The Institute of Lower Learning

If you liked Stephen King's, The Body (made into the film, Stand By Me), I sincerely believe that this story follows that lead...if the characters were a few years older.

The Institute of Lower Learning is based on a true story -or more fairly, a combination of true stories from the 1980’s- and set in the beautiful and historic little town of St- Anne- De- Bellevue, on the far western tip of the Island of Montreal, in Quebec, Canada…and because of that, you need to know the following if you are not acquainted with where I grew up....otherwise, it is a coming of age story that could've happened just about anywhere. 

1) The legal drinking age in Quebec is 18. 
2) Corner Stores in Quebec do not have a description, they have a name: Depanneurs, or “The Dep” for short.
3) In Montreal a case of beer is known as a “2-4,” and a “quart” of beer is large bottle, about 1 and ¾’s the size of a regular beer. 
4) In Quebec, High School is from grade 7-11, with a publicly funded junior college serving as grade 12-13, known as Cegep, before University. 
5) A “Charivari”- Historically it was a pre-planned gathering of locals in a small town Quebec community, who got together outside a neighbor’s home in the evening to cause a festive ruckus, letting them know they were behaving outside the standards of the community in some form of offensive manner. 
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THE INSTITUTE OF LOWER LEARNING: 
CLASS OF ‘1987

Chapter one: ABC’s …and a D 
(A Bit of Context and a Decision). 

Taverne Cousineau sat on the outskirts of town and decency, a few blocks East of a Friday night’s Main Street conviviality and at least that far from its mainstream sensibilities… That was certainly the hope of the dozen or so mid-teen boys who stood under the street light on the sidewalk that cool autumn evening, opposite the tavern known to locals simply as Couzies.

It was the night of the first high school dance of the year and the group of fifteen and sixteen year olds were looking to make the night a rite of passage, having met up to see if they could get served their first beers in a legal establishment. They had hopes of walking away from the experience with a little liquid courage and the bragging rights at the dance that went along with being first in their grade ten class at playing at adulthood before their time. They figured that in the town closest to their suburban homes-which housed a cegep and a university on the same large campus as their high school- Couzies was just the right institute of lower learning for that night’s education.

“Look fellas, my brother John told me that all we gotta do is walk in, grab a big table and sit down,” a sixteen year old named Jeff said to the group. His older brother John was a well- known and liked figure to the gathering, having graduated the year before as one of their school’s best athletes, and was usually pretty cool to Jeff’s buddies when his own weren’t around, even in the halls of the school. 

“If we don’t act like a******s and we get there before seven, and outta there by nine, we’ll be in the clear.” He paused before finishing to look at each of his buddies in the eye….”Seriously boys, we’re gonna get served no problem, so stop freaking out.” 

Jeff directed the final comment to the two or three guys in the group that were still not completely sold on the idea of a visit to Couzies, who felt the plot didn’t have much of a chance of success. None of the guys had so much as a falsified piece of identification, so they were a little nervous about the prospect of walking through the front doors of the tavern only to have their true ages humiliatingly pointed out to them, and then to the door. As usual though, Jeff’s words and argumentation carried a lot of weight with the gang, and unanimity in the form of mischievous grins was creeping across the faces of all those that had gathered for the night’s adventure.

Jeff was just a little over average height for his age, but he was stocky and had a wisp of a moustache, so he was seen as one of the older looking guys in the group. He had been one of two boys, along with his best buddy Smitty, who’d organized the plot and made the calls for the night’s meet up before the dance, only having called the older looking guys they knew. Jeff was known as one of the ballsier kids in grade ten, and had taken on somewhat of a leadership role in their group, mostly based on a stunt he’d pulled back in grade eight that had become the stuff of local legend, all the more impressive because it was true:

He’d been playing class clown during a slide show presentation of a teacher’s vacation to Rome, and his comments and disruptions were being too well received with laughter- and hers too poorly relating to class interest- for Mrs. Ness to ignore any longer. Jeff was handed down his sentence, without trial, for holding court in class; his entire sunny day lunch hour was to be spent in her classroom. He had actually shown up for the detention, but since Mrs. Ness didn’t want to ruin her own lunch watching him she had left him alone so she could go eat in the teacher’s lounge with friends, leaving Jeff with a stern warning:

“Mr. Chalmer, if your butt so much as leaves that chair for a second for the next forty minutes, you will be back here with me after school until 6pm, while I do corrections. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly mam,” a fourteen year old Jeff had replied.

When Mrs. Ness had come back to check on him ten minutes before the bell, she found that Jeff had seemingly ignored her warning and was nowhere to be seen. When she walked hurriedly over to the second floor classroom windows, in a high heeled clicking fury, to see if he was out throwing a football around with the usual crowd in the school parking lot, she was in for a surprise; it wasn’t so much seeing him out there with the other boys -that was no surprise at all- but that she found her anger overcome by laughter when she did, as she recalled the wording of her final warning to him in her head...

Jeff was down there alright, out in the middle of the parking lot while his buddies threw the football all around him, his butt having remained firmly planted in his classroom chair: He was leaning back in style, legs extended and crossed at the ankles in front of him, taking in some early afternoon sun. 

“He’s learning,” she thought with a smile and laugh. “At least now he’s paying close attention to instructions.”

Mrs. Ness could be strict, but she knew when she’d been outsmart-assed…

“Why the hell do we have to be outta there by nine? That’s when the dance starts,” one of the guys asked Jeff.

“John said we’d likely get the ‘chant treatment’ by a group of cegep guys when they start to come in, if we try’n stick around too long,” Jeff replied. 

The boys had all heard tale of the humiliating chants, and wanted nothing to do with the phenomena. “He says it happens all the time to anyone who looks too young or the regulars don’t want in there,” Jeff added.

The “chant treatment” was the method the regulars in the place had developed over the years to rid the tavern of undesirables, in a kind of mini-charivari, old Quebecois style; it was tavern justice in a raw and immediate form. If the tavern was met with an undesirable act or patron, the gist of the concern would be found in the wording and start-up of a repetitive chant. It could evolve into accompanying fist pounding or mug banging on tables, often resulting in a lot of table spills, while the noise could actually get pretty deafening. Over the years many a young cegep kid found that if he couldn’t stomach his current drink and his last meal simultaneously and ended up standing over a linoleum accident of his own creation, a chant might rise up in the form of “Clean it up! Clean it up!” sometimes even started by the tavern keeper himself. (It was an unwritten, if not unspoken, rule in Cousineau’s: You cleaned up your own mess, be it broken glass, spilled beer or technicolour yawn… and if you weren’t in shape to do so, one of your gang took up the task for you). The one thing that was certain in the minds of the group was that the last thing any of them wanted to hear would be the growing chorus of voices, by thirty legal-age patrons of less than sober and welcoming demeanor, all chanting in unison for the group’s “ID…ID…ID!!!” 

“Ya,” Smitty jumped in, who had been sitting on Jeff’s basement floor the day before with him, listening to John’s Stones and Zeppelin albums, when John had given them the heads up on how things worked at Couzies. “John said that if we all order a pitcher, he’ll be less likely to ask for ID because it’ll be good for his sales…. The pitchers cost 6.50$, and we have to tip at least fifty cents a pitcher, or John said ‘You’ll never be served another drop in the place.’”

That served as a reminder to Jeff, who finished Smitty’s thought, “Last thing boys... John mentioned a huge fat guy with massive forearms named ‘Big Mike,’ usually works tonight, so if that’s the guy who’s working Smitty will order for all of us and call him by name, like he should know us.”

Smitty was the tallest of the group, standing a thin 6’3” at fifteen. Usually, a bunch of the younger looking guys in the gang pooled their money and gave it to him so he could go buy a couple of 2-4’s at the local depanneur, to be drank behind the local depanneur. Since Smitty was the most likely to pass for eighteen in the group, he’d come to be known as a dependable “beer buyer guy’,’ an occupation that was usually good for a few free beers for the effort.

Jeff finished Smitty’s sentence, “Oh, and John said we should definitely only order Labatt 50 or Molson Ex on tap, otherwise we’re gonna look like a buncha’ softies. None of that new Molson Dry crap... Everyone in the place is an ale drinker.”

“Oh man… ale tastes like s**t!” came unexpected comment from the Quiet Kid, who was very smart and the group’s in-test tutor; it was something to see on a test, or group work day, watching who scrambled hardest to sit near him, usually in direct proportion to how little they had studied the night before. He’d had two big swigs of his father’s favourite whiskey before leaving the house, and he’d developed a case of liquid confidence….His comment had all the boys laughing, as much for the surprise of the source, as the content.

“Nah man, I love 50… I grab’em outta my dad’s fridge all the time.! Trust me, it grows on ya,” Smitty responded. “Let’s just keep it quiet and not act like we own the place… and piss off the regulars.” 

The boys on the curb all felt that the plan made sense, and that a pitcher each in the warmth of a heated building sure beat drinking a six pack of beers behind the local Dep, or in a local park or wooded area, freezing their asses off before the dance. The night chill was already eating at their bones from just standing there, though the mood in group was light. If a person had been passing by that evening to pay witness to the gathering on the sidewalk, they would have seen a lot of smiles and heard a lot of nervous laughter as the boys discussed heading across the street for the front doors of Couzies, into the unknown beyond. Just as the first few set of Chuck Taylors hit the pavement off the sidewalk for the crossing, they heard a shout come from further up the Main, giving the group pause to consider the source.

“Hey Guys! Hold Up!”

It was their buddy, Andre, who had shouted. Andre, who was the only kid in grade ten who could grow a beard, was walking side by side a pretty tall red headed kid named Remington, one of the group’s jocks. It wasn’t hard to see why they were running late, walking as slowly as they were. As they approached, suddenly a third body appeared that had been walking behind them but was so small he’d been hidden from view: When he appeared in full from behind Andre and Remington, it was to run across to a pay phone booth on the Couzies side of the street. Evidently, the boy wanted to put his finger in the coin return slot hoping for a quarter or two that had mistakenly been left behind. The mid-teen boys all heard a very audible, “Ya!”; the boy had obviously struck silver in the phone booth. Smitty laughed to himself at the sight, since coin slot checking was a lesson his grandfather had taught him to pursue when he was around seven years old. He’d found plenty of quarters over the years for his effort. He figured he’d stopped checking the coin slots when he was around eleven.

It was when the kid headed towards them all, and called out “Hey Andre! Wait up!” that a collective shock passed through the group as they came to realize that the three were together, and that the baby face kid wasn’t just some random pre-teen walking in their buddies wake. He flipped the newfound coin in the air as he re-crossed the street, and caught it with a look of some satisfaction, until his eyes and thoughts met upon the realization that there were a dozen older boys staring at him. He looked about twelve, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, soaking wet...in a snow suit. Right then, he felt about eight. He reached back to the rim of his baseball cap that was being worn backwards, and slid it around to the front, dipping it low over his eyes, in a kind of instinctive attempt at moving from “cool,” to an attempt at “tough.”

“Man, who the hell is this guy, you idiots?” asked Jeff, not all that concerned about offending the smallest newcomer and in no way offending his buddies in addressing them with a typical term of teen endearment.

“Ahh, he’s `my cousin from Toronto,” Andre replied, not even bothering with a name in the introduction.

Smitty shook his head emphatically. “No way! I mean, no offense kid,” he said, staring over and down at the helpless lad, “but there is no way you are gonna get in.”

“Ahh, he’ll be fine.” Andre chimed in defense of his cousin. 

The baby faced kid just kind of stood there looking helpless, and maybe even a little teary eyed under the lid of his cap, watching and listening to his fate being decided by the older boys, tavern justice style, just before their first exposure to the same.

“Fine? What the hell are you talking about, fine? He looks like he got into a fight with puberty…and won!” quipped the Quiet Kid, to a round of laughter.

The kid actually seemed to shrink before their eyes.

“Look Baby Face,” Jeff said, saddling the kid with a new moniker. “I’m sorry, but not a chance are you coming in with us.” He paused before deciding to build the kid up a little with a teen boy compliment…. “I mean, you look like a tough kid and all…”

Baby Face stood a little taller, and beamed with a little pride from under his cap, not realizing Jeff wasn’t done…

“But I’m not about to get carded because Andre and his beard had to babysit tonight.” Jeff looked away from Baby Face, and looked at the bulk of the gang. “I mean, Imbeault didn’t even come ‘cause he looked too young. How the hell are we gonna let this kid tag along?”

The last comment hit home, and won the approval of the gang, since what Jeff had said was true. The boys already felt bad enough that one of the tightest members of their group had volunteered to not come, not wanting to jeopardize their chances of success that night. Imbeault would definitely have been pissed off at them later at the dance if he found out Baby Face had tagged along, especially if the little twerp got served,

Andre looked down on his cousin. “Sorry Kid, but you’ve been thrown to the lions…”

Baby Face looked at him, confused.

“You can’t come in,” Andre clarified.

The disappointment on the face that looked up at him was too much for Andre to leave as was, so he reached into his pocket and consoled the kid as best he could by giving him some responsibility, and the ten bucks his aunt had given him to get him out of her hair for a few hours while she visited with his Mom.

“Look, go get a bottle of pop and chips or something at the Dep, and then come back and sit on the stoop of the barbershop, over there,” Andre said, pointing to the neighboring building that faced Couzies directly. “If you see a big group of cegep guys heading towards Couzies, run on over and bang on the door twice, and then take off and meet us at the pool hall.” Andre looked at the group If the kid is outside, and we don’t get a warning about any big groups coming down the street, then we can stay a little later than nine, right?” 

Many of the group nodded in agreement at the logic, especially because a lookout wasn’t a terrible idea and it wasn’t like they were paying for it anyway. Additionally, all of them wanted to make an always cooler late entrance at the dance, giving them an opening to brag about where they’d been. 

Andre looked back down at his cousin. “If you stand watch for us, I’ll give you a beer later, ok?”

Baby Face didn’t have to think too hard. It was a good offer, and the re-growing smile that came across Baby Face’s youthful mug commended Andre’s negotiating abilities. As they walked by him, some of the guys gave the kid head a rub or a back pat, thanking him for watching theirs. Baby Face, feeling suitably important, took the money and ran off and up Main Street to the Dep to grab some treats to hold himself over while on watch.

As the guys watched Baby Face head up Main Street, Smitty made a quick last second decision. “Hey fellas, gimme a minute before ya come across, will ya?!” 

Without waiting for a response, he ran ahead of the rest of the crew, wanting to do a little reconnaissance before the bakers dozen with him made their way across the street: If they were gonna have a lookout on the outside, it made sense to want to have a look at what was going on the inside.

Smitty already knew a little about Couzies through local street lore as well as “heard-me-downs” from John; he’d been told that the police were a rare sight in the tavern, and for the most part it had served up its own brand of justice and morality -right alongside pints of Molson and Labatt- over the three previous decades. Certainly plenty of guys had “taken it outside” over the years and tavern debates gone sour, at the request of an astute tavern keeper who was well trained to see trouble coming before it happened. His job wasn’t to mediate, or question why a fight happened, just where it broke out…and the parking lot across the street was always preferred to the confines of the small tavern. 

Smitty also knew that since Couzies was an old school tavern, in the sense that it had a grandfathered liquor license. That meant that it was still a year away from being legally forced to allow women to be served on the premises. Less than a decade before, serving a female in a tavern in the province meant a three hundred dollar fine for a first offense (and a three month jail term for every subsequent offense) to any and all tavern keepers caught in the act, including serving their wives. Thus, Couzies went literally without a pot for a woman to piss in, legally having no ladies room on the premises, and still only served an all-male clientele.

The tall boy slowed his pace when he got the far curb, walking the last couple of steps of sidewalk before he put his hands above his eyes, and rested them gently against the neck high glass windows of one of the main front doors, peering inside. He could hear his buddies laughing and talking back across the street, as his gaze set upon the world inside Taverne Cousineau.

Smitty's first thought as he peered in from the street came to him upon the sighting of a rather large figure, with ginger hair, standing behind a big metal surfaced serving bar found on the far side wall, opposite the street side he was peering in from.

“Big Mike IS working…” he thought to excitedly to himself. “I mean, that has to be him!”

Smitty noted that Big Mike’s forearms really were huge. He watched as the large man finished pouring the third pf three pitchers, grabbing all three by the handles with ease with a large left hand, and then five mugs by the handles with his other hand, using a finger per handle and the fifth with his thumb. He was in the process of serving a group of five middle-aged men, likely playing at escaping lives or housewives as well as the two games of backgammon they were engaged in, with the odd man sitting out, awaiting his next turn to play. They were seated at one of four large rectangular tables. The three other large tables remained empty. “Harmless group” thought Smitty, “unless one of them is one of the gang’s Dad.” He laughed at the thought of the cruelty of that scenario. It would be hard to imagine feeling more like a kid, than walking into the tavern trying to reach for the brass ring of adulthood, only to have your Dad sitting there to greet you… and to maybe even start a chant of “ID! ID! ID!”

Smitty’s eyes focused on the liquid and food menus posted on the wall behind the tavern’s service bar, on an interchangeable letter board. Couzies served up ice cold draft by pint or pitcher, as well as quarts and regular bottles of beer; culinary delights included pickled eggs & pigs feet, cheese and dill pickle plates served with soda crackers, and eggrolls that were newer to the menu but went down as smooth as a bottle in a Molson Golden commercial. Also on tap at Couzies, though not listed formally on the menu, was an always unhealthy dose of second hand smoke that floated in big blue swirls around the little square tavern like fluffy carcinogenic clouds, and gathered in a fog on the high ceiling. In those days smokers had the warm seats in winter, while non-smokers would sometimes head outside to get some fresh air. In all the years of his patronage ahead of him, Couzies would always carry the mixed scent of stale beer and cigarette smoke when he came through the doors, even after a good morning bleaching.

Each of the four big tables had a chair at each end and four chairs along their sides, with three ash trays and a salt and pepper shaker each in their middle. In addition, there were four smaller tables in the tavern, seating four-a-piece, a few feet from the bar. Smitty could see three older looking gentlemen, one of them seated alone, at two of the smaller tables. Smitty’s eyes paused on each of them, in turn. It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that they were the types of men who spent a good portion of their days seeking answers at the bottom of their pint glasses, and when finding none forthcoming, raise their hands so Big Mike would know to bring another over for questioning. Smitty certainly thought so at that moment, and the older men he was looking at made him feel a little sad. As the years passed, Smitty and Jeff would learn not to judge the elder clientele so quickly. In fact, they’d come to learn a lot from some of the regulars, who often seemed to welcome the company of a younger set of ears that had not grown too bored, jaded or judgmental to give them a little listening time. Many of the older day-patrons were residents of the Veterans Hospital at the other end of town, who chose to spend much of their day-leave time at Couzies. The Canadian history the boys were taught in the monotonous voice, and textbook thought stream, of Mr. Hannah in class at Macdonald High School, didn’t stand an educational chance compared to the first hand stories told of World War II, by men who’d been little older than the age of their listeners when they had lived the memories they shared across a quiet tavern table. Couzies may have been an institute of lower learning, but that didn’t negate all its teachings and the wisdom it imparted.

As his eyes continued to scan the tavern, Smitty figured the place held around 60 people at the most, though most days the tiny tavern wouldn’t see that much traffic in a day, let alone one sitting, big Hab’s games on TV excluded. He felt comfortable that the crowd inside wouldn’t pay the group much mind, so getting served really came down to relations with Big Mike.

In the far left corner he saw that there was a set of stairs that led up to an alcove that sheltered an in-house pay phone, and the side door to the tavern. Couzies was a small place, but it legally had to have two exits in case of fire. His eyes moved across the far wall: Above the serving bar on the back wall he saw a large TV mounted, dead center of tavern, way up near the ceiling. Affixed right next to it was an old Molson EX clock, with a big and little hand telling the patrons the time, as the neighboring TV helped it pass by.

The metallic serving bar itself had a few taps mounted on its surface, a dishwasher, and a potato chip rack with bags of salt and vinegar, plain, and ketchup chips, at 50 cents a bag. Behind the bar, were the back wall fridges which housed foodstuffs, regular sized bottles of beer as well as quarts (which held just under two regular beers), as well as row upon row of cold-stored mugs with handles, kept as frosty as the draft that was poured into them upon serving. 

To the far right of the back wall was the male-only restroom door, with two poker machines pushed up against the wall just outside its entrance: That made symbolic sense, since everyone knew you were pissin’ your money away playin’ the machines anyway. Smitty would find out later that the men’s room consisted of two urinals and a stall along with the rather bizarre and unique feature that above the sink, where a mirror usually would be situated, was a small, two-way sliding glass window that looked in from behind the bar. That fact had led more than one slightly inebriated gentleman to gaze into the window looking to see their own reflection, only to see the rounded red face of Big Mike staring back at them, peering in to make sure no shenanigans or potential clean-up situations were at hand. The shock of the experience must’ve been sobering, because when it happened the mirror gazer always seemed to request a much needed beer upon exiting the restroom. Big Mike seemed to enjoy the moments, and you had to wonder if he was having a little fun with his job.

Finally, Smitty found himself taking note of the four large paintings hanging on the side walls, including one that would come to have a special significance… It was the image of a Canadian landscape with a large moose with majestic antlers, standing in a stream, with a mountainous range in the background. As the years ahead arrived, Smitty, Jeff and most of the guys in the gang built up a tradition of “naming the moose” in the painting. The first guy to a Couzies gathering had the honour of giving the moose his name for the night, who was then included in every toast of an evening’s festivities.

When he’d seen enough, Smitty lowered his hand and gaze from the window and jogged back across the street, feeling the excitement of the moment growing inside him. When he got back to the group, he found that he had walked in on a semi-intellectual conversation. One of the guys had obviously complained about the eighteen year old drinking age in their home province, and the Quiet Kid was setting him straight.

“Look, my cousins in Toronto will be able to vote in an election for a year before their first legal beers…” Nods around the group demonstrated agreement with the fact. “And if we were in the States, you’d be able to drive for six years and vote and carry a machine gun in the army for three, before you could buy a beer…18 isnt that bad!.”

The Quiet Kid wasn’t the in-test tutor for nothing.

And with that, they set off across the street at Smitty’s behest, feeling lucky to live in the province of Quebec….

Chapter 2- The Moment of Truth…Sort of.

Big Mike stood leaning his heavy frame on the side of the bar, as he had a thousand times over the past decade, sneaking looks up at the sports highlights on the TV above him and sips from a pint of draft he always had on the go, behind the potato chip rack. He had a full, unkempt head of red hair, and a great bellowing laugh that was as contagious as a yawn and so memorable you could hear it in your head twenty years after last hearing it….his presence belied a fundamental good-naturedness. He took a quick look around the tiny tavern, thinking it was likely to be a pretty quiet scene until around nine pm or so when some of the younger regulars were sure to show for a couple of cheap Friday night beers before heading up Main Street to the more popular and expensive late night pubs and bars. Those spots served until quarter to, and closed-up at three am; Couzies closed between midnight and one am, all depending on how many guys stuck around before heading home or up the street, or Big Mike got sick of guys Florence Nightingaling their last beers, avoiding wives and lives: The tavern basically had three niche markets, that came in at a variety of times in the day…Students and younger guys came in later, married men and working men for a few after work, and older retirees, mostly from around town and the War Vets hospital that stood on the edge of it came in throughtout the day. There was actually a mini bus that dropped off the remaining vets down to the tavern…

When the tavern doors opened, they opened into an establishment that had developed a set of its own policies on how to deal the legal drinking age in the province, and if it were to be described in a sentence it would not be surprising to find usage of the word “leniency;” the boys all knew their behavior would play a big part in whether or not they met the required in-house standard. As fate would have it, they could hear the phone ringing just as first steps were taken inside, only giving the tavern keeper a quick glimpse of a tall figure and a bearded figure leading a crowd of bodies through the doors, before his attention was diverted to the answering the phone on the wall behind him. The big man wasn’t too worried about the sudden crowd, because his pace of service was always steady, rather than rushed: It was Couzies, and a little patience on your order was needed at times: 

The boys continued to file into the tavern behind Smitty and Andre as the phone rang, taking notice of Mike’s back and their good fortune, knowing that the distraction was going to give them the cover time they needed to get seated and look like they belonged, before the moment of truth and Big Mike’s attention focused on them… It looked like they would at least get to take a seat before getting a boot in theirs. They thought the actions they were taking collectively were helping their chances at getting served, but in reality they were so overdoing the quietness and calm that had been proscribed to them that they weren’t talking to one another, to awkward effect. The spectacle of them, as they very quietly took and elbowed their way into desired seats at the long table to the right near the men’s room, was comical. As the tavern keeper spoke on the phone behind the bar, four chairs were added to the table, leaving the group looking like a group of overgrown and overpopulated children sitting at the kiddie table at Christmas. By the time Big Mike hung up the phone with a nod and quick laugh and his attention came back their way, the boys were sitting in their chairs, hardly a word exchanged between them, behaving as though they were seated in a church library, rather than a tavern. They were sitting so upright in their chairs that it looked like they were deciding whether or not to stay, which was not so far from the truth. Some of them hadn’t even bothered to take off their Autumn windbreakers.

Big Mike took in the view around the tavern to satisfy himself that the regulars were taken care of, and settling his eyes on the newcomers before him… and chuckled despite himself as he made his way over to them. He forced himself to wipe the grin off his face as he approached, and replaced it with a scowl he liked to call his “poker face.” When he arrived table side, he looked down the line, looking each of the would-be patrons in the eye as he went, finding in several cases he would have needed to lay on the floor beneath them to make eye contact. When his gaze set upon Jeff, he paused… and then just stared at him. 

Five seconds of his uncomfortable watch finally forced Jeff to react awkwardly….

“What?” Jeff asked, with nervous eyes and a shrug.

A look of recognition crossed Big Mike’s face, and he began to speak, scowl somewhat intact:

“You look a lot like a regular here. You gotta brother?”

Jeff forgot his brother’s last words from the day before in the basement
- “Remember shitheads. You don’t know me.” - and replied to Big Mike’s question without thinking. “Ya, my brother John comes in here all the time.” 

Smitty shook his head in disbelief at Jeff’s admission about his big brother. Big Mike continued to stare at Jeff and the table remained quietly nervous. His scowl deepened. 

Jeff began to think that John had been in some trouble in the tavern recently, and that by admitting to his terrible brother’s brotherhood, he was about to get them all thrown out, presumed guilty by association. The scowl remained as Big Mike began to speak again in his gruff voice. “He is a good kid, that John. On busier nights, he helps out and brings glasses and empty bottles to the bar for me.” He paused before putting the group at ease with a smile. “You could be his twin.”

And with that comment, nervousness gave way to the feeling of acceptance from Big Mike, and nearly every one of them settled a little more comfortably into their chairs…. All but Smitty, who had rehearsed ordering as he walked through the tavern doors in his mind five times, before they walked through the door and grew increasingly nervous with the delay of the phone call upon entry; he had been forced to hold off on the order, and had been sitting in his chair repeating it to himself. He knew rationally that it made sense to order when Jeff’s exchange with Mike had ended well, and he knew what he wanted to say, but when it came out, Big Mike heard a voice, cracking with youth, utter…

“Uhh.. Can we get 50 pitchers of Labatt please, Fat…err…Big Mike?”

Nervousness has rarely moved as energy as quickly as it did in returning to that table due to Smitty’s slip of the tongue…Big Mike just looked hard at Smitty, hardly able to conceal his desire to bellow out in a great jolly belly laugh at the blunder. The tall skinny kid he was looking at actually looked terrified. 

“If you need the pisser, it’s over there,” Big Mike offered as a response to Smitty’s insult, raising his outsized forearm as he did, and thumbed in the direction of the men’s room. Big Mike’s scowl and grumpy act remained intact, though if you looked close enough you might’ve seen a small curl lip upwords .

“Jaysus, you’re a shidiot , aren’t ye Smitty?” Andre intervened, using a horrible fake Irish accent in an attempted diversion by humour. “He means 14 pitchers of Labatt 50 please, Big Mike, if ye will.”

Big Mike allowed himself a chuckle at the kid with the beard with the personality, along with the rest of the table… at the bearded kid and then, without fanfare, turned and shuffled off to start pouring beers, shaking his head as he moved. He called back over his shoulder as he headed for the serving bar. “Why don’t a couple of you young fellas come over here and grab some mugs, and start carrying pitchers over as I pour them.” 

It was more command than request, and Jeff and Andre jumped to Big Mike’s aid.

As empty cold mugs were placed on the service bar out of the fridge, the two boys grabbed them and chain gang passed them to the head of their table, while the seated boys then passed them down until everyone had one. The excitement and chatter amongst them began to build. They were actually being served! As pitchers of golden ale began to arrive on the table, they too were passed down to the end with everyone holding off on pouring, since Jeff had asked everyone to wait as he placed the first pitcher on the table, so that they could have a proper toast.

“Look boys, usually I’d say dig in, but tonight, lets pour’em together, and raise ‘em together!” 

If it wasn’t for Jeff, and by extension, John, none of them would have been there, so a little more patience seemed like a noble enough gesture, if not unusually polite behavior for what was essentially a pack of wolves overlooking a fallen prey of carbonated joy in jugs . It took some time, but the chain gang process had sped things along, helped by a compromise of half Molson Ex and half Labatt 50 pitchers, so that two taps could pour simultaneously, rather than just one.

“I don’t give a s**t, as long as I get 50,” Smitty said loudly, when the group had been asked if anyone minded having a pitcher of Molson Ex. One of the old men seated alone at one of the small tables had looked up from his beer, and smiled at the Smitty’s comment. He slapped the table surface in front of him hard with his palm to attract the boy’s attention, and spun his large quart bottle to show him its Labatt 50 label when he caught it, together with knowing wink. Smitty laughed as the two exchanged a friendly smile and head nod. Several months later, that same old man would teach Jeff and Smitty that there was a John Labatt 50th Anniversary bridge in Korea built during the Korean War, so named by the engineers of the 57th field squadron in return for a donation of 3440 cases of Labatt’s 50th Anniversary Ale, now known as Labatt 50 …For Smitty, drinking 50 became a lifelong love affair that had started in his dad’s beer fridge and was cemented by a handed down heritage, he’d inherited in his ocal tavern.

As Jeff and Andre finally took to their chairs at the crowded table, the time for pouring had come. Unfortunately, there was an art to the pour that very few of the boys -who had done their prior drinking out of cans and bottles behind depanneurs and in neighborhood woods and parks- had mastered it. Most left their glasses sitting on the table as they tilted a stream of liquid out of their pitchers, only to watch in embarrassed amazement as liquid turned into something closer to gas and foam exploded out of their frosty mugs onto the table. Others lifted their glass to pitcher mouth, but left the glass upright in their hands, as though they were pouring a glass of milk, to be shared with a plate of cookies; the boys who had done this had fared slightly better, but still failed the spill test as beer turned to foam and dripped over rim onto handle holding hands. Only Jeff and the Quiet Kid tilted their glasses and raised them to the pitcher’s mouth, lowering the base of the mug gently until it was upright, as it filled: John had taught Jeff that beer was to be eased into the glass. The lack of such a lesson for the collective group had left the table a bit of a flood zone, and once again Big Mike was forced to stifle a laugh as he watched the display of inexperience.

Laughter and conversation were not stifled however, and for the most part the puddles on the table were ignored as the boys laughed at their inept pouring skills. They were too close to their night’s goal to have much of any care in the world, least of all giving in to crying over a few glasses of spilled draft. And so, glasses were filled after foam subsided, or was vacuumed out by eager mouths…. 

Jeff stood to propose a toast:

“Here’s to shared memories boys, and a night to remember,” then adding, “and most of all…to the a******s drinking behind the DEP!”

Glasses were raised to a chorus of laughs and “To the a******s behind the dep!”

The moment had finally arrived…

“Hey, hold on!” a boy named Remington called out. He was a generally competitive kid, and he wanted to challenge the gang, “Ya wanna make this first one a chug?”

“Jesus…can we just drink this f****n’ beer?!” came another voice laughing in frustration.

“Wait a sec,” Jeff said. “That’s not actually a bad idea.”

The idea did have merit in the ears of most of the group, since chugging was nothing new to them. Most of them had shot-gunned their first canned beer of the night, every Friday night, through the past summer, as a kind of group ritual, and it felt right to uphold the tradition.

A kid named JT, a rugby player from a family of rugby players, took over the proceedings, if only to speed things along. “Ok, let’s get this done! These are the rules. …Beers mugs are filled… mug bottoms stay flat on the table until you hear these keys hit the table. JT held up a set of house keys in his non-chugging hand. “Then, you chug your beer, and when it’s done, turn your mug upside down over your head, to prove it’s empty… You finish by putting it down on the table. …Last one to finish has to give the fastest chugger a beer!”

“Hell ya!” said Remington, who figured he had as good a shot as anyone to win the extra beer. No one complained about the rules, though a couple of the guys who knew they weren’t great at imbibing beer quickly, looked a little nervous.

JT raised his house keys above the table, and grabbed his mug handle with the other. “Ready, set…”

The house phone rang…and the keys never dropped.

Chapter 3: For Whom the Bell Tolls…

When the house phone rang in the tavern it always drew a lot of attention, if only because the ringer was set to “loud,” so that it could be heard during rowdy nights and hockey games: When it rang -brrrrriiiiiiing- for the second time in the quarter-hour or so the boys had been in the tavern, the married men playing backgammon all looked up from their playing boards wondering if one of their number had been tracked down by their spouse, on the house phone… but when Big Mike answered the phone behind the bar and he didn’t look their way, they disinterestedly went back to their game. 

At first, Big Mike spoke on the phone quietly behind the bar with his back to the patrons, but slowly turned and walked to the front of the serving area with the receiver’s long twisting cord attached to the phone on the wall, stretching as he came. As he moved, he began drawing attention from the gang; about half the guys watched as Big Mike brought his hand up and covered the speaking end of the phone with his palm, bringing the room to silence with a loud and gruff tone: 

“Hey!….Keep it down a minute!”

The whole tavern now had no choice but to eavesdrop. Big Mike uncovered the receiver with his hand, and spoke.

“Yes Constable Boucher, I understand….Yes sir… What’s that?...No,….No sir, we no longer have a problem with fruit flies.”

And then… 

“A surprise inspection? Yes sir… In ten minutes? No, No…that isn’t a problem.” 

Big Mike’ eyes landed on the boys as he uttered the last of the words, glaring at them as he spoke. In return, to a teen, the boys had been glaring right back since they’d all overheard the word “constable.”

“Yes Constable Boucher… I appreciate the heads up on the visit…not that there is anything to worry about here. Can I ask if I can warn some of the businesses up the street that the police are making the rounds tonight…No? Oh, Ok… Just between us it is.” 

Suddenly, Big Mike dropped the formalities as he walked out to replace the receiver on the wall… 

“Ok, no problem Claude. See you next week. No, No…don’t worry about the tab…it looks like someone just picked it up for you. Bon soir, mon ami.”

The table of fourteen took less than a few seconds to integrate what they’d just heard, eyes dancing between their full pitchers, the tavern’s exits, and the solemn faced Big Mike- who began to speak, shaking his head as he approached the table.

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but I need to make sure you can all produce some ID’s. I just got a tip that…

Just like the set of keys that never hit the table, Big Mike never finished his thought.

“Raid!” one of the gang yelled out, even though there was no real need to do so. 

For most of the boys, there was no hesitation from that point on; Chairs were pushed back, quick first and final sips were taken (along with quick stares at their losses), with hardly a pause given to mourn for beers left behind as they stood and grabbed their jackets, and then headed in a hurry and fury for the side exit. Jeff , Andre and Remington -as they would later brag- threw back their first ales in Couzies as fast as they could, although Jeff ended up spilling a third of his down the front of his shirt in the effort. Later that night, when he was asked if he had been drinking that night, due to the smell emanating from his shirt, Jeff had muttered something about “Aqua Velva” and walked away from a less than convinced mother, 

While the gang dealt with happenings inside the tavern, outside on Main Street it had taken Baby Face about five minutes to run down to the store to grab a big one liter bottle of pop, a pack of Twizzlers, along with a Sports Illustrated issue to read and to help pass the time. He liked eating Twizzlers while drinking pop, since if you bit off both ends, you had a hollow candy straw at your disposal until you nibbled off too much and it no longer reached the drink you were consuming. He had made his way to the barber shop stoop, as instructed, and sipped his pop through his licorice as he took a seat. For the next fifteen minutes or so, he took turns reading his S.I., while sipping and chewing his bounty. Periodically, he looked up from his magazine, and then up and down the Main, playing his role as look out. 

As time passed, a thought occurred to him as he looked up from his reading for the first time in about five minutes, and looked over at the tavern. It felt as though the teens had been gone for fifteen to twenty minutes. 

“They’ve been in there a while. That’s gotta be a good sign,.. because for sure they woulda been carded by now if it was going to happen,”

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a city bus did the same with his view of Couzies. Most of the time the bus would just pass through the closest bus stop, about 40 yards up the street from where Baby Face sat, and then head right on to the next stop which was in the heart of the little town’s central business district, so Baby Face just went back to his reading. This time, however, the bus started to slow and came to a halt at the little used stop, and while Baby Face had returned his nose and attention to his magazine, he didn’t take notice of eight cegep guys who stepped down from the bus, and waited on the sidewalk until it moved on. He only looked up from his magazine again when he heard a male voice call out to the bus group:

“Hey Boys, over here!” 

Baby Face lifted his eyes from the article he was reading, focussing in on a couple of guys standing on the opposite side of the street, not too far from the phone booth he’d found the quarter in. He suddenly realized as the cegep group made their way to the two older teens that had called out, that he might actually get a chance to earn his beer after all. He hurriedly stood up, rolling the magazine as he did, putting it in his back pocket. Then he gathered his sugary treasures and began to walk across the street to Couzies, heading to the front doors, ready to knock twice if he became certain the cegep guys were heading to the tavern. About half way across the street, in what seemed close to an act of violence or vandalism, Baby Face saw and heard the side door of Couzies burst open suddenly, slamming up loudly against the side brick wall of the building…followed by what looked like an explosion of fourteen teen boys, evacuating the premises through the door in a scrambling fury. Baby Face stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the quiet street, and watched as one teen nearly fell over the next in an obvious attempt to escape some undetermined consequence. 

Thoughts of the approaching group of laughing cegep guys gave way to an adrenaline burst and thoughts of pursuit and self-preservation. Baby Face considered himself lucky to already be standing and moving in the right direction, since his cousin Andre had sprinted out the door along with the rest of the gang, racing up the side road and away from Main Street; The kid was soon to realize that if he didn’t give chase, he might lose Andre altogether, who’d already seen fit to ditch him once already that evening, and had now seemingly forgotten that he was alive. For the second time that night, he called out and took off after Andre and the gang, “Hey fellas! Wait up!”

The gang had made their way seven town blocks, engaged in all-out sprint that had given way to a jog after the first four blocks, and then to an exhausted collapse in laughter, cursing and relief in the park adjacent to their High School. Upon arrival, they figured they were in the clear as far as the cops and any phone calls home were concerned. 

As they began to take stock of the situation, the boys involved all considered the night somewhat of a success, having been served and consumed a glorious sip or two as adults, depending on their individual reactions when they’d realized Couzies was about to get raided. There were many a collective sigh shared at their good fortune. Had Big Mike not received the tip, they argued to and amongst themselves, their first experience at Couzies could have been a lot worse. As it stood now, the boys were able to offer up a great tale that ended with a brush with the law, rather than a trip to the station and parental involvement. In fact, by the time they headed to the dance, the story had taken a life of its own and rumours began to float around that one of the boys had actually seen two cops heading towards the tavern out on the sidewalk, when they had stood up to head to the washroom and taken a look out the window. The embellishment only added to the legend of their first visit to the tavern, and the time they HAD been served their first illegal beers in a legal establishment,… even if they hadn’t done much consuming.

The one common cause for concern that settled upon them, just as Baby Face caught up to the gang lying about exhausted in the park, was that they were about to go to the dance with little to no liquid courage running through their bloodstreams, replaced instead by enough adrenaline to kill a horse. They had come to the realization that only two of them had enough money left to even get a six pack, having left the bulk of their nearly untouched buying power on the far right table back in Couzies. Someone in the gang said it out loud, but there wasn’t really a need, since they all shared one thought, and head shaking reaction…

“All that beer…just gone to waste.”

As thoughts went, it was a needlessly sobering one.

To make matters worse, fate had one more joke to play on them. 

“Hey guys!” came a familiar voice out of the darkness through the park’s path, sided by tall hedges, that led to and from the school one block over. 

A shadowy image came into focus as it approached in the dimly lit park. It was their buddy Imbeault, who had opted out of the night’s activities, for fear of getting them all carded due to his diminutive size.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” he asked.

The little s**t was holding a six pack...

Of Molson Dry.
=====

Epilogue:
With nearly a year and a half’s growth on them since their first visit to the tavern, Jeff and Smitty walked comfortably through the front doors of Couzies to meet John for a couple of beers. It was the second day of their grad year’s Christmas break, and they were at ease in Couzies by then, having waited until the summer break between their grade ten and grad year before making a second trip through the tavern doors, just the two of them. They’d figured it would be easier to blend in if they avoided a big gang, and they had been correct, and had never had a problem getting served since. In fact, they had become staples in the place, and had even found themselves quite welcome by Big Mike, who had not only become used to their presence, but appreciated the sight of them since they had basically become the tiny tavern’s bus boys on busier nights. Their helpfulness and friendly demeanor with the regulars had alleviated any of their concerns about getting carded, and their only real concern was a potential unannounced raid by the cops.
John had invited the boys down for a few holiday beers on him, since he was only in town for a week. He had decided that cegep wasn’t really his thing, and had joined the Canadian Armed Forces the spring before. He was on leave, and he wanted to spend some time with his little brother before shipping off again for Petawawa, the little military town in Ontario where he was stationed. Jeff and Smitty were both only months away from turning eighteen, and John figured they would get a kick out of having a few beers with him down at his old stomping grounds, before leaving town again. He couldn’t have been more correct. The seventeen year olds had been excited about the night for a few days, ever since John had extended the invite to them.

As they entered the tavern, the two of them were laughing at the thought of the spectacle that was soon to follow them through the doors. 

“Man, I can’t wait to see what is gonna happen!” Jeff said, with a huge smile. 

Moments before, they had been sitting on the 211 city bus into town, with a group of eight kids that were a year behind them up at Mac High; they were about to try and get served at Couzies for the first time. Jeff and Smitty had overheard the grade tens strategizing about their planned visit to Couzies across the aisle at the back of the bus, and they had even offered the group some of the same advice John had offered them before their own first trip the year before. It had been a friendly exchange, since a few of the guys that were about to walk through the doors played on the same rugby team as them, but they had finished the conversation with a very familiar and clear refrain, “Make sure to tip Big Mike, and you definitely don’t know us!”

When the bus had come to the stop on the outskirts of town, the two had made sure they would get off first, and had jogged ahead to put some distance between the younger guys and themselves, so that none of the regulars would think that they were in any way together as a group. As regulars now themselves, they knew that Couzies would likely already be filling in with patrons, since the Habs had a game against the Nordiques that night, and it was already approaching game time when the bus had left them off. 

They figured a potential chant was in the making.

It wasn’t as busy as they had expected, with only about fifteen men scattered about the place in groups of four and five, and a couple of men playing the machines by the washroom. John, and a couple of his neighborhood buddies from Beacon Hill were sitting at the large table, closest to the side exit, so Jeff and Smitty headed in their direction as they took off their winter coats, and laughed amongst themselves as they did so. Usually they would’ve ordered before they even sat, but since John was buying, they weren’t sure what was ok with him to throw on his tab, not to mention Big Mike had his head down and seemed to be loading the dishwasher.

“How ya doing boys?” John asked, as greetings were exchanged between all present. Everyone knew each other at the table, so there was no need for introductions. John interrupted the tavern keepers chores.

“Hey, Big Mike, can we get another pitcher of 50 over here please?”

Big Mike looked up from loading the dishwasher behind the bar, and gave a friendly nod, both to acknowledge the order, and his newly arrived help.

“Anything you need Big Mike, just let us know!” Jeff called out, knowing that the tavern keeper was expecting a decent sized crowd for the game between the interprovincial rivals, and would appreciate an extra set of hands or two. The Nordiques were pretty s**t that year, but bragging rights were on the line, and the games between the two teams usually drew a crowd.

"John, wait until you see what is coming through the doors!” Smitty said, just as the first of the group of grade tens arrived at the entrance outside. When the doors opened simultaneously, a brisk wind entered, and the cigarette smoke that rose from a variety of ash trays danced about the room. The first two teen boys who had opened the doors paused in the doorway before entering, scoping the place out while inadvertently letting in the winter cold. It didn’t take long for the tiny tavern to feel the outdoor chill fill the room, and one of the regulars closest to the entrance let them have it with a less than cordial verbal assault. “Hurry up and close the goddamn doors, before I catch my death!”

It was not the welcoming the group of eight had been hoping for, so they hurried their entrance in order to oblige the older gentleman’s request. They had pissed off a regular before even having taken a seat, something Big Mike never appreciated. Jeff and Smitty had warned them, and couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the gang of boys, scrambling inside, huddling in a heap at the door while looking for a table to seat themselves at, all the while kicking off the snow and salt on their shoes. A lot of regulars were noticing and not appreciating their company. Big Mike watched it all, calmly pouring John’s order, while the newcomers decided on sitting at one of the large middle tables. Smitty looked over to see how the tavern keeper was reacting to the sight in front of him, and he could see a tell- tale scowl develop on his face. As it deepened, Smitty’s smile widened…

The group of eight were settling into their seats as Big Mike walked over to Smitty and Jeff with the pitcher John had ordered for them, along with a couple of frosty mugs. As he placed them on the table, he turned to look at the group of obviously underage teens settle into their chairs, placing their jackets on the backs of them. They looked about ready to order, Big Mike turned his eyes and attention back to John, who had not been around for months. He smiled warmly at him. 
“John, since it’s been a while. Can I buy you fellas a holiday beer or two a ltitle later on?” 

The question came as somewhat of a shock to Jeff and Smitty, who had never been offered so much as a free draft from the tavern keeper, even though they had gone out of their way to be helpful to him ever since their second visit. John’s face broke out into the the same big toothy grin he shared with his younger brother, and responded “Big Mike, that would be great, thanks!” Smitty and Jeff couldn’t believe their young luck, and gave themselves a celebratory high five at the development

. “Ya… seriously, thanks a lot Big Mike…very much appreciated!” Smitty added thankfully.

Big Mike looked down at Smitty and Jeff with a smile. “No problem, at all,” he responded. “Just let me serve these young fellas, and I’ll get right to you.” 

His scowl returned.

Big Mike shuffled off to take the newcomers order: The group ordered four pitchers for the eight of them, and got out their money to pay as the pitchers and mugs began to arrive at their table minutes later. As Big Mike walked back towards Smitty and Jeff’s table, he stopped across from John. He took a quarter from the tips he had received from the boys, that Smitty had insisted they give the tavern keeper. He placed it on the table, and slid it across to John.

John took the quarter in hand, and stood up, while Jeff and Smitty looked on in confusion. Jeff’s older brother walked over to thesteps that led up to alcove where the side door to the tavern was, and the pay phone just inside the doors.

Constable Boucher was about to place a call to Couzies, warning Big Mike of an impending raid… 

Their free beers had already been served.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think...

Reviews

[JayG]

Okay, you’ve worked very hard with this, and it shows. So before anything else, a disclaimer: What I have to say has noting to do with you, your talent, the story, or your potential as a writer. My comments are the result of two basic misunderstandings.

The first comes because you, like all of us, left your school years secure in the knowledge that you learned how to write. And in the years following, you perfected those skills.

The problem is, we’re not taught to write as-a-publisher-views-that-act. Remember all those reports they had us write? The essays? The tricks of composition? Their goal is to make us competent as writing that informs. And that makes sense, given that it’s the kind of writing our future employers needed us to know. So we learned to write in a style that is fact-based and author-centric. We explain. But that’s inherently dispassionate. Great if you’re writing nonfiction.

But fiction? The goal there is to entertain. The reader of a horror story, for example, isn’t interested in learning that the protagonist felt terror. They want us to terrorize THEM. Readers want us to make THEM fall in love, feel fear and anger, and all the emotions the protagonist is experiencing.

Fully 50% of new writers present their story as a chronicle of events—a report. Mixed in are explanations to give background and editorial commentary. And that’s as entertaining as any history book.

The other 50%, like you, record the words they would use when telling the story, as you do here. But that brings problems too—problems you won’t see, because you’re the storyteller.

The first thing is that storytelling is a performance art. How the story is told matters every bit as much as what’s said. But none of the performance translates to the page. Your golden voice, the one you hear as you read, doesn’t make it to the page. Your changes in intensity, tone, cadence that provide the emotional part of the story are missing. So are your facial expressions, the gestures you visually punctuate with, and your body language.

In short, your performance is gutted, leaving the reader with what the words suggest to them, based on their background and experience. And you’re not there to ask.

And something else is a killer. While you can say, “He snarled,” before or after a line of dialog, or any other emotion, you cannot tell the reader how your interruptions are to be read.

Look at a paragraph:
- - - - - -
“Look fellas, my brother John told me that all we gotta do is walk in, grab a big table and sit down,” a sixteen year old named Jeff said to the group. His older brother John was a well- known and liked figure to the gathering, having graduated the year before as one of their school’s best athletes, and was usually pretty cool to Jeff’s buddies when his own weren’t around, even in the halls of the school.
- - - - - - -
The character speaks, and the reader expects a reply, or action, motivated by the remark. Instead, you stop the action dead and lecture the reader on the character’s brother, who-is-not-in-this-scene. Why would a reader give a damn? They’re with you for story, not history.

My point is that story isn’t talked about, it’s lived. If you can place the reader into the moment the potagonist calls now, the future is uncertain, and something to be speculated on and worried about. But presented as a lecture on whatever comes into the head o the narrator, the future is immutable, and there’s no uncertainty, only a parade of facts, presented by a voice the reader cannot hear.

My point is that nothing you tell the reader in the first paragraphs matters at the time it’s given. Do we care where the tavern is in a fictional town? Not when we’re waiting for something to happen.

Do we know where and what its “mainstream sensibilities” are when we don’t know where we are in time and space and what’s going on? No.

If you wan the reader to know the name of the place, as they approach, have one of the boys say, “Couzies? What a stupid name.” That will trigger a conversation that gives the reader their attitudes and a feel for how they speak. Character development, enriched by incidental scene setting knowledge, offered as naturally as if watching a film.

In short, showing the reader the scene as the protagonist views it, not explaining.

It’s not a matter of good or bad writing. It’s not talent, or the story. It’s that because, like everyone else when they come to writing, you’re doing the best you can with the skills you own, but they’re inappropriate to the medium we work in.

And we don’t learn them through reading, because we see only the finished product, polished, and with all necessary decisions addressed. To create our own product we need the process.

And in the end, that’s my point. You have the desire, the dedication, and everything you require but knowledge of the tricks our medium imposes on us. A scene, for example, is a unit of tension, not related to scenery as it is on stage. A scene almost always ends in disaster for the protagonist, for reasons that are not apparent till pointed out. So can you write one a publisher will smile on without knowing that, and how to handle things like the scene goal?

To cut to the chase, based on your current skill level, I would strongly suggest a read of Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling writer. It’s the best book I’ve found on the nuts and bolts issues of writing fiction. It’s not an easy book, and should be read slowly, with plenty of time to practice, think about, and digest each new point as it’s raised.

You might want to dig through the writing articles in my blog for a sort of overview of the issues involved.

I won’t lie to you, it’s not easy to switch from nonfiction to fiction, because all your writing skills, polished till they feel intuitive, will scream bloody murder, and fight to get you back to “writing properly.” It’s a fight, one that will take a long time. But once you “get it,” you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it for yourself.

After all, you’re learning a profession, and trying to write as a pro. Doesn’t it make sense to spend a bit of time and perhaps a few dollars on your writers education?

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/