EMMA SPOONED SUGAR into her coffee and looked over the faces in the diner. Hitchens and McGrath hunkered down at the counter while John Connelly, Phil Carroll and Pat Ryder sat at a fourtop in the center. A few other faces she knew enough to nod a polite hello to. Tom, slinging hash over the grill.
Travis slumped on the benchseat across the booth from her. Nose buried in a dog-eared graphic novel. He hadn’t said a word since they left the house.
“What’cha reading?”
He held up the book in response. An ominous figure in a skull T-shirt, automatic pistols filling both hands. The Punisher.
“Mmm,” she said. “Is it good?”
Travis shrugged and kept reading. The mysterious bruise on his cheek had lost some of its purpling. He’d been withdrawn and sullen for the last two days, grunting that he was fine when she asked if he was feeling okay. She left it at that, knowing he’d withdraw further if pressed. The teenage years, she told herself. All moodiness and sullen silences.
“You seem awfully quiet these days.” She couldn’t help herself. It was like trying to keep your hands in your pockets while someone drowned.
“I’m fine.” His first words since they’d sat down.
“Anything you want to talk about?” She knew it was the wrong approach as soon as she said it. Travis didn’t respond to direct questions like that. Did anybody?
Travis grumbled and put his book down. “Where’s Dad?”
Where indeed? Father and son were both acting strange today. “He said he had errands to run. He’ll catch up.”
“Isn’t he eating with us?”
“I don’t know. Your father keeps his own council these days.” More bite to her tone than she’d meant.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Her turn to go silent, look for a way to shift topics. “I was thinking, if you wanted to invite your friend over, maybe she could come for dinner on Sunday.”
“What friend?”
“Brenna.”
Crash. The boy tensed up like he’d been stung. Another misfire. Keep it up, she told herself, and the boy will never speak again.
He went back to his book. The clatter of dishware clanged from the counter. She watched Hitchens push off his stool, clap McGrath on the back and pass by their booth.
“Morning Doug.” Emma smiled up at him, eager for some other conversation to dig her out of the hole with her son. “Did Jim talk to you about that tractor?”
He nodded but didn’t smile or even slow his pace. Kept walking right out the door. Emma stared after him, startled by his rudeness. There was no way he hadn’t seen her.
Even Travis, normally clueless to social graces, raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What’s his problem?”
“Lord knows.” She left it at that, unwilling to speculate.
Then it happened again. McGrath laid two bills on the countertop and lumbered past their table. Emma said hello but all she got back was a brisk nod. No smile, no warmth. Downright frosty to tell the truth.
Travis harrumphed. “Did you piss somebody off?”
“Language please.”
Edie brought their plates and fled before any chitchat could occur. Emma unrolled her cutlery from the napkin and nodded at his eggs. “Eat your breakfast.”
Tom Carswell sat behind his computer screen, fantasizing about killing his teller again. He couldn’t close his office door, couldn’t shut out Cheryl’s grating voice as she prattled away to Mrs. Kolchack about her suffering feet and poor son who couldn’t find a job. He pictured a garrotte in his hands, a lethal length of wire that would silence her voice forever.
“Sir, can I help you?” Cheryl’s voice changed pitch. Alarm. “Sir, you can’t go back there.”
“Where is he?” A man’s voice.
Carswell ducked. It had to be Corrigan, barging back in to harangue him some more. With nowhere to run, he froze as the figure darkened his office door.
Jim Hawkshaw. Thank God.
“Jimmy. Jesus, I thought—”
Jim tilted over the desk, knocking over a tray of pens. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Easy.” Carswell leaned back. Another rube gone hot under the collar. “What are you talking about?”
“You told Will Corrigan about my finances? My farm?” Jim took a breath, trying to keep composed. “That’s private info, fer chrissakes! What the hell kinda bank are you running?”
“Uh, we’re a credit union, Jim. Not a bank.”
Jim knuckled the desk. “Why did you tell that man my business?”
Carswell raised both palms, all innocent. “Mr. Corrigan said the two of you were going into business together. You leasing his land at a criminal rate. He asked about your credit rating. Your ability to pay your debts.”
“And you blabbed it all to him?” Capillaries popping Jim’s eyes. “He wants to swindle my farm out from under me, you idiot!”
Carswell simply smiled. Insults and slurs didn’t faze him anymore. Not after all the bad news he’d doled out in his time. “Here I thought you two were all chummy.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You chose sides,” Carswell said. “His. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Jim reeled back. “That’s got nothing to do with this.”
A figure rumbled into the manager’s doorway. The security guard. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Everything okay?”
Carswell rose, met Jim’s stare and hissed. “You made your bed, Jimbo. Lie in it.” He nodded to the security guard. “See Mr. Hawkshaw out, please.”
Jim elbowed past the ogre in uniform and staggered into the lobby. Just past the doorframe, he heard Carswell groan. “Mr. Hawkshaw’s business here is done.”
“Why was everyone so rude?” Travis dragged his feet ten paces behind his mom. She marched at a steady clip, flip-flops clacking. Her mouth set in that grimace like she’d just bitten into a lemon but stitched shut. Stoicism, inherited from her mother’s family tree, had been drilled into her bones at an early age.
“I don’t know, honey.” Emma looked back, waiting for him to catch up. When he wanted to, Travis could sprint to beat lightning. The rest of the time, the boy moved like chilled molasses. She wanted to get as far away from the greasy spoon as possible. “Maybe they’re just having a bad day..”
“Maybe they’re just assholes.”
She stopped cold. “Travis, what has gotten into you?”
“What?”
“Your language. You can’t say two words without swearing.” The sour set of her mouth locked. “You know how much I hate that.”
He shrugged. “Just words. Jesus.”
“No it isn’t. It’s the last resort of the simple-minded. Do you think it sounds cool when you curse?” She saw his shoulders about to shrug and cut him off. “Well you don’t. You sound like every other thoughtless idiot in this town. Is that what you want to be?”
Travis bit his lip before the words ‘fuck you’ tipped off his tongue. “You think you’re better than everyone else?”
She turned on him again and this time he thought she was going to hit him. Her hand up, ready to backhand his mouth. He could see the jaw muscles grinding under her cheek. Her hand lowered.
“Wait up!”
They both turned. Jim, crossing Galway to catch up. Travis watched his dad stomp towards them, his whole frame bristling with anger. What the hell is wrong with everybody?
Jim caught up and kept marching. “Let’s go home.”
“Is everything okay?” Emma pushed down the rage in her belly, recognising the same in her husband’s stomping gait. “Jim?”
“It’s fine,” he said, not slowing down. Rounding the corner to the alley where they’d parked the truck.
“Jim, stop.” Emma took hold of his arm. “What happened? You look ready to explode.”
He scrambled his brains for a convenient lie, something to patch the moment over and move on. Nothing came.
Travis kept walking, wanting no part of his folks arguing in public. He’d hide in the truck and hope he didn’t see anyone he knew. Then he saw the truck.
“Holy shit!”
Emma lost it. “Travis James Hawkshaw! What did I just say about cursing?!” She turned on her husband. “Talk to your son! He’s become a foul-mouthed little grump!”
Travis didn’t hear a word of it. Eyes bugging, he pointed at the old Chevy. “Look.”
The headlamp on the port side was smashed in. Brittle shards peppered on the ground. The sideview mirror was knocked off, dangling loose from one bolt.
Travis went around to the other side and his mouth dropped. “Jesus Christ.”
The starboard side was defaced with spraypaint. Candy apple red, rivulets of it dripping down the panels to the bubbled rust spots on the runners. A single word:
TRAITOR
Jim snapped up and down the alley. Down the street. Not a soul in sight, no car speeding away. Just a crow cawing mindlessly from a fencepost.
Emma looked at him. “What is going on?”
Jim tore the dangling mirror from the bolt and set the piece in the box. “Get in.”
The ride home. Kicking up dust down the old Roman Line in a truck labelled ‘traitor’. Pulling out of town, Travis wouldn’t stop with the questions. Who did it? Why did they do it? What does it mean?
Jim snapped at him to shut the hell up and they drove home in silence.
Coming home, Jim pulled up before the barn and slammed the shift into park. Weighing his options on how to fix the graffiti. Taking it to Murdoch’s garage for a fresh paint job was out of the question but he sure as hell couldn’t leave it the way it was. How much primer did he have in the workshop?
Travis hopped out of the cab, then Emma. They came around the port side to where Jim stood, looking at the damage.
Emma touched a fingertip to the red spray-paint. “It’s still tacky. Can you fix it?”
“Some gasoline might scrub it off.” Jim looked at his son, oblivious to the anger still brewing in the boy’s eyes. “Travis, bring me the small gas can and some rags. We’ll see if we can’t scrub this mess off.”
Travis didn’t move. “Why do you always yell at me like that? I just wanna know why someone would tag our truck.”
Jim looked at his son, saw the sting in the boy’s eyes. When Travis was born, Jim had made a silent vow to be a better parent than his own father was but this was another reminder of how far he’d missed the mark. Each day he crept closer and closer to becoming exactly like his old man. Yelling and hollering. Quick to anger. Impatient. Harsh.
Emma put a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “We’re all a little shaken up, honey. Your dad didn’t mean to yell.”
Another milestone in Jim’s transformation, remembering how many times his own mother would apologize for his old man’s behaviour. Christ, how did this happen? “I’m sorry, Travis.”
Travis still wouldn’t look at him. “Everybody hates us now.”
“No they don’t. This is just some idiot with nothing better to do.”
“No. Everyone at the diner kept giving us dirty looks and bein’ rude and stuff.” He turned his eyes on his mom. “Tell him.”
Emma didn’t say anything but her face gave it away.
Jim switched tactics, trying to patch over the mess he’d made. “C’mon, Travis. Let’s see if we can fix this. If we can’t scrub it off with some gasoline, then we’ll cover it with some primer.”
“Can’t.” The boy nodded in the direction of the old house up the road. “I gotta go to work.”
Anger rushed back fast. “No you don’t,” Jim said. “You’re not working there anymore.”
‘Since when?”
“Since now.”
“Why? I like working for Mr. Corrigan.”
“You are not working for that man anymore.”
Travis barked, near shrill. “Why?!”
Jim defaulted to the laziest excuse of every parent everywhere. “Because I said so.”
“Oh. Well that tells me a lot!” Travis spun on a heel and stormed for the house. He stopped and fired back. “I’m so sick of being treated like a fucking baby around here!”
Jim pounced, marching hard on the boy and towering over him. Sheer force of will kept his hand from slapping the sass right out of the boy. He yanked up a fistful of collar and pulled Travis to his tiptoes. Squeezed the words out slowly. “Go.To.Your.Room.”
Travis pushed off him and backed away, knowing he’d crossed a line. His legs wanted to bolt for his room but no way was he going to give his old man the satisfaction. He turned his back to his father and sauntered back to the house.
Jim smeared his forearm across his brow. Turned to Emma. “What the hell’s gotten into him? I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
“I don’t know, honey.” Emma brushed a fly away, folded her arms. “Maybe he’s taking after his dad.”
Not what he expected. A fight crackled in the air like static electricity. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s gotten into you? You’re sneaking around, talking to the lawyer. Running to the bank. Everyone in town suddenly hates us. And you won’t say boo to me. What is going on?”
Jim took a breath. Steadied his footing and spilled his guts. “It’s Corrigan. He’s threatening to sue us. Take the farm.”
“That’s ridiculous. He can’t do that.”
“He is doing it, Emm.” He felt dizzy. Sat down on the step. “The man’s dangerous. Corrigan spent the last seven years in jail. For killing a man.”
Emma leaned back as if pricked by thorns. She held up a hand for him to slow down, then told him to start from the beginning.