The Liquor Vicar

by Vince R. Ditrich

  Vicar was glad that he had been there for Frankie’s last moments, but this knowledge did little to fill the hollow, lonely feeling that sat in his gut.

  The press’s relentless hounding had started to abate slightly, thank God. Jacquie and Vicar still couldn’t go home, though — there were camera crews and reporters staked out everywhere. After a quick huddle, they both agreed to hide out at Frankie’s place until interest waned enough that they could move freely around town. For now, the news crews mostly wandered around buying fancy coffees and frequenting Liquor to see Ross Poutine, who had agreed to let Vicar take a couple weeks’ leave. They fairly pounded him for details, but Poutine was cagey.

  “You wanna talk to me, you gotta buy somethin’.” Poutine had seen his advantage immediately.

  “Okay, I’ll take a six of that lager,” said the field reporter, pointing at a display.

  “A six? So, you want me to grunt?”

  The reporter knew he was beaten, and Poutine pushed it to the extreme, making everyone on the crew buy a dozen craft beer each. There were four of them if you included the tech. Word got around that this was the way to his heart, and then all the media were trying to outbid each other for interviews. Poutine was having a helluva good day.

  ---

  Vicar and Jacquie watched with amusement Poutine’s interview on the TV at Frankie’s.

  “Oh, sure! I know ’em well. You know, Tony Vicar works for me. I sorta discovered him. Learned him all about the liquor biz-nuss. Jacquie? Oh, she’s good people. Cutie. Smart, too. She knows dem computers, dere.”

  Poutine slapped his hand on the monitor at the cashier’s counter with a cocky confidence that made Jacquie and Vicar cackle.

  The reporter, an intelligent, elegant, and drop-dead gorgeous woman with an artificially low alto cadence, asked, “But what can you tell us about Tony Vicar’s rumoured powers? That he seems to have some unusual metaphysical gift or talent.”

  Poutine looked at her like an old, sad-eyed hound.

  “Uhh, ya mean all that hocus-pocus?”

  The reporter smiled encouragingly. “Yes.”

  “Mmm. Well, I know it’s all true. Spooky shit. Bringin’ ’em back to life, makin’ that dingbat Amazon calm down. Myself, I use a two-by-four” — Poutine swaggered, bringing up his part in the big hostage situation — “but he’s got mysterious ways, that Vicar.”

  Vicar gasped. “Oh no, oh no! This is going to go international. Now everyone is gonna believe that nonsense.”

  Jacquie just looked at him for a long time.

  Thirty-Eight / The Axis of Tweed

  He stood up and put on his jacket, so that when he met her, he wouldn’t be in just his sport shirt. The jacket didn’t so much make him look more impressive than it did improve his confidence, as if he were a soldier in proper dress uniform. Besides, half his clientele had been handed down from his father, and they had certain notions about how a lawyer should look and act. It was a pain in the ass some days, but people definitely reacted positively to tweed. Don’t mess with a proven winner. He smiled to himself.

  Out in the waiting room, Jacquie wondered what all of this was about. She had been through so much in the last few weeks that she’d begun to stumble through her days, slightly disconnected from the constant activity. She could go out to town now, although she’d be instantly recognized by nearly everyone. Most had moved on from the underwear fad, though it hadn’t fully run its course yet. Today she’d seen one guy walk out of the hardware store still sporting them.

  At least the photographers appeared to have folded up their tents and left town. However, any new activity on Vicar’s part would be reason enough to scramble the whole wretched lot of them again. And there was one crew still skulking around, trying to make a documentary about him for some paranormal channel.

  “Miss O’Neil? C’mon in.” The lawyer introduced himself and sat her down in front of his desk. “You are no doubt wondering why I called you in, and why I’ve kept this so mysterious.”

  “Yes, I am very curious, to say the least.” Jacquie opened her eyes slightly wider and leaned in toward him, prompting him to quit stalling and cut to the reveal.

  “It’s confidential, of course, and seeing that you were under the microscope of the media, I had no desire to make them aware of this unrelated matter. I have here a last will and testament in the name of Mrs. Francis Edna Hall of Tyee Lagoon, who has named you the executor of her estate.”

  Jacquie sat up, not at all poised — her jaw was agape, and a slight grunt emanated from it. “Frankie? Executor?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hall called me to her bedside only a few days before she passed, and finally updated her will. She hadn’t done so since her husband died. When I first took over my father’s practice, I reminded her that her will was decades old. But she’d delayed it all this time because she had no living family to manage her estate after her death, save a few distant cousins. She explained to me that she felt you would be best suited to executing her will and disbursing her earthly belongings.”

  Starting to catch up now, Jacquie realized that at the end, she had been the person Frankie trusted most to follow through. Her heart swelled with affection for that wonderful woman who’d taken her in so quickly, and so close.

  “Of course, I’ll do that final job for her. It would be my honour.”

  “Thank you. I’ll show you the will, then.”

  The lawyer read his copy aloud while Jacquie skimmed along. She slumped in shock as she learned that Vicar had been willed full ownership of the Agincourt Hotel, and that she herself had inherited the house on the hill overlooking Tyee Lagoon — 411 Sloop Road, Frankie’s private home and residence for nearly sixty years. Some other items were to be distributed between a small handful of people, including her and Vicar.

  Trying to stay focused, Jacquie inspected the long, detailed list again.

  “I wonder why she’s giving me the house and Tony the hotel?”

  The lawyer laughed. “She said, ‘God himself couldn’t keep a house as well as a woman.’ She also said he had talent, but only you could give him a home.”

  Tears fell down Jacquie’s cheeks as she laughed a little. Frankie’s tremendous generosity was hard to take in, and it had been accompanied by her characteristic wryness. To her thinking, God was apparently a man; ergo, he was a slob. What an old-fashioned but touching way to express her feminism.

  Jacquie understood in that instant that Frankie had not only seen the future, she had also been intent on creating it.

  Thirty-Nine / Ocean View

  “What? What?” Vicar knew something was up, but he couldn’t read whether it was good or bad. “What’s happened?”

  “Well, uhhh …” Jacquie paused to find the right words. Her eyes were puffy from crying.

  “Jacquie! What is it?”

  “Mmm … Frankie made me executor of her estate, and she’s left you the Agincourt Hotel.” She waited for his response.

  “She gave me the hotel?” Vicar asked. Jacquie just nodded her head. “Gave it to me, lock, stock, and barrel?”

  “Yes. And she gave me this house.” She glanced around the kitchen — which was now hers. She was in somewhat of a daze at the thought.

  Vicar stood silent a few beats, looking around the house as well. It was a huge, homey, rambling manse. As a little boy, he’d always wanted to live in a castle, and this felt awfully close. He’d fallen in love with it from the first time he set foot inside. He pawed through his brain, struggling to find something useful to say.

  “It’s, ahhh … pretty old. Couldn’t she at least have given you a new house?”

  Jacquie fell against him and began sobbing.

  Vicar was so thoroughly taken aback by the news of his surprise inheritance that he had to vacate the house and clear his muddled thoughts. He wandered down Sloop Road and stopped off at Archie Muir’s place. Archie was an old widower who lived with his Dalmatian. Vicar had delivered vino to him many times. On occasion, t
he dog’s incessant baying had made it almost impossible to transact the delivery.

  “Hey, Arch, I’m going for a hike. Do you mind if I take Dickie with me for a workout?”

  “Aye,” Archie replied in his Highland burr. “He needs a r-r-run, and my hip’s total shite.”

  Vicar let Spotted Dick off his lead and wandered off at a good clip into the forest trails, heading downward to the ocean. The Dalmatian was far too delighted with his adventure to stay on a straight course.

  “Dick, come! Dick! Come!” Vicar yelled, just as two strolling ladies approached. They gave him a wide, cautious berth and made sure to watch him over their shoulders as he continued down the path. Vicar shook his head ruefully, thinking of Archie’s Glaswegian sense of humour. He’d probably named the dog for just such a scenario.

  The cool trees shadowed the rooted path, requiring Vicar to keep his eyes on his footing until he came to a clearing that overlooked a magnificent view. He stood awestruck at the sheer beauty of the precipitous hillside plunging down into the undulating Pacific. He had travelled and seen some of the world, but never really lived anywhere else, and yet still he was overwhelmed by the unspoiled beauty of the view before his eyes. He traced the coastline to the distant point that bordered the Lagoon and could see the roofline of what was now Jacquie’s house. Glancing seaward, he spied the pastel hummocks that were some of the Gulf Islands, little communities of their own that looked to him like mere purplish humps. With the mountains of the Sunshine Coast as a backdrop, a lone tugboat pulled a log boom in the strait, leaving an ever-widening wake that rippled the water for what looked like a couple of miles. Stock still, Vicar simply breathed and listened. The powdery, earthen aroma of moss and fallen fir needles mixed with the gentle scent of kelp. The buzz of insects, the taunting caw of a crow somewhere nearby, the whisper of the boughs swaying in the gentle sea breeze, the lapping whoosh of the ocean down beneath him — all combined to play a quiet symphony. Only a few minutes of this would last him a long time.

  His thoughts drifted to his improved circumstances. He was a multimillionaire, just like that, the owner of a hotel and the block of property it sat on. He had never had two nickels to rub together before; now he had a life’s fortune laid at his feet. This was an entirely new level, a plateau he’d never found a route to reaching on his own. He felt like an eleven-year-old standing at the foot of a rocket to the moon. Someone had just given him a first-class ticket for it.

  Vicar allowed the luxuriant feeling to wash over him for a few minutes, then pushed it aside when doubts rose up from the depths of his psyche. You’re being far too self-critical, he admonished himself. Just enjoy it for a few minutes! But it seemed fair to wonder whether he had the ability to maintain all this, now that it had plopped into his lap, considering he didn’t have it within himself to acquire it all under his own steam.

  Vicar gritted his teeth, realizing that he was already whining like a rich person. My lord, they live in total terror, don’t they? Well, fuck that. He was finally in a position where he could be the anchor point of an extended family, a head honcho. Not some kibitzer hovering around on the periphery. Frankie had once hinted at his path. “What kind of a town doesn’t have a beer parlour?” she had asked him.

  He replied out loud, telling the trees the same thing he had told her: “It’s not a town without a pub.”

  He looked around for Dick the Dalmatian and headed back to the house where Jacquie O and his future lay.

  Forty / Famine and Feast

  Vicar was conjuring a hundred different possibilities for pub design. A quick cast around the internet had led to hours of research and countless requests to “Look at this website!”

  Jacquie was doubtful, as Vicar was scattershot. Too artistic for her tastes, and bizarre at times. She knew he was brimming with enthusiasm and energy, but she could seldom see how he could make any of his many, many dreams practical, profitable, or, hell, even doable. The building could bear only so much change. The laws of physics were immutable. But still, she looked, keeping the peace while simultaneously trying to track his giant spasms of creativity.

  This time, however, she saw something that seemed to be on point, at least.

  “These are really beautiful,” she said, admiring before-and-after photographs of pub renovations. They had the added appeal of being realistic, a quality Vicar could sometimes omit. She tried to recall the beer parlour’s size and shape, to the best of her recollection, and compared them to the shots she was looking at. “You know, if we decide to renovate, it’s going to cost a fortune. And one fortune might be enough to refurbish the beer parlour, but what about the coffee shop? It was already a wreck twenty-five years ago. The linoleum is worn black in places — it has been since I was a teenager. The ladies’ room is vile. We would probably need a completely new kitchen, and of course everything in the dining area needs to be ripped out and replaced. There are Waring blenders in there that make me want to wear saddle shoes …”

  Vicar’s vivid imagining ceased as he began to glumly consider what Jacquie had said. It seemed clear that she was leaning toward selling the whole property. He hated practicalities that doused his enthusiasm. Couldn’t a man dream a little?

  “If the coffee shop is too much for us, how could we manage a whole hotel? That would probably cost a gazillion bucks!”

  “But we might be able to make money on a hotel, don’t you think?” The disappointment she’d seen on his face made her want to try to be positive.

  “Make money on a hotel? Have you even vaguely done the math on that?”

  Vicar rolled his eyes as if in possession of secret insider knowledge. He had none, but you didn’t have to be a rocket surgeon to see that from November to May, you could practically use the streets of Tyee Lagoon for bowling. No customers meant no business — that was all you needed to know about that.

  Jacquie had to admit that they’d need to take out a huge loan against the property to make the hotel feasible. Could they do it on their own? Her thinking stopped short of involving investors. She veered away from any scenario dependent on shadowy shareholders, knowing instinctively that “backers” were people who either backed out or stabbed you in the back. Perhaps their idea was unworkable, and they should just sell the property and the old building to some huge hotel chain.

  For days they left things there, high-centred between fear and fantasy, ironically feeling down in the dumps about the feast being served at their table.

  Forty-One / Named After a

  Battlefield

  Vicar wandered around the interior of the Agincourt Hotel and let his thoughts roam. It was a colossal hulk, really. Old and decrepit, but it had been in service until just last year. He marvelled at how rundown a building could be, yet still remain in business. The elevator had ceased working a decade ago, a dormant brass antique that whispered of grander days. The stairs creaked and were badly worn. Vicar was worried he’d crash through the steps leading up to the third floor and possibly end up injured and stranded in a locked, empty building. He really shouldn’t have been alone in a place so rickety. He climbed the stairs cautiously, his feet splayed out to the sides of each step for maximum support.

  The entire third level had been shut down years ago, and the floor creaked loudly underneath him now. At one point the sounds produced by the floor and one of the doors combined into something terrifyingly close to human speech, a disembodied “Who are you?” Vicar whirled around and thought he glimpsed something black and ominous, but finally concluded that his imagination was getting the better of him in the dim light. People had been telling ghost stories about this place since he was a kid. The legend was stuck in his brain, that was all.

  At any rate, the third floor was dire, uninhabitable, and tinged with a vaguely malevolent feeling. It made him think of Spahn Ranch, absent only Charles Manson and his gonorrhea-ridden harem of murderesses.

  He carefully descended and found the second level, with its ragged remnants of hall runne
rs tangling in his shoes and its chipped-up doors with missing stick-on room numbers. It was unserviceable, and it creeped him out.

  The ground floor, well … It still contained the old coffee shop and the beer parlour on the other side, but the state of both was sad indeed. In the beer parlour, the smell of beer and cigarettes stung his nostrils. The odour was universal, and universally depressing. Surely there was a way to avoid having a pub smell like it was flooded with beer dregs. Why was it that you never noticed that honk when you went in, thirsty for a pint?

  He strolled up to the bar, the ugly contraption that they had unwisely installed thirty years before. It was piled high with old-style beer glasses stacked in plastic racks, ready to be filled with beer immediately, if you could overlook the thick layer of dust. The taps themselves had been secured as if for the night, but in fact, one night had turned into a year. The stylish handles had been unscrewed and stowed away safely. Pawing through the drawer, he saw only one or two types that he liked.

  He looked at the ceiling: needed a redo. The floor: same. Walls: egad. The lighting: ugh. The wagon-wheel chandeliers would not cut it. The old, round tables were still covered in elastic-fitted terry tablecloths. Horrible. The door was reminiscent of a prison entrance; it was surrounded by a steel insert that had obviously been made by a drunk welder, or perhaps a blindfolded one. He could easily imagine the whole grotesque thing having once been covered in boiling oil and assaulted by the catapults of the Teutonic Knights. It must have weighed four hundred pounds and probably could withstand a direct hit from a tank. The rest of the building might collapse, but the door would hold firm.

  In the corner was a vending machine still containing some snacks and chocolate bars. By now they would be hazardous to the health of even marauding raccoons — evidence of which was mercifully absent.

  Vicar felt serious doubts arising about the resurrection of this old joint. It just seemed a bridge too far. Maybe they should just sell the property, cash out. But to be replaced with what? Fast food? A big box store? Overpriced condos for elderly people who would keep watch through binoculars for encroachers upon their private parking, even though they didn’t have cars anymore? After all, the kids had promised to come by for a visit.