Middle Men (26 page)

“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.

Finally, I want to thank Suzanne Rivecca, who is brilliant and brave and the reason I feel so lucky.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Jim Gavin

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2013

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Designed by Akasha Archer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gavin, Jim

Middle men : stories / Jim Gavin.

p. cm.

1. Men—Fiction. 2. California, Southern—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3607.A9845M53  2012

813'.6—dc23   2011045956

ISBN 978-1-4516-4931-4

ISBN 978-1-4516-4936-9 (ebook)