Dead Rules

by Randy Russell

  Their teacher appeared. He stood at the front of the room, peering over their heads, looking at none of them. Jana didn’t blame him.

  “All present,” he said. He glanced at the empty desk at the front of class and added, “Vacancy noted.”

  Jana opened her notebook and saw that someone had already written on the first page in dark pencil. It was one simple word, followed by a short notation in smaller, carefully printed letters underneath.

  The word was Murder. The notation below said From a Friend.

  Murder. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Jeff Bridges,” Jana said.

  She was on the phone with Michael. Jana had spent the evening searching online, finding just the right activity for their double date with Nathan Mills and Sherry Simmons.

  “And?” Michael asked.

  “Sam Elliott.”

  Michael stalled. “That’s not an easy one,” he said.

  “It will be when I give you one more.”

  “No, I’m getting it.”

  She waited.

  “Okay.” Michael gave up. “One more.”

  “John Goodman.”

  “The Big Lebowski,” Michael said, then swore for needing three actors’ names to get it. “One of my favorites. I should have had it at Sam Elliott.”

  “Fart, fudge, and popcorn,” Jana said in return, laughing. It was her catch phrase, the one she used in place of cursing. “You didn’t.”

  “I guess we’re going bowling?”

  “Yep,” Jana said. “The perfect double date. I’ve already reserved a lane.”

  Jana didn’t like bowling. It was too loud, for one thing, and she felt utterly wretched when she rolled a gutter ball. But bowling would save her from having to do anything the least bit romantic with Nathan and Sherry along. More importantly, it would keep those two from doing anything romantic in front of Jana. The idea of watching them kiss made her shudder.

  “I didn’t know you liked bowling, Jana.”

  “I hate it,” she said brightly. “But I’ll live. And the next time we go on a double date, it’s going to be with people I choose. Okay?”

  “Woody Harrelson,” Michael said in reply.

  “Kingpin,” Jana said, nailing it. “Way too easy, Michael.” Then she added quickly, “Bill Murray, Randy Quaid.” She earned ten bonus points for naming the movie and two additional actors in the cast. The more actors who had to be named before you guessed the right movie, the more difficult it was to come up with additional cast members.

  “Bonus noted,” Michael said reluctantly.

  “Don’t you just love me?” Jana teased.

  Of course he did. Of that, Jana was most certain. Webster and Haynes loved each other dearly, deeply, and for all of time.

  One of the Sliders wrote it, Jana decided.

  Murder. From a Friend. The printing was so precise. She glanced at the back of the classroom to see if they were watching her, waiting to laugh when she read the spooky note.

  Mars caught her looking at him again. He let one corner of his mouth smile. There was a dimple.

  She quickly turned her head around. The teacher was writing on the blackboard. He had greased hair parted high on one side. Nearly two inches around his ears had been shaved. He was in his early forties, she guessed, but his face looked more tired than his age. His hands were too large for his sleeves.

  The instructor’s name was at the top of the blackboard: Mr. Fitzgerald. He didn’t wear a ring on either hand. After writing Today’s Assignment on the chalkboard, he turned around to check his notes. He wore a twill jacket with a small checkered pattern and a funny knitted tie. It had perfectly horizontal contrasting stripes and was too short. It was also cut flat across the bottom.

  Jana liked watching older people. She worked hard to figure out what motivated them. It was part of being a good actor. Mr. Fitzgerald, however, didn’t seem motivated by anything. He had tired eyes and the flesh of his face sagged. She bet he drank. He was an alcoholic and she wondered why.

  Failed romance, Jana concluded. He had loved and lost. And he was still obsessed by it. Not everyone could be Webster and Haynes.

  Thursday night, Jana and Sherry had gone to the restroom to check their makeup.

  “Do you like him?” Jana asked the younger girl. Sherry’s hair was thick and straight, cut far short of reaching her shoulders. It was plain brown hair, but Sherry wore it with fat, cherry red streaks dyed from the part across both sides. Each red streak had a narrow yellow stripe down the middle. Her head look like a piece of striped candy.

  “Huge crush,” Sherry said. She was telling the truth, but it had nothing to do with Nathan.

  “Be careful,” Jana warned the younger girl. “He’s a senior and you’re a sophomore.”

  Jana’s hair was simply dark brown without natural or unnatural highlights. When she wasn’t performing, she wore very little makeup. Her mother said Jana was born with bedroom eyes. Her eyelids were well defined, but Jana believed her eye color was dull and boring. Hazel. Almost green, but hazel. It was just one of the reasons Jana wasn’t as pretty as her mother. And never would be.

  She knew all her faults and could live with them. Her eyebrows weren’t dark enough. Her chin was a bit too prominent. Her mouth was too big. When Jana smiled for real, it took over her face.

  Jana’s mother was a spectacular beauty, a once-famous cover girl model. She’d told Jana time and time again that being beautiful was dangerous. That Jana was lucky to be a little on the plain side, because just look at what being ravishingly beautiful had done to her mother.

  “When you’re beautiful, everyone sees a different story for you, but it’s not your story,” her mother explained. “Be glad you get to go through life being plain old Jana. You can define yourself rather than have someone else do it for you.”

  Jana wore waterproof mascara because she was on a date and didn’t want to smudge Michael’s shirt. Afraid that the bright lights of the bowling alley would wash out her features entirely, she carefully applied a new coating of peach lip gloss. It felt like silk on her lips. It made her feel pretty, even though she would never be as pretty as her mother.

  Jana smacked her lips in the mirror and smiled. But not too big a smile.

  “Sometimes, you have to make up your mind who you want and not worry about the little things that might get in the way,” Sherry said. “I’m not perfect, like you are. So I have to try harder.”

  Jana laughed. She wasn’t perfect. She caught Sherry’s stare in the bathroom mirror and saw the seriousness in her eyes. Sherry stared at Jana with a funny little pout that made her eyes look mean.

  “Little things?” Jana asked.

  “You know, other people.” Sherry shrugged. “Little things like that.”

  Strangely Jana found herself agreeing with the sophomore’s assessment of getting what you wanted in life. Other people wouldn’t get in the way of Webster and Haynes. Ever.

  “Also, I’m not perfect,” Jana said. “You want perfect, you should meet my mother. And just wait till you see me bowl.”

  Sherry grinned. This time it was for real. Her mean eyes twinkled.

  “And neither is Michael,” Jana continued. “We just happen to be perfect for each other.”

  Sherry’s purse was open on the vanity counter. Jana glanced at it and saw an aerosol spray on top of her other stuff.

  “Is that hair spray?” Aerosols ate holes in the atmosphere.

  Sherry closed her purse with a snap. “Pepper spray,” she said. “My dad’s paranoid. He won’t let me leave the house without it. I have enough to take out an entire football team.”

  “Well, if you have any trouble with Nathan, just let me know. Michael will make him behave.”

  Sherry stepped back from the mirror and did something Jana had never seen another girl do before. She tugged her T-shirt down in front and lightly rubbed the palms of her hands up and down over the points of her breasts. Jana had to turn around to keep from s
aying something rude. No wonder she needed pepper spray, Jana thought.

  They joined Michael and Nathan at the bowling carousel.

  The sound of heavy balls hitting the floor and rolling down the alleys echoed from wall to wall. The crash and fall of pins sounded almost like a war going on. People whooped and hollered. They jumped up and down and screeched.

  Michael sat behind the electronic scoreboard. As Jana walked toward him, she was overcome by a keen sense of déjà vu. She saw him twice in a row, sitting, entering their names on the tabulator keyboard. Jana wanted to tap him on the shoulder and ask him to leave with her. There were butterflies in her stomach that shouldn’t be there. Something was wrong tonight.

  Jana shook off the tickling of dread. Michael was with her and she was safe.

  Nathan and Sherry sat together on the half-circle bench behind Michael. Jana sat down next to Sherry to put on her bowling shoes. She carefully and evenly tugged the laces of her bowling shoes and tied them tightly. Then she tied each of the loops into a knot on top.

  “What are you doing?” Nathan asked. “Crochet?” Nathan laughed at his own joke. His laugh sounded like a motorcycle trying to start. That’s what he did when he drank beer. He laughed. He would laugh all night. It was so boring.

  Sherry bent forward to watch Jana tie the second knot in each of her shoelaces. Nathan accidentally kicked Sherry’s purse and the pepper spray rolled out. The sophomore must have been embarrassed by it, because she immediately got down on her knees in front of Jana and reached under the seats to retrieve the canister before anyone else could see what it was.

  While Sherry was bent over, Nathan made a face at Jana, bouncing his eyebrows and letting his tongue loll out of his mouth like a panting dog. Nathan was such a creep.

  “Jana, your turn,” Michael said. He turned around and winked at her. “Break a leg,” he added for good luck.

  Chapter Three

  JANA WAS UP.

  She stood and straightened the legs of her capri pants. They were light blue with vertical cream stripes. They made her legs look longer.

  Jana picked up her marmalade-colored house ball and her foot slipped out from under her on the polished-wood floor. Bowling was slipperier than she remembered. She caught herself on the carousel with her free hand and righted herself. Then she slipped again. Her right shoe slid out from under her like it had wheels or she was trying to stand on ice.

  She lifted her foot high to keep from falling.

  Jana’s left shoe caught sideways and she did a goofy dance. She leaned too far forward, then propelled herself upright as hard as she could. She raised her marmalade bowling ball over her head to try to keep her balance.

  It was no use. Her right foot slid away from her on its own.

  Jana heard Nathan’s laugh start up as she fell backward, the weight of the ball pulling her arm back over her shoulder.

  She held on to the eight-pound bowling ball like it was a life preserver. The ball hit the floor first. Her fingers were locked inside it. Jana’s head landed on the bowling ball when she finally fell. Her elbow stuck up in the air.

  Michael was nearby, but she didn’t see him when she fell. Her skull was cracked just a little, with her skin barely broken over it. The pain was instantly unbearable. Just as quickly, it went away.

  Air rushed inside Jana’s brain. Her dreams rushed out.

  She was three years old, sitting naked in a two-ring plastic swimming pool in her backyard in the middle of summer. Her mother wasn’t there.

  Then she was seven. There was a pony at her birthday party. Her mother wasn’t there. The pony had long white hair that fell over the front of its face.

  In the third grade, a boy called Jana a bastard child. She chased him until he tripped and fell. Then she kicked him because she didn’t know what else to do and the other kids at school were watching.

  Jana bought belted cargo shorts and flip-flops for her Ken doll.

  A picture of her mother stared at Jana from the cover of Vogue. It didn’t look like anyone Jana knew.

  Jana danced at her junior high prom. The boy she danced with took large steps to the side. Jana could smell the corsage of white carnations on her wrist.

  In the school parking lot, she choked on a cigarette and thought she was going to die.

  “Ye wouldn’t never leave me, would ye?” Jana asked Michael in the funny accent she had learned in order to play Abbie for a competition cutting from Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. Michael was Eben. They’d had a baby together in that play.

  Jana’s mother sat on the edge of her bed and wept. Her mother was beautiful even when she cried.

  In the back row of the movie theater, Jana removed her bra without taking off her sweater so Michael could feel her breasts. She had practiced for weeks.

  The memories were gone in a flash. Was someone kissing her? Air came in and her life ran out, sweeping away her question. Every sensation she ever felt evaporated. Except for the lasting taste of strawberries in her mouth.

  Fart, fudge, and popcorn. She was already dead.

  The girl at the desk in front of Arva said, “Ouch.”

  She had very pretty hair. It formed a lustrous fan across her shoulders and seemed to lift slightly as if held on a summer breeze.

  “Ouch.” Then in a minute, again. “Ouch, ouch.” Each time she said it, the girl’s hair and shoulders bounced.

  Mr. Fitzgerald continued writing on the board. Jana turned her attention to the boy in front of her. He had three inches of thick black hair that stuck straight out. It made his head look like a dark dandelion puff. When he held his head to the side, she could almost see his eyes. His cheekbones were prominent.

  He had looked at her when she first sat down and she noticed then that his dark brown eyes were round and wide, as if he had just been surprised. He had a smooth, round face to match.

  “Ouch,” the girl in front of Arva said.

  Jana shut her eyes and fought to concentrate. Mr. Fitzgerald sat at his desk. He opened a book to read. Their assignment was on the board.

  “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he had written in barely readable cursive. What about that which does? Answer in 250 words by the end of this period: Leave your notebooks on your desks. Have a good day.

  Jana recognized the initial quote. It was from the writings of Nietzsche, the German philosopher.

  “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” What about that which does?

  She was thinking it over when the round-faced boy in front of her turned in his seat and placed a note on her desk. He grinned at her in a shy way and turned back around. Jana opened the folded piece of paper. It read Hi. I’m Henry Sixkiller. Come here often?

  Jana couldn’t help it, she laughed. She put her hand to her mouth. Her fingers felt cold on her lips. She ducked her head over her open notebook, hoping no one had noticed the chortling sound she’d made.

  “Ouch,” the girl sitting across from Henry said quietly, with her peculiar little shoulder jerk.

  Jana worked on her essay.

  Love, she wrote, defeats death. She and Michael were as in love with each other as they had ever been. And one of them, it was now apparent, was dead.

  She hadn’t seen Michael when she fell. But he was there. He was so near. Still, she had died alone. That’s what troubled her now.

  Once she’d met Michael, once they’d kissed and she’d felt a magical, warm-blooded life move back and forth between them, Jana knew she would never live alone again. Like she had with her mother.

  It wasn’t fair that Jana would die alone. It just wasn’t.

  Romeo and Juliet died together. Old grandmas and grandpas in nursing homes died within days of each other. The plane went down and killed everyone on board, Jana and Michael locked in each other’s arms.

  Jana returned to her essay, adding a few paragraphs, and concluding, That which kills you doesn’t kill love. The philosopher who said suffering short of deat
h makes you stronger is critically flawed in his thinking because death doesn’t end how strong you are.

  I am still here. And I am still strong. I am strong because I am in love. What Nietzsche should have said is that love makes you strongest of all.

  Jana liked her essay. You didn’t get straight As through your junior year if you couldn’t write a couple hundred words that made sense. Jana only wished she could have read her work out loud. She was a whiz at dramatic interpretation.

  Sometimes she even made herself cry.

  Jana looked at the clock. The hands of the clock hadn’t moved since she first sat down at her desk. She rubbed her arms for warmth. The room was cold. She thought to check her cell phone for the time, then remembered she didn’t have it. Jana hoped it was in the dorm.

  She opened Henry’s note. At least he’d found a way to say hi. That was nice of him. Jana wrote a reply. She leaned over the top of her desk and tapped Henry on the shoulder with her pencil. She liked the way his hair stuck out all over and wondered how he got it that way. When he turned around, she handed him the note.

  Once in a lifetime, she’d written. Then she had signed her name and added of Webster and Haynes.

  • • •

  Time sat still. But Jana couldn’t.

  If she was really dead, Jana decided, then this wasn’t going to hurt. She jabbed her arm with her pencil.

  “Ow!”

  It hurt like crazy. Jana felt stupid. There was a spot of blood on her arm. She glanced at the back of the room to see if Mars was watching her.

  He was.

  Arva caught her eye as Jana turned from looking at Mars. Her roommate shook her head and silently mouthed the word no. Arva drew her index finger across her throat.

  The door banged closed and everyone in class looked up. Three Virgins had come into homeroom. They stood shoulder to shoulder at the front of the class. They wore their translucent white gowns over their nearly see-through skin. They glowed.

  The Virgin in the middle was a boy. He wore the same gown as the girls did. The three Virgins sang three notes in turn. It sounded like bells. Everyone in class closed their notebooks. The door opened and the Virgins walked into the hall. Mr. Fitzgerald was already gone.