THREES

by

Cindy Rosmus

1978

          Last night was the worst. In twenty-one years of worst nights. Worse than getting burned out of your parents’ place, at age eleven, ‘cos your mom fell asleep, smoking. Everybody lived, but so what?

          Liberty State’s dorm was paradise, next to that shabby flat. Like a neat, pretty set for a movie. A psychological horror flick.

          Your first roommate, Neely, shook her wooden leg at you, for fun. The next one, C.J., robbed you blind. Deborah, who had skin like funeral lilies, stole more than money. Those tiny notebooks you’d hid in your snow boots wound up in her locked drawer. After the whole world learned your secrets.

          How Mom mixed rat poison into Daddy’s juice, but you spilled it, in time.

          How you’ve never once kissed a guy.

          Or even wanted to. . . .

          Now, a year later, the one guy you were dying to kiss, was lost to you.

          Joey, that scruffy, leather-jacketed, bad boy poet. Whose brutal words only you could understand. Who you loved in a way only brutal words could describe.

But you, with your frizzy hair and fat ass, were out of his league.

According to Lisa, Professor Steele’s slutty young wife. Gotta lose weight, she claimed Joey said, about you. Then: “’She sure can write,’” Lisa quoted, in Joey’s scratchy voice, “But she’s not my type.”

Off on a ski trip, Joey was. Like all this snow was a tease. You pictured him wasted, with some slut, maybe blonder than Lisa.

Your heart felt squashed, like someone fatter than you sat on it.

          Fat like Mary Alice next door. Her heart was pulp, like a dinosaur had stepped on it. ‘Cos her fiancé was gone.

Poor Hal. Heart imploded under freezing, black water. His death an excuse to get shit-faced at the pub. Kiss Steele’s ass, so he’d buy pitchers of beer. Jerks who’d never even met Hal toasting to his memory. Behind Steele’s back, Lisa snuck one guy her number.

Mary Alice wasn’t even missed.

Suitemates, you were, ‘cos you shared a bathroom. If you didn’t hear her in there, you still smelled what could’ve once been rat stew. But she ate the same dorm meals you did. And lately, the grub was worse.

Right before Hal, the food services guy died, in a gruesome car crash. Like a bowling ball, his head shot across the icy highway. You heard Sam “Three Chin” Jones was buried headless.

Weasel, the new guy, had cooked in ‘Nam but was too stoned to know chicken from pork. Both he served pink.

This morning, your bathroom would smell worse. Mary Alice’s retching made you want to puke, too. When she stopped, she left the bathroom from her side. You hoped she wasn’t down in the dining hall.

Normally, at breakfast, you lucked out. Bubbly Nancy made yummy cheese omelets. But today, Weasel was cooking.

“What’cha want?” His eyes were just slits.

Runny eggs and burnt toast.

That’s what you got. When Weasel cooked, he blasted the overhead music so your head hurt.

Out in the dining hall, Mary Alice sat alone, by the window.

No, you thought, please, not today . . .  

But she looked right at you. So you had to join her.

“Hi,” you said, sitting down.

No answer. Her skin looked almost gray. Her oatmeal was untouched.

Outside, winter seemed in as foul a mood as you. En route to class, kids slid around on the ice. Old students back in school after years walked slowly, nervously.

How freaky it was, that ice or snow caused those two deaths: “Three Chin” Jones’ car crash, and Hal’s ice-fishing tragedy.

“Threes,” Mary Alice murmured.

“Huh?” You thought she’d said “Trees,” but she wasn’t staring out at frosty branches. Her eyes were set straight ahead.

“Death,” she said. “It comes in threes.”

Great, you thought. Bad enough Joey was “dead” to you. Off on his precious ski trip.

Who’s gonna croak next?

Forcing a smile, you skimmed the yolk off an egg. “Awwww . . .”

From the overhead speaker came that Foreigner song: “Cold as Ice.” With that annoying piano intro.

She picked up her spoon. “Yup.” To the beat of the song, she mashed her oatmeal.

“Well . . .” you said, “sometimes, it seems that way. But not all deaths are connected.”

“No?”

“Um . . . the week my aunt died, our super got burned up with our apartment building.” You wished she’d stop mashing that oatmeal. “Then . . . my best friend’s grandfather . . . got hit by a bus.”

“You see?”

“But they didn’t know each other!” you said, wearily. “My aunt lived way out in Seattle, and Louie’s grandpa was on a trip to India. A tour bus hit him.”

Mary Alice dropped the spoon. “Mr. Jones didn’t know my Hal.”

You sighed. So what if she didn’t get it? Her pain was way worse than yours. Her Hal would never come back.

But Joey . . . As long as he was alive . . .

You’re not his type.

Joey might as well be dead, too.

Usually, by 5 PM, you were at the pub. Night class, or not. Beers with Steele and the gang was more . . . enlightening . . . than Social Research Methods.

But tonight, on your way there, this chill came over you. Like your ribs were icicles. Even bundled up, you felt colder than ever.

“Hi,” you told Jack, who checked IDs at the door. No class tonight? he usually joked. But not tonight.

Inside, the place was packed but seemed quiet, though the jukebox was on. A Fleetwood Mac song played: “Go Your Own Way.”

At Steele’s almost-full table, the pitchers were empty. Lisa was crying. Practically the whole gang was there.

But not Joey.

Oh, my God, you thought.

Slowly, Steele got up and walked over to you. Up close, you realized he looked old enough to retire.

As he held you close, your whole body trembled.

“He had too much to drink,” Steele said, “before skiing.” Tears filled his eyes. “Never saw the tree.”

As the bad-boy poet would say . . .