The Book of Joe

you.”
    She stopped walking and hugged me, pressing her forehead against mine, her eyes closed. “It would be nice if it really worked that way,” she murmured.
    “Stranger things have happened,” I said.
    “All the same,” she said. “I think it’d be better if we just stayed together.”
    I kissed her nose lightly and said, “Deal.”

Seventeen
    Brad and I resume our awkward vigil over my father’s bedside as if the previous night’s events never happened. He takes in my battered face and bloodshot eyes, and I can see a sentence forming behind his eyes, but some internal censor, the sort I sorely lack, mercifully stops the words before they can get to his mouth. He simply nods and remains silent. We sip at our vending machine coffee, thumb through magazines purchased at the sundry shop downstairs, and take turns offering the odd, flimsy conversational gambit that invariably tapers off into an embarrassed silence, encased by the enduring clockwork hiss of the respirator. The nurse’s periodic visits to exchange the full plastic catheter bag for an empty one or record my father’s vital statistics are welcome breaks in the monotony, providing us with an outlet, however brief, for superficial inquiry and discussion. Brad arrived alone today, offering no explanation for Cindy’s conspicuous absence, and I know better than to ask. If the past twenty-four hours have taught me anything, it’s that everything is a trap.
    At around one, Brad yawns and announces that he has to go check on something at the factory. He scribbles his cell phone number on the back of a magazine in case anything should happen and then heads out, brow furrowed, lost in his own cloudy ruminations. I am both sorry and undeniably relieved to see him go.
    Brad’s been gone maybe ten minutes when the door swings open and Coach Dugan steps into the room. Every organ in my body contracts at the sight of him. After last night’s episode, his presence here is impossible to process, and I just sit up in my chair and stare at him.
    “Joseph,” he says, taking off his baseball cap as he enters the room.
    “Hello, Coach,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as shaky as it feels. Dugan is one of those men whose very presence commands attention, even in a crowded gymnasium. In the confines of the hospital room, he is a giant, much too large and powerful for so small a venue.
    He walks over to the bed and stares down at my father. “He doesn’t look very good,” he says. “What do the doctors say?”
    “It’s pretty bad,” I say.
    Dugan grunts. “He’s a good man. And if he knows he’s in a coma, I’ll bet he’s pissed about it. He deserves better than this.” His words seem to contain a shadow of rebuke in them, but I can’t quite pin it down. It’s too weird to be engaged in a conversation with him at all. Dugan’s deep, hoarse voice is designed to address teams and groups, and there’s something overwhelming about being addressed by him on a personal level. “Where’s Brad?”
    “He had to run over to the office for a few minutes.”
    “You’ll tell him I stopped by.”
    “Sure.”
    To my surprise, Dugan leans forward and plants a dry kiss on my father’s temple. Then he straightens up and steps over to the door, pulls it open, and turns to me. “Sean Tallon can be a dangerous man,” he says. “He’s somewhat unstable. If I were you, I’d steer clear of him.”
    “A bit late for that, don’t you think?” I say, indicating my bruised face.
    The coach shakes his head and squints at me like I’m an idiot. “He’s capable of much worse.”
    “Well then, I guess I owe you one for intervening when you did last night.”
    “I did that for Brad,” Dugan snarls at me. “He has enough to contend with without Tallon sending him to the emergency room.”
    “It looked to me like he was holding his own.”
    Dugan gives me a withering look. “I forgot who I was talking to,” he says.
    “And who’s that?”
    “Someone who doesn’t have a fucking clue.” He steps out of the room, closing the door behind him. I’m not surprised to discover that even in the heavily air-conditioned room, I’m sweating slightly.
    “Just you and me now, Dad,” I say somewhat self-consciously, and sit back with an Esquire magazine. A little while later I move on to Newsweek, and then, somewhere in the middle of Us Weekly, I doze off. I dream about Carly, as I often do, something warm and sweet and ultimately sad, and wake