Free The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper Page B

hell, and ounce for ounce a much more effective choice.
    â€œYou bastard!” the lady spits at me as I shoot out of my seat, the thick, icy fluid oozing down my neck and under my collar. “You can't just walk in here!”
    Words fail me, and all I can do is stare at her face, now crimson with rage, as I wipe my soaking face and hair with my hands. “You've got no right to come here, after the pain you've caused!” she shouts.
    â€œLady,” I finally stammer. “What the hell's your problem?”
    â€œYou're my problem!” she shrieks, and I become conscious of how quiet the other diners have become. “You and that goddamn book of lies you wrote.”
    Just then Brad returns from the bathroom, his eyes wide with alarm. “What the hell's going on here?” he demands of me.
    â€œAsk her,” I say, grabbing some napkins off the table to wipe my face. The shake is becoming dry and sticky on my skin.
    â€œWhat's the problem, Franny?”
    Franny?
    â€œI'm sorry, Brad,” she says to him, her voice still trembling with anger. “But he's got a lot of nerve coming in here.”
    â€œYou're not exactly lacking in that department,” I point out. Brad impatiently waves his hand to shush me, and I'm twelve years old again.
    â€œI'm sorry, Franny,” my brother says soothingly. “I know how upsetting it must be. But my dad's in the hospital; I don't know if you heard.”
    â€œI hadn't,” she says, turning to face him. “What's wrong?”
    Brad tells her, his voice remaining steady and conciliatory as he gradually steers her away from me and toward the door. They speak for a moment or two, and she leans forward and gives him a quick hug. Then, with one last, baleful glare back at me, she exits the Duchess. Brad comes back, shaking his head from side to side, and suddenly notices the seven or eight diners sitting stock-still, staring at us with their mouths agape. “Show's over, folks,” he announces testily, meeting each gaze one by one until they look away. “At least for the time being,” he mutters to me under his breath as we sit back down in the booth. I feel my shirt sticking to me as I lean against the back of my seat. The milk shake seems to have dripped all the way down to my waist and is making inroads further south.
    â€œWho the hell was that?” I say.
    â€œYou don't know?”
    â€œI thought I covered that with ‘who the hell was that.' ”
    â€œThat was Francine Dugan. Coach's wife.”
    â€œOh,” I say, nodding stupidly. “I didn't recognize her.”
    â€œDoes it make a little more sense now?”
    â€œIt does,” I say. “Except for the part where you call her Franny and she hugs you. When did you get so tight with Dugan's wife?”
    Brad looks at me. “I'm the assistant coach for the Cougars. I thought you knew.”
    â€œSince when do high school basketball teams need assistant coaches?”
    Brad sighs. “They don't, really. But Dugan's getting up there, you know? He's almost seventy already. It's supposed to be a transitional thing. I assist him for a year or two, run the weekly practices, and do all the yelling and floor drills. Then he retires and I take over.”
    â€œYou want to be the coach?” It's never occurred to me that Brad might be interested in coaching.
    â€œIt's a good job,” he says defensively. “Decent pay and a great pension. That's a lot more than I could say for the display business these days.”
    Now that he says it, it makes perfect sense. High school stars are forever living in the past, as if no other part of their life before or after were as real as the four years they spent playing the game. The rest of their life is just the time after basketball, soldiers missing the war. I recall the tensions I intuited between Cindy and Brad back at the hospital. It isn't difficult to surmise that Brad yearns for