Rooster (14 page)

“How far up do you go?”

“Four fingers mean ‘Turn the TV on.' Five fingers mean ‘Stop I hear something. Go to bed.' That's all.”

A taxi turned in to the bowling center's parking lot, drove past where the two of them were standing and pulled up to the front entrance.

“Is that for you?” said Rooster.

“Yes. You're supposed to get me into the cab and make sure the driver knows where he's going.”

“Who on earth gave you those instructions?” Rooster knew the answer before he asked the question.

“Elma did,” said Dorothy-Jane-Anne.

Rooster got her into the cab and double-checked with the driver. He waved to her as the taxi drove away. Then he went back inside the bowling alley.

He watched as the remaining Strikers bowled the rest of their game in silence. They moved very quickly. There was no controversy. Elma sat on the bench with her arms crossed in front of her chest and watched them. She had a very satisfied yet stern look on her face.

When they finished, she helped them tally their scores. In total, the three of them had twenty-four more points than they'd had on Monday.

“See?” said Elma when they were all outside. “You focused on bowling and look at the results. You guys were fantastic.”

“Too bad you missed it,” said Tim, starting to bounce on his feet. “Too bad you went outside. We were really hitting 'em tonight. We were right down the middle. Every time. Ooh boy. Every time. Right down the middle.”

“I'm sorry too,” said Rooster, although he wasn't sure if he really was or not. He had enjoyed his brief chat with Dorothy-Jane-Anne, and another minute inside with Elma might have killed him.

“Maybe next time,” said Tim. “Maybe next time you can stay in there and, and watch the whole time.

Maybe next time you can do that.”

“Maybe,” said Rooster.

“Oh, he will,” said Elma.

Rooster saw out of the corner of his eye that she was glaring at him again. He ignored her.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do next time, but he was positive it wasn't going to be what she wanted.

11

T
he next morning, Rooster was called down to the office and told that his meeting with Mrs. Helmsley had been cancelled. He was elated. Then Elma walked into the office with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What's with you?” he said, his sudden good cheer only slightly diminished.

“Didn't you hear?” said Elma between sobs.

“Hear what?”

“About Dorothy-Jane-Anne?”

“What about her?”

Elma blew her nose and took a deep breath. “You better sit down.”

Rooster remained standing, but a familiar sense of dread began to creep through him, reminding him of the day seven years ago when he was called out of class and told to go home immediately, whereupon his mother told him that his father had been killed.

“What's goin' on?” he said. There was a slight degree of panic in his voice.

“She had a heart attack last night.”

“She what?”

“A massive one as soon as she got back to Common House.”

Rooster felt as if the inside of his body had been lit on fire.

“They rushed her to the hospital but it was too late.”

His stunned eyes met Elma's.

“Are you saying she's
dead
?”

Elma nodded and began crying again.

“Dorothy-Jane-Anne is dead?” he repeated.

Elma continued nodding.

“She can't be. I was just talking to her. We just had our first real conversation.”

Elma lowered herself into one of the chairs along the wall in the office and wept. “Yes she can,” she said.

Rooster stared at her in silence. His head reeled. After a moment, Elma stopped crying again. She sat up straight in her chair and dabbed at her eyes and cheeks with a Kleenex.

He took one of the seats beside her.

“She had a very weak heart,” said Elma, by way of an explanation. “The medication she took was helpful, but the doctor said she was a time bomb ready to go off at any moment.”

“Why didn't they do anything if they knew about it?”

Elma shrugged. “They couldn't, I guess. I don't know. It doesn't really matter now anyway, does it?”

“So twenty minutes after leaving the bowling alley she was dead?”

“About that. She collapsed just when she got inside the doors. You were the last person she ever talked to. Unless she said something to the cab driver.”

“Lucky her,” said Rooster ruefully. He tried to remember what the last words he had said to her had been.

“She liked you,” Elma continued. “She told me last night before she went outside. She said you were nice and that I shouldn't be so mean to you. But she worried because you smoked so much.”

Rooster saw Dorothy-Jane-Anne very clearly in his mind. She was sitting at that little table in Common House, staring at him as he answered their interview questions. “I liked her too,” he said.

Elma started to smile. “She said she disagreed with Percival about calling you a moron, but she still wanted to know why you never said anything to him. I asked her what that was all about, and she said she'd tell me later.” The smile quickly left Elma's face. Her voice started to break. “That was the last thing she said to me. ‘I'll tell you later.' Then she left. Now she's not here anymore.”

A few minutes later, Mrs. Nixon walked into the office. She was returning from Common House.

“Is that where your mom is too?” said Rooster.

“No. She had a meeting she had to go to. She was hoping she could get out early.”

Mrs. Nixon gave them an update. Predictably, everyone was very upset, Roseann in particular. “They've never had anyone die right in the facility like that,” said Mrs. Nixon. “No one had been expecting that. They're as shocked as they are sad.”

The funeral was held the following Monday in the Common House chapel. Rooster attended it by himself, but not before drowning his sorrows Saturday night at Puffs' house.

“She was a sweet kid,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table. He was with Puffs and Jayson.

“The newspaper said she was forty-two years old,” said Puffs.

Rooster thought for a moment. “That's probably about right.”

“So she was hardly a kid.”

“You know what I mean. They're all like kids. They'll never not be like kids because they can't think like adults. They'll never go beyond where they're at right now.”

“That sucks,” said Puffs.

Rooster shrugged his shoulders. “She seemed happy. She bowled. She had her friends. She had food and a place to live.”

“That's all some people need,” said Jayson.

“That's all she needed,” said Rooster.

“That's all she had,” said Puffs.

They were drinking rye. Rooster's somber thoughts about Dorothy-Jane-Anne eventually led to reflections on his own lot in life. He started to wonder aloud what would become of him as he entered adulthood. “You guys all have your own things, y'know? Computers. Sports. Jolene's gonna get a good job somewhere after university. Me? I got nothing. I got nothing to take me anywhere.”

Puffs drained his drink and set his glass aside. “You sound like one of those drunks who hang out at that crappy little bar at the Winston Inn.”

“No, I don't,” said Rooster, staring at his glass.

“Yeah, you do,” said Puffs.

“How do you know what the drunks at the bar at the old Winston Inn sound like?” said Jayson.

“Well, I don't, but listen to this guy. It's like he's teaching a course in How To Talk Like A Loser. I should put on some country music and pour a bag of stale peanuts into a little bowl. Then you can really go.”

“Shut up,” said Rooster.

“You shut up. Don't go talking like that about yourself. You've got lots of things you can do.”

At that point Rooster remembered Elma's last tirade before Dorothy-Jane-Anne died. “No, I don't.”

Puffs rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Hey, he's been through a lot lately,” said Jayson, putting his hand on Rooster's shoulder. “Give him a break.”

“Yeah, I have.” Rooster finished his drink and slid his glass along the table toward Puffs. “Hit me, barkeep. And keep your opinions to yourself.”

“See?” said Puffs, receiving the glass and giving up on trying to make his friend feel better. “This is something you're good at right here. You can become a professional loser in a bar. You've got the right slouch. You can talk the talk. That wrist action when you slid your glass over here was flawless. It was a thing of beauty.”

“Just fill it up. Or I'll start a bar brawl right here in your kitchen.”

“Another skill. Picking fights. You're awesome, man.” Rooster shook his head.

“The things they don't teach you in school.” Puffs refilled Rooster's drink. “All you need now is some lonely woman to practice hitting on and you're done. You're on the fast track. Later, you can pee your pants and vomit on yourself.”

Jayson gave Puffs a hard look.

“What?” said Puffs. “I tried talking sense to him, but he wasn't listening, so … ”

Jayson shook his head. “Jayson can't believe you said that.”

“Said what?” Puffs missed the cue Jayson was sending.

“About women?”

“What about women?”

“Don't you think that's a bit of a touchy subject for this poor guy right now?”

Puffs suddenly realized where Jayson was going.

“Jayson doesn't know how you can handle all this stuff at once,” Jayson said to Rooster.

“It ain't easy,” said Rooster, feeling the full effects of the liquor.

“First Jolene, then this woman drops dead after talking to you twenty minutes before.”

Rooster nodded. His head was clouded with booze and depressed thoughts. Then he stopped and looked at Jayson. He did not see Puffs, sitting across from him, waving his hands at Jayson. “What do you mean, ‘First Jolene'?”

Jayson ignored Puffs. It was time to stop pretending that nothing had happened and to put everything on the table. “Just let Jayson ask you one question about that whole thing and then he'll stop.” Jayson took another sip of his drink.

“What whole thing?” Rooster was suddenly much more lucid than he had been a moment before.

“How can you bear to think of her with somebody else?”

Rooster's eyes popped wide. Puffs' mouth dropped open.

“She was with you for so damn long. She's still your friend, obviously. She still sits with you and all that.

That's good. But Jayson doesn't know how you can see her with other guys and live with that.
He
can't even do that.
He
thinks of her with somebody else and it just about drives him crazy.”

“What are you talking about?” said Rooster.

“You know,” said Jayson. “Come on. It's time for some straight talk. Jayson says it's time to clear the air.”

“Are you saying you have visions of Jolene with other guys?”

Jayson nodded his head. “Ever since the other day.”

“What other day?”

“The other day. What do you mean, ‘What other day?' What other day can Jayson be talking about?”

“I don't know. Tuesday? Wednesday? I have no idea what Jayson is talking about. I sure am curious to find out, though.”

“Who wants a pizza?” said Puffs, springing from his chair. “C'mon. Gimme a hand over here. I think Mom has one in the freezer.”

Neither Jayson nor Rooster budged from their chairs.

“You can only bury it for so long before it'll come back to get you,” said Jayson, shaking his head sadly. “You gotta deal with it, man. You can't pretend it didn't happen. It's not good for you. Especially now, with this other stuff going on.”

Rooster looked at him and frowned. Then he looked at Puffs. “Am I asleep?” he said. “Have I, like, passed out and now I'm in the middle of a really weird dream? Because none of this is making sense to me.”

Standing with his hand on the freezer door, Puffs shook his head.

“Look at you, even. What are you looking so scared about?” He returned his attention to Jayson. “And what's with you all of a sudden? ‘I'm here to help you, Rooster. First off, let's talk about these visions I'm having about your girlfriend with other guys.' ‘Gee, thanks, Dr. Laura. I didn't even know that was an issue until you brought it up, but now that you mention it, it is causing a bit of a problem.'”

“I don't mean with her having sex with other guys.”

“Oh really?”

“Not just that.”

“Well that's a relief. What else is she doing with them? Shopping for rings? Meeting their parents?”

“Maybe Jayson shouldn't have said anything,” said Jayson.