Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

“Looks that way.” Jim frowned. The guy was settling in fast, already tearing down for the inevitable home reno. Good luck with that. He’d be better off just bulldozing the whole thing and starting from scratch rather than renovating this husk of a house.

Travis drifted off to where a big square of framed plywood leaned against the porch rail. Painted white with letters stencilled neatly in black, waiting to be filled in. A sign.

THE CORRIGAN HORRORSHOW

~ Historical tour and attractions ~

“What’s that supposed to be?”

Jim didn’t have a clue. Sitting a few yards away were two posts braced with triangular footings. A frame to nail the signboard to. Whatever it meant, he didn’t like it. The odd sign simply confirmed his earlier suspicion of a con man or opportunist.

“Watch your step.” He went up the porch, pointing to the broken steps. “The boards are rotted through.”

Jim rapped on the doorframe and called out. A crash from somewhere inside. The stranger demolishing more walls. Then the voice bellowed up and blasted their ears. “Cocksucking son of a whore!!”

Jim winced at the language and looked at his son. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.” Travis tried not to smirk. He followed his dad over the threshold, eyes widening at the dark and foul interior, tripping over the uneven boards. They followed the cloud of profanity towards the back of the house.

Will Corrigan hauled on a prybar, wedging a length of bulkhead from the kitchen ceiling. The wood popped and the whole piece crashed down onto his head in a plume of dust, pummelling Corrigan to his knees. “Rotten motherfucking bastard!”

Jim leapt forward and pushed the mess off of the crumpled man, crashing it to the floor. Corrigan teetered up and backed away, coughing. He gripped Jim’s arm until the coughing jag passed. He spat onto the floor, wiped his chin. “Thank you.”

Travis retreated back from the dust cloud, watching.

Jim held the man’s arm, waiting for him to find his balance. Uncomfortable as hell holding some stranger, their faces inches apart. Politeness forced him to endure. Corrigan’s cheeks blew out as he coughed some more and then he tapped Jim’s arm, signalling he was okay.

“You might want to get a spotter,” Jim said, “if you’re doing demolition.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Corrigan squinted at Travis. “Who’s this?”

“My son. Say hello, Travis.”

Travis stuck out his hand. “Hi.”

“Pleased to meet you, Travis. What brings you two out here?”

“My mom wants you to come for dinner.”

“ We ,” Jim corrected his son, “would like you to come over. Say hello and all that.”

Corrigan smiled at the boy and nodded. “Well that’s very neighbourly of you, son. I’ll have to take a rain cheque. Too much to do around here.”

“You fixing up the place?”

“Not exactly. Ripping stuff out. Look at this shit.” Corrigan bashed out a reluctant strip of framing. “All this reno that was done ages ago. Poorly made and shabbily installed. The work of some cocksucking Orangeman I’d wager.”

Jim winced again at the language. He himself had sworn and cursed a hundred times over in the presence of his son but always slips. Not like this, delighting in the curse. “Could you hold back the cussing? Just around my son…”

Corrigan held out the prybar to the boy. Nodded at him to have a go. “Here son. Take a whack at it.”

Travis took the hold of the tool and looked to his dad for approval. Jim shrugged and Travis bashed at the old drywall. The first hit bounced off and Travis swung harder, piercing the wall.

“Atta boy.” Corrigan turned to Jim. “I’m going to strip it all back to the original timberframe. Just like it was back then.”

“Back when?” Jim raised his voice over the racket Travis was making.

“How it was back in eighteen ninety-eight.”

Travis stopped bashing the wall. “What for?”

“Do they not teach history in this town?” Corrigan addressed the boy but levelled his gaze at the father.

Travis soured. “History’s boring.”

“Ignore him,” Jim said. He cocked a thumb towards the front door. “What’s that sign out front?”

Corrigan stared at Jim, as if expecting something else. He shook his head, pulled the prybar from Travis’s hands and strode for the back door. “Come on. I got something to show you.”

Corrigan led them out the back, stepping past another debris pile. The backyard was choked with tall grass and raspberry bushes. A pathway had been freshly mowed through the weeds, winding out of sight up the hill. A wood handled scythe leaned against the back veranda, the rusty blade still green from the cutting. Corrigan picked it up and strode on down the path he had mowed. “I spent most of the morning cutting down all these damn weeds back here. For a while there I was afraid I wouldn’t find it.”

“Find what?” Travis watched the toes of his shoes turn green.

“Come see.”

The pathway snaked around the trunks of apple trees, the orchard barely recognizable in the undergrowth. Corrigan’s scythe trailed along the wet grass into a copse of ancient weeping willows. The hanging branches rustled and swayed around them where a larger clearing had been cut through.

Corrigan stopped and tapped the scythe blade against a squared stone on the ground. Granite, no larger than a cinderblock. “This,” he said.

Travis knelt and brushed the dirt from the stone. Jim right behind him. The stone held an inscription chiselled into the top-face. A single word.

James

Travis went wide-eyed. “Is that a grave?”

“Yes it is.” Corrigan swept back stalks of unmowed weeds to reveal another stone, also inscribed. Bridgette. “There’s four others here hidden under the weeds.”

Travis’s eyes were saucers as Corrigan swung the long scythe and cut low the weeds, revealing one stone after another.

Unlike his son, Jim did not register or shock or horror.

Corrigan noted that. “You’ve seen these before, Jim?”

“Not since I was a kid.”

Travis spun to his dad, more shock in his eyes. “You knew about this?” He turned back to Corrigan, a million questions tripping out of his mouth at once. “Who are they?”

“Corrigans all. My family.”

“Why are they buried here and not in the cemetery?” The boy kept blinking and blinking.

“Come to the tour, son, and find out.”

“Tour?” Jim chinned the house, where the sign was. “Is that for real?”

“Very much.”

“What’s it about?”

Corrigan didn’t answer. He turned to the boy and put a hand on his shoulder. “Travis, do you have a job?”

“He has chores round the farm.”

Corrigan smiled at the boy. “Of course. But do you have a job outside of that? Part-time, after school?”

“No sir.”

“Do you want one? There’s plenty of work here. Demolition, smashing things up and whatnot. I’ll pay you for your time.” He nodded in deference to the father. “After your chores of course.”

Travis looked to his dad. Eager and willing. “Can I?”

“We’ll talk about it. We better get back.” Jim waved at his son to come along, then reached out to shake the man’s hand. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, Jim. And thank your wife for the invite. I’ll be around soon.”

Jim put a hand on Travis’s shoulder and led him around the side of the house to their truck. He glanced back once before turning the corner. Will Corrigan stood in the weeds, one arm propped on the scythe, watching them leave.

“A GRAVEYARD?” Emma held the bowl of mashed potatoes in the air, forgetting who had asked for it.