The Book of Joe

the novel. “I don’t care about what he wrote about me,” commented Dugan at the time. “But the condescending, offensive way in which he wrote about our beloved team and its history, which has meant so much to so many of the good people of this town throughout the years, is unforgivable. He’s insulted every boy who ever played for the Cougars, and all of the good people who support them.”
    “This is a guy who’s gotten rich by lying about the people in this town,” said Deputy Sheriff Dave Muser, a former classmate of Goffman’s who feels he personally suffered from a negative portrayal in the novel. “It’s a slap in all of our faces that he thinks he can just walk back into the Falls. He should know he’s no longer welcome here.”
    Alice Lippman, whose women’s book club meets monthly at Paperbacks Plus, was similarly outraged.
    “We selected Bush Falls when it first came out, and I don’t think there was a single member of the book club who wasn’t morally outraged by it. I hope I run into Mr. Goffman, so that I can tell him in person what an awful, destructive man he is.”
    Goffman’s father, local businessman Arthur Goffman, suffered a stroke this past Monday while playing basketball in the Cougars alumni league. Although father and son are reportedly estranged, it is his father’s condition that is presumably the reason for Goffman’s return to the Falls.
    There is no byline, and I wonder if Carly wrote the article.
    If not, as editor in chief she’d at least have reviewed it before it went to press. I scan the article carefully, searching for any slant, any choice of words that might render some clue as to what her attitude toward me might be, but I come up empty.
    I discard the paper and, for the first time since my return, really allow myself to think about Carly, something I’ve been deliberately avoiding up until now. I would be hard-pressed to conjure up the images of women I dated a few weeks ago, but reconstructing Carly’s face on the canvas of my mind takes absolutely no effort.
    And now, sitting in my father’s kitchen, I recall easily the taste of her kisses, the expression on her face as I clumsily worked to undo the buttons of her blouse that first time, a delightful combination of naked desire and affectionate humor. I told her I loved her, my chest quivering from the absolute truth of it all, and she kissed me deeply and said it
    right back. We lasted eight months, barely a pinprick on the overall time line, but when you’re eighteen, time isn’t nearly as crotchety and relentless as it becomes soon thereafter, and eight months is nothing less than a lifetime.
    I push myself away from the table and head outside, stepping over the battered copy of Bush Falls lying faceup on the front walk, resolved to leave the books where they’ve landed.
    I’m opening the car door when I see that sometime during the night someone keyed my Mercedes, a handful of nasty, jagged streaks that traverse the car door in a clumsy, serpentine path, decimating the paint job. I study the scarred metal for a moment, the indecipherable hieroglyphics of vandalism, then climb into the car, taking pains not to disturb my bruised rib cage any more than is absolutely necessary. I drive off, still thinking about how far I’ve unwittingly drifted from the boy I used to be and wondering at how little I have to show for it.

Sixteen
    Things quieted down for a while after the copy machine incident, but Sammy remained inconsolable. I didn’t know whether he was despondent over Wayne or still smarting from an assful of Xerox glass, but he walked the halls between classes with a resolute glumness, his normally irrepressible smile nowhere in evidence. He no longer broke into little spontaneous dance routines or serenaded people with Springsteen lyrics. And while Sean and Mouse no longer attacked him physically, they continued to taunt him regularly. Hey, cutie, how’s your ass healing? Don’t worry - you’ll be bent over again in no time!
    Sammy, for his part, seemed utterly committed to being victimized, submitting to each new barb with a sense of tragic resignation, a slave to what he perceived as his immutable destiny. Something about his determined lack of resistance, the stoic manner in which he embraced his suffering, was taken as a challenge by Sean, who became obsessively determined to get a rise out of Sammy, to see him fight back. The two of them became helplessly entangled in a tragic