The Lion Tamer (Completed)

Chapter One - Tag's Place

The bar was not crowded that night, but Tag’s never got more than a handful of people to sit and tip a few and even those were almost always regulars, the neighborhood set. Friday nights were as busy as it got, the day most of the folks got their pay and scuttled over to the check-cashing place a few block down Camper Street. That is, at least, for those who actually worked a real job.
Fridays were decent, but this was Tuesday and presently craned over the oak bar with its fading finish was a handful of coated and quiet customers. The flurries had just begun outside the window and looked like falling ash. The juke in the corner soothingly whispered James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and a couple hung desperately onto each other and swayed out of rhythm to the music. Tag had turned on only half the lights in the place tonight and let the shadows comfort the few that dazed blearily at the silent television hanging near the ceiling. He wasn’t here to pay for romantic lighting for the drunken and temporary lovers spinning across what usually served as the darts floor. Fuck ‘em.
Tag owned and ran the bar himself. He was proud of his head of salt and pepper hair and even though it used to be more pepper than salt, it was still more than most of his friends could boast. It fell back gracefully over his head and was still quite full for a man in his late sixties. His boyish face was able to produce a wonderful display of expressions and it led to his charm. Cheeks that could sag in disappointment could also raise his lips into a grin that seemed to color his gray eyes, adding brightness. He could also stop you dead with a side stare. He had powerful arms, the result from years spent behind bars, sloshing dirty glasses into frothy water and wrestling overzealous drinkers back into the streets. A cigar usually danced on his lips when he spoke, sending blue white ribbons towards the gray and smudged ceiling.
Tag knew almost every face that came through the noisy storm door that helped keep the world outside. He would nod as a greeting and slide from one end of the bar to the other as he wiped it down with a ragged piece of teri cloth. The clientele was not particular nor was it very ambitious. They leaned heavily across the bar with their eyes half closed and many times it was only the occasional twitch in their face or mindless swat at a fly that gave any hint of life.
His eyes fell on a familiar woman who looked out of place and uncomfortable sitting in a corner booth by herself. She looked to the left and right and slowly sipped a ginger ale that Tag had brought her almost an hour ago. On the occasion when the door opened and someone came in, she quickly checked to see who it was, not bothering on subtleties. Her grey-white hair was pulled back into a bun and she wore a print dress that seemed a bit too small for her. Her eyes were fitful, moving quickly back and forth, checking and rechecking the people on the bar, then letting them move up to the television briefly. Tag noticed that her drink was almost, finally, gone. She pulled the cherry from the glass and plopped it into her mouth and waved to him, smiling.
He poured another ginger ale and walked around the bar, checking the register before doing so. He guided himself around a couple that had just entered and saw that the woman immediately looked to see who it was. He placed the drink down in front of her and scooped up the empty.
“You better take it easy with these,” he said and she smiled to him. She looked older to him, like she had aged ten years in the past week.
“Thanks Michael,” she said. She cleared her throat and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse which sat on the table. Tag got up and grabbed an ashtray from the bar and slid it in front of her, then sat down across the table from her.
He waited as she lit the cigarette and blew a relaxing stream of gray from her lips.
“Mag, why don’t you go home,” he said and looked into her eyes. “If I see them, I’ll let you know, okay? Really.”
His words seemed to irritate her for a moment and she turned away and looked up again at the television as if she hadn’t heard him. She quickly flicked the glowing tip into the cheap glass tray and tapped the index finger of her free hand on the table, clicking the nail.
“It’s just that,” she said, pausing and choosing her words carefully, “It’s just that this isn’t like them, you know?” Tag nodded, folding his hands.
“They never-especially Eddie-leave without telling me or something, you know?”
“When did you hear from them?”
“Last? Oh, I don’t know for sure. About four days ago. They called me and they said they were coming home.”
Tag waited, the music had stopped. The sounds of a corner bar reemerged, the light clinking of the small glasses, the shuffle of feet and the buzz of the neon Schmidt’s beer sign in the window over their heads.
“You haven’t seen them at all?” Maggie asked and took another small sip of her drink.
“No, Mag, I haven’t.”
“And you would tell me, right?”
“Of course.” He said and tapped the table top softly with his palms before getting to his feet. “Mag, you should go home and wait. I’m sure they’ll show up.”
“But-”
“Mag, finish your drink and go home. You need to get some sleep, okay?”
She thought on this and slid her half full glass across to Tag and got up. She stubbed out her cigarette and gathered her coat and scarf. Tag knew she was mad, but he had to say something.
She tried to pay him but he wouldn’t hear of it. He walked her to the front door and gave her a reassuring hug before waiting by the door to watch her walk down the street to the corner house. When she was inside he closed the door again and walked back to the bar.
He wiped the bar down again out of habit and thought about Maggie’s two boys, Eddie and Leo and the last time he saw them. Only a week ago he had served them on a snowy night and they sat where they always sat at the bar.
The place had a fairly good crowd that night and he had just loaded up the coolers
when he spied Maggie’s younger boy sitting by himself.
He breathed out and checked everyone’s levels before strolling down towards the corner of the bar. Eddie was sitting there, taking up almost half the wall with his shadow and hunched over his comic book.
Tag liked Slow Eddie. No one called him that to his face, of course, but it was true all the same. Eddie was a giant with the thought capacity of a child. Even now, as Tag approached him he could see Eddie was bringing his brows together and biting his tongue gently in an attempt to understand the colored pages in front of him. His face was held close to it and he blinked his soft brown eyes frequently as he moved his round face from one panel to the next and then back again. Finally, he produced a half-smile and looked up at Tag as he turned the page.
“Good one, Ed?” Tag asked.
Eddie nodded and then looked down again to the next page. Tag hooked his damp rag on a hook behind him and glanced up at the television. Damn Sixers were losing again…oh well, nice to know some things never change. He realized he was bored then.
“Need a fill?”
Eddie looked down at his almost empty glass and then up at him. The movement seemed to tax his energy, but he nodded again and slid the mug across the bar to him. Tag took it and placed it in the steel wash bin under the bar and reached into the freezer and pulled a fresh, frosty one. He filled it at the tap and placed it on a fresh coaster.
“On me,” Tag said and smiled. His glasses made his eyes appear larger than they were but they still looked an inviting gray.
“Thanks Taggy,” Eddie answered and took a long drink before placing the mug back down. He then wiped his wet lips with his coat sleeve.
The only person in the whole neighborhood, never mind just the bar, who could get away with calling Michael Patrick Taggart “Taggy” was Eddie Lumskin. Others could refer to him as Tag or Mike or even MP but never “Taggy”, not even some gorgeous moaning whore under him would be able to get away with that. That would earn a slap or a punch or both. That simple fuckin’ letter off the end of his name kept him isolated away from the rest of these loser shits.
Ed was different, though. Tag knew he didn’t mean anything by it and he was a soft-souled person. Also, he was as strong as a horse and could probably – no, definitely – take anyone in the bar and break them in half. And he was certainly big enough to enjoy his comic books quietly at the bar with no one bothering him.
“How is mom, Ed?” he asked.
“Good, Taggy, good,” he answered in his voice that had a shade of child in it.
“Tell her I says hi.”
“Sure, Taggy.” Eddie kept his head sunk down into the bright pages.
Tag knew Maggie Lumskin from the old neighborhood and even dated her for a short time. He tried like hell but he never got her to go all the way. He was crazier back then and he surprised himself when he didn’t knock her around for refusing his moves but something kept his hands unclenched and the two of them dissolved (Maggie would have said grew) into a friendship that lasted for years.
Eventually, though, she did get knocked up and it was by a firefighter named Harry Lumskin who worked the station down on Astrick Street. She quickly married him and they bought a small row home only a couple blocks from where Tag’s place stood right now.
She had a very hard first labor and Leo Albert Lumskin was born after twenty five hours of screaming and sweat. She was apparently a wonderful mother and wife but Harry struggled as a husband or father, staying out late and coming home as the sun peeked into the sky, filled to the gills and mad as shit. Tag had just bought the bar, changed the name from Clancy’s to Tag’s and saw Harry there all the time. He doubted that he ever laid a hand on Maggie because, well, she wouldn’t have put up with it. Just the same, he cut him off when it was obvious that he had to go somewhere else and Harry always left muttering cusses and making sloppy promises to ghostly comrades.
They lasted long enough for her to get pregnant again and then he promptly died, as if his sole mission was to plant another seed and then move to the next world still swinging his arms and blubbering about how his life should have turned out. He moved to the other world suddenly, though, when his heart decided to take a vacation.
Only a short one, mind you, but it only has to stop for a second or so to make its point, doesn’t it? Tag thought.
Edward Michael Lumskin was born four days after Harry’s funeral. Tag walked a few paces behind a pregnant Maggie and her brother as they followed the black draped procession to St. Vincent’s cemetery. Leo was only a toddler back then and he turned back often and smiled an angel smile. Tag returned it and waved.
When Ed was born, his older brother led him by the hand whenever they went with their mother. Both were handsome little boys and had remarkably similar features, so much so that it was hard to tell them apart from each other: dark, wet-looking hair that was shot with blue when the sun struck it and fair skin that hid an olive foundation somewhere beneath, almost imperceptible. Brown and warm eyes blessed both boys and they even had similar laughs.
The differences between them became more apparent when you saw how Leo took the lead in things. He was one to snap his fingers when a thought occurred to him and he often times would grab his brother by the sleeve and pull him along. Quicker and wittier than his brother, many times he had to explain twice to Eddie who would eventually nod and smile, eagerly offering his sleeve for his brother to clasp and pull.
Physically, even then, Eddie was a large boy and by the time he was four years old he was as big as his Leo who was three years older than him. Leo was certainly not big and although they still looked like deadeye brothers, the subtle changes became more apparent. Eddie’s face became fuller and somewhat flaccid, the flesh of his cheeks becoming more tired looking and the eyes dulled. His voice deepened at an early age while Leo kept his higher pitched tones.
As the two grew they got into the inevitable trouble that all boys in the neighborhood did in one way or another, but it was never really serious and most of the time the old-timers kept their eyes on the two brothers, especially when it became obvious to all that Eddie was slower than his brother.
Not that Leo is all that smart, Tag thought to himself as he watched Ed flip back and forth between the paneled pages smiling like an idiot. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and struck a match on the rough strip he had nailed to the underside of the bar. He put it to his lips and coaxed it until the tip glowed bright orange.
Ed’s brother had what Tag considered a dangerous mixture of a good brain and bad wisdom. He probably could be smarter if he really tried but he never would. He was a schemer and the small explosions of thought that erupted in his head were good for only the short-term, never the big picture. Plus, he was an anxious sort. Tag always got the feeling that Leo was trying to move too fast in the world and he certainly didn’t have the tools for that.
Maybe people in this neighborhood all tried to move too fast, tried to grab a whole fistful of brass rings rather than delicately pick each one until they added up to success, however you might measure that.
By the time they had reached young manhood, Leo had been asked to leave his second high school and Eddie simply faded out of the academic life. They had no time or patience for him and his slow wit and he stopped going after his freshman year. Both boys started working odd jobs in the neighborhood, Leo first getting the job, whether it was washing cars or painting a house and then convincing his employer to take on his brother as well. Leo had a way of talking to people. Eddie would start a day or two after his brother started.
The jobs never lasted long, and although the weak pay certainly kept Eddie in new comic books which made him smile it never satisfied Leo. He had higher aspirations and like his father, was beginning to drop into Tag’s and lament over his passing life that so far had been uneventful. Eddie would sit by his side and nod while burying his face into his new Batman or Aquaman adventure.
A bit of a testament to the smaller Lumskin was that he was always on the move. Eventually, Leo had fallen into circles that didn’t paint houses or wash cars. He was soon running numbers and earning enough to keep his mother happy and in new clothes and his brother in comic books, keeping that vacant but genuine smile on his soft and fleshy face.
So, of course Leo asked his bosses to pick up his brother for a few odd jobs and it couldn’t have been a very hard sell. Even for the penny-ante bullshit chores they were charged to do, the nature of which Tag had a clear idea but wanted to know no more, they occasionally had to have leaned on someone: someone who was behind on payments; someone who had let the gambling bug bite a bit too deep.
Leo’s crew was the first wave, the ones who threatened and held knives to eyes or walked in and trashed places with aluminum bats. A player like Eddie Lumskin on their team was really a no-brainer. His size alone, the 6 foot 5 frame, hands the size of oven mitts and a head that sat squat on his shoulders like a boulder on the peak of a mountain was enough to make any debtor piss his pants.
Hell, all he had to do was simply stand there and they started turning their pockets inside out.
Tag moved across to the other side of the bar and removed a small glass that had been sitting idle and empty in front of a dozing woman. Tag remembered her drink as a screwdriver with a splash of cranberry but she wouldn’t need another. Her cigarette smoldered in the ashtray near her. He dropped the glass into the washbasin and was about to make his hourly check on the coolers when a pair of low headlights swept over him through the front door. The juke was quiet now, trying to locate the next request and he heard it thunking as it thought.
A caddy swung slowly around the corner where the bar sat and he heard the engine sound moving down the street. The car idled for a few seconds and then stopped. He heard a squeaky car door open and a splash of voices, all talking at the same time. He knew it was Leo and his crew, probably here to pick up the muscle that they didn’t have. He heard them laughing but their words were drowned out by the juke, which had finally located “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas.
Nice song, Tag thought and gathered three more glasses and coasters. He walked over to Ed’s corner and placed them in the empty seats on either side of him.
“Your brother is here,” he said.
Leo entered and slapped some of the flurries off his long gray coat. The fine flakes dusted the black cap on his head and he took it off to reveal luxurious dark hair, the kind women would kill for.
“Jesus,” he said, Loud enough to wake everyone in the place, “When the hell is it gonna stop snowing, hey?”
He had beautiful piercing brown eyes and a thin and well-shaped nose. Overall, a handsome young visage, but the features that would have wonderfully accented any other face seemed to simply hang off of his. Taken separately, the eyes were sharp and the cheeks and lips kind and warm, but their particular arrangement on his face lent a gauzy image of anger and dullness instead.
Tag recognized immediately the two men with Leo. One was the quieter one, Danny Saltico and the other was Tommy Brisby who had a mouth like a truck driver on a bad road. Danny removed his brown wool cap and revealed sparse blonde hair that stuck to his scalp. He spun his scarf from around his neck and removed his coat.
Everyone here has either an I and an E or a damn Y or the end of their name...Joey, Billy, Frankie, Bobby..no fuckin’ originality anymore, least not round here, he thought to himself, seems to go with the territory.
“At least it’s not fuckin’ stickin,” Tommy added and unzipped his leather jacket and grabbed some napkins off the bar and wiped his face dry. “It gets any colder, though, and it fuckin’ will, it fuckin’ will I tell ya.” He tossed the napkins back on the bar.
Tag had already begun pouring their choices when they spotted Eddie in their corner and finished hanging their snow blown coats.
They pulled up to each respective drink, Leo in front of his gin and tonic, Danny in front of his scotch on the rocks and Danny to his Manhattan. Danny took a long sip without sitting.
Eddie had shoved his comic book back deep into his coat pocket and received a tight hug from his brother and smiled.
“Good, you’re here,” Leo said and sat down.
“Sure, Leo. You said be here, remember? Momma reminded me.” He said and smiled a gap-tooth smile to Danny and Tommy and they nodded back to him.
“Yeah, that’s good. We have some work tonight,” he said and looked around the bar to the bleary patrons. Tag had disappeared into the back room, probably to retrieve a case or two of cheap beer. “Did you eat? You should eat before we go out.” He took a quick sip of his drink and rubbed his hands together.
“Yeah, momma made me supper. Stew with some bread.” For a moment Eddie’s face looked as if he was still tasting it on his lips. His smile widened and looked more idiotic. “I got some new comic books, wanna see?”
Leo put his hand up. Danny and Tommy finished their drinks. “No, we ain’t got time now, we gotta go. Like I said, work to do.”
“Can I play a song? Just one.”
Leo’s dark eyes shot to the rear door where Tag reappeared and was wrestling with two cases of Schlitz.
“Okay, but just one, okay?” He pulled a quarter from his pocket and slid it across the bar to Eddie, who then lifted himself up from the barstool and lumbered over to the juke in the corner shadows.
“Tag, can we get a round of shots?”
Tag looked up and put down the cases and walked over.
“Usual?” Tag asked and Leo nodded.
He poured three shots of sambucca and one shot of root beer. Leo watched as Eddie leaned over the machine and squinted into the glass. He punched some numbers and dreamily, slowly, Karen Carpenter began her song. The same fuckin’ song he’s been playing here for two years. That and maybe three others: Manford Mann’s bastardization of Blinded by the Light, Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4 and Kenny Rogers’ Lady. Barely a good fuckin’ song in the whole group, but that was what his brother liked.
He watched as Eddie moved his hulk from side to side, his hands placed on top of the machine. There was a couple next to him, draped over each other and probably soaked in booze. They rested their heads on each others shoulders and were hardly moving anymore, simply standing there. They looked like children standing next to Eddie.
He went over and retrieved Eddie from the colored juke with its flashing lights and spinning discs. He often got lost in them, Leo could never figure it out. Something about the lights, maybe.
They came back to the bar and lined up next to Danny and Tommy, back in their respective seats. They raised their glasses together and in one movement, drained the tiny glasses. Eddie wiped the back of his coat sleeve across his wet mouth and grinned.
Leo slid a few bills across the bar and Tag watched as Leo and his friends donned their coats once again and trudged out into the gathering snow. Eddie waved back at him and Tag smiled grimly as he removed their glasses and wiped down the old wood once more.