The Dainty - Chapters 4-8

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.