9
Rohan G.
Yorkshire, England
6/20/2023
DING-DONG. There’s a new dish in town and she’s yummy.
Forget what you’ve heard about bland American food. This eye candy is so flavorful, your tongue will long for the taste even after you’re done for the night. And don’t gobble the whole meal in one bite. She’s meant to be savored. If you’re one of the lucky blokes who gets a seat at the bar, congratulations, mate. You just won the lottery. Too bad that’s as close as you’ll get to actually consuming this meal yourself. She’s impossible to reach, but worth the try.
Long-short: Don’t waste your time at the Thatch. It’s a sausage party over there. The best meal in town is at the Moorings. She’s worth a return trip to Inishglass just for a second bite.
Hugh runs behind Briggs at the crack of dawn, panting and cursing the fact that, in a moment of weakness after a few pints—tips for Briggs that were handed off to Hugh—he asked his “much healthier and more-in-shape prick of a roommate” to train him.
Last year at the Annual Football Rounders Grudge Match, Hugh embarrassed himself when he was dragged off the field crying after tearing both quads. Having not sprinted since junior high, he had kicked the ball—barely making it to the pitcher’s mound, though Briggs won’t remind him of that—and taken off like a shot, his legs wholly unprepared. Not only was Hugh tagged out by Mary Kelly Shanahan, a seventy-year-old with bad eyesight and an artificial hip, but he then collapsed onto the field, midway to first base, hollering in pain, feeling like his muscles were torn from the bone and unable to move. Briggs had carried him to the sideline, where Aoife came to the rescue with ice to soothe his wounds and beer for his bruised ego.
The crowd loved it, and Briggs has made sure never to let Hugh live it down. Last night, Hugh realized the game was less than a month away and swore this year would be different. And since Briggs is only able to coach, relegated to the sidelines due to his broken heart, Hugh is even more determined not to make a complete ass of himself again.
“Tomorrow morning! Six o’clock!” Hugh announced with a slight slur as he marched up to bed. “Prepare yourself for spandex!”
Briggs leisurely bikes ahead of Hugh, laughing at his American friend whose legs are like logs, whose stomach is like a barrel with last night’s beer still sloshing around inside as he tries to keep up.
“You’re pedaling too fast.” Hugh pants. “Slow way the hell down.”
“If I go any slower, I’ll fall over.”
Briggs swerves the bike back and forth along the empty road leading into town, the chilly early-morning air perfect for a run. What he wouldn’t give to hop off the bike and race Hugh down the road, goading him the entire way, but doctor’s orders are doctor’s orders, and as much as Briggs wants to ignore his cardiologist, he can’t. He was sure, when he left Hugh sound asleep, that this morning’s training session wouldn’t happen, but Hugh is here, indeed clad in spandex and sweating like he’s in a sauna.
“Did you read the new reviews?” Hugh prods. “Five in the past three days.”
He isn’t talking about the Thatch, and he knows damn well that Briggs has read the reviews. But Briggs has no interest in talking about them, for two reasons. First, he can’t talk about Maeve without feeling giddy. It’s a real problem. It’s hard enough pretending that he’s upset with every person who asks about the damn stolen sign, when Maeve’s theft only made him like her more. Second problem: each new review was written by a man. He’d be a hypocrite to complain, but inside he’s burning over it.
“We’re not the only people she’s impressed,” Hugh says, wheezing. “Not that I’d expect anything less. You’d have to be blind not to notice her, and even then, she’s got this awkward charm.”
“It’s called being a control freak.” Briggs says it like an insult and instantly wants to take it back. He will not be the boy who pushes his crush on the playground. “She’s gutsy, which can be appealing.”
“Appealing?” Hugh says as he catches up. “That’s one way to put it. Have you thought about your revenge?”
“Revenge?”
“She stole our sign, Furphy! People expect a good retaliation.”
Briggs has spent so much energy not thinking about Maeve that he hasn’t considered payback. He looks at his struggling roommate. It’s too damn early to be talking about this. Briggs needs coffee first. He changes subjects. “Did you use a stick of butter to get those clothes on?”
“Don’t body-shame me, Furphy. How far have we gone?”
Briggs checks his phone. “Barely a kilometer.”
“That’s it?” Hugh groans and falls back. “My calves are on fire, and my sweat tastes like Guinness.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Yours! I’m drinking for two, like a pregnant woman,” Hugh complains. “And come on, man! You’re supposed to help me.”
“How would you like me to do that?”
“Distract me from running.”
“How?”
“By talking about your feelings? Particularly toward an American hottie with an ass—”
“Enough!” Briggs takes out his phone and plays “Eye of the Tiger.” “This is all the motivation you’ll get from me today.”
Hugh groans again, but after seven years of friendship, he knows when he’s pushed a subject far enough.
They met in Australia, two travelers running from the past, Briggs from his grief over his father and Hugh from his failure, after just one year, out of Western Michigan University. He never should have been there in the first place, he confessed to Briggs, but after his seven sisters successfully graduated from college, he didn’t want to let his parents down by not trying, so he forced his way out by failing every class except for Modern Dance.
Hugh couldn’t face going home to his family’s disappointment, so he took the leftover money he’d saved from a summer landscaping gig and bought a one-way ticket to Australia, where he was determined to find himself. He found Briggs instead, bartending at the Gaelic Club when Hugh came in for a job.
“Have you noticed how Aussies shorten every word? They’re the tallest people in the world, with the shortest vocabulary,” Hugh said, a few weeks into his bartending gig. “It’s like they’re either in a hurry or they don’t give a shit about the English language, and they’re like, ‘Screw you. You want me to call it an avocado. Now, I’m calling it an avo. Breakfast is now brekkie. I’m defo gonna have a bikkie in the arvo after my smoko but before my tea. I hope I don’t liquid laugh, but if I do, I’ll take a sickie. No wukkas!’ They’re all a bunch of giant badasses. I swear I only understand fifty percent of what they’re saying, but I’m too scared to ask, so I just pretend I know. What’s a sky gator anyway?”
“Airplane,” Briggs said. “You’ll get the hang of it, mate.”
“Yesterday, Tracie told me not to be such a drongo, and I was like, ‘What does that mean,’ and she said not to worry about it, so of course I looked up it up, and now everyone is calling me Drongo instead of Hugh. As if I need a reminder of what an idiot I am! I thought Australia would be easy for an American, but it turns out I suck at English, too! I’m a failure no matter where I go.”
Briggs patted Hugh on the back as his head fell to the bar. “Cheer up, mate. At least she didn’t call you a bogan.”
“Why do they call you Furphy?”
“My surname’s Murphy.” Briggs turned from Hugh, but even then, Hugh knew when Briggs was hiding something.
“What does it mean?” he pressed. When Briggs wouldn’t come out with it, Hugh went straight for guilt. “Help me out, man. I’m dying here.”
“A furphy is a rumor. A story someone says is true, but no one believes.”
“So why do they call you that?”
Briggs played it off casually. “When I first started here, someone told a story about me that no one believed.”
“What was the story?”
“It was stupid.” Briggs tried to walk away, but Hugh stepped in front of him, trapping him behind the bar. Briggs stepped back and cocked his head.
“Tell me,” Hugh said.
“It’s stupid.”
“You already said that. But is it true?”
Briggs refused to answer. He wasn’t the type to kiss and tell, even about pleasuring a particular girl eight times in one night. Hugh would have to inquire elsewhere, which he did. When he returned to the bar, he grabbed Briggs by the shoulders and yelled, in his face, “Eight times, Furphy! I didn’t even think that was possible!”
For the next two years, they were the bartending duo of Drongo and Furphy, a local attraction in Sydney. Work long nights, sleep away the day, rinse and repeat, until Briggs couldn’t take his guilt anymore. Peggy Murphy had encouraged him to take some time off after university, before coming back to Inishglass to run the Thatch, which Briggs had always planned to do. While he knew his mum would never directly ask him to come home, he felt the pressure mounting every month. Peggy, who was not an Inishglass native, had married into the Thatch, and though it may have become part of her legacy, she had still compromised to live on a small island, and Briggs knew it.
When he eventually told Hugh that he had to go home, Hugh said, “I’ve never been to Ireland before. Need a bartender?”
And that was that. Five years on the island, and Hugh has been the best friend Briggs never knew he needed. Looking back, he’s not sure how he would have survived without Hugh.
“Fine, if you won’t talk to me about Maeve,” Hugh says, somehow keeping up his run, “I still have something to tell you, Furphy. I’m going home at the end of summer.”
Shocked, Briggs turns, and the handlebars follow, throwing the bike off balance and tossing him to the ground.
Hugh slows to a halt. “Shit, man. Are you OK?”
He attempts to help his friend up, his calves start to cramp, and he falls next to Briggs, clutching his muscles and writhing in pain.
“This is why I don’t work out!” he hollers. “My body rejects exercise! I can’t do this!”
“You’re just dehydrated.” Briggs chuckles and hands Hugh the water bottle that spilled to the ground in the fall. “You’re capable of more than you think, Drongo.”
“If the bar is low, it’s easy to jump over.” Hugh dumps half the bottle on his sweaty head.
Hugh has always used excuses and humor to cover his insecurities, but when the man decides to dig down and really try, the sky’s the limit. Briggs is confident in that. After all, Hugh dug in with Briggs, and the Thatch. Neither would be the same without him.
“You’re really leaving? When did you decide this?”
“A few weeks ago. I didn’t want to tell you right then because ... you know ... your heart and all. I thought you had enough on your plate.” Hugh scoots closer to Briggs. “But my sister’s getting married in September. I was planning to go home for the wedding, and then it hit me. I’m twenty-seven, Furphy. That’s almost thirty. Thirty . Fuck, when my parents were thirty, they had three kids.”
“Comparison is the thief of joy, mate. Isn’t that what Aoife’s always saying? You’re not your parents.”
“No, but I can’t stay here bartending my whole life, either.” Quickly he adds, “It’s different for you. You own the pub. As much as I love being Drongo to your Furphy, you can’t give me what I want for the rest of my life ... like matrimonial love and biweekly orgasms. This is your family’s legacy. Not mine. I’ve ridden your gravy train long enough.”
“You know that’s not how I see it.”
“I know.” Hugh twists a blade of grass between his fingers. “But if I’m honest, I’ve used our friendship to justify not making difficult decisions for my life, like what the hell I want to be when I grow up. And it turns out, at thirty, you’re grown up. It’s kind of now or never.”
Hugh’s confession hits Briggs between the eyes. Has he done the same? Used Hugh to justify not making difficult decisions? Briggs is older, not by much, but still. And yet, he never planned on a life of matrimonial bliss. As for orgasms ... those aren’t hard to come by.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“I’ve thought about it,” Hugh says, “and I can’t do a desk job. I like moving while I work.” Briggs glares at Hugh’s calves and cocks an eye. “Fuck you. Within reason. I reached out to a guy from my hometown who’s an electrician. Apparently, the trades need young people. He promised me an apprenticeship after I take the classes and do some training. I can’t believe I’m saying this about hard work, but ... I’m excited about it.”
Briggs pats him on the back. “As you should be, Drongo. You’ll be grand. He’s lucky to have you.” The prospect of being alone in his house sits uncomfortably with Briggs, who’s appreciated the noise of another person for five years, but this is the right move for Hugh. It was bound to happen. Briggs wasn’t naive enough to think their lives would stay the same forever. Five years just went by so fast.
“What about you, Furphy?”
“What about me?”
“Even Batman considers a different life every now and then.”
“The pub is my life.”
“No,” Hugh says. “It’s part of your life.”
“I can’t leave, nor do I want to. This is my home.”
“There’s plenty you can do on the island without leaving home.”
“And I do plenty.”
Hugh shakes his head. “Don’t I know it. Your house has thin walls. But I know you. Eventually, you won’t be satisfied with a life of cold plunging, banging tourists, and pouring pints.”
“It’s worked so far.” He stands and picks his bike off the ground.
Hugh follows, brushing dirt from his spandex. “What about your art?”
The question surprises Briggs. “What about it?”
“I don’t know ...” Hugh says sarcastically. “Maybe it’s time to show it to people.”
It’s not a hobby Briggs shares with most. But four years ago, when he bought an old barn from a neighbor to refurbish into a studio, he came clean to Hugh. Now the place is littered in canvases, not that Briggs has ever considered showing them. He just likes painting. He has no interest in making money or being critiqued. That would take the joy out of it.
“No way,” Briggs says. He gets on the bike and starts pedaling toward town.
Hugh groans and runs after him. “Why not?”
“My work isn’t for mass consumption.”
“But it’s good.”
“You have to say that, or I’ll kick you out.”
“When have I ever said anything that isn’t true?”
As frustrating as Hugh’s perpetual honesty can be, he has a point. “And where would I display it?”
Again, Hugh takes a mocking tone. “I don’t know ... maybe a place with walls where loads of people congregate on a daily basis and drink too much.”
“The Thatch?” Briggs laughs at the idea of his artwork hanging in the pub.
“You own the place.”
“I can’t change it.”
Hugh catches up to the bike, sweating again. “Why not?”
“People expect an Irish pub to look a certain way. It’s best for business.”
“You always say that, but that’s bullshit, man.”
Now in town, Briggs skids to a stop and steps off the bike. “What does that mean?”
Hugh clutches his side. “You know ... exactly what ... I mean. You’re scared ... Damn it! I hate running!”
Briggs wants to bite back at his friend, but the words get caught in his throat. Because it’s true. God, he hates Hugh sometimes.
Hugh clasps Briggs on the back, using him as a prop to hold himself up. “Love is honesty, bro, and after all these years, you deserve nothing less, so here’s the bottom line. You’re a great guy.”
“Thanks, mate.”
“I’m not done yet. You’re a great guy. There aren’t many people out there like you.”
“Thanks—”
“I’m not done!” Hugh takes a deep breath. “There aren’t many people out there like you, which means the world deserves more from you. You’re being selfish, keeping it to yourself. You think you’re protecting people from suffering, but all you’re really doing is depriving this shitty world of an A-plus person. You should be making lots of babies and raising them to be just like you. Isn’t it better to leave the world better because you existed than leave it with nothing because you were too scared to love someone and actually make an impression on this spinning beach ball?”
“Did you rehearse this speech?”
“Maybe. Friends don’t let friends piss away their life. How’d I do?”
Briggs bobs his head. “You could have stopped at ‘You’re a great guy,’ and I would have liked it a lot better. And the earth is an oblate spheroid, not a perfect sphere.”
“Piss off.” Hugh slaps him on the shoulder. “Your heart condition isn’t a death sentence. Have the surgery and move on. Share your artwork. Fall in love. And live happily ever after.”
Briggs acknowledges the suggestion, but it’s not that simple. Surgery or not, life isn’t guaranteed to last. How can he make babies knowing that he might leave them without a father one day?
They’re half a block from Mettā Café when Hugh says, “I need to carb load. Let’s go to Aoife’s and make her make us breakfast.”
Briggs isn’t hungry, but could go for a large coffee. He rests his bike against the building, next to a baby-blue e-bike cruiser, as Hugh opens the door.
Hugh gestures into the café. “Furphy first.”
Briggs steps inside, expecting patrons and the delicious smell of coffee. Instead, he’s confronted with sandalwood incense, wind-chiming spa music, and round cushions spread around the floor. He looks at his watch. It’s six thirty. The café opens at seven.
Holy hell . Meditation class.
And sitting right there, practically at his feet, is Maeve.
When Briggs looks back for Hugh, he’s disappeared ... along with Briggs’s bike.