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Tuesday, July 13, 1:45 a.m.
Through the kitchen serving window, we glimpsed the ludicrous.
Mr. Love, Mr. Valentini, and Mr. Pappas had joined arms and were swaying drunkenly to the ear-piercing wail of bagpipes as the P.A. blasted a recording of “Scotland the Brave”.
The Dads had scrounged up faded army fatigues and helmets, but for some reason had forgone army boots in favour of dress shoes, and, in Mr. Love’s case, an old pair of velcro running shoes.
The only blessing was that the tv in the corner had been turned off, so at least we didn’t have to listen to Captain Crunch dishing up late-breaking news about the adventures of Humpty Dumpty and the Village Vigilante.
Shaking with anger, I pounded into the hall. The women were slumped at one of many circular tables, dressed in fatigues and surrounded by empty beer cans.
“What the heck is going on here!” I shouted. “Is this how we protect ourselves from The Screw? By getting drunk?!”
The men blinked at me.
Angela belched and took another slug. She looked exhausted and haggard. Anger had squeezed Allison’s face into a tight fist, an expression usually reserved for her husband, Donny. She was drunkenly rocking Stewart in her arms, trying to soothe him, but he kept bawling, exhausted and overloaded by the wailing bagpipes. Morag marched over to the P.A. system and shut the music off. The silence was beautiful.
“Hey,” said Mr. Love, “we were listening tae that!” He pointed an accusatory finger at me. “You’re no’ going to tell me what to do, Norbert Reingruber!” The other two men blinked at me, trying to remember how they knew me.
Mr. Love ranted some more. “You’re no’ man enough to fight in a war! All those years living in your mama’s basement have stunted ya.” He looked over at Mrs. Love. “You were right, Esme. This lad is permanently stunted!” He shifted his gaze back at me. “Go join the Girl Scouts of Canada, ya wee girl!” He scoffed. “Eff they’ll even have ya!”
“Shut it, Dad!” Donny snapped.
Mr. Love shook a fist at Donny. “You’re never too old for a good tannin’, lad. Remember that!”
“Right back at you, old man.” Donny adjusted his cowboy hat. He was still rockin’ Clint Eastwood Steven McCartney. His make-up was badly smeared.
Tony sat beside Angela and eight-year-old Angelina, gnawing his index finger, deep in thought. He was way angrier than usual. When Tony’s angry, look out. I wondered how he had let things get so out of control here. Maybe he was mad at himself.
For once, John was quiet and reserved. He’d crossed his legs, and was just observing, mentally taking notes, nodding at intervals.
Why had these guys let the Dads go crazy like this? Jeez, what about the little kids? Did no one know how to act like a grown-up anymore?
Ironically, Donny had somehow parachuted out of his mania. The fire in his eyes had cooled. He was quiet. Maybe, between him and me, we could talk some sense into everyone else now.
“Mr. Love,” I said, finally. “I’m not as stunted as you think, and I’m not in Grade Three anymore, so I have no idea why you keep treating me like I am. And if no one here is going to be sensible, then, yes, I will tell you what to do.”
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Love, puffing on her fag, “you look a bit like Bruce Lee, if he were a chubby German boy. That’s a kung fu outfit, right?”
I nodded.
“Ach,” said Mr. Love, “you wouldn’t know kung fu from your arse!” He bristled. “Look at the lot of you. Aye, a bunch of fuckin’ pansies playing dress-up. And look at Donny, pretending to be Steven McCartney. Utterly pathetic. You know what’s wrong with this generation? Too much time wanking off on the World Wide Web.” He put on his best whiny voice. “Who am I? What am I? Ooo, I don’t know! Ooo, I’m so sensitive! What a load of utter shite!”
“Cool it, Archie,” said Mrs. Love, “you’re no’ right in the heed.” She blew an impressive smoke ring.
“You should talk, nutter!”
I shut my mouth—there was no changing Mr. Love’s mind on most things, and now was definitely not the time to try. He was unlike anyone else I knew; he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him and said whatever was on his mind. I kind of admired that. I, on the other hand, was afraid of what everyone thought of me. Somehow, I had to fix that.
“Look, anything that could draw his attention here is a huge mistake,” I said to all the drunken people in the room. “Like loud music,” and I looked pointedly at Mr. Love, “or bright neon lights,” and I looked significantly at Donny, who ran to turn off the bagpipe sign.
“I’m really sorry about all of this,” Tony growled, leaning toward Morag and me. “These old bastards polished off an entire case of McEwans. I tried to stop them but Donny’s dad flew into a wicked rage. He had stashed six cases under the stage for ‘emergencies’.”
“Emergencies?” Morag said. “Well, it’s certainly helping with this one.” We stared as Mr. Pappas slowly sank to the floor and lay down for a nap.
Morag crossed her arms against her chest. “Why are you fools drinking and dancing when people’s lives are at stake? This isn’t a joke!”
“Hey, John, go wake up your dad, and let’s try to get these guys sobered up,” I said.
“Gee, glad you’re here to rescue us, Eggie,” John said, his voice cold and smooth. He jiggled his leg. “So do tell, Norb, what are next steps? What genius plan do you have in that big head of yours?” I felt my anger rising.
Even after all the kerfuffle at the shop, he was still dressed impeccably, not a single hair or piece of clothing out of place. Had he gone home and changed? Had he even tried to get things under control here?
“Cool it, John,” Morag warned.
He raised an eyebrow. She had never been anything but nice to him.
I had no time for John’s bull crap. I had a war to win.
Tony had joined us for the war council. “Look, our Dads are insane. They won’t listen to reason, and they’re liquored right up.”
We all had another look. Mr. Valentini was staring at the floor, swaying dangerously. Mr. Pappas was having a noisy sleep, and Mr. Love was still half-dancing to the music in his head.
“At least they’re not arguing anymore.” Tony took a long, deep swig of beer and swiped at his damp forehead.
“We need to get everyone organized, now that we’re all here,” Donny said, returning.
“Troops! Man your posts!” he yelled.
There was a shifting and a little bit of kerfuffle, but within a few minutes, the hall was quiet and empty, except for us five.
“Where’d they go?” I asked.
“Oh, various assignments,” Donny said vaguely. “Like lookout duty.”
“Lookout duty?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I got it all figured out,” Donny said.
“Wow, okay.” For once, maybe Donny did actually have it figured out. I was impressed with him, although I had trouble admitting that to myself. I took a moment to really look around the hall.
Then my heart began to race. At the four windows, two on each side of the hall, ancient-looking machine guns on tripods had been perched on tables tucked in behind the old curtains. Under each table there was a green metal crate overflowing with ammunition belts. On the north side of the hall, Allison and Mr. Pappas each manned their machine gun; on the south side, Mr. Valentini and Donny. With war imminent, the old boys had suddenly sobered up. Wow!
Mrs. Love was gently rocking Stewart, her fag dangling from her lip. The poor kid had finally fallen asleep. We wouldn’t need to call Children’s Aid, after all. She canted slightly because of her bum knee, but otherwise stood as if calmly waiting with her grandson at a bus stop.
“Donny,” I squeaked. “Where did they get all the guns and ammunition?”
“Oh my God!” Morag said, surveying the machine guns and ammunition, her eyes growing to the size of saucers. “Is everyone insane? We’re facing four men armed with pistols, not an entire army, for Pete’s sake!”
“More will come,” Mr. Love shouted. “They always do!”
“Follow me,” Tony said to Morag and me. He exhaled slowly. “There’s something I need to show you. And try not to freak out, okay?”
“Right, hen,” Mr. Love called out to Morag, “you and the other girls get down into the bunker. Women aren’t cut out for war, that’s a known fact.”
Mrs. Love scoffed. “Shut it, chauvinist pig!” Stewart stirred in her arms, then settled again.
Allison and Angela ignored Mr. Love.
Morag’s face turned fire-engine red. I knew that she was about to tear a strip off of Mr. Love for his blatant sexism, but I wordlessly begged her not to. She knew this wasn’t the time to pick a fight with the old fool.
Angela had turned from her machine gun. I was startled to see she’d started smoking again, after having quit cold turkey ten years ago. “Tone,” she said, as we passed her. “FYI, I’m not some brainwashed woman from 1952. I have dreams of having a real career, just like you have dreams of being a race car driver. Next year, I’m going back to school and getting a degree in education. I’m going to be an elementary school teacher. And if you don’t like it, too bad for you.”
Tony’s face dropped. “You’re telling me this now? Here?”
“Yeah.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Fuck me,” Tony said. He threw his hands up into the air. “Okay, you want to be a teacher. Fine, no problem. Mama fucking mia.”
Shaking his head, he led us through a side door and down a set of rusted steel stairs to the basement, which was practically a tomb. John trailed us, as if he had nothing better to do. He didn’t utter a single smart remark. I figured he’d taken Morag’s warning seriously.
At the bottom of the stairs, Tony heaved against a heavy steel door. “Give me a hand, Norb.”
Very slowly, it gave way, groaning and squealing.
A wave of damp, musty air squared us in the face.
Tony flicked on a light switch. In a huge room, half the size of the main floor, there were stacks of munition boxes, rows of Vickers machine guns with pre-fed ammunition belts, and Mills bomb hand grenades. Enough to blow up the Club a hundred times over! In between the stacks of death, on the walls, were cheery photos of people dancing and partying at the club throughout the years. There was also one very saucy picture of a scantily-clad Sheena Easton.
“What is this?” I croaked.
“It’s an actual bunker. Walls are frickin’ three feet thick. Mr. Love and his old war comrades built it in the Fifties. Turns out he was a munitions expert. Scary, right?” Tony shook his head. “Guess the Scots wanted a safe place to hide in case World War Three broke out.” He stared at me, sighed heavily. “These last few hours have been shit, Norb. It was like being stuck in The Dirty Dozen. Turns out all our Dads know a guy who knows a guy, and they had them truck in all this old-school artillery, which, apparently, still works. The whole time the girls were freaking out, and those old stubborn bastards wouldn’t listen to them, or me. After a while, I just gave up. They’d obviously made up their minds.” Tony made a strange face. “The old buggers really teamed up. If we weren’t all going to die, I’d be happy for them.”
“Okay,” Morag said, “I’ve heard enough. We’re calling the cops. These old fools are definitely going to get us all killed.”
“Morag’s right,” I said. “This has gotten way out of hand. What if we actually kill one of the bad guys? What if we end up going to jail and not them!”
“Everyone we know and love is here with us,” Morag said. “So calling the cops won’t endanger anyone on the outside. In case you two haven’t noticed, we’re sitting ducks stuck in a cinder block with a bunch of drunken war veterans who couldn’t fire a pea out a pea shooter, if their lives depended on it. For heaven’s sake, you and Donny have children here, Tony. This stops now.”
“Be my guest, Morag,” Tony said. “Call the cops.” He looked from Morag to me. “But The Screw doesn’t know we’re here, right?”
Morag and I traded glances.
“No,” I said. “Probably,” Morag said at the exact same moment.
“What?” I yelped.
“I just assumed he did,” she said. “He seems pretty smart to me. He’d have someone check on where the police went to do their interviews after the fiasco at the shop.”
Shoot! I hadn’t thought of that.
Morag’s lower lip began to tremble. Her fears were getting to her, to all of us. She eyed the doorway as if expecting The Screw to make a cameo appearance.
I tore my phone out of my pocket. “I’m calling the police! Screw The Screw! This is the final showdown. And he doesn’t get a say if and when I call the cops.”
I punched in 9-1-1.
It rang only once, before the sound of machine gun fire startled me so badly I dropped the phone. It bounced off the floor, landed, and spun to a stop. Tony raced back up the stairs. John just gaped at me, bewildered-looking.
Morag picked up the phone and finished the call for me. Twin flames burned behind her eyes.
