Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

The other one Jim knew by voice alone.

Bill Berryhill was a monster in scuffed work boots and a stained T-shirt. Knuckles hardened to stone. Jim had known him since grade school and even back then Berryhill was a pissed-off asshole looking for a fight. Jim hated him but didn’t ever want to tangle with him. Who would?

“C’mon asshole,” Bill Berryhill bellowed, nostrils flaring like a bull. “Say that shit to my face!”

Clearly Hipster Doofus didn’t get the memo about avoiding ogres while visiting Pennyluck and had pissed off Berryhill. Not that that was hard. Simply existing was cause enough for Bill to want to scrap. Doofus was talking tough but he kept backing up, already losing. Berryhill shoved him hard, hurtling him right into Jim. Jim caught the windmilling man, kept him upright. Doofus threw him off like this was somehow Jim’s fault.

“Just fuck off, man!”

Exactly who Doofus was cursing, Jim wasn’t sure and now Jim was angry, being thrust into the middle a drunken brawl like this. Not that he let it show. He never did.

“Step up, princess.” Berryhill pressed in, thrusting his blocky chin at the outgunned kid in tattoos. “Where’s all that tough talk you had back in the pub.”

The guy slithered around and put Jim between himself and the ogre. Jim now taking the blast of Berryhill’s beer breath. How the hell did this happen? He put up a hand to hold back the bruiser. “Knock it off, Bill.”

Berryhill towered over Jim and Jim needed to get out of the line of his fire. “The fuck outta the way Jimbo.” Again, the nostrils flaring. “Her Highness needs to learn her manners.”

Emma pulled Travis out of the way but the boy squirmed around, not wanting to miss anything. She watched Bill lean in further, almost inviting Jim to take a free punch. She wanted to knock him one herself but knew Jim wouldn’t. He didn’t lose his cool or even raise his voice.

Hipster Doofus had clearly seized the moment and legged it. Vanished.

“Grow up, Bill.” Jim elbowed Bill aside and led his family back to their pickup. As much of an asshole as he was, Jim knew Berryhill wouldn’t pull anything stupid in front of his wife and son.

“Fucking pussy.” Bill’s parting shot, loud enough so they all heard it. Travis looked back but Jim turned him around and marched him forward.

Back inside the truck, the three of them lined up on the bench seat. Emma felt her nerves jangled, anger pent up with nowhere to go. “Jesus, what is wrong with that guy?”

Jim turned the ignition, left the question unanswered.

“You shoulda kicked his ass.” Travis muttered, wedged in the middle.

Jim frowned. “And what would that accomplish?”

Travis said nothing, wanting to avoid a lecture.

“Nothing.” Jim wheeled out of the lot onto Galway Road. “Violence doesn’t solve problems. Right?”

Travis didn’t even a shrug. Jim and Emma took the silence for compliance and the Hawkshaw family drove home without saying another word.

Travis went straight to his room and closed the door, flopping into the chair and shaking his decrepit computer awake. Dead Moon was his favourite game, a horror/sci fi mash up about a haunted science outpost on the moon. It was fast, creepy and ultra violent. But more than that, Dead Moon was one of the few games that worked on this creaky old desktop his parents had gotten him for his eleventh birthday. Second hand and used up, like everything else on the farm. Just once he’d like something brand new, shiny and untouched by anyone else.

The game booted up and he was immediately attacked by a ghost astronaut, the glowing eyes of a skull under the cracked visor of a space helmet. Swinging his machete, he quickly decapitated the phantom and watched it crumple into a pile of bones. An assault rifle would make it easier to destroy monsters but that was the catch in Dead Moon; firing a gun risked perforating the station’s walls, sucking the oxygen out to the vacuum of space. Too many bullet holes in the walls and you got weak and died a slow death. Though why a machete would be found on a NASA lunar base, Travis didn’t question.

Three more ghosts shambled out of a darkened corridor and marched for him. Cosmonauts this time, the letters CCCP faded across the helmets, chomping teeth shrieking beneath the visor. Travis quickly turned down the volume, hoping his parents hadn’t heard the shrieks. His dad hated violent video games and banned them from the house. He snuck them in anyway, borrowed from friends at school. More second hand things, used up and discarded.

Dad and his non-violent bullshit. It killed him the way his old man just stood there and took that crap from Berryhill. Was his old man just a pussy? Worse, was his dad trying to turn him into one with his “violence doesn’t solve anything” crap?

He knew all about bullies and all that Sunday school stuff about turning the other cheek didn’t work. Brant Coogan was two years older and always pissed off and always coming down on Travis. Bodychecking him into the lockers, trampling him in the yard. Travis had no idea why. He had never done anything to him. The one time he had asked Brant why he was picking on him, Brant had said “cuz you’re ugly.” Kids said Brant’s father was a drunk, that Brant himself was beaten mercilessly by the old man. Like that made a difference. Made it okay. Poor Brant was a victim too. Boo fucking hoo. Travis had tried playing it cool, not making a big deal out of it because whining or snitching would only make it worse. He had shrugged it off the other cheek, thinking it would blow over, but that made it worse too. Made Brant hate him even more.

So, yeah, turning the other cheek was bullshit. Sorry Jesus.

The undead Cosmonauts went down one by one, skulls crushed and split. Travis moved on, venturing further into the depths of the haunted moon base. He wondered what a machete would do to Bill Berryhill’s thick skull. Or better yet, Brant Coogan’s fugly face.

Jim was also thinking about Berryhill as he leaned over the sink, brushing his teeth. The big oaf was always picking fights and getting into trouble. It infuriated him to be accosted like that, in front of his family, by a loudmouthed prick whose sole talent was to draw pay without putting in an honest hour’s work. As maddening as it was, he’d never stoop to Berryhill’s level. Ever. What bothered him most of all was the conversation afterwards with Travis. He could have handled that better. Discussed it openly. Asked Travis why he thought fighting back was the only answer. But he hadn’t.

Woulda coulda shoulda.

“Scooch over.” Emma squeezed behind him in their narrow bathroom, reaching for her own toothbrush. “I don’t know about you but I’m beat.”

“Busy day.”

“It’s the food in that place. It’s so heavy. It just sits in my belly and weighs me down.”

He nodded then leaned under the tap to rinse. She ran her hand up his naked back. “You okay?” she said.

“Yeah.” He looked at her funny. “Why?”

“I dunno. Just that nonsense with Berryhill. Didn’t that rile you? I wanted to kill him.”

“Bill’s a jackass who likes attention,” he said, splashing water over his face. “He’s not worth getting upset about.”

Emma scrubbed her teeth furiously the way she did, her hand still on his back. Her fingers strayed to the scar on his shoulder blade and, without thinking, traced its contours. She felt him flinch, knowing he didn’t like it being touched. Sometimes she couldn’t help herself, the way one puts a finger to a freshly painted wall, just to see if it’s dry. The scar he dismissed as a childhood accident but never elaborated further. Same with the bent finger on his right hand.

He dried his face, kissed her hair while she brushed like mad. Her palm slid to the small of his back and he felt her fingertips dip into his skin. A little firmer than the usual goodnight squeeze. He looked for her eyes but she was already dipping under the tap to rinse.