So'd the Rooster

By James Lannan

Soon after Pops dies, Mary takes a notion to separate from her husband of seventeen years. Nothing in particular against Jules, it’s just that in her father’s absence, she has developed a strong craving for unconditional liberty.

To bring about the breakup in the most painless way possible, Mary asks her best friend, Tanny, who has considerable experience in the field of male seduction, to take Jules off her hands. The main problem with the scheme is her husband has no interest whatsoever in becoming Tanny’s lover or, for that matter, of deceiving his wife with any other woman either.

That is, until at a busy intersection one late autumn afternoon, a young lady of questionable repute--Regina by name--in full view of her cheerless boyfriend who happens to have a pistol tucked in his belt, climbs uninvited into Jules’s pickup and orders him to step on the gas. As a result of this incident, Jules becomes embroiled in an increasingly grave romantic exploit, while coincidentally, Mary veers from the marital path as well.

Unfortunately for her, the man with whom she seeks intimacy has a casual thing going with Tanny already, which excites friction between the women pals. Also contributing to their unease is a car wreck--arguably caused by Mary--in which the philanderer suffers serious injury and swears off women evermore.
In the alternate case of shame and blame, inveterate propriety as well as an insanely jealous thug boyfriend provide ample incentive for Jules to keep clear of Regina. But midlife foolishness and untoward circumstance force his continued participation in the doomed affair. And it doesn’t help either when his sixteen-year-old son learns what he’s up to and decides to pursue the comely sprite himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664140424

James Lannan

This book is James Lannan’s third published novel. Although he maintains an address in Wyoming, for much of the year, he roams about unfamiliar territory and listens often to strangers’ tales.

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So’d the Rooster

James Lannan

Copyright © 2020 by James Lannan.

Photo by Mike Pastalavich

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/03/2020

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

To Sira Coltrane

i am you

and you are me

ever we were

and ever we shall be

treva hume

I

I f a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a rooster to lay a brass door knob?

Pops used to pose me the riddle when I was little, expecting me to answer I give up. It was a verbal game we played that made us both laugh. I taught the riddle to my son when he was little, and he laughed too. Where did Pops learn the riddle? From his mother? I wonder. How far back does the family tradition reach? Back when folk were different. They must have been different back then because nowadays, when they hear the rooster riddle, children answer, Huh? Or they make a face as if they think you’re stupid, or sometimes they say, Search me. When I tried the riddle out on a couple of Mathew’s early friends, they said, Roosters don’t lay. So to make the riddle work nowadays you have to say Give up? before you deliver the punchline. And still nobody appreciates the rooster riddle. Contemporary folk don’t laugh at corny turns of phrase unless the words you use call up a raunchy scenario, or insult some famous personage, or belittle some minority group or other. The paradoxical innocence of my father’s generation is lost forever. Paradoxical? Well, his was the era of the Great Depression, of pitched battle fought between labor unions and mine owners, of crusades in Europe and Asia against a juggernaut of tyrants, of reverence for one true God and strict adherence to the authority of his dedicated followers. It was obvious during Pop’s epoch that white male descendants of Christian Europeans ran America and right that they should. His was the generation that accepted certain givens—correct grammar, accurate spelling, the privacy of sex, the sanctity of marriage, women’s place in the home, the red menace, the self-imposed limits of good taste, propriety, manners at the dinner table, deference to the host, courtesy of guests. His was the generation that played along. So when someone asked if a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half—well, more often than not, during his era, his listener would respond, I give up. It was part of a social dance, you see—I lead, you follow. That’s how riddles worked back then. That’s how the world worked back then. People had parts to play in a panorama of ceremony and custom: people understood what was going on. Sure, decadence and irreverence existed back then, but honest, upright citizens scrupulously avoided such practices.

Innocence is paradoxical. Complexity and conspiracy are required to engender it. Innocence presupposes trust in a cultural dance that proceeds for the benefit all. Sure, in one way, you follow, but in another, you lead. Hegel called the dynamics of the social order dialectic and pointed out the inviolate interdependence of master and slave. My father never heard of Hegel, but an understanding of the dialectics of social order was bred in his bones. If I had mentioned Hegel, he most likely would have said, Oh, you kids and your college educations. In his dotage as a retired plumber, he came off as a trite old fuddy-duddy who’d lost the thread of public discourse, whose opinion counted when the subject was baseball and not much else. He couldn’t comprehend how the hen and a half riddle had become passe, nor why nobody was ever going to say I give up, ever again. Fact is, nowadays, you don’t admit to giving up. Nowadays, even ignorance and innocence are assertive. Few people play along in a world being invented on the fly. Giving up is tantamount to admitting that you have no self-esteem, no confidence, no stomach for the social battles that rage. The reign of the hen and a half is over. Its last adherent died on a Thursday. He slipped from the grasp of ventilator, IV tubes, and vascular probes on July 27,1995, at 2:30 a.m. He as much as said, I give up, and then split the scene before he could hear the punch line. Rest in peace. That’s the punch line to the riddle that was you, Pops.

That’s the punch line, but it isn’t funny; there isn’t much that provides innocent hilarity anymore. Not as in your day, Pops, when laughter was a warm feeling people shared with no harm done. Nowadays, laughter ridicules; it draws lines of combat; its underlying taste is bitter; it is engaged to destroy an enemy. Nowadays, humor has an ax to grind. To myself in reflection, I sound embittered, but I’m not. I sound as if I lament the passing of a certain kind of innocence, but I don’t. I grieve for Pops, is all; I admit the loss of him and all that he represented to me, and thus, in time, I shall come to accept his absence. I’m actually a sophisticated woman; I realize on one level that grieving is a psychological process, that memories have to be sorted through the way I have sorted through the material goods Pops left behind—his family pictures; his dinner plates and silverware; his slippers, belts, and trousers; his watchman’s cap and ship’s clock. He was a WWII navy man, fought in the Mediterranean and the Pacific; he was a gunner’s mate, you see. All that has to be sorted through—retrieve the useful, chuck the junk. Memories and material goods comprise the flotsam of his sunken ship. On one level, I address grief coolly and rationally, for even when I weep and shake, there is a part of me that observes and advises, that nods and mumbles, Tears are good. The sorting through and accompanying pain are necessary antecedents of acceptance, I mention to myself. But on another level, all is chaos. Sometimes I nearly lose my grip. Sometimes I even wonder whether I truly loved Pops in the end, and sometimes I want incontrovertible proof that my esteem for him lasted throughout his entire life.

Obviously, I was a devoted daughter. I cared for him, went out of my way to visit him on holidays, never once forgot his birthday, cooked for him, gave the right response to his rooster riddle. I was his only offspring and the only woman in his life after his wife died when I was three. I never did find out why he failed to pursue other women once Katy passed away—we didn’t talk about things like that. There was a certain propriety we maintained in our talk, whose ease and comfort bound us to a dance we both knew the steps to. He formed me after all. He did so not by physical force, or by blackmail, or by threats, or by insults, or by extortion; he did so through careful adherence to innocence and ignorance. I played along, witnessed the outpour of rage and recrimination in the families of my friends, and considered myself lucky. I hugged Pops often, kissed him on the cheek. I adored his jet-black hair, which he combed back off his narrow forehead and bore practically to his coffin—the hair I inherited from him and to this day excites my pride. I admired his broad shoulders, small-knuckled hands, muscled paunch, big ridiculous nose, and gray hooded eyes; doted on him as a matter of course; sought his approval; asked his advice; sweated out that first introduction of Jules, the man who would become my husband. In short, I cherished Pops but can’t prove I loved him toward the end. Part of me says that’s stupid, of course you loved him all the while. What greater proof you need? You were devoted to him even after he became a helpless invalid. But if that’s the case, why did I resent his dependence on me during those final months? Why do I long still for something I can’t put my finger on? Once you’ve had love, you ought to be at peace. Why am I not at peace?

No doubt Pops assumed that love between father and daughter was a natural imperative. Just as love between a mother and her son is automatic. I can’t imagine anyone mothering Mathew and not loving him. It’s the spirit of the dance that counts, not the dance itself but the matrix within which the dance is choreographed. The same matrix provides ground for propriety, courtesy, and the hundreds of tiny steps we take to ensure the rigor of family and community. I’d say love is the glue of human interaction if not for the chaos of doubt that confounds my feelings for my dead father. People can be bound to each other by resentment too. Also by fear, habit, history, and sometimes because they can’t imagine what else is possible. From time to time, I wonder if Mathew loves me or whether we’re bound by fear, habit, or a species of innocence and ignorance of which I am not fully aware, and then I’m distraught because I have no idea what else is possible. I live for my son, and Pops lived for me. Lately, I’ve begun to suspect that’s a terrible mistake. I begin to second-guess myself with regard to interdependence. I begin to question, for example, whether Jules and I are bound in secondary fashion, if we stay together because we can’t bear the thought of discouraging Mathew. Not that Jules and I don’t get along. After seventeen years of marriage, we have successfully accommodated ourselves to each other. There are little courtesies we perform. How was your day? Would you like a cup of tea? Don’t get up. I’ll answer the phone. There has evolved a relaxed division of labor between us. I cook; he washes dishes. I vacuum carpet and polish windows; he mows grass and rakes leaves. We allow each other liberties. I meet for lunch with my friends; Jules drinks beer and shoots pool with his pal Sam. I attend seminars once in a while, sometimes out of town. Jules will toss a backpack and walking stick in the back of his pickup and go tramping in the hills. Neither of us considers our separate interests an affront. Neither of us feels slighted—we used to, but we don’t anymore. We have come to trust each other (as my father and I trusted each other), and never, once trust was established between us, have we had reason to doubt the wisdom of our arrangement.

I do not doubt, even lately, the wisdom of our arrangement; I only question (regret?) the inescapable nature of its inertia. Can wisdom be mistaken? I ask. Is choosing to be wise always the best course to take?

I once took an ethics class in college delivered by a man who argued that the query Why be reasonable? made no sense. He wondered what a person could possibly be asking after by the question. In other words, by asking the question, a person seeks reasons to be unreasonable, which is an outright contradiction. I felt stymied at the time by the professor’s logic. I felt manipulated. It seemed to me, and it still seems to me, that if reason is so all-fired unassailable, it should provide an absolute justification of itself. Well, it doesn’t. I’m a sophisticated woman who appreciates the impetus of a sound deductive argument, but I’m not always reasonable, nor do I feel that I always must be reasonable. The question Why be reasonable? may not make sense, but the sky doesn’t fall on me when I’m not.

So? What about wisdom? Does it make sense to ask Why be wise? or does this query fall into a similar logic trap as the reason question? And if it does, is the consequence of choosing to be foolish worse than choosing to be unreasonable?

Lately, I begin to suspect that the wise arrangement I have with my husband is a direct result of the wise relationship I had with my father. Don’t get me wrong. I am mostly pleased with the way Pops raised me, but I always felt there was unfinished business between us, a void that I expected him at any moment to fill. He never did. We never cast aside the courtesy and propriety of established convention to ponder the conspiracy and complexity that founded our relationship. He led; I followed. I never seriously questioned his guidance because things always worked out well while he lived. Worked out so well that I rarely strayed from the dance floor.

Another professor of mine—psychology this time—asserted that we tend to repeat throughout our lives the behavior patterns established by our parents. Thus, abused children are inclined to abuse their own children. Ergo, alcoholic fathers and mothers are likely to raise alcoholic sons and daughters. Hence, narrow-minded nincompoops are fairly certain to leave as their legacy narrow-minded nincompoops. Bad news for the country, judging from TV talk shows. Bad news for everybody when you consider the odds you’re up against in attempting to break out of a familiar behavior cycle. But since I had a wise and happy upbringing, I ought to relax and let the cycle run its course. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, Pops often repeated. My son is well adjusted; my husband seems content with the way things are going in our marriage; I’m not a neurotic, hysterical woman on the brink of despair. I’m just confused, is all; my problems will run their course if I keep them to myself. So what’s the point? Why this compulsion to take a monkey wrench to the whole business? Why do I feel empty, used up, or maybe unused? Why this inadvertent preoccupation with the question, what else is possible? I don’t know. Maybe I’m too sophisticated for my own good. Sometimes I feel that I don’t know the first goddamn thing. Lately, I feel that I haven’t carved my own piece out of the world.

Something bizarre ought to happen to me, an event so out of context with my wise, contented life that I can’t even imagine it. But it’s not going to happen because I’m stymied by reason, wisdom, and blameless convention.

But if something unimaginable happened to me, perhaps then I’d know what else is possible. Then I’d feel fulfilled, once and for all tested and not found wanting. Or maybe I’d discover hopeless inadequacy and just have to live with it. Good lord, Pops taught me I was capable of anything. Neither Jules nor Mathew have taught me any different. In my husband, I chose well. In my son, solid citizenship has been realized. Wow, that sounds self-satisfied. I am such a sophisticated and self-satisfied woman I disgust myself. That’s okay, but I’d prefer to find something unmistakable to be disgusted with. This is starting to sound maudlin, and maudlin is not my style. Reason and wisdom are my style. Bizarre is what I’m after, but reason and wisdom are all I have to work with.

I’m forty-three years old, and time is running out. If I’m going to make a fundamental change in my life, I better start soon. My husband’s forty-five. Time’s running out for him as well.

II

"W hat?"

You heard me correctly. I’d like you to take him off my hands.

I look past my friend Tanny out a vertical strip of glass, one of a file mounted like soldiers on parade in a red brick wall. The window grants narrow view of a lawn and young birch trees wired to angle iron posts. A concrete sidewalk and an asphalt drive front the junior high school building in which our dialogue takes place. Beyond, an oblong parking lot forested at regular intervals by lampposts provides grazing ground for several cars. The season is early fall, the beginning of the first trimester in the academic year. Two days of teacher conferences are under way. Tanny and I have taken time between meetings with our colleagues to negotiate the shedding of a husband.

And how do you propose—?

Your call. You’ve always been interested in Jules. And you’re not an uninspired woman.

My dear friend’s expression evades definition. Should it be shocked, or should it be indignant? Should it convey sympathy, or should it manifest concern? Should Tanny be flattered or amused? I gaze out the window to give Tanny time to collect her wits. Having taken several days to prepare for the transaction set in motion, mine is the practiced outlook. Give the lady opportunity to digest the offer, I advise myself: be forthright and determined, answer her questions honestly, admit not a smidgen of doubt. The danger is Tanny will conclude I’ve gone off the deep end. As student counselor, she has been trained to spot emotional instability in abnormal exchanges. Above all, remain steady, I tell myself.

True, I admire Jules, but com’on, Mary, that’s as far as it goes. I’ve always thought you were lucky to have him.

I’m offering to transfer my luck to you.

Tanny fumbles in the pocket of her gray slacks for cigarettes and lighter. It is against the rules to smoke on school grounds, but the rules may be overlooked under current circumstance. My friend presses a fag to her full pink lips; flicks her plastic lighter once, twice; and then remembers the rules. She snatches the cigarette from her mouth and jams the whole business back into her pocket. She brushes wavy bangs off her high forehead and narrows her eyes at me.

I turn slowly from the window, meet Tanny’s gaze, but then look away to avoid an attack of giggles. The woman appears fit to be tied. That’s what Pops might have said.

The strain, Tanny begins, pauses, and raises a hand to my shoulder. It has only been a couple of months since your father passed away. I can guess at your pain. But you’re a strong person, and grief will pass. It may not seem so now, but you will survive the crisis. Be patient. And beware of compulsive behavior.

Actually, I answer with my attention on the birch trees, I’ve never felt more in control of my faculties. What is it about autumn light that renders dying vegetation astonishing? Soft and yet intense, diminished and yet so bright, color fair erupts with translucence. Can the answer be found in physical causation—tilt of the earth, the plant’s position along its orbit—or are we inhabitants of a cosmic mote apprehensive about the dormancy soon to come, the gray time, the inevitable span of overcast sky for days on end? The birch trees have begun to turn; their outer leaves bear subtle cast of gold. "Do psychologists still accept the phrase control of my faculties," I ask the expert, or is the locution outmoded?

Tanny drops her hand and lowers her chin, examines me over the wire rims of her spectacles. The temptation is to jump ahead. You’re telling yourself that since you understand what happened, you have achieved acceptance. But it’s a form of avoidance really. Emotions don’t work as fast as reason. They’re more hesitant in the manner and pace at which they present themselves. Their arrival often comes as a complete surprise. Feelings are unpredictable, you see.

Denial, right? You’re saying I’m in denial.

Nothing to be ashamed of. Her reassurance, also an emotion if I’m not mistaken, comes quick. It’s a normal reaction to catastrophic loss.

We’re in agreement about loss, I say and face my cohort. I can do so now without fear of succumbing to inappropriate laughter. Pops is gone. That fact makes me firm as a mountain.

Of course, I’m right. Take hold of yourself. With your father’s passing, you must become your own anchor. I know it’s hard. Your world has been shaken to its foundation, but you have to move on. You’re still young, and you’ve survived.

Middle-aged, I say to set the record straight.

Forty-three is young, Tanny counters.

Young, old, middle-aged, what’s the difference in this case? Point is, up to the present, I have accommodated myself to remote guidance. While Pops lived, I felt obliged to act as he approved. If there was denial on my part, it happened before he died, not after. Otherwise, why would I wait for him to fall silent before tending such an offer?

I think he’d disapprove.

Probably call me harebrained.

What makes you think you’re not?

I wince, beset by a sudden fantasy of Pops listening in. Of course, he disapproves of my scheme. He’s disappointed and hurt. I wish he’d say, Jesus wept and Moses slept, as was his wont on occasion, but he keeps his own counsel in my fantasy. I regret not having spoken my mind to Pops while I had the chance. But I was too caught up in order, comfort, and the solace granted in doing the right thing. Only, the right thing doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. At the edge of the right thing, I’ve discovered another thing that is lost in translation. I am on the verge of stepping into an unknown territory and yet unable to proceed free of my absent father’s silent censure.

"Look, Tanny. My offer, though admittedly unconventional, is nonetheless sensible. You appreciate Jules and entertain affection for him. You blush, that’s touching, but don’t let embarrassment act as a showstopper. It’s by no means a bad thing to be attracted to Jules. He’s a devoted partner, conscientious, and a wizard in bed. Plus, he works his butt off. He remodeled our kitchen, and