as surprised by this as I was. That anyone could hear anything but good about his boy.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What do you mean that’s not what you hear?”
“What I hear is that the boy starts fights in the parking lot is what I hear.”
Gord and I looked at each other, both astounded and both of us realizing simultaneously, I think, that, strictly speaking — keeping within the letter of the law — it was true.
Gord’s reply, therefore, was entirely predictable.
“Horseshit! That’s goddamn horseshit is what that is, Bill Hamm!”
After all, I was there to bust punks’ skulls. Gord had made that clear from the moment I started working with him. And it’s not that I literally busted anyone’s skull exactly, it’s just that I threatened to do this to some random punk pretty much every weekend and — yes — I even got into a tussle or two. The thing is, there were a lot of little shits of the Mick Croft mould who knew Gord couldn’t stand the sight of them and who would therefore get liquored up and wander in around closing time precisely for the sport of it.
They had been banned from the restaurant, which of course my father had every right to do. So Gord could have easily called the cops to get them kicked out of there. But Gord didn’t want to do that. He liked to handle these things, he said, “himself.” Meaning getting me to handle them.
So my job was to take off my hat (my own stipulation), stalk over to wherever the punks happened to be seated, and growl at them to vacate the premises immediately. If they didn’t, I was within my rights (according to Gord) to wrestle them out the door — but I rarely had to do this. What happened more often than not was that the punks would tell me: Fine. We’ll just be in the parking lot then.
The parking lot, I’d say, is our property, and we want you off it.
You got it, man, they’d say. And go wait for me in the parking lot. They’d smile and wave at me through the window if I didn’t go out right away. Or sometimes they would be in the Legion parking lot, immediately next door. The two parking lots were separated only by a sign and a concrete rail — it was easy to get them confused.
That, apparently, was what constituted me “starting fights.”
But Gord was all over the situation before I could even draw a breath in my own defence. He leaned forward as far as he could in the booth so that the table between us and the cops cut into his scrawny chest.
“You listen here, Bill Hamm. Let me tell you about this boy. This boy is at the top of his class at school [this was not strictly the case]. This boy is here, working at his dad’s business four nights a week. I don’t let him work any more than that because he has to do his school work. We’re saving to send him to a good college when he graduates [if this was true, it was the first I’d heard of it]. This boy can do anything he wants with his time, but what does he want to do? He wants to help his old man.”
Constable Hamm was holding up his hands and opening and closing his mouth, desperate to get a word in, because it was clear Gord was only getting warmed up.
“And I’ll tell you. When I see drug-addled little shits like Mick Croft staggering around town, Bill Hamm, it makes me sick. But you know what else it does? It makes me weep. I weep for those boys, Bill Hamm. Because what do they have going for them? Do they have two stable parents who look after them? Do they have a family business to help run that keeps em off the streets at night? Do they have anywhere near the gifts or advantages of this little bastard right here? [Another thwack in the sternum.] No! They don’t! And so I weep! I weep for them! But I’ll tell you something else! This boy works his ass off four nights a week to help me run a clean, decent business. When those lousy punks wander in here cursing and pouring booze into their Cokes and lighting up joints in the back of my restaurant, you’re goddamn right he’s gonna kick their asses. He’s gonna kick their asses