Jim Gavin: Middle Men: Stories

Just once a piece like her, just once, but never. A bit trashy, but still, a time and place for everything.

“We’re speed-golfing,” says Rocha. “You have to hit the ball from the cart while it’s moving. It’s like polo.”

“The sport of kings,” says Costello.

“Which hole are we on?” asks the cousin, adjusting his ponytail.

“We’re going backwards numerically, I think,” says Rocha. “Hey, Marty, do you know Ron Ciavacco?”

“Sure.”

“He had a heart attack on fourteen.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, they put him in an ambulance.”

“That’s good.”

A cart marked “Ranger” comes over the hill. A man armed with a bullhorn, yelling at everybody to go home. The WCPA Best Ball Extravaganza is drifting once more into chaos.

“Fascist motherfucker,” says Rocha’s little cousin.

Costello and Rocha extract Lamrock. His face plastered with drool and sand. They pour some water on him.

“It’s prime rib time,” says Rocha, nudging Mandy once more. “You like meat, right?”

A frozen smile. She looks trapped all of a sudden. Waiting for all of them to go away. They load Lamrock in the cart and drive up the fairway. Jack sees Lamrock and laughs.

“That was you down there? You fucking lightweight!”

“I think I got dehydrated,” says Lamrock.

The Ajax standards coming down. In carts and on foot, plumbing contractors sweep across the steppes of the municipal course. The Mongol hordes. Costello helps carry the faucet displays back to the clubhouse, which is now off-limits. Through the windows the silver vats of prime rib. The wait staff taking it all back to the kitchen. Security pushing plumbers from the door.

“Somebody tell somebody that Jack Isahakian wants to eat,” says Jack.

A forty-ounce shatters on the pavement. Pushing and shoving. Security on their walkie-talkies, calling in an air strike. Lamrock trying to climb in through a window. Night falling on Harbor Municipal.

“I don’t think they’ll let us back next year,” says Mumbry.

In the end, the banquet gets held in the parking lot. The WCPA supreme council gathers everyone up and, just like that, the awards ceremony is over. Jack wins manager of the year. Mike Melendez, of Southwestern Sales, gets rep of the year. Costello congratulates Mike, who says, “That ballcock thing fucked you up.”

Mike takes his trophy and leaves. Most of the guys head out, a cavalcade of plumbing trucks. Lamrock pouring shots into Dixie cups for everyone who sticks around. The lifers. The heavies. In the amber darkness, Jack mounts the hood of his Grand Marquis, holding up his plaque in triumph.

“Hey, listen up. I’m not leaving here without a speech. Somebody introduce me. No, fuck it. I’ll do it myself. I’m Jack Isahakian. Some of you are lucky enough to know me.” A chorus of fuck-you’s. “Yeah, well, I’m a lucky man, myself. I work with a lot of highly competent professionals. Solid people, top to bottom. Warehouse, inside, outside. I can point to anyone at Ajax, man or woman, and say, ‘That guy right there, he’s a fucking pro.’ Let me give you an example. I have five minutes, right? Most of you know Marty Costello. He’s what we call a salesman. What he does is make sales calls. A couple months ago, on a rainy day, he walks in the door at Munson Pipe and Supply in Hawthorne.” Some whooping and hollering from the Munson contingent. “That’s what salesmen do. They show up and they walk through the door. On this day it turns out that our competition, who shall remain nameless… It’s Gary Yeager from Carlton-Hill Sales. Is he here? I don’t want to throw Gary under the bus or anything, but on this day he excused himself from walking in the door because it was raining outside. He actually called up Munson and said that. I admire his honesty, but if I felt I couldn’t work because it was raining outside I wouldn’t admit it to anybody. I’d go home and shoot myself. Anyway, our friends at Munson also thought it was funny, and since Marty the Brentford toilet rep was there instead of Gary the Kenner toilet rep, they thought, why not have Marty take a look at our inventory and see what’s what? Forty items and ten categories later, Marty walks out of there with the biggest order of the year. And all he did was show up for work.”

Jack drops his plaque. It hits the bumper on the way down and thuds on the pavement. “I had this thing planned about gila monsters, but it’s getting late, comrades, and I’ve had a lot to drink.”

A smattering of applause. Rocha and Mumbry laughing, shaking Costello’s hand. The guys from Munson shaking his hand. Other wholesalers, plumbers, Lamrock.

“Somebody call Jack a cab,” he says.

• • •

Saturday afternoon. The kids on their way. Costello has shocked them with an actual plan: dinner in Catalina.

But first a bit of sun. The pool turquoise. The glass slider sliding. The roof, the wall, the wires. This house is his. Or the bank’s, but he still lives here.

Costello hops on the raft, pushes off, lights up. The telephone pole in the corner of the yard, like the mainmast of a ship.

He rolls off the raft and into the pure blue water. Down he goes to the bottom of the deep end. His eyes open, burning. The lizard pale from the chemicals. You never complained, not once, your hair falling out, the hideousness of your round beautiful face. That final moment, your green eyes popping open, and all the bile spilling out of you. A goddamn captain, going down with the ship.

Back on the raft, the lizard in his hand, pale and soggy, tiny black eyes and tiny white feet. Costello throws it over the wall and hears it splash in his neighbor’s pool.

I want to thank the old man, Michael Gavin, and my sisters, Shannon and Kelsey. I depend on their love and support and my enduring goal in life is to make them laugh.

My agent, PJ Mark, is an ace, and I’m incredibly grateful for everyone at Simon & Schuster, especially Jonathan Karp and my wonderful editor, Anjali Singh. I want to thank Deborah Triesman at The New Yorker for taking a chance, and I want to thank Chuck Rosenthal and Howard Junker for their early encouragement. In 2005, I took an Extension Class at UCLA with Lou Mathews, a generous and inspiring teacher and one of the finest writers in Los Angeles. His class turned me into a writer and his continued support and friendship means the world to me. The Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University gave me time to develop many of these stories and I’m very thankful for the opportunity I had to work with Tobias Wolff and Elizabeth Tallent. At Boston University I was lucky to work with Ha Jin and Allegra Goodman, and I want to give special thanks to Leslie Epstein, whose humor and commitment will always be an inspiration. Now for a long list of names. The following people have either helped me improve this book, or loaned me money: Skip Horack, Josh Tyree, Abigail Ulman, Stacey Swann, Molly Antopol, Justin St. Germain, Sarah Frisch, Stephanie Soileau, Vanessa Hutchinson, Harriet Clark, Rob Ehle, Jesmyn Ward, Will Boast, Amy Keller, Laura McKee, Josh Rivkin, Rita Mae Reese, Chanan Tigay, Mike McGriff, Emily Mitchell, Charles Donato, Stacey Mattingly, Andrew W. Euell, Laina Pruett, Jeff Howe, Antonio Elefano, Katherine Ayars, Lara Jacobs, Morgan Cotton, Dawn Dorland, Yael Schonfeld, Sarah Hinds, Jen Edwards, Mia Taylor, Chelika Yapa, Sacha Howells, Doug Knott, Krissy Klabacha, Ro Gunetilleke, Scott Doyle, Alison Turner, Ami Spishock, John Houston, Jon Rooney, Fred Schroeder, James Keane, S.J., Aric Avelino, Don Zacharias, Paul Taunton, Jeff Cox, Craig Cox, Liz Flahive, Thomas Patterson, Tim Loughran, Christin Lee, Rachel Kondo, Mary O’Malley, Mike McLaren, Tim Lugo, Adam Harris, and all the dudes at the gas station.