Ten Thousand Saints Page 0,129

happened when you lay down beside a girl.

Eliza swung her legs over the side of the bed. She struggled to reach the Keds on the carpet and to fit them on her feet. He felt that he should help her, but didn’t.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m used to it. Johnny didn’t want to touch me, either.” She stood up and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.

“Eliza,” Jude managed, “that’s not it.”

“Don’t tell me. If I weren’t pregnant, right?”

Crossing the room to the closet, she whipped off her nightgown, turning the back of her nearly naked body to Jude. Again, he looked away.

“You and Johnny are exactly the same. I thought you weren’t, but you are. I know you both want it to be a boy. The only reason you’ve stuck around this long is because you expect me to have a little Teddy for you to play with.”

“That’s not true!” Jude sprung up from the bed. “I liked you, even before I knew about the baby.”

“Well, you don’t have to anymore. You’re off the hook, because I’m giving it up.”

She yanked her yellow dress off a hanger, pulled it over her head, and turned around.

“Eliza, you don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it. It’s not some spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided, and it’s my decision, not anyone else’s. Do you want to know why?” She put her hands on her widened hips. “Because it’s my baby. Not yours. Not Johnny’s.”

From her closet, she took out a cardigan and buttoned it over her dress.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Johnny. I’m going to tell him.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. Then, “I’m going with you,” and when he followed her, she didn’t protest.

The taxi could only get them as far as Third Avenue. St. Mark’s Place was choked with people, people spilling out of bars, people hanging off of balconies. An ambulance screamed toward the park, parting the sea of bodies, nudging cars to the curb. On the sidewalk, two cops on horseback galloped past.

“Hey, Eliza! Jude! Welcome to Mardi Gras!”

On Les’s fire escape, Davis and a friend were leaning over the railing, smoking cigarettes and watching the show.

“Hey, Davis!” Jude called. “What the hell’s going on?”

“The pigs are back, man. Be careful out there.”

Jude tried to cover Eliza’s body as they made their way down the street, steering her with one arm, shielding her with the other. In the cab, she’d listened to her headphones. The space between them was incalculable. If he hadn’t stopped kissing her. If he hadn’t pulled away. It all seemed like hours ago. Now, as he ushered her along, the faintly sour heat of her body brought back their kiss with violent clarity. On his lips, her saliva had dried to a delicate crust.

“This is stupid,” he said. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m fine,” Eliza said, pushing her way through the crowd just as a couple of punks sprinted by, jostling her elbow.

“Watch it!” Jude shouted after them. To Eliza he said, “This is why we don’t let you in the pit.”

“What?”

He leaned close to her ear. “This is why we don’t let you in the pit!”

Tonight the pit was Tompkins Square Park. The same dark, festive atmosphere hovered over it, the feeling that you might get kicked in the nuts at any time, that it would be a night to remember. Who would show up, what were the teams. He should have turned her around and forced her back into a cab, but he didn’t.

Why should he protect her anymore? If she was giving up the baby, what did it matter? A loud pop, an M-80, sounded in the distance. They both jumped. “That was a firecracker,” Eliza asked, “right?”

The crowd thickened. Arms windmilled, shoes flew. Some people were running toward them and other people were running past them, toward the park. Near First Avenue, a stalled fire engine blasted its horn. In front of it, a wall of people was blocking its passage. “Hell, no! We won’t go!” they were shouting, and a bottle flew through the dark and broke against the side of the truck, and then another, shattering a headlight. The truck kept honking, but no one in it was moving.

The crowd surged. From behind Jude and Eliza, a team of horses came galloping toward the truck. The mounted cops were wielding nightsticks. Leaning out of their saddles, they brought their clubs down on the crowd. A polo match. Two cops thrashed their clubs against