Patty walked up to the table just as they were putting everything right. She had Phil in tow, though the rest of the well-wishers had finally exhausted themselves and scattered. She smiled at Jeremy, and reached out to touch his shoulder. “I’m so lucky to know you,” she said. Her voice was rough.
“I’m the lucky one,” he said. “No joke.”
“These are really good,” Phil said, holding up a half-eaten blueberry muffin. “Pat?”
Patty looked down and seemed surprised to see trays of food there. She had the impassive expression of a judge at a county fair. She rested her finger on the corner of one tray as if activating a display. The sandwiches – egg salad – stirred something in her mind, and she smiled. “My Shawn is allergic to eggs,” she said. “That’s what he always tells me, anyway. I used to always make him scrambled eggs when we first got married. I made him scrambled eggs with brown toast, which was a new thing. Then at some point, he announced he was allergic.”
She looked at Jeremy, Charlene, and the church volunteer in turn, as if waiting for them to process the story thus far.
“These are good, too, Pat,” Phil said through a mouthful of carrot muffin.
“I think what it was, was he was out late with some of his work friends and woke up feeling sick. It wasn’t the eggs, it was the beer. But you know him, he won’t ever admit to that.”
Patty tapped on the edge of the tray. It rattled slightly, and a few of the sandwich wedges tipped over. The volunteer looked concerned, but didn’t move to right them.
“It was just pride. Stupid pride. Like when he drove us into a ditch that time – I didn’t see any raccoon, but he swears there was one. He would never admit he had fallen asleep. And my poor little boy in the back – he was scared to go in the car for a long time. I always told him I never blamed him, but I don’t think he believed me. He said it was a raccoon.” She looked straight at the volunteer, who seemed too shocked to even breathe. “It would’ve been wonderful to have a little girl.”
A man in a black suit shuffled up to the food tables and began to inspect the trays. He didn’t appear to notice Patty. “There’s muffins now,” he said.
* * *
That night, Jeremy went behind the bar himself, and started pouring drinks for the small group huddled around. It took him a while to find the right music, and finally settled on Johnny Cash, which turned out to be a stroke of genius. They all sang along to the tunes they knew. Some knew more than others. Jeremy was happy to see people enjoying themselves. Phil arrived after a while, saying that he’d gone back to Patty’s house, where there’d been a small, informal dinner for the family and a few close friends. He left after he realized there was only wine, and on the way out knocked over a tray of sandwiches that had been brought from the church. They spilled all over the living room carpet.
Jeremy said, “That’s good, you giving her something else to think about today.”
He felt as though bees were swarming in his head, and took two long sips from his glass to settle them down. There was a moment, pouring out house white for someone, when he almost lost his grip on the bottle, and wine spilled across the bar – he got a towel on the spill before it spread too far. They all sang “Ring of Fire” together, while Jeremy played an invisible guitar. Tyler appeared, and Jeremy insisted he sit at the bar and accept a pint of Guinness, the cook’s favourite. “Just don’t tell me I’m pouring it wrong or I swear to God I’ll break the glass over your head.”
He came out from behind the bar to check his phone, which had been buzzing periodically throughout the night. There were new messages from Stuart, telling him he was meeting with Brian and Marie the next day at his law office. His parents would be there, too. He told Jeremy that this was a private meeting, and that he would fill him in later on what they all decided. Stuart also sent an email, saying he would be meeting with Susan Toller in the next few days, and that the two of them would be visiting the Shack. He would let Jeremy know the date and time as soon as they were able to firm it up. Obviously, he said, he could not prevent Jeremy from being there when they visited, but he was sure he would agree that it might be less awkward for everyone if he wasn’t. Jeremy said “fuck you” into his phone as the message ended, and dropped the device behind the bar, feeling nothing but disgust for the way some people, at a moment of grief and tragedy, revealed themselves to be nothing more than cheap little assholes.
There was a moment of weirdness, as things were getting late, when a man appeared, wearing a green track jacket and looking rough. He only came a few steps into the bar, and stood near the front door, staring at the group. Jeremy didn’t even notice him at first, until someone pointed him out. “Private event, buddy! Private event!” Jeremy shouted, and moved to come out from behind the bar. As soon as he did, the man turned and went back through the doors without acknowledging he’d been spoken to. “Was that the Ghost of Christmas Past?” Jeremy asked. Within a minute, the buzz of conversation resumed, smoothing over and obliterating the intrusion like a wave on a beach.
Jeremy got two beers and two vodka shots from the bartender and brought them over to where Phil was sitting. They both downed the shots, followed by long gulps of beer.
Jeremy raised his empty shot glass, and Phil did the same.
“To Patty and Shawn!”
“To Patty. Aren’t you supposed to do a toast before you drink?”
Jeremy fingered Phil’s collar. “We’re both in suits, we can do whatever we want.”
He asked how Patty had seemed after the funeral, and Phil told him she’d run around saying hello to everyone and making sure they all got food. There was a lot of food in her house, but no one was in the mood to eat it, except him – he took every sandwich he got offered. Her sister finally got her to put down the trays, but she kept moving from room to room, determined to give everyone an equal and generous share of her attention. He said he thought it maybe hadn’t all hit Patty yet, that she was running on autopilot.
“She’s got all these distractions right now, but they’ll go away,” Jeremy said. “What she needs is to keep focused on new things. I was actually going to talk to her, once everything settled down, to suggest she maybe stash some of that insurance cash away where the tax people can’t find it.”
“Away where?”
Jeremy pointed around the room. “The Ice Shack Savings & Loan.”
While Phil puzzled over this, Jeremy talked about all the ways that money could be kept safe and even grow in a business like his. There were a thousand ways, millions. And investing in the bar might be exactly the kind of thing she needed to get involved with right now. After all, she had a kind of family at the Shack, not to mention her final hours with her husband had been at a cottage that was technically owned by the bar, which he had been letting them use whenever they wanted.
“I’m not saying she owes me anything – she doesn’t, not one dollar. I’m only saying this could be good for her, and that there’s already a strong connection here. And maybe, after reaping all the rewards of working here, maybe it’s time to give a little back. Just a thought. I’ll see what she says. Anyways.”
“Sure, but . . .” Phil struggled for the right words. “She’s having a pretty rough time of it right now. I don’t know if that’s something she’s going to want to get involved with.”
“Pretty sure I said it could wait until the dust settles. Maybe dust is the wrong word. What’s that song? ‘Dust in the Wind’?”
He began to sing it.
Phil gripped his glass tighter as if to root himself in place. “You can’t ask her for money. Her husband just died.”
“Yes? And?” Jeremy took a breath and tried to sound conciliatory. “Look, if you don’t think she’d be into it, that’s fine. I’m just trying to help. What are you, her business manager, buddy? She can always say no.”
“It’s not that she wouldn’t give it to you. She
probably would.”
“How do you know that?”
Phil, looking embarrassed, admitted that Patty had offered to loan him some of the insurance money to get a place of his own, so his daughter could stay over more. She said she never liked the idea of his poor daughter sleeping on a cot in some basement. She would loan him the money for as long as he needed it.
Jeremy laughed and slapped the bar. He reached over to clink glasses.
“Jesus, you move fast!” He’d been wondering whether he should ask her to throw a little insurance cash at the bar, and here was Phil looking to get adopted.
“I told her no.”
“You did? Well then you’re a fucking idiot, and you deserve to live in your sister’s basement. Christ’s sake.”
Jeremy got up and went back behind the bar to select some more music. He put on a novelty rap song from the ’80s and threatened to breakdance right there behind the bar while people laughed and yelled for him to change it. He finally switched it to Elvis Presley singing “Suspicious Minds.” As the music played, he wrung his hands and stared hard at a grinning troll doll with wild hair that’d been placed among the booze behind the bar years ago and never removed. He fingered the keys on his belt. The bartender said something about a keg sending up nothing but beer-flavoured foam. Here it was again: it was his job to fix everything, to keep the ship afloat, to be Very Zen, and when the time came to give back a little, boom: everyone disappeared. He grabbed the troll doll by the throat and dropped it in the garbage, then killed the music and climbed up onto a full case of beer that was on the floor. He demanded quiet, and waited until his request was fulfilled.
“I know that Shawn, of all people, would appreciate all this joking around, given the occasion. Patty would, too. I’m sure of it. Those of you who were not there today really missed something. She was up there, and she was not about to get knocked down – she took the hardest hit you can possibly take, and still had the strength to laugh about it. I knew Patty was tough, but what I saw made me think there’s probably not a lot you could throw at her that she couldn’t handle. What a pro.”
A few people said, “Here, here.”
“I wish she were here so I could tell her this to her face, but I wanted also to say that it’s been a personal honour to have had Patty here as one of the team, one of the family. As far as the future goes, she may even be involved in other ways, who knows. Door’s always open. If anyone sees her before I do, tell her that: the door’s always open. Actually, I should lock it before that creep in the green jacket comes in again.” There was laughter. “Seriously, though, watching her tough her way through what is probably the worst time of her life just reminds me what this place is all about.” He got quiet and began to speak more slowly and deliberately. “We’ve had a few tragedies here, we lost some good friends, and almost lost some others. We will probably lose some more so-called friends for one reason or another, but whatever, good riddance. Seriously. There are a few people running around pissing their pants right now because they’re not really part of the family and don’t get how we do things here. That’s fine. Whatever. The Shack has been through some real shit, I’ve been through some real shit, and I don’t sit around feeling sorry for myself. Winners focus on winning because losing takes care of itself. I really believe that, because I’m not a fucking loser. Not like some people I could mention, but I won’t.”
He raised his glass and nearly drank before quickly adding: “And to Patty, because we love her and wish her the best right now.” He stepped down from the beer case, twisting his ankle a little as he did. He decided to ignore the pain and pour himself another generous drink.
* * *
A few people came out to the darkened patio to say goodnight to Jeremy, but most just left soon after his speech. The bartender said he would shut everything down, but Jeremy said not to bother.
“Just do your cash-out and leave the rest,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
The river below was dark. Corpses could’ve been floating by, just under the surface, and he wouldn’t have known. He felt like swimming, and wished it were warm enough to go to the cottage. He thought about Shawn face down on the ground, and about Kyle struggling as he was pulled into the boat, and about the kid who’d jumped from the bridge. He had a manic urge to embrace them all, to tell them everything would be fine, to forgive them. Everything that had ever happened at the bar was forgivable. People always shit on him, and he always forgave them. He forgave Glenn for being a cheap, opinionated asshole. He forgave Phil for being Phil. He forgave Benny for some of the half-assed repairs he’d done and for running his mouth. He forgave Tyler for being a sullen little shit. He forgave his parents for overreacting – they were being fed bad information, after all. He could not forgive Brian and his sister, or Stuart, but maybe one day he would. Everything at the Shack was working just fine at the moment. Nothing had gone wrong in weeks. The equipment was humming along without a clank or a rattle. The washrooms got used without complaint. He’d been checking all the mouse traps and rat traps: not a whisker. Even the new fire-alarm system, which he had cursed and tried so hard to prevent coming in, had earned his respect for not going off screaming if the room got too full, as the old one sometimes did. There were reasons for gratitude all around. You just had to look for them. Losing Charlene had been tough – and the fact that she hadn’t shown up that night told him she was gone for good – but there were new people coming to the bar all the time. He was always seeing new faces. The crowd would keep turning over and over, they’d get into the weeds and get right back out, better than ever and grateful for the experience. It was all a matter of shifting one’s perception.
And he would be fine, he decided. He’d come out of all this a winner, no matter what. He broke off a nearby branch and held it out in front of him like a sword, then flung it out into space as hard as he could. He didn’t hear it land over the sound of the river, but for a second, it looked to him as though the water had suddenly frozen, stopped dead.
When Jeremy came back through the patio doors, he discovered a man standing behind the bar: the same man in the green jacket he’d chased out earlier. The man made no move to leave. The way he was standing, he’d clearly heard Jeremy coming, and had let himself be discovered there. His hair was reddish and cut brutally short, like he’d been burned or deloused, and hadn’t shaved in a while. He looked to be about the same height as Jeremy, but skinnier. Jeremy worked to commit these details to memory. The green jacket had a stain running from the left shoulder right down to the end of the sleeve, which Jeremy worried was blood. He hoped it wasn’t, as that would therefore mean he was dealing with someone who was either crazy or badly hurt, or both. Where the man was standing was the same spot where the floor staff sometimes gathered on busy nights to do a celebratory shot or to gather themselves for a moment before heading back out into the rush.
“I think you need to get moving there, buddy,” Jeremy said, trying to make it sound like friendly advice. “We’re all closed up.”
Without looking, the man reached over and plucked an unopened bottle of vodka from the shelf behind the bar. He put it in his left hand, then reached and grabbed another bottle, again without looking. A fancy mint liqueur. Jeremy nearly told him to pick again: he didn’t want the guy coming back later, angry, wanting to exchange it. He must’ve known from the shape of the bottle, the feel of the glass neck, that he’d chosen wrong. He looked down at the liqueur as though he’d been handed a baby. The liqueur got replaced, and he reached for another. Rye this time: much better. He tucked the rye under his left arm, then picked up a steak knife from the surface of the bar and held it up to show Jeremy. He held it with the toothy blade pointing at the ceiling – not threatening, just making clear the nature of their current relationship. This, the knife declared, is the difference between you and me at the moment. The knife didn’t look like one of the Shack’s; he must’ve brought it with him.
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“You can take those, I won’t call the cops,” Jeremy said. “Take those, and that’ll be the end of it.”
In his mind he was willing the man not to notice the security camera in the corner of the ceiling. He was also trying to remember if it was turned on.
“This doesn’t have to get ugly, nobody has to get in trouble. I get that things are probably not good right now, and I totally understand. I’ve got shit going on, too.”
The man gave no reaction.
“All I’m trying to say here is that we have options. We’ve got a choice, and I think we’ll make the right choice, right? The right choice isn’t easy and it isn’t obvious, but we almost always know it when we see it. If you want to take the bottles, you can. I don’t give a shit. But if we wait too long right now, though, the alarm is going to go off, and I don’t want that to happen.”
Congratulations On Everything Page 24
