ED ROONEY'S DAY OFF

Soon-to-be retired head principal, Ed Rooney, had just barely survived the final days of a grueling court trial where a female ex-student had accused him of molesting her in his office at Shermer High when his one reluctant witness, his own personal secretary, Grace, finally came through for him at the last minute and cleared his name.

Outside the steps of the courtroom, Rooney pulled Grace to one side, incandescent with rage that she had taken an age to turn up in his most desperate hour of need.

"What happened to you for Chrissake? Did you forget to set your alarm for the last week? Anyone would think you were enjoying seeing me get cooked alive in there."

"If you want the truth I was jealous Ed," Grace said tightening his loosened red tie knot that had some faded coffee stains on it.

"Jealous? What for?"

"Why didn't you molest me? All those years of me calling you 'Dirty Harry' and for what?"

"I didn't do it Grace. That's the whole point. You were in the same room as the girl for Chrissake! That's why I'm standing on the outside of the building and not incarcerated inside a six by eight prison cell."

Of course, Grace always knew she would eventually speak up for Ed but she liked to make him sweat a bit first. She'd covered for a multitude of his sins over the many decades working together even if she knew in this particular instance he was innocent.

"Well, you're cleared now and you've got the rest of the day off so what are you going to do with yourself?"

"I'm going to think very seriously about firing you and replacing you with someone who doesn't forget to turn up for my crucifixion. Jesus, Grace, you're a real piece of work. You remind me of my mother."

Grace, incapable of being offended or remotely wounded by Ed Rooney's words, just smiled sweetly and dabbed at her boss's sweaty brow with a tangerine-scented wet wipe.

"Hey, that smells nice," Rooney said, softening somewhat. Grace knew it didn't take much to calm Ed down but she resented the fact he barely acknowledged her efforts after all their many years working together. After he'd divorced his long-suffering wife she had sort of hoped they might find some late-blooming romance but feared her love for him was unrequited.

"Well, if you change your mind and want to do something together later be sure to let me know, won't you?"

"If there's one thing I can assure you of Grace, it's that I will absolutely not be calling you later."

And with that Ed Rooney disappeared into Shermer and found the nearest bar to celebrate the clearing of his 'good' name.

"What you want, Mister?" the pale-looking woman behind the 'Dead-End' bar said in a depressed tone as if she'd had all the joy sucked out of her like a popsicle.

"Beer. Bud," Rooney replied.

"I ain't your bud."

"No. I meant Bud. The brand?"

She was clearly in no mood to engage in conversation with Ed Rooney; but he failed to read the signs and pressed her further, convinced he recognised her from someplace.

"I recognise you. Did you go to Shermer High?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"Your face. It seems familiar."

"Look Mr Rooney. I know who you are and judging from what I read in 'The Daily Shermer' about what you been getting up to of late I'd much rather you didn't stick around in my bar."

"Your bar? You're the owner?"

"Well, no. But I'm tight with the guy who owns it and if he finds you in here, he's sure to kick your ginger ass out the door."

Rooney, not looking for any more drama, decided to walk away from the hostile barmaid and headed out the entrance of the bar.

But before he stepped onto the street he turned round to face the woman one final time.

"Bueller. Jeannie Bueller. I thought I recognized you. What the hell happened to you? You were an A student once upon a time."

"Crack is what happened and if you don't leave right now I'm going to crack you over the head with the broken-off pool cue I got ready for perverts like you."

Trying some last-minute diplomacy, Rooney tried to wrest some more information out of the deathly-looking Jeannie.

"Okay. I'm leaving. Just one more thing though. What happened to your brother if you don't mind me asking?"

"The fuck you care. He's an artist."

"Piss artist more like," Rooney muttered under this breath.

"The fuck you say?"

"Nothing. I'm leaving."

And with that, Jeannie Bueller hurled the pool stick at her old headmaster but it was too late, he was already well out of the door.

Having looked up 'Bueller's Gallery' in the Yellowbook, Rooney thought he'd swing by to see how his precocious nemesis had aged.

"Nothing like the ravages of time to bring your enemies to heel," he said gleefully to himself as he got strange looks from some of the bedraggled homeless he passed by without a thought to spare them some change.

Time had been fairly kind to Rooney and he thanked God every day for the remaining strands of red hair still clinging on for dear life to his perpetually sweaty scalp.

It may have been beneath a man who had won numerous awards for his professionalism as a principal to wish baldness on an ex-student, but he now wished it more than anything, more than he wished Santa was real when he was five years old.

Headed down the narrow side alley that led to 'Bueller's Gallery', there was despair and hopelessness to the location that filled Rooney's heart with sheer joy.

'Artist, my ass. Should have listened to me, bucko!"

Pushing the glass door of the 'gallery' to, Rooney stepped in with the confidence of a Bond villain.

"Hello?"

Silence. There was nothing but an eerie quiet dustiness to the place and very little artwork on the walls that he could see. Just a whole load of distressed old retro 1980s pieces of junk that had price tags hanging from them.

"This is what happens when you skip school, I guess."

"What's that?"

Rooney spun round on a dime as he found himself face to face with a forty-year-old Ferris Bueller who, to his great dismay, still had a full head of hair and no bifocals anywhere to be found.

"Bueller."

"Mr Rooney?"

"I like what you've done with the place," the head principal said sardonically.

Ferris, seemingly oblivious to his sarcasm, took the compliment as it wasn't intended, much to Rooney's irritation.

"You looking for something to buy or you just came by to say hey?"

"I was curious to see how the great Ferris Bueller turned out after all the hype surrounding your great teenage celebrity had faded away."

"I'm still here. How about you? I saw your mug shot in the paper the other day."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear my good name has been cleared."

Ferris smirked in that inimitable way that used to vex Rooney so greatly.

"Glad to hear it. So, you'll be staying at Shermer as Principal?"

"If I could survive the Bueller years you can be damn sure I can survive whatever bullshit fake accusations they throw at me."

Still wearing the same beige and black leather jacket, Rooney couldn't help but goad his ex-student.

"You still haven't outgrown the jacket I see. What is it, Ferris? Arrested development?"

"I could say the same for you. You're still wearing the same ill-fitting suit and tie."

"At least I got a proper job though. Not some eBay junkyard where the past seemingly goes to die."

Rooney was so proud of his astute observation he was tempted to write it down immediately in his little moleskine notepad tucked away in his jacket pocket.

"Yeah. You're right Mr Rooney. I've failed. I couldn't live up to my own legend. You have the opposite problem though, I imagine."

"Well, Ferris. Maybe if you'd listened to me back in the day you might not be counting paltry pocket change to pay for your evening meal."

"Look, Mr Rooney, I'd love to chat but I got a funeral to attend."

"Oh, yeah? Whose funeral is it for? Your dead grandmother?"

Ferris smirked again which irked Rooney who hated how the little shit seemed unphased by his quips.

"Fry. Cameron Fry."

Unable to feel any remorse because of his blind hatred for Ferris, Rooney kept swinging.

"What happened? He kill himself because he thought you were gonna save him with your superhero bullshit?"

'Actually, that's not far off. They found him dead, hanging from a tree in the woods at his father's old place that he'd inherited. We actually hadn't talked in two decades so it's safe to assume he didn't expect me to save him, though he has left me something in his will."

It had taken a while, but Rooney was starting to feel the faintest pangs of remorse for his avowed enemy standing directly in front of him. He no longer appeared to pose the same threat to his authority that he once did.

"Well, I'm sorry I guess. I never knew him too well."

"Well, as I said Mr Rooney. I better get going."

And as Ferris locked up the gallery and headed back out into the blinding sunlight of the street, Rooney followed not far behind.

"Say Bueller? You fancy a beer sometime?"

"A beer?" Ferris was taken by surprise by Ed Rooney's suggestion and didn't quite know how to respond to the invitation.

"Sometimes a man gets lonely and it'd be good to have someone to talk to."

He felt sort of naked admitting his loneliness to the kid who'd made his life a living hell but something about the melancholy of seeing him looking so ordinary had softened his heart somehow.

"Yeah, sure. Why not."

"You know the 'Port In A Storm' bar downtown?"

"Yeah."

"Swing by later after your funeral. I'll be there and I'll even buy you a drink. Just one drink, mind."

"Say around eight?"

"Perfect."

And with that agreed upon, the two men went their separate ways.  

It was ten at the bar and the little shit had shown no sign of turning up as he'd promised he would.

"Pour me another slug would you Mickey," Rooney barked at the obese bartender who was yet another ex-pupil of his.  

Staring at the dark honeyed gold of his double whiskey, Rooney incanted a curse at the kid who would forever be his enemy as if he was some sort of embittered sorcerer.

"Bueller. Let joy be forever denied to you, you spoilt fucking brat."

It was at that precise moment a red sports car sped past the 'Port In A Storm' but it never once occurred to Rooney that it was Ferris. Rooney had always been just a fraction of a second behind the truancy king of 1985, just like Wile E. Coyote with Roadrunner.

Knocking back his drink determined to forget the sour end to his day off, Rooney now even considered drunk calling Grace on his phone.

Desperate measures called for desperate times.

Besides, he could always call in sick the next day.

"