Last Thursday morning, I shooed the kids out the door to the school bus and walked down the abandoned railway allowance to the Kingbird Café for a morning blast of caffeine and to check the news. The parking lot was full as usual, but for some reason,
everybody was standing outside the front door in the little parking lot. My neighbour, Vern Bunton broke away from the group and walked over to me.
“You won’t believe this, but Mac died in his sleep last night.”
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“What? Mac? You’re kidding. What happened?”
“They’re saying it looks like it was his heart. I guess we’ll find out later today.”
I couldn’t believe it. Mac Mackenzie has been slinging food, strong opinions and unruly patrons out of the Kingbird Café for 30 years. He’s as much a part of Petunia Valley as Pipesmoke Mountain, the cliff face that overlooks the town. I looked at the crowd standing dazed and confused in the parking lot, like passengers from a de-railed train.
“Who will take over the Kingbird?” I asked half to myself. Then I realized everybody was asking the same question.
Mac did have a family. But his wife Doris walked out about 29 years and six months ago, declaring that, “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first give a restaurant.” Mac raised three boys on his own and they all took turns at the pot sink long enough to decide that a college degree was their only chance of escape from Petunia Valley and a permanent case of dishpan hands. The youngest is in real estate in the city and the two older ones are teachers. It wasn’t likely any of them would rush home to start the deep fat fryer at five o’clock every morning.
Vern put his hand to his forehead. “We got us a serious problem here, my friend. And I can’t think about it without coffee.” We headed into Port Petunia and drove up the Golden Mile looking for a fast food place. At Tim Horton’s, we stood in line for several minutes and took a couple of regular coffees to a fixed table for two in the window. Vern looked around mournfully.
“The coffee’s actually a lot better than Mac’s,” I said, trying to be cheerful. Vern nodded glumly.
“I guess the seats are better for your back, too,” he said, shifting to get comfortable. “But it’s noisy in here.”
“It’s noisy in the Kingbird, too,” I consoled him. “Yeah, but this is a different kind of noise. Not our noise,
you know what I mean? It’s not natural. I feel like something could be happening out there and I wouldn’t hear about it. Important stuff that you can’t get from the radio or TV. Maybe somebody lost a
dog… or there’s a skidsteer for sale cheap. How are we gonna find out about these things now? It makes you feel exposed. Like the power’s out or the phone’s dead.”
We drove slowly back along the River Road. There was a little cluster of people still in the parking lot of the Kingbird, men leaning on the box of a pick-up and yakking without benefit of any caffeine stimulants. Another group stood outside the
convenience store that used to be the old Canning hardware. One guy was actually sitting on an antique nail keg.
“Already they are returning to the old listening posts,” observed Vern. Back home on the Sideroad we saw yet another little gathering at our line of mailboxes. It was Owly Drysdale and the Pargeter brothers. The three of them looked as if they’d been skunked on a moose hunt the same week the soybean market tanked.
“The funeral is eleven o’clock on Saturday,” said Bob as we pulled up. “They say there won’t be room in the church for everybody, so they’re moving it to the arena.”
A funeral in the Petunia Valley arena is the highest honour we accord to a citizen. It’s a bit like being buried from Westminster Abbey. There have been two others that I recall since I moved up here 30 years ago: one was a revered large animal veterinarian and the other was a much lamented diesel mechanic.
“Another thing,” said Bob. “Rev. Bingley has offered to set up a temporary emergency shelter for us in the church hall at St. Stephen’s-on-the-Drumlin. He’s putting the coffee on at seven tomorrow morning. And he’s gonna try making pancakes.”
