“Sometimes we all need coddling,” I mumble, flopping down beside him.
“Is that a fact,” he mutters, his mouth full of blueberry muffin. “Is that fancy new beau of yours giving you attention, Angel?”
“He’s not a beau—not that I think they call guys that anymore, Rooster.”
“What do they call them?”
“I don’t know, not beau’s, though. Boos is the comparable slang today I guess.”
“Boos? That’s stupid.”
I want to argue with him, but I can’t, so I remain quiet for a bit, before letting out a large sigh because I don’t have the slightest notion on how to bring any of this up.
“Now that sounded like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“It kind of feels like that,” I admit, feeling worse with each second that drags by.
I tear off a piece of the muffin and crumble it on the ground for Gladys. He immediately starts pecking away on it. As sad as I am, that makes me smile.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he says, and I try my best to smile for him. It’s strange this connection I have to Rooster. I think in my head he’s become kind of a surrogate father. Most would laugh at me, calling a guy I barely know, who is homeless and lives in what essentially is a box with a piece of tin on it, a father, but it doesn’t matter.
It’s true just the same.
“I’m going to have to leave Black Mountain, Rooster. My school made me sign a morality clause and well… another student discovered I work as a dancer at the Beaver. I only came here for the school. If I can’t go to it, I might as well go back to California. At least there, I can stay with my friend Roma and not pay rent.”
“Don’t know what Gladys will do without you. That damn chicken has gotten attached to you,” Rooster says, and his dark eyes completely betray his voice. He’s sad—maybe as sad as I am at having to leave.
“I’m going to miss you and Gladys,” I tell him, and I didn’t mean to, I was trying to hold it back, but I end up letting the tears bleed through. Rooster awkwardly hugs me, and I willingly let him. I don’t care that he smells. I don’t care about anything, because I can feel that he cares, and I don’t think I’ve ever had that. I thought maybe Mike cared, but I was just fooling myself. I know in my heart that Rooster does and leaving him is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
“There, there,” he says patting me awkwardly as I hug him. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be back with friends,” he says trying to comfort me.
“It won’t be you,” I sniffle.
“Ole Rooster sure ain’t much, Angel. You need to follow your own path in life,” he says, and I force myself to pull away.
“Rooster, I need you to do me a favor,” I tell him, trying to stop my tears and to look at the man that I’ve truly let into my heart.
“What’s that?” he says, coughing again, the sound making my heart tighten in my chest.
“I have the apartment rented for the next two months. I had to prepay. I need you to stay there for me.”
“If you have the place rented then why are you leaving?” he asks, and he’s definitely irritated—and I think with me.
“I just told you. I have to.”
“You don’t have to do a damn thing in this life, Angel, except live and die.”
“Rooster, you’re just making me feel worse here,” I cry, frustrated. “I want to stay, but I—”
“If you want it so bad, then why don’t you fight for it?” he asks, as Gladys runs into the shelter, not wanting to hear us fight.
“That’s what I want to know.”
My head jerks to the right as I look to see Mike standing there, looking directly at me.
Suddenly my bad day is about to get a lot worse.25MikeViolet doesn’t speak as we walk into her apartment—well, if you can call it that. The place is a shit hole. Pure and simple shit hole. Her back is stiff, and she doesn’t even look back to notice if I’m there. Tension is so tight between us that it goes beyond the old saying you could cut it with a knife. Shit, if she had a knife right now I’d be dead. I close the door behind me, feeling out of my depth.
Davis would get a kick out of this. I’ve never cared enough to carry on a real conversation with a chick. Now I have one that I would walk across hot coals to keep and she probably wants me dead.
How the mighty have fallen.
“That’s far enough,” she barks when I barely cross the threshold. She’s standing on the other side of the room, arms crossed and daring me to defy her order. I don’t for now, but I know this is going to be a major fight.