farther from you.
With the kids gone, Harriet spent the afternoon busying herself in her studio. She still had work to do to replenish her inventory. She didn’t know how much the marijuana Jude had stolen was worth, but surely her glass had been worth more. And surely the boys who had destroyed it were the ones Jude was running from again. Maybe, as she believed before, he’d be safer out of town. Only now, she had three children to worry about. She tried not to think about which cities they’d be driving through, whose floor they’d be sleeping on, but she was clumsy, distracted. Her hands shook; she cracked two tubes. She chatted too long with a ponytailed man who had come by yesterday. He hadn’t bought anything then, but again she walked him through her gallery, all the pieces she displayed in fish tanks turned on their sides (the fish tanks, too, she’d had to replace). She shared a pack of American Spirits with the man, sitting in the plastic patio chairs that overlooked her garden. Normally, this was her least favorite part of her occupation—the exchange, the chummy small talk. That was Les’s talent. He used to spend hours with his customers, shooting the shit while they smoked up the greenhouse; only when she called him in for dinner did he remember to collect any money. Her customers often seemed as puzzled as she was about what exactly the interaction required of them, whether the rituals that were in the job description of the drug peddler, the prostitute, the illegal arms dealer, even, in this state, the tattoo artist—those professions more clearly on the other side of the law—applied to the traffic of glassware. It had been many years—and a few drop-ins by the local police—since Harriet had inaugurated a bong with its new owner. Now she kept things simple. Rarely did she
talk
like this. She told the man with the gray ponytail about her work, her ex, the carload of kids who had just disappeared. It was almost dark when he kindly extinguished his third or fourth cigarette and left with his newspaper-wrapped bundle. Alone in the moon-shadowed alley, the folded bills in the breast pocket of her overalls, Harriet felt unclean, as though she
had
engaged in something illicit. Did he think she was hitting on him? (Was she?) Did he think she was some doped-out old tramp?
She returned to the studio, turned on the lights and the hood. Pru was staying at Dena’s, and unless they’d broken down or been hit by a truck or killed by a hitchhiker, Jude and Eliza were safe in their van. They would be fine. They could take care of themselves. Leaning a knee on the rickety desk chair, she selected two glass tubes from the plastic pitcher at her workstation. She turned on the clock radio, tuned since the 1970s to Lintonburg’s classic rock station. What had classic rock been called then? Just rock, she supposed. After hunting for a moment for her safety glasses, she found them hanging, along with her other glasses, on their separate chain, around her neck. She got her torch going, and she got her tubes spinning, and then, a miracle of molecules, it was one tube. Her hands were steady now. She fumed some silver onto the pipe and raked it. Nothing fancy, but it was a clean design. This is what she loved: the work. The evening hour, the smell of the propane, the industrious
whirr
of the hood. She lit a candle, then used the flame to light a cigarette. Paul Simon was on the radio.
Just drop off the key, Lee.
She turned it up. Maybe the pipe
did
look a little like a dildo. Maybe there
was
something unsavory about her line of work. The man with whom she’d apprenticed in Brattleboro at the age of seventeen (glassblowing had been only one of the skills he’d taught her) had later gone on to specialize in glass sex toys. Harriet had stuck nobly to her roots, though over the years, often while sitting in the principal’s office at one of Jude’s schools, she had questioned the nobility of pipes and bongs. Somewhere along the way, she had lost her fondness for pot; since Jude’s hypothermia scare, she’d smoked it just once, missing him after the first time he’d left for New York, when she’d found a forgotten stash. But the fact was pipes and bongs were her livelihood. They bought cough syrup, field trips, socks. They had histories; they had temperaments; they were as knotted and regal and individual as trees. It still pained her, like some irrecoverable loss, to recall the grisly sight she’d encountered here those months ago, the glass bodies broken beyond recognition. She propped her cigarette in the ashtray and began to blow out the bulb, filling it tenderly with her breath. Nobody loved a vase the way they loved a bong.
