Further Joy (17 page)

“I haven't figured that part out yet,” said Marky. “Maybe it would work best as a nonprofit. The way I figure it, nonprofit can lead to profit. A dating club that—”

Nelson had held up his hand.

“Here's my advice,” he said. “Switch to right field and do all the daydreaming you can.”

Marky almost went on with more business ideas, but stopped himself. The particular plans weren't important, and Marky knew Nelson realized that. Marky could think of a hundred more plans.

“I'm not going to give up, you know. I said I'd leave and I will, but I'll just come back. I'll come back again and again and again.”

“I sure wish you wouldn't.”

“The only way to stop me is by accepting the offer,” Marky said. “Look, don't you want to be in business with somebody who needs you? Don't you want to start from the ground up? I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life. Some random guys in an office building could never say that. You'll have an ally forever with me. We'll
be
something.”

Nelson nodded at Marky, letting out a weak little whistle. He got his feet under him and stood laboriously. He picked up Marky's hat from the table and squeezed it onto his own head.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You can come back over here, but when you do, bring a couple of mitts and a ball. I'm going to put you through the hard-to-get dance, and it's going to include playing catch. That's going to be the main element of it, in fact. No promises about anything else, but I'll play catch with you.” Nelson had that same deadwood expression on his face. “And now, it's my dinnertime.”

Marky stood up, feeling for some reason that it would be unseemly for him to smile, that it would be presumptuous or something, and Nelson handed him his hat. Then the man opened the front door and ushered Marky out into the yard. It was hot and humid out but Nelson shuddered. Marky wanted to shake his hand, but Nelson was already drifting off underneath a live oak tree. The meeting was over. Nelson had already given plenty and he wasn't going to give more. “Later,” he called, his voice issuing thinly in the dark.

Marky went to his scooter, making a show of sidestepping the area where Nelson had buried the avocado pit. He fired up his little chopper and hopped on and rolled over the weeds and onto the road. He got up to speed, motoring around a gradual curve through a cloud of pollen. Marky was advancing with reserved dignity through this little moment, but he
saw the big picture. He knew that the hurdles before him were petty, that the troubles behind him held no sway.

*
First LP or EP in which instrument appears will feature photography by Hurley Simms in cover art.

FURTHER JOY

O
ne girl locked her bedroom door after soccer games—the lost breath and slick tanned limbs, the push of opposition, the spiked shoes. One girl came within a week of perfect attendance and then to avoid recognition for the feat stayed home from school doing nothing, a bit lonesome, nibbling pastries and watching old high school movies full of outdated, luxurious clichés. One of the girls' fathers owned a fast food joint that did wine pairings. One of the girls' fathers did not trust his documents in the trash, even if shredded, and he saved them all up and conducted a backyard fire every few months, no matter how torrid the weather. The neighbors would complain but by the time someone from the county appeared the fire would be all but over, the sky hazed with secret finances. A few of the girls enjoyed the zoo, but they didn't go there together. The zoo required a bus ride. The zoo was a place to be alone and not feel lonely. The girls did not imagine themselves old like their fathers; they imagined themselves as young adults in unknown gray cities, wearing coats that swallowed them up and coats snug to their figures, living in spare apartments nestled unknown distances above unknown streets. They imagined young men in loosened ties, with shy smiles and excellent manners. One of the
girls locked her bedroom door after long days at the beach—the smell of the oil, the baking limbs, the bare feet. The girls had what they considered a common-sense policy regarding marijuana: they would not purchase it, but would accept it for free from people they knew, and only if another of the girls was present. The girls were fifteen. They lived in the middle-class section of a town known for wealth, and went to a brand-new high school where nothing was decided. The girls knew that their soccer coach was gay and resolved to keep his secret. He wore sunglasses and polo shirts like every other guy and spoke slowly and without accent like every other guy, but the girls knew. There was no charge when he touched their shoulders, no slight tension. At the end of practice when they got down to sports bras and chugged near the water cooler, spilling down their fronts, he could look at them with casual eyes and they felt no need to pose. One of the girls' fathers worked at a nuclear power plant in the next county, and every morning he was out of the house before the girl awoke. The girls had little preference where they went to college. They would move away from home, but were not in a big rush about it. The girls hated to be asked what their talents were, their interests and strong points. The girls had at one time or another boycotted espresso, celebrity perfumes, movies that involved outer space, the Internet, the classics of literature, bikinis, appetizers, music featuring electric guitars. One of the girls' fathers owned a restaurant named 6TABLE that served six parties per night, Thursday through Sunday. For a time, this girl had waited tables. One evening a lady had raised her voice at the girl and the girl's father had thrown the lady out. Like most of the customers, the lady was rich and bored and so after being thrown out she had dedicated herself to making trouble for the restaurant. Reviews soured, the health inspector appeared repeatedly, an annual gala turned elsewhere for its catering needs. Eventually, and not because her father asked her to, the girl wrote a letter apologizing to the lady, and then showed up at her home and apologized in person. It was hard to know what to apologize for, but the girl managed, leaning on the dictum that the customer was always right. Boredom was the woman's problem, the girl knew, not wealth. The poor grew bored too and labored at evil. None of the girls would ever run
for a student government office. They didn't despise student government as some did, but the idea of losing an election was sobering. They were thought of as free spirits and could do most anything,
most
anything—they couldn't run for treasurer and lose. They couldn't run for vice president of the student council and draw posters and distribute lollipops and give speeches and then fail to win the election without also somehow losing prestige in the eyes of the rest of the school. One of the girls, cold turkey, stopped locking her bedroom door. She wanted to save up the thrill, bottle it. She didn't know if it worked this way, but maybe it did. One of the girls had once hated her freckles, and now was proud of them. She relished sitting under her parasol at the beach. It was glamorous, not being tan. It was original. She wore black; she blushed and bruised. The girls' fathers had stopped giving them actual gifts on their birthdays. Instead, each father would take his daughter and all the other girls to dinner. The girls missed the wrapped physical objects. They missed imagining their fathers wracking their brains, bumbling from store to store asking advice. The girls sometimes stayed up all Friday night making bracelets and then sold the bracelets the next day at the Saturday market. They were often given a stand next to a bunch of country boys who sold jerky. The boys were from out in the swamps but were not poor or stupid. They were cocky in a way that was fun rather than despicable. The girls could hardly understand their accents but they could talk about anything—hot rod engines, the local tax system, cities in Australia. If these boys pressed hard enough they could get somewhere with the girls, but they didn't press. These boys took it as it came. Returning home from the market, the girls would find themselves full of a diffuse yet pulsing frustration. Their fathers, the girls noticed, never entered the girls' bedrooms. The girls would come up the hallway and catch their fathers peering in, looking skeptical yet fascinated, like nonbelievers peeking into a dim cathedral. One of the girls had been marginally fondled by a shoe salesman. No more than three or four years separated the girl and the shoe salesman, yet he'd been a different element. He had veined forearms and jaw muscles and an accent that didn't come from the swamps but from some other lesser place. He'd been talking to her but then he stopped. Something
lifeless and determined came into his eyes. The girl was the only customer in the store; she had gotten her hair done that day, and had gotten a pedicure. The shoe salesman had taken her bare feet in his hands in a way that was gentle but certain. The shoes sat in their box, impartial. He touched only her ankles and toes, at first, looking into her eyes, knowing all he needed back from her was nothing. And she gave it—a flat look, a look not only empty of protest but as determined as his. They felt like someone else's feet, to her; they felt like part of a beautiful woman who would never run out of stunts to pull. He let one of his hands wander quick to her hip and then the other hand caught up slowly, tracing its way up the skin of her other leg. When he had an equal grip, dug in close to the bone, the girl could feel very definitely that she was being possessed. When his fingertips ventured under the elastic of her underwear, she heard herself gasp. A bony, pinch-faced old lady came in then, toting a pert baggie that probably contained new sunglasses. The girl knew that if her father ever found out, he would hurt the shoe salesman. The shoe salesman was basically a man, but not like her father was a man. The girl would never have been able to explain to her father that nothing had really happened, and that if anything had it was only because she'd wanted it to. That wouldn't have been important. Each girl already appreciated her father. Each girl appreciated that her father was soft-spoken on the sidelines of soccer fields, that her father allowed her to try anything she wanted and allowed her to quit those things if she wanted to try something else. The very land, the streets of the neighborhood the girls lived in, possessed a flatness that often felt more than merely topographical. The girls recognized their home terrain instantly in photographs and movies. This literal lack of relief added an air of invincibility to the diffuse and pulsing frustration the girls often fell prey to.

One of the fathers followed a Mexican soap opera. The women were huge-eyed and single-minded, and the story would never end. It would outlive the father and maybe even his daughter.

To the fathers' wonder, their daughters drank like thirty-five-year-old
women—a glass of wine with dinner, a cold beer at the end of a long hot week. They ate whatever was presented, whatever was handy, with equal zest, whether braised veal or a frozen cheese pizza.

The fathers could not discern the status their daughters held among their peers. It did not seem to matter that they were not wealthy. It did not seem to matter one way or the other whether they played sports. They were free to earn high grades if they wished. Their daughters were a clique, but took no pride in this. Exclusivity and welcome occurred naturally and were accepted without fuss. It seemed nerds no longer existed as they once had, or sluts. There was peer pressure to do such things as recycle and volunteer.

Each father understood that he could not tell how attractive his daughter was. Each assumed his daughter was beautiful because she looked similar to the other girls she hung around with, who were without doubt beautiful.

The fathers did not pal around with one another.

One of the fathers' daughters had a suitor, a white boy named Tyrone. The father did not know if the boy's parents had named him for a joke or a statement or if somehow Tyrone was a family name for them or what.

One of the fathers was in debt. He'd sold his crepe shop but no one knew at how great a loss. Now he cooked at an upscale breakfast place, folding mushrooms and lobster into omelets. He didn't know what people thought—that he'd gotten weary of the responsibility of owning, maybe, or that he wanted to stay in shape in the kitchen. He hadn't allowed his daughter to notice he was broke. He took her out for sushi and then, on his days off, he ate peanut butter sandwiches alone. He had begun secretly rooting against his daughter's impeccable grades, knowing everything would be easier for him if she didn't get into a prestigious far-off school. He had sold things out of the back of his garage, exercise equipment and a stately, attic-smelling grandfather clock. He had sold his bottles of fine California red. He had never decided what occasion might prompt him to uncork one of the wines, what sort of joyous triumph he was waiting for, and now he'd never find out. Good things had happened and he'd let them pass, occasionally handling and dusting the bottles but never celebrating with them. His daughter was the sharpest of the girls. She was a math whiz
and a shrewd judge of character. He could not stand the thought of her being disappointed in him, of letting her down.

One of the fathers' daughters spoke four languages. Fluent Spanish, of course. Enough French to hold a conversation. Also, they had hosted a girl from Zimbabwe for several summers and the daughter had picked up enough of some African tongue to continue learning it on her own. The high school had brought in a tutor for her, a linguist from the university. Though public, it was that kind of high school.

One of the fathers, years ago, had bought his daughter a boxy antique camera. Later he found it in a spare closet and tracked down film for it on the computer and used it to take pictures of the stagnant canals that snaked through their part of town. He tried to catch the canals at low tide, when clans of exposed crabs lined the oyster beds.