“You two boys finding something amusing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Jasper giggled, his cheeks inflated as he tried to control himself. Darryl said, “We were only talking about produce. Heard of a new use for tomatoes.” Both brothers sprayed beer over themselves as they exploded with laughter.
“I think you two had better leave,” Charlie said.
“Aw, come on, Charlie, we’re just having some fun,” Jasper said, his laughter dying down to a sputter. Darryl, grinning widely, wiped tears from his face.
“I mean it. I want you to leave now. And I don’t want you coming back here.”
Charlie took a step towards them, his large hands balled into fists, and the humor left the Hagerty brothers’ faces. The brothers were big men and less than half the age of Charlie Harper, but Charlie was also a big man with large forearms and thick bones and a face that showed scars from dozens of barroom fights. As the Hagerty brothers tried to stare him down, the violence compressing their mouths faded to something more like petulance. Darryl cracked first and shifted his eyes towards the exit. “Plenty of other places to spend my money,” he said. He got up and walked towards the door. Jasper Hagerty followed him out of the Rusty Nail.
Charlie walked back behind the bar and rejoined Durkin. “Hell with them if they can’t show the proper respect,” he said.
Durkin kept his eyes trained on his beer. “That’s what it has come to. Being laughed at by a couple of oafs like them.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled reluctantly. “It’s tough enough every day looking out at a field growing full of Aukowies, knowing I got almost four years left before Lester can take over. With the way the town’s acting, I just don’t know, Charlie. I’m getting tired.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“You’re not going to stop your weeding?”
Durkin didn’t answer him.
“Jesus, Jack, if you are planning that give me some notice.” Charlie forced a nervous smile. “At least give me a chance to get on the first plane I can to Tahiti.”
“It wouldn’t do you any good. Aukowies would be there quick enough. Three or four weeks tops.”
“Jack, come on, you can’t let a couple of dumb asses like the Hagerty brothers get to you.”
“It’s not just them, Charlie. It’s the whole town. Chrissakes, even my wife, my two boys.”
“Your boys don’t believe?”
“Maybe Bert, but Lester can’t keep the smirk off his face.” He smiled weakly and waved a hand in front of him as if he were waving away the last few minutes. “Don’t worry, Charlie. Just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all. I may be tired but I’m not quitting my weeding. Hell, only a couple of months to first frost. I’ll make it. And things are going to change with Lester. I’m taking him with me in a few days. He’ll see firsthand those ain’t no weeds.”
Charlie’s heavy eyelids drooped a bit as he nodded to himself. “Any chance you can take me out there sometime?” he asked.
“I can’t do that. That would be violating the contract.”
“It might help to have other people see those creatures firsthand.”
Durkin thought about it and shook his head. “I’d like to. But I can’t violate the contract. If I start with this, who knows what rule I’d bend next. At some point we’d all be lost.”
Charlie stroked his chin, considering that. “How about taking pictures of them. Anything in the contract against that?”
“Shouldn’t be anything against it. Contract was written before cameras existed. Problem is, from a picture I doubt they’d look much different than a weed.”
“You own a camcorder?”
Durkin shook his head.
“I’ll loan you mine. I use it to take movies of my grand-kids. You film those creatures and I think people around here will change their attitude.”
Durkin sat still for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “I could do that,” he said. “As long as there’s nothing in the contract against it. You think you could teach me how to use one of those things?”
“Sure. They’re easy to learn. I should be able to teach you in a few minutes. I’ll tell you what-I’ll bring it over to your house tomorrow night.”
Durkin sat straighter on his barstool, his shoulders barely stooped, his chest looking less caved-in than usual. It was almost as if some of the invisible weight had been rolled off his shoulders. Not all, but some. “Okay, then,” he said.
Chapter 4
The next morning Lydia surprised her husband by having the boys at the table with him for breakfast and by serving fried eggs and bacon with rye bread toast and grape jelly. Jack Durkin eyed the food suspiciously, then asked his wife what got into her and why she was serving real food for a change.
“You don’t like it, I can take it away and give you a bowl of corn flakes,” she snapped back at him.
“No need to do that.” He gave her a wary look and leaned forward, his arms circling the plate as if he were guarding it. “I was just wondering what got into you, that’s all. You hit one of your scratch cards or something?”
“I don’t play them! You want to keep pushing your luck, you ain’t never going to see bacon and eggs again.”
“Don’t worry, I ain’t saying another word about it.” Durkin took several greedy bites, then turned to his two boys. “What do you two say? You going to thank your ma for cooking you such a nice breakfast?”
Lester was sitting across from him, his face pale, his eyes puffy and mostly shut. He grumbled something unintelligible. Bert mumbled a quick thank you. He changed the subject by asking about the Aukowies, about why they just don’t cover Lorne Field with cement.
“Wouldn’t work,” Durkin said. “Once those suckers got big enough they’d break through. Then there’d be no stopping them.”
“Where do they come from?”
Durkin soaked a piece of toast with some egg yolk and chewed it slowly while he considered the question. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s nothing in the Book of Aukowies about it. But my guess there’s something like a root system under the field that these critters keep growing from.”
Lydia let out a loud snort and mumbled something under her breath that of course there was some sort of root system, where else would weeds like that come from. Durkin turned to her, annoyed. He was about to say something when he spotted the coffee maker on the counter gurgling and brewing fresh coffee. “I thought that was broken,” he said, his tone accusatory.
“I got it fixed.”
The coffee finished brewing. She poured two cups and joined her family at the table, handing one of the cups to her husband. He took a slow sip and closed his eyes, savoring the flavor of the French roast. “Nice to be drinking something other than mud for a change,” he said. “So why’s this my lucky day? Ain’t my birthday, I know that much.”
“Why don’t you just enjoy what you got and quit being such a damn fool,” Lydia said sharply. “And quit filling your sons’ heads with nonsense.”
“First off, I ain’t filling that boy’s head with nothin’.” Durkin pointed a thumb at Lester who had his eyes closed and his elbow resting on the table to support his head. “I think that boy’s asleep,” he added with disgust. “And even if he weren’t, that head’s a steel drum. Nothin’ gets inside of it. As far as Bert goes, everything I’m telling him is the truth. And I’m going to prove it, too.”