On a Roll

Chapter 3-2

“Your mom called.” Josh looked up from his bed where he was folded into an uncomfortable pretzel position, curled around a battered hardback full of 18th Century poetry, the bright yellow USED stickers running down the spine.

“Uh-huh.” Beau hung up his backpack.

“No. Don’t uh-huh at me,” Josh said. Beau’s roommate, a skinny, short boy with an unfortunate beard on the bottom of his pointed chin, looked up at Beau over his hipster glasses. “She was very adamant. You call her back. Before you do anything else. She’s called every twenty minutes since three.”

“Oh jeez. I’m sorry,” Beau said.

“Don’t be sorry, just call her.” Josh turned back to his book, licked his finger, and turned the page. “Or I promise, I will wake you up at O-dark thirty and read Edward Evans poetry to you at top volume.”

“Who?”

“Exactly!”

“Has anyone told you that you are both very weird and exceedingly annoying?”

“All the time, man.” Josh rolled over on his back, holding the tome at arm’s length. “All the f*****g time.”

The phone was not actually a snake. It wasn’t going to bite him. Beau checked his cell phone. Texts from Vin, three texts from Ann-Marie about the fund-raising committee, texts from his girlfriend back at home that he was ignoring. Thirteen voice mail messages from his mother. He’d turned the ringer off for class a few days ago and forgotten to turn it back on. Ah, bliss.

“Pick up the phone, Beau.” Josh hadn’t moved, wasn’t even looking at him.

“Right.” Beau picked up the handset, cradled it between his ear and his shoulder, and dialed his home phone. He listened to the clicks and beeps as the number hit the college switchboard. Maybe he would get really lucky and hit his mom’s phone at the same time she tried to call him again. Oh, if only it was busy, no blood, no foul.

No way. The phone rang. Beau sighed, sat down at his aged, duct-tape repaired desk chair and tried to get comfortable.

“Watkins’. How y’all doing?” his mother said in her soft drawl.

Big breath. “Hey, Mom.”

“Beau!”

“Yeah,” he said. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? You’re asking me what’s—” Joanna Watkins started. Beau counted; his mother was notorious for her ‘count to ten’ lectures. Sure enough, at his tenth breath, she started up again.

“You haven’t called, you haven’t answered your cell phone, or your electronic mails.”

“You sent me an e-mail?” That’d be the day.

“No. But I’ve spoken with Donna’s mother and she says that Donna is—”

“I don’t want to talk about Donna,” Beau said, flat. No room for compromise.

“Did y’all have a fight?”

“Look, Momma, that’s not your concern. I just don’t want to talk about that, okay? Did you need me for something?”

“I need you to call your family once in a while,” she said. She coughed, recomposed herself. “How’s school? Do you like your roommate? What are classes like? Are you eating enough greens?”

“School is great, Momma,” Beau said. “I love school. And Josh is fine, or leastways he was before you started terrorizing him. Now you got him threatening to read poetry at me, so rest assured, he took you right serious. Classes are, honest, a lot of work. I ain’t never been much for studying, an’ some of my professors are mad-crazy for readin’ outside the course material. Which is why I ain’t called. Been real busy.”

His cell phone buzzed in his hand.

Vin: U want 2 grab some pizza?

Beau squeezed the phone uncomfortably between his ear and shoulder, holding it steady while he typed out a reply. “How’s everyone?”

At that point, it was easy enough to tune his mother out. She talked long and expressively about his brother’s upcoming wedding and the plans for adding another barn that his father had. She covered the neighbor’s recent break-in; the would-be robber got a face full of what was usually a very sweet sheep dog and was probably traumatized for life. The robber, that was. The sheepdog was fine. Beau’s cousin, Kate, had gotten a new role in an upcoming film, nothing big, mind you, just a few lines, but it could be a start, you know. Beau nodded, even though she couldn’t see him, and said yeah in appropriate places.

It’s a good thing I’m gay. Even more than the norm, he did not understand women. He didn’t want to understand women, and more than half the time he really just wished they’d stop. Talking. Oh. My. God.

Beau: When I get off the phone? 10 mins? Bacon?

Vin: Ur the man. Bacon it is.

“Look, Momma,” Beau interrupted a tirade about the county adding another storm water tax, “I gotta run. Gonna grab some dinner with my friends.”

The phone was already on the way to the cradle when his mother yelled, “Eat something green!” just before he hung up.

“Be careful there,” Josh observed, looking over the edge of his book, “Your Dixieland is showing.”

Beau grinned, somewhat shamefaced. “Yeah, that happens sometimes. Sorry.”

“I’m sure the ladies think it’s adorable. I bet they fall all over that s**t,” Josh said. “Poor me, I’m pure Chicagoan. I need, you know, a gimmick to get girls to talk to me.”

“I’ll throw you my spares, if you want?”

“That’d be uber-fab.”

That’d be all of them. “Gonna go for a slice with some of my friends. You want to join us?”

“No, thanks,” Josh said. “I’ve still got three more chapters of this crap before class tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll let you get to it.”

“Rapture.”