The Dainty

The Dainty
Copyright 2012 by
Bill Rayburn

Chapter 1
The long bar seemed to go on forever until, finally, way down by the door marked ‘For Leakin’, it curved smoothly to the right, ending abruptly by disappearing into the wall. Its rich mahogany, faded to the shade of dark rum, looked naked when not draped with drinkers, and was as scarred as the loser in a prison fight. Worn to a smooth, varnish-like finish by the elbows and forearms of three generations of Motor City drinkers, the wood looked as soft and inviting as the thick flowing mane of a buxom redhead.

Behind the bar and running its entire length, an ornately framed mirror reflected a fraudulent impression of a larger room. The bottom third of the mirror was partially obscured by a tiered battalion of bottles. Navel-gazing solitary drinkers, confronted with their image in the mirror and fueled by whiskey, would trek down to the catacombs of the soul, where doubt and fear received their mail. The vanity of the self-absorbed, Richie’s old man had once called it.

Perched haphazardly in front of the bar stood a rag tag collection of unmatched stools. Shabby and in various states of disrepair, they were clustered in twos and threes, their morning position a byproduct of clandestine conversations the previous night that had required a sudden shift in the seating arrangement. Some had stuffing protruding from the seat pads while other seats issued a gritty ball bearing sound when rotated, and virtually none had four legs of the same length. These rickety misfits fittingly reflected the clientele whose rear ends they supported, and simply added to the charm of the place.

Up front, in the opposite corner by the front window, stood a grandfather clock, just to the right of the door. Situated under a huge poster of Marilyn Monroe, it rested exactly where it had been first situated, five years ago. Frozen for eternity at 3:30, am or pm, take your pick, its impotence as a timepiece had prompted Richie’s declaration that, at The Dainty, time did indeed stand still. Made of solid dark oak, it loomed like a bear on its hind legs, standing ten feet tall, its inert brass entrails exposed through the thick glass door that was padlocked when Richie bought the thing for fifty bucks. It was festooned with carved messages, including one marriage proposal. Richie’s own pocket knife, attached to the clock by a chain, encouraged patrons to leave their mark.

The interior of The Dainty was done in dark wood paneling which, if exposed to the more harsh light of a brighter establishment, would perhaps be described as shabby. Small patches of dry rot had begun to appear and drunken dart throwers, though pure of heart, had nonetheless inflicted a million tiny wounds with steel-tipped daggers intended for a more forgiving cork surface. But in the dimly lit world of The Dainty, the darkness provided a necessary cloak to hide scars, for structure and man alike.

Anchoring the front of the room, squatting just to the left of the thick wooden door that scraped and groaned with each entrance, was Richie’s prize possession. It had cost him a helluva lot more than fifty bucks yet, for every carved message on the oak time piece, there were ten beautiful memories of lovers twirling on the polished tile to the sounds from the glittery Wurlitzer jukebox. Two plays for a quarter, though Richie had a switch back of the bar, next to the hidden shiny nightstick, that afforded him the luxury of bypassing songs not to his liking. His musical manipulation occasionally presented him with an irate customer, to whom the door would be shown.

Richie was a Monarch, ruling his kingdom with autocratic control. Democracy happened somewhere outside.

It was snowing lightly now. The round clock above the bar did work, and it read 8:30. Richie had removed the ‘Closed” sign from the window at 8:00, but he didn’t anticipate seeing anyone till at least nine.

However, today could be different.

It was Christmas Eve.

Chapter 2

McGovern’s Den of Antiquity, known for years simply as The Dainty, had served the citizens of Detroit for 36 years. 42-year-old Sean McGovern opened the bar in 1933, nurturing a loyal clientele, figuratively feeding and watering them until he had a customer base that kept the bar full and profitable year ‘round. He’d borrowed the money to come to America and open a bar from his parents, who remained back in Dublin, steadfastly refusing to join the growing number of Irish families matriculating to America. Sean’s original plan was to go to New York, where his Uncle Shamus would provide some housing until he sprouted his sea legs in the bar scene that was then burgeoning in Manhattan. He soon grew frustrated with the process however, as getting a liquor license was much more difficult than he’d been led to believe, and finding a location to his liking was proving fruitless. He’d been told that with the abolition of Prohibition, it would be fairly easy to set up an establishment. After six months of spinning his wheels, and not wanting to dip further into his nest egg in pursuit of what was appearing to be a dead-end endeavor, he went to Detroit to talk with a man Uncle Shamus knew who was considering selling his restaurant. After negotiating what he felt was a fair price, Sean made the permanent move to Detroit, getting a loan to subsidize the conversion of the restaurant to a bar.

It proved to be a very resilient investment. The Dainty not only survived The Depression, it thrived. And when the war cast its shadow on America, The Dainty proved to be a meeting place for many people, where rumor and fact alike were swapped. Though a pall hung over the country, laughter could still be heard rolling out of the big door in the warm summer months, its timber ever so slightly tinged with irony. It was during the comparatively tranquil fifties that Sean almost lost the bar, as the industrial age turned people’s focus from leisure activities to productivity. This paradoxical decade spawned one of his legendary quotes, know as Sean-isms:

“A bar full of happy people don’t stay full very long.”

Sean had worked seven days a week for most of the 31 years The Dainty was open until his death in 1964. The 6' 6" Irishman had succumbed to a heart attack one night as he tried to break up a fight between two women. Richie had been behind the bar as well that night and accompanied his father to the hospital with 3 or 4 other regular customers. Sean died without ever gaining consciousness. There would be no maudlin Irish good bye.

With an ancient straw broom, Richie swept around the chairs, not bothering to move them for better access. When he ventured into open space, he grabbed the big push broom from behind the bar.

Like his father, he was a big man, balanced by a wide, thickly-muscled set of shoulders that often reduced his nightstick to prop status. Thin, awkward legs fell from an ever-expanding waistline and led to an incongruously size 15 shoe. He looked like two men, cut in half and hastily reassembled in a room where vision proved elusive.

Five years ago, when his dad had died, Richie considered selling the bar. He didn’t think he could run it alone. At his dad’s wake, numerous admonitions from

The Dainty’s regulars, conveyed through thick, meaty hands that grasped the back of his neck, squelched that idea. He then realized Sean would never rest peacefully if, for any reason, The Dainty closed down.

It was snowing harder now. Through the front window Richie could see that cars had turned their lights on and that wiper washers had begun their fruitless efforts at clearing the cloying, wet snow from windshields. The huge door groaned and Tim McGee shuffled in, his silhouette against the open door made bigger by the bulky, three quarter length wool coat he wore. Richie nodded and continued counting the previous night’s receipts on the bar.

Tim had been coming to The Dainty since his return from Korea, his uniform plastered with medals. The war had prompted his conversion from beer to scotch, a transformation that would likely prove fatal. Richie watched him sit heavily on the closest stool to where he stood. He finished counting the cash and stuffed it into the canvas bag the bank insisted he use for deposits. He got up slowly, hefted the Dewar’s bottle, and looked at Tim. The nod was barely perceptible.

Tim’s close-cropped black hair was sprinkled with melting snowflakes. His angular face was flushed, a condition the uninformed might attribute to the weather. Richie knew that the permanent whiskey bloom of broken red vessels that fell from Tim’s thin, pointy nose was, as his father once pointed out, the road map of Ireland. The accompanying blue eyes seemed incapable of holding anyone’s gaze for more than a few seconds. Tim knew that most appraisals would find him in contempt of all things civilized. The narrow jaw bore an uneven stubble growth, the unintentional result of another shaky encounter with a razor. He’d lost weight since the war, slowly succumbing to the cigarettes and scotch. Two huge bony hands, prominent veins wrapping around the nine remaining fingers like jungle vines, seized the glass as soon as Richie set it in front him. Richie took the proffered five, rang up the sale, placed three ones in front of Tim, and sat down. Their eyes met. Briefly.

It had become a dilemma for Richie, balancing the duality of friend and bartender. There was an odd allure to watching Tim drink with apparent impunity, free of ambivalence, and it occasionally had a corrosive affect on Richie’s drinking.

It was too early for his vodka, so he drew himself a draft from the tap and returned to his seat. In acknowledgment, Tim touched his glass to the tall aluminum milk shake mixer from which Richie drank his beer.

The wind had picked up and was starting to sling the snow sideways. The temperature was dropping, as frozen bits of ice now clicked audibly against the front window. It was 9:30.

“Merry Christmas.”

Tim nodded. His wife was sick with cancer, turning all holidays sour for him.

“How’s Mary?” Richie knew more of the travails of Tim’s life than most.

“Shitty. As usual…”

“I’m sorry. You gonna keep her at home?”

“May as well. She ain’t gonna get better in a hospital. Just poorer.”

Richie nodded grimly. “I guess her folks been there a lot, huh.”

“One a reasons I’m here for breakfast,” he said, taking another sip.

“You get a tree?”

Tim looked incredulous. “Not this year, mate. In fact, not ever.”

“How come?”

Tim looked at his best friend. “I ain’t told you this story?”

“Don’t think so.”

With a sigh and a gesture with his empty glass, he began.

“It was Christmas day, 1950. We were twenty miles out of Seoul. There was this young kid with our platoon, ‘bout 18, from Nebraska, somebody said. Younger than that, you ask me. Anyway, this kid was havin’ a tough time, it bein’ his first Christmas away from home. I mean, we were all havin’ a tough time, but he was shook up. You could just tell. The rest of us at least tried to hide it.”

He took the fresh drink from Richie and continued.

“We were in a hot zone but hadn’t seen much action yet. A couple of us went on a recon for a tree, and we stumbled on this tree that, I swear to Christ, is a perfect fuckin’ Christmas tree. I have no idea how it grew in that shit hole, but there it was. So we hack it down as best we can and tote it back to camp. Well, this kid, he couldn’t believe it. He was laughin’, cryin’, and huggin’ us. We got it propped up on a plank of wood, and suddenly somebody opens fire on us. Not just one shot, but a fuckin’ barrage. When that kid hit the ground, it wasn’t by choice. He was dead ‘fore we could scramble to him. Had a neat round hole in his forehead the size of a quarter. It looked so harmless. The back of his skull was about five feet behind him, scattered in a five foot circle...nobody else was hit.”

Richie stared at him. “Jesus Christ...”

Chapter 3

The twenty fifth of December was a confusing day for Richie. His entrance into the world that day in 1930 was tragically coupled with his mother’s exit. He could never disassociate that hellish irony from the surrounding merriment.

Sean had waited until his son’s 18th birthday before telling him that his mom’s death occurred during his birth. The boy had not taken it well, having previously swallowed whole his father’s tale, told to him when he was six, of a car accident days after he was born. The sudden revelation of his unwitting role in her death had forced a total realignment of his emotional world. In addition, he suddenly doubted everything his dad had ever told him. He would never again feel that life held the potential for fairness.

A little after ten, Brendan McPhail pushed through the front door of The Dainty. He stood there quietly, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, stomping twice to shed the acquired snow. Most men 5'3" would be immediately categorized as short, but his enormous girth gave him a horizontal dimension that momentarily distracted the eye from his vertical deficiency. Atop his almost cube shaped body sat a
perfectly round head, shiny as a cadet’s boot on top, yet framed on each side by wildly sprouting strands of curly brown hair that had yet to be introduced to a comb or barber. The folds of flesh that fell down his face in subtle waves gave little indication as to what he may have looked like as a boy. Tiny, darting eyes peered out with a look of constant amusement, as if the physical mask created by his obesity hid only great treasures.

“Hey stranger,” Richie called out from behind the bar. “Ain’t seen you in a while.”

Brendan waved and nodded at Tim. He hesitated, then chose a stool near the center of the bar, folding his beige overcoat in half and setting it on the seat to his left.

Richie finished drawing a mug of beer and slid it down the bar with the understated flourish of a pro. The glass came smoothly to a halt directly in front of Brendan, who grinned and hoisted it to the ceiling.

“Richie, you are a rogue and a scoundrel. Don’t ever change.” He took a huge swallow and carefully set the mug down on a gnarled cardboard coaster. He turned toward Tim, who was once again staring into his glass. “The morose one, deep into his soul and scotch. How the hell are you, Nine-Fingers?”

With as much good cheer as he could muster, Tim responded. “Fuck you and that piece of shit fish wrap you slave for.”

“My good, sad friend. You religiously read my column, as does the troglodyte behind the bar. The best sports section in the free world is published just down the block and, if it weren’t for your limited intellect and seeming inability to traverse a three-syllable word, you’d also appreciate the rest of the fish wrap.”

Tim grunted in semi-acknowledgment and pushed his half-filled glass away, but not toward Richie.

“What’s in store for today, Brendan? I haven’t read it yet,” Richie asked.

The scribe took another long swallow, which emptied his mug. Richie refilled it instinctively.

“I wrote a piece about Bing’s drop-off from last year, when he won the scoring title.”

“Yeah?” Richie asked, eyebrows raised. “I think he’s havin’ a pretty good year. Hell, the Pistons would be lost without him.”

“He’s scoring eight points a game less. He’s lost it.”

“Are you nuts? I watch every game that’s on, right here!” Richie exclaimed, gesturing to the 13-inch black and white TV elevated above the opposite corner of the bar. “He’s just passin’ the ball more. He ain’t lost a thing.”

Brendan shook his head. “Listen, his legs are gone, making his jumper unreliable. He’s through. I say trade him before the secret gets outside of Detroit.”

To his left, Brendan heard Tim chuckle. It had a derisive timbre. Through the mirror Brendan and Richie exchanged glances.

Richie changed the subject.

“So what brings you here this morning?”

“The cheerful ambiance, of course. ‘Tis the season, and all of that. Hey McGee, wanna throw some darts?”

“Not in this lifetime. And Bing has not lost a step. But you have.”

“My skills are nationally recognized and I will be employed long after Dave Bing is dropped off by the authorities at the city limit.”

Tim turned on his stool to face Brendan. “What the fuck are you so cheerful about? Happy people piss me off. You’re startin’ to ruin my day.”

“I can only imagine what catastrophic circumstances could further darken your morbid outlook on life.” Brendan sighed and shook his head sadly. “It’s Christmas Eve, for Christ sake.”

Richie got up to refill the sportswriter’s mug.

“Tim, tell him your Christmas tree story.”

Brendan raised both hands, palms out. “No, no and no. A thousand times no. All his stories begin and end with death...”

“Like life itself,” Tim mumbled.

“Life doesn’t begin with death...”

It was Richie’s turn to interject. “Oh no?”

Brendan looked at them both. “Jesus, you guys are depressing. Drive a man to drink.”

“Too late,” Tim said, draining his glass and climbing off his stool. “You know, it’s the vaguely pleasant people like you who drive the rest of us to drink. A couple of good, deep emotional scars would do wonders for your character.” He was grinning as he disappeared behind the door of the head.

“Rare form,” Brendan said, tilting his mug toward Richie.

“Christmas, man. Not a good time for him. How about you? Big family gathering tonight?”

“Yup. The dreaded in-laws and various other family members, best described as freeloaders. And you? The usual?”

“Yeah. Make the call to Dublin, then lights out. I just don’t see the point, you know.”

“You’re always welcome to join...”

Richie interrupted, hollering at Tim as he emerged from the bathroom. “Just got the first one, T.M. If you hadn’t pissed him off with the ‘lost a step’ crack, he might have given you one too.”

Brendan smiled knowingly. The cumbersome burden of Irish pride and stubbornness would send these two men in the opposite direction of any offer that bore the whiff of charity. Not that they were not sentimental men, as Brendan knew both men held that capacity. They simply were much more comfortable giving then receiving.

“Not a chance,” Brendan said. “Mr. Black Cloud and his nine digits will not ruin Christmas for my family. I will, however, drop him off at the cemetery later for his special brand of holiday cheer.”

Both Tim and Richie laughed.

Tim sat down and pointed toward the tap. “Let me have one of those pussy beers numbnuts down there is havin’.”

“McGee, there’ll be a long line of people anxious to piss into your coffin.
Scotch has your liver looking like a piece of coral. You’ve probably got the life expectancy of a fly.”

Tim laughed so hard he began a coughing fit that lasted several minutes, during which Richie walked over and punched up a song on the Wurlitzer. He was back behind the bar by the time Sinatra’s ‘Drinking Again’ started.

Once Tim regained control of his voice, he fired back. “Not bad, for a hack. But you aren’t exactly the authority on good health. Look at you. You’re...shit...you’re almost square. You’re hair is empty in the middle and, as I always suspected, so is your fuckin’ head, and you ain’t exactly a teetotaler.”

Brendan finished his beer, wiped his mouth methodically, loosened his tie, and turned toward Tim.

“Listen, Prince of Fucking Darkness. You look at a kid licking an ice cream cone and you see disaster. Black cats eye you warily. Open ladders close at your approach. You may not have been born under a bad sign, but you sure as hell have lived under one. The closest you’ve come to a sexual act since the war was to get laid off. You don’t shower. I mean, flies leave fresh dog shit to follow you.”

Tim and Richie were almost in tears.

Brendan gestured with his hand, as if to say ‘your turn’.

Tim composed himself, wiped a teary left eye, and turned to Richie. “You can always tell the Michigan grads. They’re the ones who pick their nose just to show you their ring.”

He swiveled back toward Brendan. “Don’t talk to me about sex, turtle bowl breath. You completely misinterpret why your wife shudders during sex. That was a nice little end run you pulled to avoid the war. You should write an essay on your Korean War experience. Call it ‘Great Canadian Tavern Drinking Songs’. Your greatest dream is to die on your own fucking arms.”

“Stop for Christ sake! I’m gonna piss my pants.” It was Richie, and he was already heading for the bathroom.

When he returned, Brendan had moved over three stools, next to Tim. He gestured to Richie for two more beers.

“How’s the wife?” he asked quietly.

Tim shrugged. “The same. It’s been a three year fuckin’ funeral. She’s ready to die.” He took a deep breath and sipped his beer. “So am I.”

After a quiet five minutes, Richie leaned his elbows on the bar in front of them, interlocking his hands.

“You won’t believe what this fucking guy did yesterday.”

“Who,” Brendan asked.

“I have no fucking idea. I’ve never seen him before. Anyway, he comes in, it’s about 4:30; bar’s half full. It’s twenty degrees out, but this guy’s sweatin’. He orders four shots of my best scotch, all at once. I line ‘em up. Bang! He downs all four in about ten seconds.

“‘Damn’, I say. You sure as hell are in a hurry.’ He says, ‘You would be too if you had what I have’. So I figure he’d been to the doc’s, you know, and got some bad news. So I ask, ‘What do you have?’ He looks at me, smiles, and says, ‘Fifty cents’.”

Brendan and Tim roared.

Richie shook his head. “He was out the fuckin’ door before I could grab him.”

“I got a joke,” Brendan announced.

Richie filled his silver cup with beer, nodding toward him.

“A guy is accosted by a hooker down on 12th Avenue. ‘How about a blow job for fifty bucks, honey?’ ‘No way,’ the guy says, ‘I’m married’. The hooker says, ‘So.’ And the guy says ‘So my wife will do it for forty’.

The door groaned once again and in came an enormous black man. In 1969 Detroit, the sight of six foot five Theotis Ellis often provoked anxiety among whites. However, Theo knew he was always welcome in The Dainty. He’d been a regular since 1960 when, after selling his auto repair shop in Alabama, he’d brought his family up north to go to work for General Motors. He wasn’t making any money with his own business and his wife had proven quite fertile. Two young boys and one on the way made it necessary to go to work for the white man.

A thick mustache ran the exact length of his upper lip, propped above an assemblage of huge yellowing teeth so uneven as to resemble a very untidy picket fence. GM’s dental plan had been enjoyed by management only. His round face was a dull, dusky shade of black, a pigmentation that made him invisible at 4:00am, yet visible at 5:00am. He removed his silver Lions knit cap, crusted with sleet, revealing an unkempt, thriving afro. His hair was a byproduct of laziness. Theo couldn’t care less about black power.

He settled his 330 pounds on the stool next to Brendan, folded his hands in front of him, and looked at Richie.

“Breakfast, or lunch?” Richie asked, hefting the vodka bottle in his right hand, rum dangling from his left. Theo pointed to the right, and Richie set down the rum and plucked the tomato juice can from the mountain of ice beneath the bar.

Brendan nodded at Theo and Tim slapped the hulking black man on the back as he returned from the juke box. Theo stood, shed his heavy grey overcoat, shaking it to remove the snow, and draped it over the back of his stool.

Standing on the assembly line had prevented him from maintaining a physique that had once led the Grambling Tigers in tackles. The middle third of his body had ballooned, giving his rickety left knee reason to be crankier than usual.

The wind whistled outside, the eerie howling filling The Dainty. ‘Gimme Shelter’ cranked up behind them, muting the wind somewhat. Tim rapped his knuckles on the bar to the song.

With his Bloody Mary in front of him, Theo turned to Brendan.

“Dave Bing has not lost a step,” he said quietly, though his eyes twinkled with mischief.

Brendan laughed.

“How you been, Theo?” Richie asked.

“Okay. Tryin’ to stay warm, man.”

“Plant closed?”

“Yeah, for the rest of the year.”

“No shit? With pay?”

He nodded.

“Unions are the way to go,” Tim said, sipping his beer. “How’s the family?”

“Christmas is when a hard workin’ man goes broke, I’ll tell you that much. Six kids and a wife are bleedin’ me dry.”

Brendan nodded. “I’ll drink to that. If kids weren’t a tax write off, I’d have misplaced mine by now.”

The two fathers touched glasses.

The eyes of the two childless men connected also.

The Stones finished up and the Caribbean lilt of Harry Belafonte filled The Dainty. Theo’s head bobbed to the music as the four men enjoyed their breakfast.

Chapter 4

The temperature outside continued to drop, causing thin sheets of ice to form on the road–the most dangerous of driving conditions–and Richie wondered if the boisterous afternoon crowds of past Christmas Eves would materialize. Theo finished his drink and pointed to the tap. All four men were now drinking beer.

Christmas Eve was all about pacing.

Brendan read aloud from the paper, quoting his column. He was quickly hooted down.

“Say Richie,” Theo asked, crooked ivory flashing dully. “Remember when Sean threw out that guy in the Santa suit, ‘bout six, seven years ago?”

Richie smiled, the memory providing a flood of inner warmth he hadn’t felt in days.

“Yeah. The guy was asking for donations for some charity. After he’d hit on everybody, he sat down with the money and ordered a drink. Guy was big, too. Lot bigger than dad. ”

Theo nodded. “Didn’t need no help tho. Dragged his ass right on out and dumped him in a snow bank. Whole bar cheered.”

Tim grinned and pointed at Richie. “I remember you standin’ behind the bar, holdin’ that fuckin’ nightstick, just watchin’. I think you were too fuckin’ shocked to move.”

Richie filled three more mugs from the tap and placed them on the bar.

“My old man didn’t need backup.” He stepped back and saluted Tim smartly. “On the house, fellas.” He raised his cup, “To the old man, God rest his soul.”

Theo continued. “Man, I remember the first time I walked in here. Thanksgiving Day, 1961. Had a fight with the old lady and needed a drink bad. This the first place I come to. Didn’t look like much from the outside – still don’t – but man, there had to be fifty people in here. Sean come around the bar, led me to a stool, and bought me my first drink. You was standin’ there like you ain’t never seen no Negro.”

Richie laughed. “I hadn’t. At least not in here.”

Brendan set his paper down. “That was back when blacks and whites got along.”

“Here we go,” Tim snorted.

“My old man didn’t cotton to racists,” Richie said proudly.

“No pun intended, I’m sure,” said Brendan.

“Man,” Theo interrupted, his deep voice sounding tired. “I never gave one shit ‘bout them big issues. Keepin’ my own yard clean keeps me busy enough. People should be judged one at a time.”

“Content of their character,” said Brendan.

Theo pointed his long, bony fore-finger at him. “‘Xactly.”

Tim finished his beer and stood up. “I make it easy. I hate everybody.” He marched once again to the bathroom.

Richie looked over his shoulder at the framed picture of Sean, standing behind the bar with folded arms in the timeless barkeep pose. He saw the softness in the features and knew they spoke of the goodness of his heart.

Tim slammed the door behind him and returned to the bar. “Did you hear about the two Irish queers? Brian Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzbrian..”

Brendan shook his head. “How do you buy gloves?”

Theo and Richie broke up.

Tim raised his splayed left hand, middle finger absent from one inch below the first knuckle, and eyed it carefully for a moment.

“You guys don’t know how this happened, do you?”

“You told us you lost it in the war,” Richie said.

“Yeah, but I never told you how.”

Brendan chuckled. “You’ve always been a good sport about it. I figured you lost it in some semi-comical way, if that’s possible.”

Tim grinned. “Precisely.”

“Well, what the hell happened?” Richie asked.

Tim smiled at them. “I was giving the finger to a Korean sniper. The guy shot it off.”

Theo began to laugh, and soon Brendan and Richie joined him until all three men were convulsing with laughter.

Tim sat grinning, his hand still held aloft. With the other hand he flipped them the bird. Brendan shot at the extended digit with his thumb and forefinger, bringing another round of laughter.

Tim finally spoke. “I’m telling you, the goddamn gook was a fucking marksman.”

Chapter 5

With the noon hour approaching, Richie surveyed the menu from Jackie’s Place, the diner three doors down the block. “I hope Jackie’s boy showed up for work today. I ain’t walking through this shit for lunch.”

“Hell, send Tim,” Brendan cracked. “He probably can’t feel the cold anyway.”

Ignoring the jibe, Tim turned to Theo. “You know what I heard the other day? I heard that you can get ten bucks for bein’ a pall bearer.”

Theo’s droopy eyes widened.

“I’m serious. This guy swears to me that funeral homes are lookin’ for people to be pall bearers, and they’ll pay ten bucks for you to carry the dead. All’s you need is a suit.”

Chuckling, Theo said, “Man, talk about your shitty part time job.”

“Only Mr. Morbid here could come across information of this nature,” Brendan said. “Imagine being such a prick that you don’t have enough friends to put your ass in the ground. Come to think of it, it’s guys like Tim who’ll make this business thrive.”

“Yeah, well my guess is your funeral will need professional mourners.”

Even Brendan had to laugh. It wasn’t often Tim got the best of him.

“Food anyone?” Richie asked, waving the menu.

Theo took it from him, ran his finger down the left side and handed it back. “Grilled cheese and fries,” he said.

Brendan shook his head and pointed to his beer. “Enough sustenance for me, right here.”

Richie didn’t bother to ask Tim, who blew a plume of cigarette smoke toward him and asked, “When was the last time you seen Sean’s folks?”

Richie stared at him. “Where the hell did that come from?”

Tim grinned. “The darkest recesses of my mind. Recess was always my favorite time.”

Richie busied himself behind the bar.

“It was the funeral, wasn’t it?” Brendan asked.

Richie nodded. “Dublin’s an awful long way. Anyhow, I hardly knew ‘em.”

Brendan wondered if anyone else had noticed the past tense. “They used to come over about once a year, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, till dad died. I don’t know. We talk every Christmas Eve on the phone. We’re the last three McGoverns. That’s pretty damn unusual for an Irish family. Sean was their only child, and I was his.”

“Time for you to get married, start a family,” Theo said softly.

“How did this fucking subject get started?”

Brendan pointed to Tim, who was grinning broadly.

“Who else?” he said.

“Yeah,” Richie said, “the human storm front.”

“Just tryin’ to keep the conversation lively,” Tim said, lighting a cigarette from the butt of his previous one.

Richie dialed Jackie’s number and ordered lunch. When he hung up, he refilled everyone’s mug and sat down. “What happened to the music? This is Christmas-fucking-Eve.”

Brendan waddled over and dropped in a quarter, then turned and faced the bar. “I’ve found the perfect song.”

Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ began as a smirking Brendan returned to his seat.

“Man, I hate the snow,” Theo said, as a he rose and walked past Brendan to the front window. He stood staring out, hands thrust in the back pockets of his jeans. His huge frame blotted out what little light was coming in through the glass.

Chapter 6

There was a sickening skidding sound, silence, then a gnashing of metal and tinkling of glass. The ice had claimed two more victims.

Theo returned to his seat...then to his past.

They were just outside of Cincinnati, heading north on Interstate 75, Buick station wagon loaded so completely that Theo couldn’t see out of the back window. It was February 18, 1960, and they’d been driving for a day and a half, having left Birmingham early on the 17th. At a motel the previous night in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Theo had been informed, politely, that blacks were not welcome. No stranger to this, he’d turned the wheel over to his rested wife Lois, who’d slept most of the drive, crawled into the middle bench seat with his son and daughter and curled up to sleep.

In Louisville, a black fuel attendant told him that north of Dayton there would be plenty of places for black folks to stay. I hope so, Theo thought, as he paid the young man and got back in his car. Dayton was only 240 miles from Detroit.

Now, as snow and sleet pelted the windshield, he squinted through the blizzard and saw a green highway sign that told him Dayton was ten miles up ahead. He sighed and sat back, keeping his speed well below the limit. His wife was once again asleep beside him and the kids were quietly staring out the window, mesmerized by the snow.

The severe winters would be one of many adjustments the Ellis family would have to make. The most fundamental change in their lives, the reason they left Birmingham for Detroit in the first place, was Theo going to work for the white man.

When his father’s heart had begun to give up its fight against a lifetime of southern fried food, whiskey and branch water, and nicotine, Theo was forced to take over the family auto body shop business. At his dad’s insistence, he vowed never to work for anybody else. However, in the deep south of the late 1950s, things had a tendency to go sour for a black man who sought independence, and Theo was not spared this preordination.

His father died of a heart attack six months to the day after he left the shop in Theo’s control. With a limited knowledge of the administrative aspect of running a business, Theo found himself completely lost when he had to put down his hammer and pick up a pen. He’d sought advice from the only other black businessman in the area, a lawyer who had agreed, grudgingly, that selling the shop was the right move.

Most of the money from the sale went toward bills. Theo took one thousand dollars and, upon his acceptance with GM in Detroit, sold what few pieces of furniture they had worth selling and headed north. Lois’s sister had found them a flat and now, as the sleet on the windshield solidified and became immune to the efforts of the wipers, he wished for nothing more than to get there and begin life in the north.

Theo was startled out of his daydream by the scrape and groan of the big door and the ensuing entrance of one of the more eccentric regulars of The Dainty, Sergeant Raymond Donohue.

He did not hesitate at the entrance, as most did. Instead he strode directly to a stool in the exact center of the bar and straddled it effortlessly. His khaki military jacket was coated with frozen snow.

Grinning broadly, Richie approached him with his hand outstretched.

“How the fuck are you Sarge.?”

“Fabulous,” he said, eyeing the three assembled drinkers. “Can see you’re packin’ ‘em in today. Thought I’d come by and immediately double the IQ level in this shit hole, but there’s only four of you, so I guess I’ve tripled it.”

Everyone laughed but Tim. The Sarge was one of his few genuine enemies, for reasons unclear to both men. The animosity went beyond normal military resentment that infantrymen like Tim felt toward the more glamorous Marines, of which the Sarge was considered one of the finest to come out of Korea.

Brendan watched the Sarge order his scotch and noted the sincerity with which he shook Theo’s hand. For reasons different than Tim he felt a vague antagonism toward the hard-edged military man seated to his right. His distrust of men who made their living in the world of machismo and physical strength came from, among other things, his knee-jerk dismissal of all things non-cerebral.

The Sarge took a deep swallow of his drink and leaned back. He was an impressive physical specimen, even as 50 loomed on the horizon. His six foot two frame was evenly distributed with muscle with one exception - - his incredible thighs. The huge, sinewy tree trunks that carried him across the uneven, soggy terrain of Korea were still as solid as marble and, though currently encased in thick wool slacks, the outline of the muscled thighs was evident to anyone who cared to notice. His hair remained in a tight military crew cut, accentuating the broad forehead that extended in such a way as to make both his pug nose and the too-close-together blue eyes appear sunken. His jaw, needing a razor’s attention twice a day to keep at bay a persistent stubble growth, stretched as wide as his skull, giving his head an odd, hour-glass shape., He was a Jar Head from birth, he often bragged, and proud of it.

If he had a flaw, physically, it was his small hands. Having endured many jibes about a comparably small penis, the Sarge was weary of the subject.

It was precisely this angle that Tim took.

“Hey mini-glove, still unable to break the wife’s hymen?”

The Sarge grinned, always ready for battle.

“Least I can fill a glove, you fucking ground pounder. When the weakest Marine takes a shit, it lands on you.”

Tim snorted. “When we got through strafing a village, you fucks would show up. We called you our clean-up crew.”

Sarge shook his head, grinning. “It would take you stupid grunts two hours to secure a bunch of spindly 70 year old gooks. Central command was embarrassed, for Christ sake. They would send us in to save some face.”

Brendan sipped his beer and set it carefully on the coaster. “Must you tiresome idiots persist with this obloquy. It wasn’t even a war. Hardly worth a discussion, let alone arguing about bragging rights for terrorizing elderly 95 lb. Koreans.”

The Sarge looked at Brendan, his disgust unconcealed. Brendan seemed to shrink suddenly under his gaze.

“A sportswriter, am I right?”

Brendan nodded and picked up his beer.

“What the fuck is ‘obloquy’?”

“The defense rests,” Brendan said, grinning broadly. Tim laughed.

Sarge muttered as he looked away, “The closest you’ve been to a fight is Cobo Arena.”

“Ah, but the pen is mightier than the sword, my thick-skulled compatriot.”

Brendan’s fourth beer was inside him.

Sarge laughed heartily. “That’s more true than you know. I saw a guy killed with a pen once. Took it right in the carotid. Thing spurted for five minutes. Took him that long to die.”

Tim set his empty glass down and turned toward the Sarge. “Yeah, pen would be a good weapon for you. Probably get your hand around most of it.”

The Sarge looked at him quizzically. “You’ve always had a hard-on for me soldier. What gives?”

Tim fidgeted in his seat, fingering the moistened cardboard coaster. Honesty and bluster were at war in his head.

Theo turned and looked at him. “It’s a fair question, Tim.”

Tim stared down at the bar and nodded.

Richie edged off his stool and leaned on the bar, roughly equidistant between the two men. He had been watching and listening with increasing concern over the tone of the exchange.

“If I ain’t mistaken, you two were on the same side over there. Tim, the Sarge here has a legitimate beef.”

The Marine’s posture softened slightly, his natural readiness for physical conflict dissipating in reaction to Tim’s slumped, defeated pose.

Tim looked up, his eyes watery and his mouth slack.

“That fucking war, man,” and he glared at Brendan, “and it was a war, you SOB...”

Brendan watched him, remaining still.

Tim continued. “It took the life out of me. I can’t sleep at night. It’s been what, 15, 16 years. It feels like fucking yesterday. That’s how fresh it all still is.” He stood and faced the Sarge directly for the first time.

“And you, you stand there so fucking sure of yourself. So...unaffected. I know you saw a lot of the same brutal shit I saw, maybe even worse. How can you pretend it doesn’t get to you? It makes you one of them, man.”

Tim sat down, his breath coming in gulps. Sarge gestured to Richie to give Tim another drink. Other than being vets, scotch seemed to be the only thing the two men shared.

“It’s all about survival, Corporal,” Sarge began, addressing Tim by his military rank for the first time. “Not just over there, where it was hell, but back home, too.”

Richie rinsed out his silver cup and set it on the rack to dry. He poured himself a generous shot of vodka and sat down. The Sarge watched him and waited until he was seated before continuing.

“Sure, I saw death, real gory shit. I held some of my own men in my arms as they died. Maybe you did too. Yeah, I fucking cried, but then I closed the door, because I had to. There was no room for fear...or weakness.” He raised his glass in silent tribute to his dead Marines, hesitated, and then swallowed what was left of his drink. He held the glass toward Richie and nodded.

“I don’t pretend to know what goes on in your head, Corporal. But it’s pretty fucking obvious you’re in pain.”

Tim heard Theo mutter, “Oh yeah.”

Sarge continued. “I don’t think you got it in for me, or any of these other people you piss on. You hate yourself.”

So, Brendan thought, the Sarge is capable of analytic thought after all. It was raw, yes, but it sounded on the mark. He turned to look at Tim, who was now crying openly. Richie came around the bar and sat next to him, his left arm slung over Tim’s shoulder. The Sarge carried his fresh drink to the front window and stared out at the blizzard.

It was 1:00pm. Christmas cheer seemed very far away.

Chapter 7

Nine year old Brendan McPhail awkwardly rounded second base and promptly fell. Hard. The diminutive second baseman ran over and tagged him out, lightly placing his glove against the skyward, oversized rump. Derisive laughter could be heard coming from both dugouts, though the noise from his own dugout was immediately silenced by his glaring manager. It was not his first athletic faux pas but, he decided, as he struggled to his feet and dusted himself off, it was going to be his last. He quit that day. It proved to be a decision that would effectively eliminate any opportunity to have a close relationship with his father. In the summer of his eighth year, Brendan had broken his left ankle playing basketball, forcing him to hobble around on crutches for six months. The forty pounds he acquired during that time were not only astounding for a child his size and age, but would eventually prove unsheddable. As he began the transition from athlete to spectator, his father grew distant.

On his thirteenth birthday, surrounded by family, and during a startling moment of lucidity, he realized his mom was obese.

Oddly, his failure at sports was not accompanied by a dismissal of them. Instead, he joined his high school newspaper and began writing, covering both the football and basketball teams. It was his first byline and, though he’d stopped participating in sports, his shrewd observations revealed a keen understanding of the culture of athletics.

At the University of Michigan his fraternity brothers had, after putting him through the humiliating car wash of fraternity initiation, accepted him and his vertically stunted, horizontally expanding physique. It was what he craved.

The university newspaper welcomed him aboard and he wrote the front page story on the Wolverine’s 1951 Rose Bowl victory over California. A journalism career was born.

Acceptance from his father proved more elusive. A physical man who continued playing softball into his fifties, Kevin McPhail had always prided himself on staying in shape and had privately harbored a fantasy of one day standing alongside his son in the outfield.

But with the ballooning of his son’s body came resentment and disappointment. Brendan’s apparent acceptance of his own limitations, and subsequent choice of observer over participant, was viewed as a sign of weakness by his father. It was a chasm they never bridged.

Chapter 8

Sarge returned to his seat and set his empty glass on the bar. The food had arrived and Richie and Theo were munching silently. Tim had lapsed into a dreary silence, his drink sitting before him untouched. Brendan sat placidly, leafing through the newspaper. He chuckled and folded the paper and set it down next to his beer. He drank a deep swallow and looked around. “Well, isn’t this just the happiest little goddamn bar in the United States.”

Sarge looked at him. “The weather can dictate mood. It’s nasty as hell outside.”

Brendan gestured at Tim. “Hence the dark one’s personality. Life must always be a blizzard.”

Sarge nodded.

“Where’s the wife today, Sarge?” Richie asked.

“She was gonna pick up Jennifer at the airport, but it doesn’t look like much is coming into this city today.”

Richie nodded. “How’s school going for Jen?”

“She loves N.Y.U. It’s the rest of the goddamn city that I’m worried about.”

Brendan laughed. “I hear they teach you how to smoke dope at N.Y.U.” He winked at Theo, who flashed a toothy grin. The journalist and the auto builder had shared a joint or two over the years.

“Uh uh. Not my daughter. She’s got a real good head on her shoulders. Anyway, she hates hippies.”

“I don’t know,” Brendan continued, “promiscuity and drugs are rampant on today’s college campus. It’s practically anarchy. I can only imagine how tawdry things are in the heart of Greenwich Village.”

Sarge refused to take the bait. “She’ll be fine. Lillian and me did our job right the first 18 years. That’s the key. Hell, I wouldn’t have let her go there if I thought she’d get into trouble.”

The phone behind the bar rang. Richie, who’d returned to his seat after consoling Tim, leaned back and grabbed it.

“Dainty.” He listened for a moment. “Yeah, he’s right here. How are you Lil?”

“Give me that,” Sarge snapped as he leaned across the bar and took the phone from Richie.

“What’s up? . . . yeah, I know . . . did she even get out of Kennedy? . . . she gonna try tomorrow? . . . what do you mean ‘no’? . . . she’s not coming home at all?”

The Sarge pushed his empty glass at Richie and nodded. He listened intently while Richie made his drink.

Brendan was grinning broadly. He motioned to Richie to put the Sarge’s drink on his tab. Noting this, the Sarge raised his eyebrows in both query and suspicion, then he barked into the phone. “Goddamnit, Lil. She’s supposed to come home. That ticket wasn’t cheap.”

Grimacing, the Sarge seemed to slump in resignation. “Alright . . . I don’t know . . . yeah, later.”

Without saying goodbye, he handed the phone to Richie, who in turn gave the Sarge his drink. Brendan noted the exchange, a powerful metaphor, and one he’d often made himself.

The Sarge turned and tilted his glass toward Brendan, acknowledging the peace offering.

“So, she’s staying in New York?”

Looking away, Sarge nodded.

Keeping his tone innocent, Brendan probed further. “Probably cashed in the ticket. They can do that, you know.”

The Sarge didn’t reply.

Richie sensed where his two friends could end up if the conversation continued. He had often stepped between the sportswriter and a larger patron, narrowly averting a beating he felt Brendan deserved.

Richie walked to the opposite end of the bar, under the TV, and motioned for Brendan to follow him. The Sarge watched as the two men huddled together. Theo went to the jukebox. Tim had begun firing darts at the cork cushion on the wall.

The patrons of The Dainty had become as fractured as a dropped mirror. It was 1:45.

Chapter 9

When the Stroh’s keg sputtered and spit out only foam, Richie unhooked it and hauled it out of the cold oak cabinet where it was stored beneath the bar, lugged it back through the swinging doors and stowed it in the cooler. Instead of hefting the remaining full one and bringing it back to the bar, he plopped down on it and put his head in his hands.

When the chemistry at The Dainty went sour, it depressed him. Most of the people who frequented the bar were not happy people. In 1969 Detroit, there simply weren’t a lot of happy people. Richie often ended his long days in a fog of disillusionment.

He was well-cast as ringleader for the misfits that were his customers and friends.

Having never known his mother, Richie realized he’d missed out on an important aspect of the Irish male experience. The soft, gentle, forgiving nature of the Irish mother imbued the more harsh male life with a sense of nurturing, though it occasionally took a couple of pints to loosen the machismo inherent in the testosterone-fueled Irish world of men. There was a sentimental strain running through the veins of Irishmen, and the purveyor was the Irish mother. In Ireland, women were only second class citizens on paper. Both genders, however, knew who was in charge.

Richie also knew this. He’d seen it manifest itself many times in The Dainty. He often wondered why he hadn’t turned into a hardened prick, angry at women. There was the somewhat damning evidence of a marriage-less life. Richie had never broken through the barrier he’d been presented with at birth: Women leave you. One way or another.

Sean had been a solid, stable, genuinely contented man, even after the death of Richie’s mom. Possibly getting Richie as a son in exchange for the loss of his wife made some karmic sense to Sean, and he refused to be the grieving widower. He had no time for self pity. He had a bar to run, and now a son to raise. By himself. He took the fatalistic outlook of the Irish. Fate, historically the stronger opponent, forced Sean to accept the cards he was dealt and make the best of it.

He’d sired a strong, handsome son and instilled in the boy a resilient sense of self worth, and the Protestant work ethic. He took great pride in running the bar with his boy, who was tending bar as early as his 14th birthday. Yet, on his deathbed, he’d realized that The Dainty had been their lives. He’d admonished his son to branch out, to start a family of his own. Sean had used Richie as his protection from becoming married to the bar. He hoped his son would not fall prey to the romantic, yet ultimately destructive allure that came with owning a bar, but owning nothing else.

Richie heard Theo’s soft yet persistent voice call him.

“Uh, Richie. You better get out here.”

Shit, Richie thought. Sarge has probably got Brendan in a headlock.

As he came through the doors, he saw three young black men, boys really, no more than 18. The were lined up shoulder to shoulder facing the bar, just inside the closed front door. The four men at the bar stood facing the boys.

The tallest boy, situated in the middle, had a pistol trained on the patrons of The Dainty.

Chapter 10

“Give us the money.” the boy with the gun said in a steady voice.

The Sarge eyed Richie, who walked behind the bar toward the cutaway swing ledge at the far end, where Brendan stood stiffly. He eyed the nightstick, but didn’t reach for it. He lifted the ledge and came out in front of the bar and stood facing the three bandits.

“I want the money,” the boy demanded again, though not as firmly. The size of three of the men seemed to disconcert him.

Theo stepped up next to Richie. The Sarge quickly followed. Brendan and Tim did not move.

Richie cleared his throat. His mouth was dry. “If I give you money, what’s to say you won’t be back here again, for more?”

“Naw man. Give me the cash and you won’t see us no more.”

Richie shook his head.

“Don’t give these nigger punks shit, Richie.” It was Theo’s low growl.

“You shut your fat-ass mouth, Uncle Tom,” barked the gunman. “Give us the money or we waste your fuckin’ asses.”

It was Sarge’s turn to speak up. “With one pistol? You better shoot me first, ‘cause if you don’t, I’ll be on your ass before you can get off another round.” Then, more calmly, “Why don’t you boys just back out of the door and forget this ever happened. Luck of the draw, fellas. You just picked the wrong bar.”

The tall boy mulled this over. He looked to his left, then to the right.

Tim stood and stepped forward, holding his own gun, and pointed it straight at the boy. Sarge recognized the Army issue service revolver.

Richie sensed all hell was about to break loose.

“Now we got a fair fight,” Tim said softly.

“Corporal, just stay steady with that sidearm. Nobody has to get hurt.” The Sarge then walked over and stood in front of Tim and faced the three boys. “Don’t you think it best to get the fuck out of here?”

Again the leader looked at his sidekicks. All three began backing toward the door. With a rush, they turned and were gone.

Richie leaned against the bar and almost fainted. Brendan was about three minutes late for the bathroom, reflected on the front of his trousers.

Tim put the gun back into the inside pocket of his jacket, sat, and took a sip of his drink.

Chapter 11

Richie gathered himself, went back behind the bar and back to the cooler. Sarge stared at Tim for a moment, then returned to his seat, clapping Theo on the back as he went by. Brendan disappeared under the “For Leakin’” sign.

When Richie had the new keg of Stroh’s hooked up, he silently refreshed everyone’s drink. He knocked his shot of vodka back immediately and poured another and set it on the bar in front of him. He leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and looked at Sarge.

“What the fuck almost just happened here?”

Sarge grinned. “Three punks just missed havin’ the piss beat out of ‘em, that’s what.”

Theo laughed. “Them little niggers was scared. Shit. Give us honest, hardworking brothers a bad name. Shoulda beat ‘em just for cause.”

Richie looked at Tim. “What the hell are you doin’ carrying a piece?”

He shrugged, sipping his drink. “Came in handy, didn’t it?”

Richie shook his head. “No. It could’ve got us all killed. You’re the last guy who should be armed, for Christ sake.”

There was no response. Tim set his drink down and looked at Sarge.

“What do you think?”

Sarge looked at Richie and said, “You’re both right.”

Chapter 12

With a smashing right hand that landed unerringly on the nose of a drunken grunt, the legend of Sergeant Raymond Donohue was born.

What had been a small celebration between loyal Marines for the return home of one of their own, had turned sour when four drunk infantrymen entered the bar in Seoul. The smallest of the ground pounders approached the bar, easing in to the right of the Sarge.

“What are these pussies having?” the kid said loudly, gesturing with his thumb to his left at the Marines.

The bartender, a kid no more than 22, shook his head and moved toward the little man.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. What do you want?”

Without missing a beat, the runt said, “Anything stronger than these bung lickers.”

Sarge flinched, but didn’t move. One of his men started to rise out of his stool and Sarge put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, quieting him.

“Hey soldier,” Sarge said quietly, “why don’t you just move on. We don’t want any trouble.”

The soldier turned and just as he was about to speak, Sarge hit him square on the nose with a right hand that had risen from somewhere around his knee. The impact was so powerful that the soldier’s blood sprayed people in a five foot circle. With his left hand, Sarge then slapped him on the side of his head, sending him sprawling to the floor.

The three men accompanying the now supine soldier stood stunned, unable to move.

As he started to stand, the Sarge said quietly to the three soldiers, “Impressive, huh?”

The beaten soldier was scooped up and carried out of the bar.

Chapter 13

By 3:00, five or six other hardy denizens of Detroit had traipsed through the hoary conditions and enjoyed some of the Dainty’s holiday cheer, none staying longer than a drink or two. The weather had grown nastier by the hour.

With each round, the memory of the young bandits had grown more and more surreal. Each new arrival was regaled with the story.

Tim left for a stroll in the sleet, not saying where he was going.

The Sarge endured a second call from his wife, terminating it with a terse, “I said I’ll be home when I get there.”

Theo kept the jukebox active, varying his song choices between Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding.

Brendan took a pad out of his overcoat and was scrawling notes that, at one point, Richie tried to sneak a look at. The pad disappeared immediately.

“You’re a sportswriter, not a crime hack,” Richie said. “I don’t need the bad publicity. That shit never happened.”

Brendan nodded knowingly.

At 4:30, Tim pushed his way through the big door, dragging a Christmas tree behind him. He paused as the door scraped closed, his hair caked with snow, his grin evident even in the dimly lit bar.

The laughter was universal and hearty. When it subsided, he said, “Get this. The guy who sold me this thing? A fucking gook.”

More laughter as Tim set the tree upright on its crossed wooden stand, sliding it next to the giant clock.

“I’ll be right back,” Brendan said, slipping on his coat. He waded out into the snow.

There had not been a Christmas tree in The Dainty since Sean had died.

Only Sarge noticed as Richie furtively wiped away a tear.

Chapter 14

Theo approached Tim and smacked him good-naturedly on the back, scattering melting snow in a two foot circle around both of them. “I can’t figure your dark ass out.”

Tim chuckled. “Shit, is that the pot belly callin’ the kettle black?”

Theo ignored him and helped him off with his coat. He stepped outside and shook it violently, returning the frozen water to its natural habitat.

Through misty eyes, Richie watched. These men all had families, in one form or another, with which to spend this holiday and yet they remained at The Dainty. The warm flush he felt was only partly vodka. Countering the warmth though, was regret that his only real family was a group of disconnected, semi-alcoholic, occasionally sociopathic men. But they were also a cache of men that valued loyalty, camaraderie and a held a genuine appreciation of the instinctive chemistry created between men who frequent the same bar. What linked them was the subterranean, rarely spoken of, reasons that men used as excuses to drink together.

The confluence of fear, vulnerability and insecurity that enveloped these men, hell, most men, transparently cloaked beneath talk of sports, war, race and sex, proved to be a shared motivation for getting drunk. At The Dainty, the complexity could often be startling.

Chapter 15

At 6:30, Brendan wedged himself through the door carrying a large sack from which he proceeded to unload Christmas tree lights and an assortment of ornaments. Sentimentality was invading The Dainty. The one-pop stragglers that had slipped in and out throughout the day were gone. It was just the five of them.

Chapter 16

Richie watched as his four patrons awkwardly decorated the tree. It took some time, as there was little coordination among these men. They were as disparate as a tiger, a black bear, a wolverine, and a feral cat. The tree evolved into its decorative state, almost in spite of the eight good-intentioned hands adorning it with lights and ornaments.

He turned and looked into the mirror behind the bar. It was a familiar face. A face he new, and a face he’d grown tired of. Life had become a dulled hum the past few years. A sort of flat line of mediocrity. He’d never really felt a spark for life since Sean had died. His father had been his life, and after his death, the bar had proved to be a poor, if not steady, substitute. He’d become, against Sean’s advice, married to the bar and nothing else. Of the swirling regrets that visited him often, never having a wife and family always surfaced as his most significant failure.

The bar was a success, for the most part. However, with no one to share it with, it was a hollow victory.

Richie did not call Ireland that night.

THE END