John Brandon - Further Joy

“Trying to quit,” said Lucas.

“Me too.” Garner kept holding the clay-colored cigarette out until Lucas took it from him. They lit up and Garner tossed the pack away.

“What exactly is it that you do?” Lucas asked him.

“I’m in export futures,” answered Garner. “That’s what I’d call it.”

“Exporting what?”

“Anything that’s touchy to export.”

“I’ve always imagined you going a lot of places, meeting a lot of people. Hanging out in weird foreign airports.”

“It used to be fun,” Garner said. “I won’t deny it.”

“Everything used to be fun.” Lucas baited again, setting his cigarette on a damp plank and then picking it back up. “We’re not catching them,” he said. “We’re feeding them.”

“So do you have the name picked out, though? For the band?”

Lucas shrugged.

“I can keep a secret,” Garner said. “That’s another part of my job.”

Lucas thought a minute then spat. “It’s narrowed down to two. Proven Pelvis, or Lucas Graines and the Tufts.”

Garner nodded.

“I don’t know if I like either of them anymore. It’s kind of stupid, anyway — not naming the band. Makes it a little hard to get name recognition, right?”

“Your mom said you were getting ready to make a demo.”

“We’re always getting ready to make a demo.”

Lucas flicked his line around like it was caught on something. He took a drag from his cigarette and let the smoke leak out his nostrils.

“So which all players do you tutor?” Garner asked him.

“The dumb ones,” said Lucas.

“Any of the good players?”

“To tell you the truth, I haven’t really been following the team.”

“How about Nigel Forde? That receiver. You tutor him?”

“He comes in sometimes. They all have to come every once in a while.”

Just then Lucas’s rod bent. He got a grip on it and dropped what was left of his cigarette in the water. The fish was stubborn but it wasn’t running anywhere. Lucas didn’t seem pleased to have hooked something. He was peering at the water and cranking. The sun was high above, and the tall reeds were leaning with a tepid breeze.

“Lucas,” Garner said, sounding as sober as he could. “Lucas, you can’t tell anyone I told you this but I’m having money problems.”

Lucas’s cranking slowed, but now the fish was visible beneath the surface of the water. It was chasing itself around.

“You’re the only one who knows,” Garner said. “I’m broker than you are. I’m scraping the barrel.”

Lucas raised the dripping fish up into the light and stoically got a hold on it. The fish didn’t flail. It had done all its fighting. It wasn’t an eating fish and wasn’t big enough anyway, so Lucas freed it from the hook, lowered it off the side of the pier, and released it. He and Garner watched it swim off casually into the dark water as if nothing had happened.

“Broker than me?” Lucas said finally. “That’s a pretty brazen claim for someone like you to make. That’s big talk.”

“I need you,” Garner told him. “I need you and you don’t necessarily need me. I’m in a tight spot, but maybe you’re not. Maybe you want to stay in this same life you’ve always been in. You have that luxury. You can put a plot on layaway over at the memorial gardens and sit next to it in a lawn chair until they lower you in. You can do that, if it strikes your fancy.”

Lucas gnawed on a fingernail and spit it in the water, waiting.

“The other option, besides waiting at the cemetery, is getting a van and some gas to put in it and some better instruments and some real studio time and whatever else would help. That’s another way to go. All in.”

“Two choices,” said Lucas. “That’s more than I’m used to.”

“It’s more than most people get.”

Lucas pressed his lips together and then he sat up straight. “I’m curious to know what you got cooked up,” he said. “No denying that. I’m curious to see how your mind works.”

“Nothing fancy. We’re going to redistribute a little wealth is all.” Garner looked flatly into Lucas’s eyes. “We’re going to make a wager and we’re going to win it.”

“Redistribute, huh?” said Lucas.

“An intelligent foray into gaming.”

Garner told Lucas about his first bet, when the fullback had been out. He explained that with the fullback returning the Coastal offense was expected to recover its swagger, but if they didn’t have Forde, the only deep threat, the opposing defense would put nine men in the box and stuff all of Coastal’s pet running plays. He informed Lucas that they were going to accuse Nigel Forde of academic dishonesty. That was the easiest plan. They were going to make an accusation and that accusation would have to be looked into.

Lucas still hadn’t cast his line back out. He rinsed his hands in the water and shook them dry. He was a patient guy, even now. “I was wondering why you wanted to go fishing with me,” he said.

“Now you know.”

Lucas looked vaguely in the direction where the boundless ocean was. He let out a laugh, not because anything was funny. “This is what we’ve come to,” he said. “Ten years ago we were sitting out on this dock, ecstatic to have a couple beers in our possession. Remember?”

Garner nodded at him.

“I guess you always find a solution, don’t you? You’re the solution guy.”

“It would appear that way,” said Garner.

Lucas rested his forehead in his palm. He picked at one of the soft wooden planks of the pier with his fingernail. “I didn’t like tutoring from the first day I did it,” he said. “Helping those imbeciles write papers so they can keep bashing each other’s heads in.”

“If anyone catches onto this, there might be consequences more dire than losing your tutoring career.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“And this is still gambling, you know?” Garner said. “There’s still a chance we could lose the bet. It’s slim, but it’s there.”

“I’m losing now,” said Lucas. “I’m getting whipped.”

“Well, you and me both.”

Lucas hung his hook on an eyelet of his rod and reeled the line taut. He rested the whole rig on the pier. He looked down at nothing for a time, his head bowed like an exhausted traveler, then he spat deliberately into the water. “So,” he said. “I’m not agreeing to this, but how would we do it?”

Garner talked it over with him, encouraged that Lucas didn’t seem drunk, and they decided the simplest method would be for Lucas to drop an anonymous tip into the Dean of Students’ box. Just wait until the hallway was empty and stroll by and slip it in. There was a geology class all the athletes took, a class that was exactly the same every semester. Lucas could drop a typed note asserting that Forde had copies of all the tests. They only needed him to be held out of this one game while the dean’s office investigated the claim. Forde would be cleared eventually, no harm done. Just a mistaken tip, an empty rumor, and no one to attach it to.

“I guess no one’s going to look after my future but me,” Lucas said.

“Can you do this?” Garner asked him.

“I can do more than you probably think I can.”

Neither of them wanted another drink. Garner offered Lucas one of the sandwiches still sitting there in the cooler, but he didn’t want it. The day was getting hot finally, the silvery sun getting a bead on the marshland, that sweet rotten smell rising up from the reeds.

***

On Friday, Garner parked down the block from Cuss Seafood, under a stunted myrtle that offered little shade. Lucas had not backed out, as Garner had thought he might. Lucas had, just minutes before, called Garner’s cell phone and hung up when Garner answered, meaning the tip was planted. Early that morning Lucas had dropped off his $6,100 at Garner’s mom’s house, all the money he had.