Over by Deering Oaks, the door to Jude’s basement opened.
‘Jude, you in here?’
A lighter fared. Had there been anyone to see, it would have revealed a man layered in old coats, with newspaper poking out of his laceless boots. The lower half of his face was entirely obscured by beard, and dirt was embedded in the wrinkles on his skin. He looked sixty, but was closer to forty. He was known as Brightboy on the streets. He once had another name, but even he had almost forgotten it by now.
‘Jude?’ he called again.
The heat from the lighter was burning his fingers. Brightboy swore hard and let the fame go out. His eyes were getting used to the dark, but the basement was shaped like an inverted ‘L’, which meant that the moonlight only penetrated so far. The dogleg to the right remained in darkness.
He hit the lighter again. It was a cheap plastic thing. He’d found a bunch of them, all still full of food, in a garbage can outside an apartment building that was being vacated. In this kind of weather, anything that could generate heat and fame was worth holding on to. He still had half a dozen left.
Brightboy turned the corner, and the light caught Jude’s booted feet dangling three feet above the ground. Brightboy raised the fame slowly, taking in the reddish-brown overcoat, the green serge pants, the tan jacket and waistcoat, the cream shirt and the carefully knotted red tie. Jude had even managed to die dressed like a dandy, although his face was swollen and nearly unrecognizable above the knot on his tie, and the noose that suspended him above the floor was lost in his flesh. A backless chair was on its side beneath his feet. To its right was a wooden box that he had been using as a nightstand. His sleeping bag lay open and ready next to it.
On the box was a plastic bag filled with bills and coins.
The lighter was again growing hot in Brightboy’s hand. He lifted his thumb, and the fame disappeared, but the memory of its light danced in front of his eyes. His left hand found the bag of money. He put it carefully in his pocket, then dragged Jude’s pack into the moonlight and rifled it for whatever was worth taking. He found a flashlight, a deck of cards, a couple of pairs of clean socks, two shirts fresh from Goodwill and a handful of candy bars just one month past expiration.
All these things Brightboy transferred to his own pack. He also took Jude’s sleeping bag, rolling it up and tying it to the base of his pack with string. It was better than his own, newer and warmer. He didn’t even think about Jude again until he was about to leave. They had always got along okay, Brightboy and Jude. Most of the other homeless avoided Brightboy. He was untrustworthy and dishonest. Jude was one of the few who tried not to judge him. True, Brightboy had sometimes found Jude’s obsession with his appearance to be an affectation, and he suspected it helped to make Jude feel superior to the rest of his brothers and sisters on the streets, but Jude had been as generous with Brightboy as he had been with everyone else, and rarely had a harsh word passed between them.
Brightboy thumbed the lighter and held it aloft. Jude seemed frozen in place. His skin and clothing were spangled with frost.
‘Why’d you do it?’ said Brightboy. His left hand dipped into his pocket, as though to reassure himself that the money was still there. He’d heard that Jude had been calling in loans. Brightboy himself had owed Jude two dollars. It was one of the reasons he’d come looking for him; that, and a little company, and maybe a swig of something if Jude had it to spare. Someone had said that Jude wanted the money urgently, and it was time to pay up. Jude rarely asked for anything from the rest of his kind, so few resented him calling in his debts, and those that had it paid willingly enough.
So why would a man who had succeeded in putting together what Brightboy guessed to be $100 at least suddenly give up and take his own life? It made no sense, but then a lot of things made no sense to Brightboy. He liked his street name, but he had no conception of the irony that lay behind it. Brightboy wasn’t smart. Cunning, maybe, but his intelligence was of the lowest and most animal kind.
Whatever had led Jude to finish his days at the end of a rope, he had no need for money where he now was, while Brightboy was still among the living. He walked to St John Street, ordered two cheeseburgers, fries and a soda for $5 at the drive-thru window of McDonald’s, and ate them in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. He then bought himself a six-pack of Miller High Life at a gas station, but it was so cold outside that he had nowhere to drink the beers. With no other option available, he headed back to Jude’s basement and consumed them while the dead man hung suspended before him. He unrolled Jude’s sleeping bag, climbed into it and fell asleep until shortly before dawn. He woke while it was still dark, gathered up the bottles for their deposit and slipped from the basement to seek out breakfast. He stopped only to make a 911 call from a public phone on Congress.
It was the least that he could do for Jude.