The Antagonist by Lynn Coady

strictly the case]. This boy is here, working at his dad’s business four nights a week. I don’t let him work any more than that because he has to do his school work. We’re saving to send him to a good college when he graduates [if this was true, it was the first I’d heard of it]. This boy can do anything he wants with his time, but what does he want to do? He wants to help his old man.”
    Constable Hamm was holding up his hands and opening and closing his mouth, desperate to get a word in, because it was clear Gord was only getting warmed up.
    “And I’ll tell you. When I see drug-addled little shits like Mick Croft staggering around town, Bill Hamm, it makes me sick. But you know what else it does? It makes me weep . I weep for those boys, Bill Hamm. Because what do they have going for them? Do they have two stable parents who look after them? Do they have a family business to help run that keeps em off the streets at night? Do they have anywhere near the gifts or advantages of this little bastard right here? [Another thwack in the sternum.] No! They don’t! And so I weep! I weep for them! But I’ll tell you something else! This boy works his ass off four nights a week to help me run a clean, decent business. When those lousy punks wander in here cursing and pouring booze into their Cokes and lighting up joints in the back of my restaurant, you’re goddamn right he’s gonna kick their asses. He’s gonna kick their asses right out of here! He’s gonna kick their asses all over the goddamn parking lot if he has to. And do you know why?”
    “Gordon,” said Bill Hamm.
    “Do you know why? Because his father told him to, that’s why.”
    With that, Gord slapped his palms down onto the table between us and sat there panting with righteousness. Constable Adams, I noticed, was scribbling furiously into his book.
    “Gordon,” said Bill Hamm again, once he could be certain he wouldn’t be interrupted. “I only want to say this to you once. You call us. You don’t sic the boy on them. I know what you’re doing — you think you’ve got a secret weapon here. He’s under eighteen and a minor so the rules don’t apply. You think you’ve got a one-man vigilante force.”
    I glanced over at Gord, surprised that the cop would give him so much credit. It was far too calculated. Gord had no master plan: he just wanted punks’ skulls busted and was thrilled to have someone around who could capably get the job done. It never occurred to me that he might be taking the legality of the situation into account when he sent me out into the parking lot. And by the way, had the cops entirely missed the fact that it was Gord who had nearly throttled Croft this evening, and me who held him back? I felt myself getting angry at approximately everyone present.
    “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “I was trying to stop it. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I was trying to calm Gord, um, Dad, down.”
    “That’s right!” exclaimed Gord. “Like I said, I was ready to castrate the little bastard. If this boy hadn’t held me back . . .”
    “I don’t particularly believe that,” remarked Constable Hamm, stunning us both into silence. He sniffed, then, causing his rectangular moustache to bounce around a little. “What I believe, Gordon, is that you let these kids provoke you. You enjoy it. If you didn’t enjoy it, you wouldn’t be sending the tank here after them every weekend — and believe me, we hear about it when you do. The boys over at the Legion think it’s better than TV. If you didn’t enjoy it, you’d be calling us, and we’d take care of it.”
    A thoughtful stillness, entirely uncharacteristic, came over my father.
    “And what would you do?” he sneered after a moment — the famous Rankin Sr. sneer. “You said yourself, these are kids. You people can’t do a goddamn thing but shoo them off home.”
    “We come over, we tell them to leave, they leave,” replied Hamm. “It’s boring, for us and