Someone shouts, “We all get ponies, right? Tell us we get ponies.”
“You wouldn’t fit on a pony, Neil,” someone shouts back, to be met with good-natured hoots and laughter.
“How about a party?” someone else says. “If you want to make it up to us, we could go for a big summer bash. Free booze for all.”
I bristle a little at the “make it up to us” part, but I keep my smile pasted on as others joke and laugh and agree that yes, a party is always good.
“You know,” I say, “that might not be such a bad idea. How does Friday sound?”
I glance over at Phil and then Isabel. Isabel hesitates, and I can see her working her head around the free-alcohol part. But then it hits: the moment when she realizes it doesn’t matter. That she’s about to be sitting on a very large stack of useless credits and useless alcohol.
“Why not,” she calls. “Friday it is. Free booze for all.”
“Within limits,” Dalton cuts in. “We’ll raise the nightly maximum by one drink. But it’ll be free. It’ll all be free.”
Shouts greet that. Whoops and laughter and then one voice cutting through the rest, saying, “You’re serious, right?”
“Fucking serious,” Dalton says.
The laughter slowly fades, and a sense of discomfort seeps in, as some begin to realize that we don’t do this for any other occasion.
“What’s wrong?” a voice calls. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing’s wrong, per se,” I say, raising my voice to be heard. “I do have news, though. News that will make some of you very happy.” I take a deep breath. “The council is shutting us down.”
“Shutting down the Roc?” someone shouts. “Can they do that?”
“Not the Roc,” I say. “Everything. They’re closing down Rockton.”
TWENTY-THREE
There is chaos after that. We control it as best we can, and of course, I second-guess how I delivered the news, but in the end, I don’t think there was a better way. It is what it is, and they deserved to know. I make that clear, and there’s self-interest in that—well, self-interest on behalf of all of us.
We didn’t want to hide this from you. We want you to know and understand and be prepared. We know we lost your trust, and here we hope to regain a little, even if it won’t be needed for long.
I also blame the council. I totally blame the council. Fuck them, as Dalton would say.
Fuck the council.
I have spent two years smoothing things over for them. I’ve always been aware that, whatever our grievances, we cannot let the town see the schism. It’s like your parents arguing. Worse, it’s like divorced parents arguing, while the children are living with one parent yet reliant on the goodwill—and financial support—of the other. We could not drag our residents into our disputes. Better for them to think all is progressing with no more than the usual relationship bumps.
Now I am like the parent who has been covering for their former spouse all this time. Protecting the kids from knowing that their other parent is an abusive bastard who doesn’t give a shit about them. There’s no need to smooth anything anymore, and I am not letting Dalton take the blame. Not letting Anders take it either, whatever bullshit story the council spun.
I’m sure there are residents who will still blame us. Who will still blame Anders. But I get the feeling that the Venn diagram between “thinks Rockton’s leadership is corrupt” and “doesn’t want to be here anyway” is close to a perfect circle. Maybe those residents should thank us for our “incompetence.”
More, though, are in shock. That’s the tough part. Seeing those faces. Seeing their worry and disbelief and fear. Mostly the fear.
The questions come then. Endless questions, some about the practicalities of moving out, others about what comes next, and still others about whether this is definite. Is there no way of stopping it? No chance to reverse the council’s decision?
These are the hardest questions to answer. They’d have been easy before. Yes, we’re fighting. Yes, we still have hope.
But we’ve moved on, and there’s guilt there. We know there is no hope for Rockton, but we feel as if we should still fight for the residents who are afraid to go home again, for those who aren’t ready to go home again. It’s like telling desperate factory workers there’s no chance of keeping their workplace open, while we’ve already secured a position elsewhere.
This is for the best, though. That’s what we’ll say, in the days to come. We’ll say it to them, but mostly to each other.
Isabel was right. We’ve been trying to save an institution that doesn’t deserve saving. Keeping Rockton open would help these people, but not all those to come, as the situation worsens.
So we talk. Talk, talk, and talk, until Phil reads the list of names for the first two departure flights and asks those people to join him at the Roc for further instructions. Then the meeting is adjourned.
Adjourned but not over. Phil gets to escape with his small group. We’re stuck, like politicians at a press conference without security to escort us out. They have questions. So many questions about their personal situations.
“Talk to Phil.” That’s what Dalton says, and it feels cruel, dumping it onto Phil’s shoulders, but that will be his job here. Direct questions to one person so residents don’t get conflicting answers.
We’re making our way from the crowd when someone snags my sleeve. It’s Neil, who works in maintenance.
“You’ll need to speak to Phil,” I say.
“It’s not about the closure,” he says. “It’s about Jolene.”
I inwardly sigh. Can I just say “screw it” and “I don’t care” for the next two weeks? No. Well, I could, but I won’t.
“What’s she done?” I say.
Even as I speak the words, the memory from this morning twinges. I’m about to answer my own question when he says, “No one’s seen her today.”
“I heard something about her not showing up for work. I presume she hasn’t been seen since?”
“Right. Mateo came by this morning. I live right next door to Jolene. I’m on afternoon shift, so he woke me up asking about her. I said I hadn’t seen her, but I kept an eye out. She’s…” He shrugs. “Jolene’s not the most popular person in Rockton, but she’s been nice to me. I had food poisoning a couple of months ago—my own fault, leaving food out—and she brought your sister to my place, picked up soup for me, checked in on me.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Yesterday evening. She was heading out for the evening. When Mateo came by, I figured maybe Jolene was sleeping someplace else. But she still hasn’t shown up for her shift, and I started thinking about the time I got that food poisoning. I could barely get out of bed to answer the door. I know you guys have keys for everyone’s place.”
“You want us to check on her.”
“Please.”
“I’ll go do that right now.”