The Book of Joe

that had led to this defiance. We ordered in some sandwiches and I made him call his father. Then we watched Letterman, and the next morning I put him on a train back to Connecticut, and that was pretty much that. Brad left me a message the following night thanking me, but I was out, and although I distinctly recall wanting to call him back, I never got around to it.
    “What’s he, seventeen?”
    “Eighteen,” my brother says. “He’s a senior.” So much for my math.
    “Is he captain of the Cougars?”
    Brad looks away. “Jared doesn’t play ball.” Those four words, layered with the grist of untold tension and regret, indicate that my lame efforts at innocuous chitchat have nonetheless managed to zero in on what is clearly a sore topic, and I resolve from here on in to let Brad steer the conversation. Brad, though, seems perfectly content to sit back and crack his knuckles as he watches the drip of fluids in and out of the beeping and hissing mess that was once our father.
    “I read your book,” he finally says, effectively ratcheting up the tension a few notches.
    “Really,” I say. “Did you enjoy it?”
    He frowns, considering the question. “Parts,” he says.
    I shrug noncommittally. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”
    He looks at me thoughtfully, as if debating whether or not to say something. Finally he sighs and looks away. “Yeah,” he says. “Your book made quite a little splash around here.”
    I wait silently for him to elaborate, but he appears to have said all he plans to say on the subject. Between us, my father suddenly shivers, his entire body vibrating in a wave from his chest to his toes. I jump up, startled, but Brad puts his hand out, beckoning me to relax. “It’s okay,” he says, leaning forward to fix the corner of the blanket. “He does that.”

Seven
    In Bush Falls, the vast emptiness of suburban night led to all manner of delinquency and sexual advancement. We were bursting with the preternatural angst and boredom that coursed through our throbbing teenaged veins, keeping our blood at a constant simmer. There were only so many nights you could hang out at the mall, so many new releases to see at the Megaplex, so many cheeseburgers and tuna melts you could scarf down at the Duchess. Beyond that, all we had left was drinking, fucking, and random acts of senseless vandalism.
    Sammy, Wayne, and I developed the habit of occasionally sneaking over the chain-link fence of P.J. Porter’s vast corporate campus at night and hot-wiring the electric golf carts left charging overnight near the loading bay doors. The carts were used by executives to traverse the acres of perfectly manicured grass between the main building and the distribution center on the far side of the campus. Working there as an intern, Wayne had learned that in lieu of a key, all you needed to do was lift the driver’s seat, under which the battery was cased, and use a paper clip to close the crude circuit and start the cart. There was something pleasantly surreal about piloting those silent carts across the grassy back acres of the Porter’s campus in the dark of night. We would race each other all over the campus, first driving forward and then in reverse, or attempt half-baked movie stunts like jumping from one moving cart to the other. Afterward, we would hang out on the manicured bank of one of the artificial ponds that glistened in the shadow of the office complex, lazily skipping stones at the spotlit automated geyser that shot fifty feet into the sky from the pond’s center, while we chugged discounted beer purchased over in New Haven with Wayne’s fake ID.
    We were sitting on the lawn by the pond one hot, muggy night, buzzed on beer, staring at the kaleidoscopic spray of the geyser, when Wayne suddenly got clumsily to his feet.
    “I’m too damn hot,” he said. “I feel like I’m on fire.”
    “Just like the Boss,” Sammy said, singing lazily in his high-pitched voice. “At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head, only you can cool my desire. Whoa, oh, oh, I’m on fire.”
    “He’s singing Springsteen again,” Wayne complained.
    “I thought we discussed this, Sammy,” I said.
    “You sound like the Bee Gees covering Springsteen,” Wayne said.
    “You guys know you love it,” Sammy said good-naturedly.
    “You manage to come up with a Springsteen quote for every possible occasion,” I said.
    “I can’t help