The Book of Joe

been driving, I’d have considered it,” Mouse says with a smirk. “What with your illness and all.” He pronounces the word illness like it’s in quotes, as if it’s nothing more than a silly euphemism. “But this guy,” he continues, pointing disgustedly at me, “has got no breaks coming from me, or anyone else in this town.” He straightens up and turns back to me. “License and registration, please.”
    He strolls back to his car to run me through his computer, no doubt hoping the car will turn out to be stolen and my license a phony. “Mouse became a cop,” Wayne says, smiling.
    The Book of Joe
    “I know that now,” I say.
    Ahead of us, an oncoming Lincoln Town Car slows to a crawl. As it passes us, the driver’s tinted window comes down, and I find myself looking into the coal black eyes of Coach Dugan. He stares at me as he passes, his face expressionless, and I hate myself for the icy fear that nestles in my belly when our eyes lock, the tremor in my hands as they grip the lifeless steering wheel. Although he achieved evil of exaggerated proportions in my novel, I’ve forgotten how powerful his presence can be in reality.
    Mouse waves eagerly to the coach as he drives by, then comes back to my window and hands me two summonses.
    “That first one’s for speeding. The second is for the broken taillight.”
    “I don’t have a broken taillight,” I object, still shaken from my fleeting glimpse of Dugan.
    “Sure you do.”
    I step out of the car and we walk to the back of the Mercedes, where Mouse steps forward and casually kicks in my left taillight with the heel of his boot. He grins up at me like an evil troll.
    Through my open car window, I can hear Wayne laughing his ass off.

Twelve
    School started, and Wayne and Sammy’s relationship went underground, which was fine with me, since that made it easier to pretend it didn’t exist. I still hung out with both of them, but they scrupulously avoided being seen together without my nullifying presence. After a while, through a regimented lack of scrutiny, I was able to convince myself that nothing else was happening between them after school, that the events of the past summer had been a fleeting madness, unable to survive the glaring, fluorescent reality of the high school hallways. I internalized this new, airbrushed version of reality with a minimum of effort, because the truth was that I had better things to think about. After three years of languishing in a social wasteland, I had scored my first real girlfriend.
    In the unrestrained pageant of tits and ass that paraded through the halls of Bush Falls High on a daily basis, Carly Diamond’s quiet prettiness generally flew below radar. Subtlety is lost on teenaged boys, who are instantly riveted by smooth, slim legs and tight, round bottoms under short skirts, lively breasts straining against the fabric of form-fitting shirts, long, shining hair, and glistening skin. Carly’s lithe frame was concealed in loose-fitting blouses and baggy jeans, her thick chestnut hair cut short and close. Her high cheekbones, flawless ivory skin, and impossibly round hazel eyes with specks of yellow glinting in their irises were there for all to see, but there was an overall sense of things being held in check, of beauty controlled and refined by a keen intelligence. Naturally, she was completely overlooked by most of the boys in our class. But not by me, which may very well have been the greatest achievement of my high school career. I had no singular skill to distinguish me from the huddled masses, was lacking that strategic extracurricular specialty to list on my college application; my unique accomplishment was simply having the anomalous wisdom and foresight to register Carly’s more mature beauty, to sense the passion and smoldering sensuality behind her quiet grace and easy smile.
    It began simply enough, with Carly sitting next to me in homeroom that year. We became morning buddies, casual friends who started every school day together. And soon I began looking for her throughout the day, living for the special smiles she flashed at me when we passed in the hallways, feeling strangely possessive. I began studying her face when she wasn’t looking, entranced by the simple perfection of her features, the flawless surface of her silken skin seemingly without pores. More than once she caught me looking at her, and her knowing smile encouraged me. I began walking her home after school, our arms