Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

The boozers parted before him. Corrigan ordered and leaned against the makeshift rail beside those guilty eyes now shunning him. The bartender slid his plastic cup across and Corrigan drank but said nothing. He simply stared down at the old reprobate until a bead of sweat ran down Gallagher’s leathery neck.

“Ye want something?”

“Yes. The cocksucker who keyed my truck.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“I didn’t say it was.” Corrigan sipped, soured at the swill in his cup. “But the guilty man still averts his eyes. So tell me, Mister Gallagher, what are you guilty of?”

Gallagher laughed. “What am I not guilty of is the short answer. Like all of us. You do what you can to abide the rest.”

“That’s true. But you’ve yet to look me in the eye. Why is that? Some guilty worm of a secret in your petrified little heart. So what is it? Tell me.”

“Piss off.”

Corrigan warmed to the cantankerous lecher and leaned in, elbow to elbow. “You know something and it’s written all over that craggy face of yours. So how about I just stare at you until you fess up.”

Gallagher shooed him away as if he were a mosquito in his ear. “Do us a favour, mister Corrigan. Fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from.”

“This must be a juicy one.” Corrigan flagged the bartender and twirled a finger over their cheap plastic cups. “Whiskey for my friend here! A tall one.”

Gallagher watched the bartender pour and slide the cup under his nose. Corrigan bounced the nightstick off his knee. “Bottoms up, granddad. I got all night.”

The old man shuddered. The devil’s punch under his nose, the fiend at his elbow. He was tired. Too bone weary to endure those eyes glaring at him. Who could? His calcified heart muscle banging against his ribs. One, two, three.

Martin Gallagher lifted the cup and told the devil what he had done.

RAIN DRUMMED OVER the metal roof of the pickup. Water sluice down the windshield, blurring the world in shimmery distortion. Jim’s clothes were sopped and the rainwater dripping from his hair rinsed away the grimed sweat of his neck.

He didn’t see the rain, just the cramped script of the confessions. The illegible cursive signature of his predecessor. The scrawls of the other confessed men, names he knew by their descendants. Friends and enemies, school chums and hockey mates. His family’s prosperity built on a bonepile of ash and blood. Murder and secrecy. Denial and collusion. All those lessons scolded into him by his parents about right and wrong, respect and worth. The same ones he had drilled into his own son. All of it a joke. A house of bricks built over festering swampland.

It was like that time he almost drowned. Sixteen years old, swimming the creek with friends on a humid July night. Down past the bend where there were no lights, hurtling themselves off the broken pier into the black water. Hitting the river at an odd angle, Jim had plunged and lost his bearings. Nothing but blackness, no lights to guide him back to the surface. Disoriented, he had swum in the wrong direction. Straight down. Panic ulcering his belly and his eyes screaming for help, Jim swallowed half the river before bursting the surface. Sobs masked under the coughing, the night hiding the shame on his cheeks. The other boys laughed at him. The panic was acute, the terror of not knowing which way to swim. Which way was up.

He had forgotten that sickening feeling but seeing the awful truth written on the old parchment brought it all back. Was he swimming for the surface or clawing his way to the cold bottom?

Jim shook his head and pulled away from the curb, driving on autopilot into the rain. All he wanted was to get home and see Emma and Travis. They would orient him, show him which way was up.

He didn’t see the other vehicle until it hit him.

The sideview mirror lit white. A sudden flash that something was very wrong. The other vehicle smashed the front end and his head knocked against the window. Jim stomped the brakes and the tires locked on the wet pavement. The nose spun one way, the tail end swinging the other way. The pickup hurtled ass first into the gravel.

White-knuckled on the steering wheel, Jim gasped for air. What had he done? Driving off into the rain, his mind somewhere else like a fucking idiot. Where was the other vehicle?

Headlights pierced the rainfall. An SUV rolling to a stop. Jim swung out from under the wheel, hollering to the other driver, asking if they were okay. Squinting against the raindrops, he recognized the black Toyota FJ. Corrigan was already marching across the puddles.

“Corrigan?” Jim didn’t understand. “What the hell happened?”

Corrigan hit him full freight, slamming him back against the truck. Shaking him by the collar, like his dad used to when drunk. “Where is it?” Hot whiskey breath on his face. “Where is the fucking confession?”

This wasn’t an accident. The crazy son of a bitch had run him off the road. He shoved him off but Corrigan would not let go. They tussled and shoved and punched in the rainfall, slipping in the puddles. Cursing one other to hell. Jim felt his knee buckle and Corrigan dove after him, swinging to box his ears. He ducked and Corrigan slipped, his own momentum sprawling him to the road.

Jim hobbled away, wanting enough room to swing. “Are you outta your fucking mind?!”

Corrigan kicked out and hobbled the bad knee. Timber. A heartbeat and they had reversed positions. Jim scrambled to get up but the vertigo rushed back, spinning his head. Which way was up?

Corrigan towered over him, bellowing through the rain. “The old drunk told me everything. The confessions of the guilty men. The proof! Where is it?” The man’s eyes bansheed with murder, teeth snapping like a wild dog.

Jim held up a hand. Time-out. “I don’t have it.”

“Where is it?”

His knee on fire, Jim cried uncle. “Help me up for Christ’s sakes.”

Corrigan didn’t move, steam smoking up around him. He cursed and then gripped the proffered hand, pivoting back to pull his neighbour to his feet.

Jim swung for all he was worth, a haymaker to the jaw. His knuckles screamed in pain but Corrigan went down on his ass.

“That—” Jim’s turn to holler like a mad dog. “That is for giving my son brass knuckles!” He limped back, snapping his hand to whisk away the sting. “You stupid son of a bitch.”

Fortunes flipped, Corrigan sat in the wet road and laughed. “Feel better?”

“Stay away from my family.”

Corrigan kneaded his jaw. “Enjoy the moment, Jimmy. You won’t get another.” Now he extended a hand. “Help me up.”

Jim backed up. Was he supposed to fall for that?

The rain had stopped. Maybe it had stopped all along, Jim didn’t know. Corrigan pushed himself up, shook the muck from his hands. “You should have come to me,” he said. “You should have brought those confessions to me.”

Jim kept his distance.

“What does it say? Those papers.”

Jim teetered on his heels. Seasick. “You were right. About all of it. The men in town marched up to that house and killed everyone inside. All the people you named.” Jim told himself to shut up but it all just spilled out. Burning his throat as he purged. “Mine too. The man who led the mob was a Hawkshaw.”

“Blood libel,” Corrigan said. The grin stretching across his face was smug and victorious. “Where is this confession?”

“I don’t have it.”

“Give it to me.”

Jim staggered sideways. “It’s out of my hands.”

“Don’t be part of the lie, Jim. They all need to know. They need to see it.” He took a step forward, fingers balling into fists. “Oh they’ll deny, they’ll call it a hoax. But they’ll know. Deep down, they’ll know that their whole shit-stained world was built on murder and lies.”