Rose is a nervous and flighty woman who is haunted by the past and obsessed with destruction; due to her hemophilia, she's closed herself off from the world.
While he is waiting for his rig to be repaired, he wanders into Rose's store looking for a one-night stand.
Rose then invites him over to her apartment and they start to argue about issues like her old and cranky neighbor and her boarded up window.
Towards the end of the play, the reader finds out that Rose does a number of strange things including putting on perfume and a hair ribbon before going to sleep.
Hints throughout the play suggest that the boys did more to her than talk dirty and kill the birds.