It’ll Do

THE IT’LL DO

by Peyton Breckinridge & William J. Conaway
Copyright William J. Conaway, 1989

Episode I – A QUIET FAMILY BAR

The bank, my partner John McGinty, and I own the It’ll Do Bar. John and the bank put up the money. My contribution is what they call sweat equity. There isn’t very much sweat connected with running a neighborhood bar where the locals mostly take care of themselves.

After I went over to the door and flipped on the neon, I looked around the It’ll Do—just three at the bar and another two playing pool in the back. The booths were empty. Most of the hay slingers were likely over to the Cattail in Thorton.

What did McGinty, the bank, and I get, right, Cherryville’s most distinguished. I walked back behind the wooden bar, eased myself onto a three cornered stool, and dried some more Coors glasses. The It’ll Do is a quiet sort of place, but I like it that way. Even the juke box is turned down low so you can talk. Most of the time no one bothers to play it.

By eight, almost all the regulars were there and more were drifting in, including Thad Holtzer. He came in for a short one during the day if he happened to be in town. Usually he was too busy running the family farm east of Cherryville. He came in pushing a lady ahead of him, over to the first booth, where he slid her over to the middle and sat down with one long leg hanging sideways into the aisle. I didn’t have to, being a counter service kind of bar, but I went over.

“Hi, Mr. Sully.” he reached up and gave my hand a good hard shake. “You don’t know my wife, Berenice. Do you?”

I didn’t. She looked to be about the same age as Thad, in her early twenties. She had a pretty face that had a tad too much make-up on it. Nice light auburn hair cut short and practical. When she walked across the floor I judged her to be not more than five-foot
three or thereabouts. Like a lot of short girls, she filled out her skirt and blouse pretty well. Not too bad, I thought. No wonder he stays home nights instead of chasing skirts.

Not that many of my customers will pester a girl, except passers-through. They don’t usually get to first base. This is a family bar, sort of….

From time to time Thad came up for refills; sometimes only for a single. I didn’t pay him or her much mind. They were just sitting close and talking. You can do that at the It’ll Do.

Finally I started hearing their voices. They had moved a little farther apart and I saw his leg go back to the outside edge of the seat.

Pretty soon he came back to the bar. “Just one,” he said as he pulled up a stool on the other side from the taps.

“Your Berenice want something?”

Thad’s grin had disappeared. The beer never had a chance to feel the oak top of the counter. He downed it in two swallows. In a lower voice when he got his breath back, he added, “Matter of fact, would you mind sweetening it some for me this time? I could sure use it.”

I didn’t say boo. All the regulars know I keep some emergency rations under the bar. I don’t mind handing out a dollop here and there as needed. Just so long as it doesn’t become a regular thing. I never serve strangers and I never have trouble. I threw in a slug of Jim Beam. Most of my customers call it dark beer.

Every time I came over to draw a beer Thad had some comment. All of them were about the mystery, the out-and-out snaky unreasonableness, of the human female. About any hour of the day I could have found something in what he was saying, but he didn’t need help and I didn’t need trouble.

“Mr. Sully, could I please have another beer?” Berenice’s tone was about three shades too friendly to suit my taste. She had raised both elbows to the bar next to her old man and she hunkered her shoulders forward until a gap kind of folded out in the scallop top of her blouse. She bent down to make sure I got a good look. Short as she was, she had to work at it. To tell the truth, you could have stretched that girl another foot and she’d
still have had enough to go around.

“Why sure, Mrs. Holtzer.”

“And you, Thaddie?” She swiveled around to give him a view too, although the Good Lord knows he didn’t need one, except for reminders.

“Are you going to swill that down and have another? Same as you do every time you come to town?” What she said worked wonders on Thad. He unslumped himself and finished off his glass in smart fashion.

“Sully, my friend, I do believe I’ll have one more of the same.” Well, I thought, one more dark beer probably won’t hurt him and it just might settle him down, seeing as how he’s not used to them. So I ducked down, my back to Berenice, and came up with a fresh one which I put on a dry coaster. Jesus, I hate to see husbands and wives go to cutting each other up.

Berenice had turned back around, eyes front, and was kind of pulled up and over the bar counter again. I didn’t know if that was for my benefit or if she was curious about my magic act. Maybe both.

“Mr. Sully? Would be all right if I called you Sully—it is Sully, isn’t it?”

“Oh, sure,” I replied. I’m not a bad conversationalist, when I put my mind to it.

“Well, Sully, why don’t you take this here beer and give me one like ol’ Thad, there, has?”

“Now, Mrs. Holtzer, I don’t know…” and my voice just kind of petered away.
“It’s O.K. Mr. Sully. Back at A&M she used to drink plenty of them—without the beer.”

I poured because I saw my salvation coming in the door. It was Toot, our local cop. I set her dark beer on the bar and she got it down in two long pulls. Thad only needed one. Their glasses hit the counter with one whack.

“Another,” they said in unison. There’s really nothing like a nice quiet, fun night at the
It’ll Do to make everyone happy.

“Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Holtzer, maybe later.” I shrugged my head over at the door. Toot was still standing there trying to act like a cop. When he was a highschool senior he made All-Conference tackle because he was big, fast, and just bright enough to follow directions. The same held true when he applied for a job with the city. He picked up the name Toot because as a Junior he used to run around the practice field yelling ‘toot sweet’ to all his buddies—something to do with the French teacher at school, I suspect.

Anyway, Toot saw us looking at him and strolled over, plunked a hand on the bar and scraped back his hat. We exchanged some pleasantries, as usual. I poured him a beer. Berenice drifted back to her booth.

When Toot left she popped right up again—It was round two—and cutting off their dark beer didn’t help Thad’s or her mood any. It was then that they started getting louder and I called a halt. They were, I said, disturbing the customers, and why didn’t they make up or go on home? I never like doing that. They weren’t so much disturbing the customers as they were disturbing me. I’ve always liked a peaceful bar.

They were very sorry, they said, to cause problems, but they would appreciate another draw.

“Yes, sir.”

Then Berenice hops over to the pool table, beer in hand, to watch J.C. whip the hell out of Prom Puckett, who just never will learn. Thad maneuvers to his right to where Gloria Huntley was nursing a red beer and talking with her friend, Susan what’s-her-name. I overhead him asking the both of them something about Berenice. Susan and Gloria and Thad have their heads together. I’m busy—it being Saturday night and business is picking up.

The pool table laughs are getting louder. Prom comes up for three more, and change. When all of a sudden Susan goes to the head. Thad puts his arm around Gloria, and she returns the favor.

Lord save us, is what I’m thinking. J.C. on the break jumps the cue ball so hard it bounces off the masonite paneling and rolls back under one of the bar stools. No one laughs.

Susan is back, and she has her arm around Thad, who is still hanging on to Gloria, who is still hanging right back. Prom orders another three, and change.

Berenice and J.C. are hip-to-hip while he demonstrates some of the techniques which he used to be famous for. I hear Thad inviting the girls over to the pool table.

“Maybe we can team up against them three? he said. J.C. isn’t shooting pool, but he hasn’t put his cue back into its custom case either. Nobody is laughing, but Old Man Williams down at the end of the bar is just grinning away.

Under the counter is a phone. From the front door of the It’ll Do you can see the rear entrance of City Hall, which the police use. I had seen Toot go inside just a while ago. When I got him on the line I seriously invited him back for another round. I had to invite him twice before he said yes.

You would have thought it was one of those New York plays that they turn unto movies.

When Toot showed up the pool room was full, and in the middle of the near side you can see the love birds with their beaks maybe one inch apart, shouting, and the decibels were steadily rising.

“Toot,” I said. “Before you have your beer, would you be kind enough to break up that little get-together at the pool table? Not that I can’t, understand, but you’ve sure got one hell of a way with people. Please?” Toot smiled. I smiled and nodded. People bunched up like that and getting mad—with sticks handy—gives me indigestion.

When Toot walked over the two of them were just finishing their warm-up and the chorus had started to fill in. When they saw Toot they fell to studying the lie of the balls on the table. The Holtzers gave Toot one look and began escalating the commentary—like they knew they had to quit pretty soon and wanted to be sure their barbs were in.

The Language Department at A&M must, I figured, be pretty progressive. Toot just extended his arms, like he was getting ready to dive off of the side of a swimming pool. Berenice and Thad retired to their separate corners.

I went over to the juke box and punched in “I Don’t Think Love Should Be That Way”, by Reba McEntire.

Toot waved the two of them back together. Before he could say more than “Now, Sully here runs a quiet…” Thad reached for Berenice’s hand, then her waist too, and gave her a good kiss and she kissed him back. It must have been the best speech poor old Toot ever made.

“Mr. Sully,” Thad took time off to shout, “a round for everybody! And one for you, too. Right, hon?” Berenice smiled and nodded. I smiled and nodded. Toot just nodded and chugged his beer.

“I guess we owe you an apology,” Berenice told me later.

“Well,” I said, “at least Officer Theobald got himself a free beer and no damage done. So it’s OK—as long as you all have everything lined out.”

“That’s just it,” she said hugging Thad.

“Come again?”

“Yes, sir. I…we…well, we had kind of a bet.”

“It was Berenice,” Thad offered. “She kept going on at home about my drinking, and about bars and such. And I told her she knew I just stopped off at the It’ll Do now and again, and every one knows this is one bar that’s quiet, almost a family bar.”

“I told him any place that serves liquor is liable to get rough once in a while. He said ‘no way’. So we made a bet…”

“I told Berenice there was no way there would ever be any trouble at the It’ll Do. She said she’d damn sure bet a year’s egg money against a new GE washer and dryer that we could start a brawl right here—if I’d help, and promise to play fair.”

“You both feel real proud? You come in here, a nice quiet bar, and you…and you…” The Doc says I shouldn’t get excited. “Thad, you take that egg money to some other bar. This is a family bar, sort of, but not for your family, understand?”

“Wait one minute,” Berenice interrupted. “Wait just one little minute! He doesn’t have any egg money! Why, you saw it yourself, Mr. Sully. That policeman HIT me. Isn’t that what you call rough?”

“Now, honey, all old Toot did was come over and shove us apart, besides he’s the law.”

“Shove? He hit you too, you whimp!”

“Are you trying to weasel out of a bet? I played fair, didn’t I? That’s pure chicken-shit, that’s what.”

“Were you too busy groping on those whores to notice that HE HIT ME?”

“Your heart was going pitty-pat from slutting around with J.C., how would you notice?”

“Listen, you son-of-a-bitch…”

I picked up the phone. “Toot,” I asked, “how would you like another beer? Yes, I know you are pretty busy. I won’t forget it and Toot, bring some cuffs with you, all right?” But the last part was wasted; Berenice and Thad were already through the door.