Rooster (16 page)

“Yes.”

“How do I know you're any good?”

“Trust me. That's what therapy's all about.”

“What's your rate?”

“I don't have a rate.”

“Where's your degree on the wall? How do I know you're really a therapist and not some vet who's trying to learn how to talk to the animals?”

“Rooster, just go along with this, all right?”

“Well, shouldn't I be on the couch at least, and you sitting on the chair?”

“First question. Have you ever tried really hard at anything in your life?”

Rooster adjusted himself where he was sitting. He had mixed feelings about taking part in Elma's game, but he sensed that there was no way he could stop her from playing it. “No.”

“I thought so. So how can you even begin to think of all the things you can't do if you've never tried hard at anything?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you see a problem there?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing's turned me on yet.”

“And why is that?”

“I don't know. Because I don't like school, I guess. I don't like people telling me what to do all the time. I don't like people saying ‘Be here at nine o'clock' or ‘You have to have this in by Tuesday.' That stuff drives me crazy.” “So you'd like to set your own agenda?”

“I guess so.”

“Do your own thing? Be your own boss?”

“Doesn't everybody?”

“No. Some people think following orders is the best thing around. It means they'll never have to think for themselves.”

“Well, I guess that's not me then.”

“Let me ask you something else. Have you ever kept a diary of your thoughts and feelings?”

“Yes.”

“You have?”

“Ever since I was a little girl.”

“Rooster. For God's sake. Writing in a little book is not feminine.”

“Hey, therapists aren't supposed to curse.”

“They can when they're mad.”

“Can they?”

“Of course. Now, I think that's something you should do.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you'd have some interesting things to say.” Elma put her drink down without taking a sip. “In fact, have you ever thought of being a writer?”

Rooster's eyebrows shot up his forehead. “A what?”

“A writer. You know. Books. Magazine articles. Essays.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Of course not. I'm your therapist. How can you say that? I think you should try it.”

“I hate writing.”

“You do not.”

“I do so.”

“Jolene's told me she's tried encouraging you before. She's told me how good you are. Besides, how do you know you hate it if you've never tried it?”

“I have tried it. I've tried it every day in school for twelve years.”

“I'm not just talking about when teachers
tell
you to write. I mean on your own. In your free time. When there's five other things you
could
do, but you choose writing instead.”

“She might have something there, you know,” said Jayson, cutting in. “Jayson thinks you're a pretty creative guy.”

“Name one time I've been creative.”

“Those letters you wrote to me. From Lavender? Remember those?”

Rooster nodded. “All right. Name another one.”

“I'm not saying you could actually be a writer tomorrow or anything,” said Elma. “I'm just saying it might be something worth trying sometime.”

“That essay you did on
Penthouse
was good,” said Puffs.

“I got suspended for it. How can you say it was good?” “My mom suspended you because pornography is not allowed in our school. She actually thought it was pretty good, though. She really did say that.”

“She never said that to me. She just said, ‘I'll see you in three days.'”

“My mom is not the complimentary type.”

“Oh yeah. I almost forgot.”

“I think that's something you should think about,” said Elma.

“Me, a writer,” said Rooster, shaking his head. The thought was not quite as bizarre as he was letting on. He knew writing was something he was talented at.

“You're going to have to write a paper about the Strikers when you're finished with them. That's going to be your year-end assignment to see if you graduate or not. It's my mom's idea.”

Rooster looked at her in surprise. “No one's said anything about that.”

Elma smiled. “It's a surprise. Don't you love surprises? The good thing is you can be as creative with it as you want. That's what she said.”

“When did she tell you all this?”

“The other day. Before everything happened.”

“Do you have to do one?”

“No. Just you. It's your project.”

Rooster took another sip of his drink and closed his eyes again. “Are you still my therapist?”

“No. And I'm starting to sober up, and I just mentioned my mother, which always makes me nasty. I better get home.”

The funeral was attended by about fifty people. Elma sat near the front with her mom and Mrs. Yuler. Rooster took a seat in the back row and listened to Dorothy-Jane-Anne's Aunt Elizabeth deliver the eulogy. “She loved junk food, bowling and television, in that order. She always used to say to me, ‘Do you like junk food more than bowling? I do. Do you like television more than bowling? Not me.'”

Afterward, he gave Tim and Roseann a hug and spoke briefly with Mrs. Yuler. She told him there would be bowling again on Thursday night. He did not get a chance to talk to Elma, but Mrs. Helmsley called to him just as he was leaving and told him to be in her office at nine o'clock the next morning. There was something she wanted to talk to him about.

12

“E
lma is pulling herself from the project,” Mrs. Helmsley said in her office the following morning. “You're on your own.”

Rooster looked at her in shock.

“She said she thinks you could do a better job by yourself.”

“She did?”

“I'm as surprised as you are, believe me. But she was adamant about it and she reminded me that this whole thing was for you, not her. So there you go. I'm very sorry about Dorothy-Jane-Anne, by the way. Elma said you two got along very well with each other.”

“We did, I guess.”

“It's never easy when someone dies so suddenly like that. I know you know that.”

Rooster thought for a moment.

Mrs. Helmsley, in a rare moment of reflection, leaned back in her chair and began to talk. “I knew your father quite well, actually. I don't know if you ever knew that or not. I grew up playing with his older brother, your Uncle Jack. Michael was probably the only boy I've ever met who didn't want to hang out with his big brother. He was very independent. Not the best student, but he was gifted in other ways. He just seemed to know that he would do okay for himself.”

Rooster knew this about his father, that he had not been one to follow the pack.

“My mom used to run the library here in town when it was connected to the fire hall. That's probably going back forty, fifty years now, at least. He used to slip in there to take books out all the time.”

“He did?”

Mrs. Helmsley smiled. “That's how Mom got to know him. She said he must have read every Louis L'Amour book she ever had, and there were a lot of them.”

“Who's Louis L'Amour?”

“He wrote westerns. Cowboys. The new frontier. That sort of stuff. Not exactly Shakespeare, but they were very popular in their day. Your dad used to take two or three out at a time, read them all and bring them back. I worked there every Saturday. He'd come in and go out without saying anything. I don't think he wanted many people to know he was there.”

“I didn't know that about him.”

“Ask your mother. I don't know if he continued reading them after he married or not.”

“Books on tape,” his mom said at supper that night. They were alone. Irving was in the city visiting a friend. “He used to listen to them in his truck.”

“Only westerns?”

“Westerns and mysteries. Those were the two he enjoyed most. I don't know if he even tried anything else. He just liked a good story. Nothing fancy.”

“Did he ever write anything?”

Eunice smiled. “Funny you should ask me that. I was just thinking about it the other day. He talked about writing once in a while. He used to write these lovely little poems to me all the time. Corny but lovely.”

“What's a corny but lovely poem?”

“You know. ‘Roses are red. Violets are blue. When I'm away, I think only of you.' That sort of thing. Some were a bit longer. Depends how lonely he was, I guess.”

“Have you ever tried writing?”

“No. Never. I like to read. That's it for me. I stopped writing as soon as I got out of high school. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Well, there must be some reason. Seventeen years and you've never asked me if I've ever tried writing before. Or your father.”

Rooster could feel himself blushing as he answered her. “Somebody just said the other night at Puffs' house that they thought I might make a good writer.”

Eunice put her fork down. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, ‘Somebody said the other night at Puffs' house that they thought I might make a good writer.'”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I didn't believe her, but … ”

“Who said this? Was it Jolene?”

“Jolene wasn't there. She had to stay home and plan her grandma's birthday party. It was Elma Helmsley. The principal's daughter.”

“You were out at a party with the principal's daugh–ter?” “I wasn't ‘with her' with her. And it wasn't a party. We were at Puffs' house, just hanging around.”

“I've never heard you talk about her before.”

“I never have. Not in a good way, anyway.”

“Did she say why she thought that?”

“Not really. She just thought I might have some interesting things to say. I don't know. She just said it, that's all. That's all I'm saying.”

“Is this Elma a friend of yours?”

“Sort of. Yes. When she's drunk she's pretty nice. It's a long story. Don't even ask about it.”

“Was she drunk when she said this to you?”

“Yes, but don't take that the wrong way. Being drunk is what made her able to say it. When she's sober, she's nasty. She said so herself. I know, it's really weird. But she's in therapy for it, so that's the main thing. She said all this at Puffs' house, and Puffs and Jayson actually agreed with her. Then today I found out from Mrs. Helmsley that Dad used to take books out of the library all the time, and that's what got me thinking that maybe something's in my blood, y'know? Maybe there's something there.”

His mom took another moment before commenting.

Rooster put his fork down and continued talking. “After she said all this to me, I said, ‘But I don't even like writing.' But she pointed out that I had just admitted a few minutes earlier, because I had, that I had never tried hard at anything in my life before, so how can I say whether I like something or not? It made a lot of sense.”

“Were you drunk when she was saying all this?”

“Yes. But Puffs said after she left that drinking was something that all writers do. So that's another thing I have going for me.”

“Well, I know your teachers have always commented that you're a strong writer.”

“I don't even care about them. I'm talking about when school is finished. This is the first time in my life I've actually been excited about my future because it's the first time anyone has ever said I might be good at something. So even if it's not true, I don't care.”

“Go on. You've heard that before.”

“When?”

“Don't you remember going out with your father, talking about all the things you'd like to be when you grow up?”

“No.”

“You used to play that little game down by the river, with the rocks?”

“Okay. Well, maybe I do, but dad's been dead for, what, seven years now? That's a long time ago. That's junior high and high school.”

“I'm aware of how long your father's been gone.”

“So maybe it just seems like no one's ever said that to me. But what's the difference? It feels like the same thing to me.”

Eunice stared at her son and took in his apparent enthusiasm. She did not need any reminders of how different the past seven years of his life had been compared to the first ten. Life with his father had not been perfect — he was away for weeks at a time, and he was not always the most attentive husband when he was home — but he was a loving, caring father to his lone child.