Killing Down the Roman Line

by McGregor, Tim

  “Yes but why?”

  “I dunno,” he snapped. Pushing the book away. “Just says they were stalled by the Mounties here in Canada and then lured back to the states. Then they all got captured and Sitting Bull gets killed.”

  “Is this what your report is about? The reason’s why it happened.”

  “I hate history,” he said, as if that would end the matter.

  Emma dropped the greens into the steamer. “I know, honey. But you still have to learn it.”

  Then why don’t you study this stuff? He grunted, slouching further down his chair. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, timing out the remainder of his torture. Twenty minutes.

  The backdoor popped open and Jim stood on the porch, banging the dirt from his boots. He smiled at his son. “Hey chief. How was school today?”

  Barely a shrug. “It sucked.”

  “Why did it suck?” Jim crossed to the sink, washed the dirt from his hands. Kissed his wife. “Did something happen today?”

  Travis said nothing, unwilling to elaborate further. He scrawled his pen over a picture of Wilfred Laurier, doodling devil horns on the bald dome of the seventh prime minister.

  Jim looked at his wife. “History?”

  Emma caught the grime under his nails. “What were you doing out there?”

  “It’s spring. What wasn’t I doing?”

  Emma sniffed out the brush-off. Squared him with a look. “What were you doing?”

  “Clearing land.”

  She couldn’t believe it. “On that old property? We were going to talk about this first.”

  “It’s no big deal, Emm. I just turned the soil.”

  “That isn’t the point.”

  Travis looked up from his textbook, antennae picking up the tension in their voices. Watching his folks argue wasn’t much of a distraction but anything would do in the face of the brain-deadening boredom of Canadian history. Maybe mom would lose her temper again and throw something. She was like that, blowing her top when provoked. Dad was the opposite, never raising his voice or breaking stuff. The more he didn’t get mad, the more she’d scream. And then one of them would order him to go to his room, giving him an immediate excuse to not do his homework. It had happened before.

  Not this time. His dad wrapped his hand around mom’s waist and pulled her in for another kiss. Gross.

  “Put that away,” Jim said, nodding to the steampot. “We’re going out to dinner.”

  “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.”

  3

  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. L
ess 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.

  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 o
f 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.