Tim McGregor: Killing Down the Roman Line

“Dinner?” Emma leaned out of his grasp, suspicious. “Why?”

“To celebrate.”

Travis sat up. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. “Can we go to Burger Barn?”

“No.” Jim shooed his family to the door. “Get your shoes on. No more questions.”

Travis was already dumping his homework back into his schoolbag. Emma looked at her husband as if he was crazy, temper sparking up. Dinner out? With what, coupons?

He took her hand and pulled her towards the door. Gave her rear a sharp tap. “March.”

WEST DOWN THE Roman Line and then south on Clapton Road. A ten minute drive into Pennyluck. Pop 5200. Rattling over train tracks, the old baseball field to the left, two forgotten grain silos on the right. The derelict cannery across the river.

The speed limit dropped as Clapton arced onto Galway Road, the main drag through town. Brick storefronts and weathered facades, narrow sidestreets bisecting the thoroughfare in a plan laid out before the advent of cars. Trim Victorian buildings hitched next to pioneer false fronts hiding pitch roofed shacks. The town hall was a limestone edifice of columns and pediments and clock tower. The letterboard out front read: Heritage Festival, June 12-15.

The pickup truck rumbled through the puddles on Galway. Jim steered around potholes that were older than his son. Past both banks and one of the town’s two dollar stores before pulling into the gravel lot beside the Dublin Public House. An eyesore of a tavern, unremarkable in its faux Tudor facade. Jim swung out of the cab and waited for his wife and son to amble out. Emma had slipped on a clean shirt, a little lip gloss. Travis had preened in the mirror for ten minutes yet still managed to look exactly the same. Tussled and loose, like he’d just been yanked from bed and dressed in the dark.

The Dublin pub was almost as old as the town itself and it showed. Dark wainscoting skirted the room, the stucco walls grimed with damp patches like bedsores. A long cherrywood bar with a lip polished to a high sheen from generations of elbows. Dim wattage reflected in the hanging saloon mirror.

Three tables were occupied, all faces that smiled and nodded to Emma and Jim. The old man rooted at the end of the bar and the clack of billiards from the backroom, everything in its usual place. They took a table near the window and Travis dropped into a chair. Splayed out like a wet blanket. “Can we get those shrimp things?”

“Whatever you want.” Jim looked the room over, nodding and waving. “Hitchens is at the bar. I’m gonna say hi.”

“Ask if he’s still selling his John Deere,” Emma said.

Brian Puddycombe stood behind the bar pulling draft into a pitcher. Sleeves rolled up, a bar towel slung over his left shoulder. Puddycombe’s earlobes swayed when he turned his head quickly, droopy and loose, unnaturally stretched from patrons bending his ears with their sob stories. The pub owner knew everyone’s business but was trusted as a keeper of secrets, his discretion rewarded by repeat business.

He winced as his new waitress crashed her tray onto the bar, glasses tumbling, and wandered on, leaving the mess where it was. Puddycombe was shaking his head, the way one generation deplores its junior, when Jim leaned into the cherrywood. “Jimmy,” he said. “Long time. You all right?”

“Busy, you know. Who’s the new girl?”

Puddy grimaced. “Audrey. Graceful, isn’t she?”

Jim watched the girl bump into tables. “Murdy’s little girl? Last time I looked, she was in middle school.”

“Time flies. She just turned twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two?” Jim said. “Hell, that makes us old farts, doesn’t it?”

“Speak for yourself, old man.” Puddy set the pitcher down and held up a pint glass. “What’ll you have?”

“What you’re pouring.” Jim slid a few stools down the bar to a patron hunched over his pint. “What’s up, Hitch?”

Doug Hitchens dragged his eyes from the TV, his gut tucked neatly under the bar. “My blood pressure,” he griped. “Would you look at this shit.”

The Leafs were hosting Chicago on the big screen mounted under the saloon mirror. An original six showdown, Toronto getting pummelled. Hitchens grimaced, pumping a fist into his breastplate like the game was responsible for his indigestion and not the basket of suicide wings under his nose. “These bastards. Like my day hasn’t sucked rocks enough. Jesus.”

Jim forced a smile. Alongside the beer gut, Hitchens was a Canadian in the worst possible way and it irked Jim. A man who, despite having it all, loved nothing more than to complain about all of it. Still, it suited him. It matched his most Canadian of names: Dougie.

“How’s the farm?” he said, blasting Jim with stale Tabasco breath.

“Seen better days. You still trying to move that tractor? The 89 Deere?”

“Don’t tell me that old dinosaur of yours finally gave up the ghost.”

“What are you asking for it?” Jim winced. He’d meant to word it differently instead of plainly asking to be fleeced.

“You’re gonna take advantage of me now, in my hour of despair?” He thumbed the game, mock anguish on his face. “That’s just damn cruel, Hawkshaw.”

“I’ll drop by the shop sometime. When you’re sober.”

Hitchens turned to Puddycombe, pouring on the false shock. “Listen to him, trying to swindle a dealer.” He wrapped his hand over Jim’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Forget that old heap. I got a great Kioti loader on the lot. Like new. Twelve G’s. Just for you.”

“You’re upselling the wrong guy. Old and used is my budget. Less than.” Jim kept the tone hearty and inebriated but it still stung his cheeks, bartering down for a used-up piece of equipment.

Hitchens smiled at him, sensing a kill. “Maybe you better come by the shop. We’ll work a few options. But don’t even ask about trading in that relic of yours.” He turned and clocked an eye on Emma and Travis at the table. “I see ya brought the brood out tonight. You win the lotto?”

“Nope. A fresh start.” Jim clinked his pint against Hitchens’s glass.

“Ha. That’s a good one. Didn’t no one tell you there’s no such thing?”

Puddycombe snapped his towel at Hitchens. “Don’t ruin the man’s night out, Dougie. Go on back to the fam dam, Jim. And take this for Emma.”

Puddy slid a glass of house red towards him. Jim took up the drinks and retreated before Hitchens started up again. He manoeuvred back to his table just in time to see Audrey drop a tray of glasses and holler for the busboy.

Jim settled into his chair and laughed, knowing full well that Puddycombe didn’t employ a busser. The bar owner would be left sweeping up the mess himself.

“What’s so funny?” Emma said.

The meal was fine. Nothing spectacular, but satisfying. The novelty of it, Emma thought, considering how rarely they had a night out anymore. The break from routine and the exhausting task of deciding what to cook each night. Jim’s reasons for celebrating still didn’t sit well but she didn’t have the energy to argue the point. Why spoil the evening?

“You all right?” Jim touched her elbow as they stepped out into the parking lot. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“I’m good.” She put a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Did you get enough to eat, honey?”

Travis simply grunted and shrugged off her hand, wary of even the simplest sign of affection in public. That age. He underscored the point by belching as loud as he could.

She swatted the back of his head. “Manners.”

They heard the brawling before they saw it. Angry voices cursing blue into the night air. Parking lot donnybrooks were not uncommon outside the Dublin House but this was early. And a Tuesday night. Two men facing off between the parked cars. The younger guy Jim didn’t recognize, a hipster doofus in skinny jeans and tattoos. Not a townie, some college kid from nearby Exford or Garrisontown.