to back the fuck off Eliza. She’s not giving him her baby.”
Rooster shrugged. “The guy wants to adopt the kid. Ain’t nothin’ Johnny can do about it now.”
“He can back him the fuck off. If they even think about making her take a drug test”—Jude was stabbing a finger in the air—“they will be fucking sorry. He’s put her through enough shit already.”
“Man, don’t axe me, but if the girl’s been doin’ drugs, what she needs to take is a drug test.”
Jude stepped up to Rooster and stabbed his finger into his pec. “You know why she was doing drugs? Two fucking joints? Because Johnny was here in this shithole, fucking you. She’s sixteen and she was alone and she was scared, and Johnny didn’t give one shit about her. He’s been using her all along, as a cover for what he’s been doing with you. Mr. Clean? What a fucking joke! And if he doesn’t back the fuck off her baby, I swear to God, I will tell her who he’s been fucking. I’ll tell everyone.”
“Calm down, kid.”
“You want all your friends knowing about you guys?”
“You think a bunch a straight edge kids are gonna care? We’re all fags anyways. It’s a fuckin’ front. So shut your fuckin’ homophobic mouth for a second and listen to yourself.” Rooster tossed Jude’s hand off him. “You sound like the fuckin’ jealous wife.” From the bag of laundry, Rooster plucked out a T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Youth of Today. “You sure you ain’t the one that’s jealous?”
Rooster let the wet towel drop to the floor. Jude looked away, but not before he saw the bottom half of Rooster’s uncircumcised dick, fat and limp, hanging below the hem of his T-shirt.
This was who Johnny had come home to? This was his type? Had he known all the time he liked guys, had he gazed across rooms at them, at Jude?
So he was jealous. But not because he wanted Johnny to gaze across a room at him. He was jealous of that code word he’d uttered to Rooster—“baby.” He was jealous of them in the way he was jealous of Eliza and Teddy, the coupling so dear they, too, had kept it private. He was jealous of everyone who knew how they wanted to be loved.
Finally Rooster pulled on a pair of what looked like Johnny’s camouflage shorts. “He’d rather marry a girl he doesn’t love than admit that he’s with you,” Jude told him. “You think he gives a shit about you? All he cares about is Teddy’s fucking baby. He’s obsessed with Teddy’s fucking baby!”
Rooster sat down on a stool and leaned an elbow on the counter. He looked tired and suddenly old, the floppy bandage on his forehead doing a poor job of keeping him together. “That makes two a youse.” He pointed two fingers at Jude. “You guys gotta get over that kid. Look at you, look how pissed off you are. How long’s he been dead, six months?”
“Don’t fucking say that, Rooster.”
“It’s a shame and all, but Jesus. You know how many kids have OD’d in this town? It fuckin’ happens. Why the fuck you think I’m straight edge?”
“Fuck you, Rooster! You didn’t know him.”
“Neither did Johnny! He barely even knew the kid. He hadn’t seen him in like two years!”
The small flower of satisfaction this comment brought forth swiftly wilted. Jude paced across the room, kicked the minifridge, and squatted on the floor, his head in his hands. It was true: Johnny barely knew Teddy. He barely knew Jude, either. They had both wanted to be the one who knew Teddy best, they had both been Teddy for each other, and now the make-believe had come to an end.
When Rooster spoke again, his voice was softer. “Green,” he said. It was the voice he used to talk to Johnny on the phone, to call him “baby.” He looked for a moment as though he wanted to tell Jude something. It was the distant look he had outside the rec center in Lintonburg as they admired the view together, the mountains, the lake. And then it passed.
Rooster nodded across the small room to Johnny’s bag on the floor. “The guy’s been carryin’ around his kid brother’s ashes in a duffel bag. That’s creepy, man. I’ve been tryin’ for months to get him to leave you and Eliza and that baby alone.”