Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

Chicken Dinner

"I still can't believe you've never visited the pub!" Richard almost felt like he was being told off as Hank drove down the dirt road leading off his property. Hank had to fetch his truck and bring it to Richard's yard to get him to climb in. Since the weather was nice, he'd left Connor and Sumo loose in his yard, and Richard wouldn't set foot in it, especially not in his favourite suit. Connor, staring through the fence, had looked less than pleased. It really was incredibly unfair that his new friend was always kept beyond his reach. Sumo, also enjoying the early evening air, seemed to agree as he joined him at the fence, panting happily as he watched the two men driving away.

"I guess I'm not the type to drink alone," Richard excused with a shrug as he watched the budding fields roll by. Wheat and various other crops were growing in now, standing in neat rows of churned earth. Beyond the fields were a few houses, marking the edge of the small village. The pub stood on the outskirts on its own patch of land. It was a large stone building that looked like it had been standing for at least two hundred years, if not longer. There was a more modern parking lot out front where Hank parked, lined with a few wooden benches where people could sit and enjoy the sun or smoke cigarettes.

"That's probably a good way to be." Hank had cut back a lot on drinking at home since his wife passed. She'd always complained he drank too much, and for the first few weeks after the accident, he thought he might just drink himself into a pit, but then he'd stopped. The thought of it had churned his stomach, the taste bitter on his tongue. He didn't get the same enjoyment without his wife's gentle nagging, and there was no one to keep him company. Since then, he'd decided to only drink when he went to the pub or if he had company. He visited the pub two or three times a week and often warmed a stool at the bar talking to Rose and anyone else who stopped in.

Upon entering the cosy pub, Rose hollered a greeting from her usual place behind the bar and bustled out to greet them. She usually waited for him to get to the bar, but it seemed the unfamiliar face had caught her interest. Richard put on a polite business facade as they shook hands, surprised by how strong her grip was. Hank and Rose were clearly good friends as they hugged and exchanged brief kisses on their cheeks. There were many ways one might describe Rose, but Hank would describe her as a portly woman with a lifetime of cooking on her hips. That woman didn't make food; she made love to it. He'd never met a woman who could cook like Rose, not even his late wife, though he'd never told her that.

Rose didn't even need to ask if they wanted to order food. Hank was a regular for Sunday dinner, so she knew that's what they'd want. Telling them that the meat was chicken that week, she ushered them to a cosy corner table and offered to bring them drinks. Hank ordered his usual pint of bitter while Richard had red wine. Conversation was a little stilted at first. Richard couldn't help feeling awkward, being in an unfamiliar place, and Hank wasn't sure what to say. Their backgrounds were very different. He could tell just by looking at him that Richard had grown up with a certain amount of privilege, and he'd turned into a minor celebrity. Hank, on the other hand, had lived on the farm all his life. It was his great-great-grandfather's farm. They'd renovated the house a few times over the years, but that was the house he'd grown up in, and his father before him.

"So...why racing?" It seemed best to start on a topic that might bring Richard out of his shell. He always enjoyed talking about horses, so it stood to reason this would be no different. He was right. The moment he asked, Richard's dark eyes lit up, and he leaned forward on folded arms. If there was one thing he could talk about, it was horses.

"I started riding when I was in high school." Hank almost snorted. That sounded about right. He seemed the type that went to a fancy rich-boy school. Luckily, Richard didn't take the snort to heart. "There was a polo club that had games every weekend." Even better! Hank had never seen a game of polo, but he got the idea. Two teams riding on horseback used giant wooden mallets to whack a ball through metal loops in the grass. He wasn't too sure on the point system or if there were goals, but he got that it was a rich-boy sport involving horses. "I did that for a while, but I was a lot more interested in exercising the horses and helping around the stables. During my last two years, I started racing competitively and never looked back. I got picked up by a sponsor soon after graduation." Hank wasn't surprised by that. Even in his forties, Richard was small and nimble, and he rode like he was born for it. In his heyday, he must have been quite a sight.