Tilting at Windmills (20 page)

“Well, surely I can help with something.”

He put me to the task of checking the kegs and bringing up some cases of bottled beer and stocking and storing them so they’d be nice and chilled for the long night. As we worked, George whistled and hummed and said very little, and I didn’t engage him in conversation but merely let him go about his happy business, heartened to see a man still take such pride in his life’s work.

Before too long, it was four in the afternoon and George went over and turned the lock on the front door. Soon the cars and trucks started pulling up. Folks entered the bar and ordered up the first round, and that got the night off on the right foot, a night of time-honored tradition, kept out of respect for folks who lived nearly one hundred years ago. As happy hour segued into early evening, the crowd grew, until there were probably forty people in the tavern, a large turnout, George said with pride, and went busily back to his station behind the bar. Happy-hour prices, he instructed me, were in effect all night.

At seven-thirty, Gerta showed up with a couple plates of dinner, one for George and one for me, and she hung around for about an hour, alternately cleaning glasses and telling George to take a break and take it easy, but he barely listened, so involved was he in his business. Finally Gerta bade her good-byes and the whole bar waved back, and then the party continued.

The jukebox played and folks danced, and I saw the pool table get more action than I’d ever seen, with quarters lining the rim, a bunch of patrons eager to play eight ball. Conversation flowed as much as the beer, with the topic changing more often than the keg—though that, too, needed to be changed, and I lugged a couple fresh ones from the basement at about nine o’clock.

Me, I didn’t notice the hours passing, since there was no time to watch the clock, and aside from taking part in little bits of chatter here and there, I’d been working steadily alongside George, enjoying watching a true tavernkeeper at his peak. He showed me a thing or two about keeping the patrons satisfied.

At ten, he urged me to take a break. “Ten minutes, Brian. Go ahead; I’ll be just fine.”

I wanted to refuse, but before I could, he pushed me away from the bar and then closed the counter that separated the bartenders from the customers. True, I hadn’t worked this hard since George had offered me the job, and I decided a quiet break would reenergize me. I went outside, past a small group that had assembled on the porch for a breath of fresh air, and sat myself down on the steps.

Someone wasted little time in joining me. I turned and saw Chuck Ackroyd, a bottle in his hand and a sneer on his face.

“Whatever you’ve come to say, Chuck, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”

“You know what I was doing this time last year?” he asked me. He obviously wasn’t waiting for an answer, because he told me. “Working behind that bar. Yup, George always said First Friday was his busiest night, and in the past couple of years, he’d call me up, ask for my help. And I gave it; didn’t ask for any money, either.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, not wanting to antagonize him any further. His message was clear, even if his beer-sodden mind wasn’t.

“Now you come along and George doesn’t need me.” He drank from his beer, a long, loud gulp. “Didn’t even call me to say he wouldn’t be needing me. Nope, not even a phone call.”

“I’m sorry for that, Chuck. But look, I’m not trying to bust a friendship at all. You and I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, but any antagonism between us has come from you, not me. So why don’t you do us both a favor—stop looking for trouble where it doesn’t exist. I’m not a threat to your friendship with George. I’m the hired help.”

He laughed over that one, sputtering beer as he did. “Sure thing, Mr. City Boy, if you say so.”

I had a feeling he wasn’t done, and I don’t mean with the beer.

“You still seeing that Sullivan chick?”

I could have punched him, but instead I played it cool. “Annie and I are friends; that’s it.”

“Everything fits into a neat little box with you, doesn’t it? To George, you’re the hired help. To Annie Sullivan, you’re the friend. What about me—you got me in one of your little boxes?”

“Hopefully, one with the lid closed.”

“Yeah, that’s it, Mr. City Boy, play the smart ass with me. You know, you say Annie’s just a friend, but I’ve seen you two, like that night . . . heck, Memorial Day. Had the bar all to yourselves. Tell me something—do you always kiss your friends?”

“Chuck, I’m ending this conversation now. I’m going to go back inside and help George, and the next time you and I see each other, we’ll forget we had this unfortunate little chat. Sound advice, don’t you think?”

I was getting up to leave when he said words that stopped me in my tracks.

“It’s Annie’s fault my wife left me.”

“Excuse me?”

“She couldn’t keep her man satisfied, if you know what I mean. Dan Sullivan, that prick, wasn’t happy at home, so he went wandering and found what he wanted with my wife. She took off, and it’s all Annie’s fault.”

I wondered if there was any validity to this story, and then discounted it. Consider the source.

“Look, Chuck, if your wife left you, the reason is probably a lot closer to home than the Sullivan farmhouse.”

“Superior assholes, all of you,” he said. “Started with Dan, and now you.”

“You know, Chuck, maybe it’s not that others have a superior attitude. Maybe it’s just that you have an inferiority complex. If you want your life to improve, start assigning the blame where it belongs and then move on.”

Then I was gone from the porch, away from his belligerent accusations, resuming my place beside George for what turned out to be the remainder of the long night, a four-hour stretch that saw George stop only once to pee. No break, and definitely no leaving until the clock struck two.

Which it finally did, and the last group of folks filed out and crossed the street, where Martha had opened up the Five-O for the special occasion, serving earlier-than-usual breakfasts and lots of hot, steaming coffee, a responsible end to one of the most joyous parties I’d ever been in the thick of.

George turned the lock on the door and wiped his brow with a washrag. “Wow,” he said. “That was one big, spectacular blowout. The best First Friday yet. Oh, Pop and Grandpa, they’re looking down proud from the heavens—and probably raising a few in honor of tonight. Makes me a happy man. And Brian, I couldn’t have done this without you, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks, George. I had fun.”

“Saw you looking around once or twice,” he said. “Looking for a certain someone?”

“You mean Annie? No, I figured she was home with Janey, especially when I saw Cynthia and Bradley come by around eight. Besides, I don’t see First Friday as Annie’s scene.”

“Oh, I remember another Annie, and her first First Friday with us. It was just after she saved the windmill from being torn down, and we had a special kind of celebration that night, surely. In fact, I think that was the night she and Dan—well, started going together.” His eyes panned the bar, soaking up memories of the atmosphere. “Yup, this bar has seen lots of times, good ones mostly, and I was witness to them, night after night.”

“Beer after beer.”

“That’s for certain.”

“George, can I ask you a question?”

“Anything, my boy.”

“Annie and Dan—were they happy?”

“You been listening to Chuck?”

“Maybe.”

“Look, Brian, you’re a nice man, and Annie, she’s a nice lady. Defines the word
nice,
really. And whatever has happened in the past is just that, the past. You’ve had your troubles; so has she. But somehow you two found each other, and even though I don’t presume to know exactly the nature of your relationship, I do know you’ve helped her emerge from a two-year funk. That’s Cynthia’s word, mind you, and she passed it along to Gerta and so I’m passing it on to you.”

“She’s helped me, too.”

“Good. Then that’s all that should matter. The future, Brian, keep looking to it. Think of Annie’s windmill—you ever see its sails go backward?”

He didn’t say another word and neither did I. The two of us spent the next hour energetically cleaning up the lingering effects of my first and, as it turned out, George’s last, First Friday.

I was coming up the stairs from the basement after bringing down an empty keg, and I found George sitting on his stool behind the bar, slightly slumped over. On the bar was a pint of beer, freshly poured. It waited for the next customer. George had poured his final glass. As I sat down at the bar, tears fell uncontrollably from my eyes, and, despite doctor’s orders, I drank that beer until nothing remained but the love with which it had been poured.

N
INE

T
he words came easily from the heart.

“You live your life well, you live it long, and then God shines down on a certain day and you enter his kingdom,” said Father Eldreth Burton, the resident pastor of St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church, as he stood graveside while administering comfort to family and friends, all of whom had come together to say final good-byes to one of their own, one of the best. That Monday morning was alive with the energy of life. Birds flew overhead, moving images against a lustrous canvas of blue sky, their gentle song lifting our hearts, and the sun’s powerful rays warmed us on this most solemn occasion. No one could have asked for a more beautiful summer’s day.

After a mass in which eulogies were delivered with verve and spirit, and truth and laughter, too, the mourners ventured beyond the simple white clapboard building to the town’s historic cemetery, where generations of loyal townsfolk were long buried but in no way forgotten. Forever, they were a part of the town’s tapestry. It was there, on land touched by history, beside his beloved grandfather and father, that George Connors was laid to rest.

I was surrounded by folks who had been born in Linden Corners, and this might have left me feeling like a stranger. Who was I, really, this Brian Duncan Just Passing Through, to be overcome with sadness equal to that of those who had known George for years or decades or a lifetime? Maybe it was being the last person he spoke with, maybe it was finding him slumped over behind the bar, but George had moved me, touched me, welcomed me into his world with that simple phrase, “What’ll it be?” In such a short stretch of time, George had made a lasting impression on me, as though I’d known him all my life, a surrogate father who instilled in me confidence and knowledge and self-worth, qualities I’d lost sight of back in New York City.

Having to be the one to tell Gerta had filled me with tremendous sorrow and extreme trepidation. I knew for certain I couldn’t tell her over the phone. I did, however, call the local doctor, Marcus Burton—the pastor’s retired brother, to attend to George and deal with the necessary details, and once that was done, I wound my way down dark, empty streets until coming to the Connors’ home of nearly fifty years. Gerta was waiting for me on the porch, sitting quietly in her rocker, her wedding photographs cradled in her arms.

“I felt him leave me,” she told me.

I sat with her there, and for two hours, as the dawn broke over the horizon, I listened with rapt attention as Gerta unfolded story after story of a life shared, stories laced with the magic of love, stories that filled me with a a sense of warmth that bordered on envy as I realized how lucky Gerta and George had been to find one another. These stories carried both Gerta and myself through a busy weekend of funeral preparations, which intensified hourly as his family arrived from various corners of the state, including his four daughters with their spouses and numerous children—the tangible legacy of George’s love.

The same folks I’d spent the weekend with were now assembled before the grave, gathering strength from their numbers. In addition to his four daughters—Lindsey, Melanie, Nora, Viki—there were eleven grandchildren, nice-looking kids who stood proud and attentive, supporting their moms and dads and their grandmother. Gerta was brave, stalwart, keeping her tears at bay, needing to in order to get through this ritual. Here, now, she was her family’s leader, its voice.

Keeping Gerta close in his sights was Chuck Ackroyd, decidedly sober and with his head bowed. He’d done a fair amount of things to alienate too many folks in town, yet George had remained steadfast in his friendship, and now, with George gone, Chuck’s tenuous link with the town was frayed even more. Gerta, though, I noticed, took comfort in knowing that he was just one step behind her.

Me, I was among the townspeople, a large contingent of folks who had known George for years, many of whom had been part of the First Friday celebration, all of whom remarked on how well George had seemed; everyone was shocked by his death. Everyone who ran a business in town was there, too; Martha, the twins, Richie Ravens from the Solemn Nights. And at my side, offering me more comfort than I’d expected, was Annie, and with her, Janey. Though she was only seven, Janey knew from death and showed just how grown up she could be, standing in her dark skirt and blouse, her blond hair reflecting the sun’s yellow glow.

Father Burton guided us through the interment, offering prayers and a loving benediction. Tradition dictated the remainder of the service, with each of George’s daughters tossing a handful of earth on the casket as it was lowered into the ground. They remained, talking quietly with Father Burton while the rest of us started to drift off, back to our lives and homes with the hope that today’s celebration of life in the face of the death would help us all live just a little bit better.

Annie and Janey and I started down the grassy hill of the cemetery; we didn’t get very far before I heard my name. It was Gerta, being led down the hill by her eldest daughter, Nora.

“I wanted to speak with you,” Gerta said as she approached. “You see, Brian, we haven’t talked about the Corner yet.”

“Oh, Mom, isn’t it too soon?”

I had to agree with Nora. “Gerta, maybe this can wait . . . you know, until you’ve had some time to think—”