JiveBlog

LEWISTON, Maine — Justin Juray curled up in bed with his three dogs, knowing he should leave the house and get over to his bowling alley. But he couldn’t.

Sometimes there were days like this, bad days, days when he struggled to be around people. His wife, Samantha, told him she loved him and offered to come home. He told her no.

Almost six months had passed since a gunman burst into Just-In-Time Recreation, the couple’s bowling alley, the start of a rampage at two locations that left 18 people dead in the worst mass shooting in Maine’s history.

Now they were close to reopening to the public, beginning with a special event for the customers and first responders who had been there the night of Oct. 25.

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By the time Justin managed the 15-minute drive to the bowling alley last Wednesday, the gathering was already underway.

Trained counselors sat at a table near the entrance. Inside, survivors and relatives of the victims took in the remodeled interior — new floors, new carpet, new paint — as they cried and hugged.

Justin spoke with relatives of Bob and Lucy Violette, a youth bowling coach and his wife who were killed in the shooting. He saw Tom Giberti, a longtime employee who was shot multiple times in the legs.

And then there was Samantha, making sure there was a steady supply of pizza and hot dogs, keeping herself busy as a way of coping.

Justin looked around the room: This was their livelihood, the place where they had poured their savings and their dreams. He saw people smiling, some of them even bowling. They told him the place looked great.

The support they’ve received — from family, friends, the community, even strangers — has been “amazing,” Justin said. He paused, and his breath caught. “I’d trade it all for that night back,” he said, and began to weep.

Unexpected help

At first, Justin was convinced they would never reopen. Two of their employees were dead. So were two regular customers on a night out; a father and his 14-year-old son bowling together; and a beloved bowling coach and his wife.

For businesses in their position — the sites of mass violence — there is no recipe, no right or wrong way to proceed.

Some proprietors have shut their doors. A Monterey Park dance studio where 11 people were killed in 2023 quietly closed. Others have reopened at varying intervals: A Buffalo supermarket where 10 people were killed in 2022 opened two months later.

Sometimes, the violence erases the very notion of a future: in Newtown, Conn., and Uvalde, Tex., officials decided to demolish the buildings where the two deadliest school shootings in U.S. history took place.

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The mass killing in Lewiston, a small city on the Androscoggin River, was the worst in the country in 2023. The shooter — army reservist Robert Card — gunned down victims at Just-In-Time Recreation, then drove four miles to Schemengees Bar & Grille, where he opened fire a second time. Kathy Lebel, the owner of Schemengees, has said she does not plan to reopen at that location.

Justin, 43, and Samantha, 34, were still new to the bowling business. As recently as 2021, they were just regular customers. One night, the owner handed out a flier saying he would close by May. Justin brought the piece of paper home to Samantha and asked her what she thought.

They bought the bowling alley for $150,000, emptying their savings. Samantha’s parents helped out when they couldn’t get a loan. It reopened in August under a new name: Just-In-Time Recreation, a reference to their last-minute maneuver to save it from closing (Justin says it’s not named after him).

After the shooting, Justin didn’t even want to go back into the building. He was barely sleeping and felt like he was stumbling through his days in a fog. He had trouble remembering things.

Samantha understood Justin’s reluctance. When Card opened fire, she was in the kitchen. She stepped through the door and saw him shooting people. She turned around and told two employees to get in the walk-in fridge and stay there. After Card left, she looked for survivors.

She stayed for more than two hours. Someone needed to show law enforcement where to find the security camera footage, then shut down the bowling machines and the kitchen appliances. Three days later, it was Samantha who unlocked the doors for the team charged with cleaning and removing surfaces covered with blood.

Justin didn’t return for about a week. Before he even made it to the entrance, he paused to cry beside a tree at the back of the building. When the shots rang out that night, Justin had been bowling with his father. They ran to an emergency exit. Once outside, his father, who has emphysema, couldn’t go any further. He lay down under the tree.

Justin remembered lying on top of his dad to protect him and sobbing, “Samantha’s dead, Samantha’s dead.” He had seen three muzzle flashes in the direction of where he thought Samantha was standing. It would be more than two hours before he found out she was alive.

Within weeks of the shooting, the couple decided to keep the business going, both for themselves and for the community. One time, not sure if he was awake or dreaming, Justin thought he heard Bob Violette’s voice telling him to reopen.

“We put everything into this place,” Samantha added. It wasn’t just their job, it was where they saw friends every week, more often than members of their own families. Reopening meant Just-in-Time would be a place where people could “still make memories,” she said.

Their landlord promised his support no matter what they chose. The couple had signed a 10-year lease, but the landlord said they were free to walk away without penalty. When they said they would reopen, the landlord told them to order new floors, offering to pay for the remodeling before insurance kicked in.

Other sources of help were unexpected. Frank DeSocio, executive director of the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America, asked for the names of the bowling alley’s employees and sent each one a $250 gift card before Christmas.

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In January, the BPAA flew Justin and Samantha to a conference in New Orleans. DeSocio had told Justin to make a wish list and the organization would see what it could do. So Justin wrote it up: The machines on their tenpin lanes were 40 years old or more, and three had been hit by bullets. Their scoring systems were outdated. They needed new bumpers and gutters.

The BPAA gave Just-In-Time Recreation a new scoring system, complete with sleek black consoles. The group put in new automatic bumpers and gutters and sent an expert from Kentucky who has been fixing bowling machines for four decades to spend a week in Maine.

Less helpful, according to Justin, was their insurer, K&K Insurance, a subsidiary of Aon based in Indiana whose motto is “insuring the world’s fun.” Payments were delayed and Justin was bounced to different people at the company, he said. Finally, he hired a private adjuster. A spokesperson for Aon did not respond to a request for comment.

A dry run

The night after the survivors returned to the bowling alley, Justin and Samantha invited back members of their Thursday bowling league. It was a soft opening, a dry run for the main event on May 3 when the doors will open to the public. There will be food trucks, speeches, a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Wearing gray shorts and a red Philadelphia Phillies hoodie, Justin sat at a high table near the bar last Thursday and watched the scene. People drinking beer and eating pizza. Music on the sound system. Bowlers standing in a rough circle near the pool tables, their voices loud with affection and familiarity.

Some of them described a feeling of hesitation, a heaviness in the chest about returning for the first time since the shooting. Jamey Bissonette, 53, used to have dinner and sit at the bar before his weekly league night. Last Thursday, he sat in his car and ate a bag of chips, unsure what to do.

As soon as he went inside, the doubts evaporated. “Once I got through the door, I was home,” Bissonette said. “It’s a family, it’s hard to explain.”

The bowlers walked around the new interior. Above some lanes are photos of Lewiston donated by a local company, including one of an iconic sign atop a former mill: the word “hopeful” lit in marquee lights. Mounted on a wall behind the front desk are 18 painted bowling pins, each bearing the name of a victim of the Oct. 25 attack.

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Aside from adding cameras, Justin decided against other security measures. “We’re a family-friendly, fun environment,” he said. “I’m not going to put an armed guard at the door.”

Kenny Moore, 43, a member of the Thursday league, was talking with friends in animated tones. The night of the shooting, he was helping coach the youth league. He ushered some kids out an exit then went back inside, a decision that still haunts him. He stayed with Lucy Violette until an ambulance arrived. She died at the hospital.

Moore has been coming to the bowling alley since he was a kid. The building is “as familiar to me as my own house,” he said. His older brother bowls in the same league. So does his nephew. “I need this,” he said. “I need to look forward to that night of the week that I get to come in and vent, let off steam” — and try to bowl a perfect score.

Moore is a hunter and owns four AR-15 style weapons. He’s not sure anymore why he has them or how much longer he will keep them. The United States is “the only place in the world where this happens over and over and over,” Moore said. “This is a sickness. And it’s kind of our sickness.”

Nearby was Giberti, 70, who has worked at the bowling alley for as long as anyone can remember. A former manager, he had already tried to retire once before. When Justin and Samantha took over, he came back. He was shot at least five times on Oct. 25 as he pushed children to safety behind the bowling lanes. A bullet is still lodged in his calf.

At the event for survivors and first responders the previous night, Giberti sought out the police officer who had dragged him to safety and tightened the tourniquets on his legs. They walked through the narrow passageway behind the lanes, recalling their rush toward help. They exchanged numbers.

Giberti has one wish for the grand opening. “I want to see this place packed,” he said.

While many employees have returned, a few have not. Dylan Harvey, 32, was working as a mechanic the night of the shooting. Now the sound of Just-In-Time’s bowling machines makes him feel like he is about to have a panic attack. He’s not sure he’ll ever work there again.

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One of the bowling league’s leaders clapped and hollered to get everyone’s attention. There was an item on the agenda: what to do with $2,400 in prize money from their September-to-May season that had been cut short.

Someone suggested the league keep it. Then Bissonette spoke up. Why not give it to the house, so we have a place to bowl?

Another bowler seconded the motion. There was no opposition. Justin had been laughing a moment earlier but his expression turned serious. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He knew these people and how hard they worked. They were giving money away to support something they love. “Without hesitation,” Justin said. “Without hesitation.”

The bowlers broke up to chat. Some gravitated toward the lanes. The room filled with the familiar thud and clatter of rolling balls and tumbling pins. Samantha sat behind the front desk entering menu items into their new ordering system.

As the bowlers began to drift out the front door, Justin dispensed hugs and handshakes. “Hey, thank you all for coming!” he called out. “Looking forward to seeing you all again soon.”

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