Killing Down the Roman Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.