Chapter 4

It was Garbrielle's birthday. Her twenty-first. It fell on a Thursday. She didn't feel like accompanying the four giant sloths to the bar they frequented but she had to keep her promise. She wanted to go to bed early because Chris would be coming the next night. However for over a year the boys were planning to buying her first legal drink.

She changed from her business clothes into a pair of stone washed jeans, a nice pink cotton sleeveless blouse and a pair of white neakers with no socks. It was warm and humid this day. She took a brief nap, helped her mother with dinner, ate and then the five siblings were out the door to O'Tooles, the boys favorite watering hole.

She didn't realize how much she talked about Chris Cunningham which fell on tired ears of the four. Gabrielle spent the whole time talking about him from the first step out of the house to the last one reaching O'Toole's.

She practiced writing what she would hope was her new name. Gabrielle Cunningham. Over and over the pen flowed from her hand onto the note pads she kept hidden amongst her winter clothes. She pictured herself being introduced as Mrs. Cunningham. A smile lit her 'so darn cute' face when she thought of it in her room, in her company car, in the office awaiting the doctor to appear at her appointment. She told a physician's assistant Heidi Hill all about him. Heidi smiled and wished her well. PA Hill recalled being in the same boat as Gabrielle when her husband dated her.

The night before they made their mother angry by telling her they were going to bring her so drunk.

"Yeah," John boasted, "she'll be so wasted she's going to get up on the bar and do a striptease. The other guys in the bar will place bets as to how far she'll go."

"Then we'll take her down the black guys bar and have her to do the same," Mark laughed.

"Then we'll auction her off to the highest bidder to be his for the night. She'll do whatever that darky wants." Luke added.

"How much will we get for her?" Mark asked.

"At least a buck and a half. May be two bucks," Matt chortled.

"If you bring her home with one hair on her head missing, I'll beat you with the beld so bad you four won't be able to walk for a month. And don't think I won't do it," Peg warned.

Gabrielle just sat there eating her dinner as if she didn't have a care in the world. "Don't worry, Mom. I'd rather be with a black guy than one of these four miserable excuses for a human being. Even if I weren't a part of this family I'd never give any of them a second look."

Her brothers laughed at her.

"I mean what I said," Peg cautioned them.

"Innkeeper, give her anything she wants," Matt shouted as the five Briggs siblings entered the smoky bar. The foul odor repulsed her as she sat at a table and isolated herself from them as her four brothers stood at the bar.

He strained his neck to look at Garbrielle, "Does she have an ID?" he asked. "She looks kind of young to me."

"I'm really a freshman in high school, these guys I don't know are trying to corrupt me."

"Show him your ID," John told her. Reaching into her back pocket of her skin tight jeans pulling out her driver's license. She handed it to John who turned it over to Jake. The bartender studied the license and looked at her. He shook his head. The young lady had that photo taken at eighteen. Her expiration date was another year away. Hopefully it would be Cunningham instead of Briggs.

"No!" Jake returned the license. "She's too young." This caused her to giggle while her brothers were steamed up from the rejection.

"What do you mean No?" Matt barked loudly. "You can't be serious she's of age as of today."

"I said No!" the man with an Italian accented man said as he walked away to serve another. Matt reached out and grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck pulling him back.

"What if I come back tormorrow in uniform and find a violation or two? I'll have the authority to close you down," Matt sneered with his face turning red.

"Close us down," Jake countered. "I'll be in bigger trouble if I served a minor. She looks like a teenager to me."

"I do, don't I?" Gabrielle giggled again. All four were infuriated and she was enjoying the show. The other customers stared at her. She gave them a shrug with her palms up.

"Keep out of this," John growled. She made a motion of zipping her mouth placing her folded hands in her lap. She was calmer than anyone in the bar.

"You're going to serve her or I'll castrate you," Mark glowered at the poor defenseless bartender.

"Threaten me and I'll call the police."

"I am the police," Matt sneered.

"The other police," Jake corrected. "The good ones, not a loose cannon like you."

Gabrielle put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh.

"I'll show you how much of a loose cannon I am," Matt stated. "I'll bust up this place. This joint needs decorating anyway."

"We all will," Luke added.

"I don't want to break any laws."

"I'm going to come right over this bar and break your neck," Luke sneered. "This is the only place we come to drink, but we'll find another one. Beer is beer. We'll go down to that bar where all the blacks hang out."

"Then go!" Jake appeared not to feel threatened.

"Not before you serve our sister who is legally of age starting today," Mark was turning beet red like the other brothers. Gabrielle just sat there quietly relishing the four fools. This was worth coming for. She could tell this yarn for many years to come.

"Where's Gus?" Matt asked for the owner.

"Gus will be here shortly," Jake said. The Briggs boys were loud and boisterous ever since they started coming into O'Toole's but tonight they added threats to their usual disorderly conduct. They were making complete jackasses of themselves.

"He better serve her and fire you," Matt snarled.

After fifteen minutes of threats and counter threats, Gabrielle kept giggling at how her brothers were making jerks of themselves. She just sat there feeling a little smug. 'Wait until Chis hears this, ' she thought how humorous this was. To her, this was funnier than the movie Monty Python in Search of the Holy Grail.

Finally Gus arrived. The bedlam had just about empied the bar with the exception of the Briggs. Gus gave each brother an angry glare due to the loss of business. He wasn't too upset with Gabrielle because Jake thought she was an innocent victim. Finally Gus, after carefully studying Gabrielle and her driver's license, gave Jake his okay to serve her.

"What do you want?" Jake asked the boys, still angry with them.

"Guinness," Matt said, trying to cool down.

"Guinness," Mark added.

"Guinness," Luke smirked in triumph.

"Guinness," John said.

"And you Miss?" Jake asked her being polite.

"A Coke," she said, straight faced.

"A fucking Coke!" Matt shrieked in anger. "After all what we went through to get you a legal drink and you want fucking pop?"

"A Coke is a drink, and as far as I know, it is legal," Garbielle smiled.

The four were making noises and angry remarks directed toward their tiny sister, The runt of the litter.