They lived in South Montgomery, he told me, which sounded exactly right. South Montgomery was the epicenter of type-A Jersey suburbanites with means.
“A few years back,” Brock said, “our kids were in the same soccer league. Lou’s kid tripped my kid twice in the same quarter. Ref didn’t even blow his damn whistle, because terrific players get away with murder, and Lou’s kid was fast and athletic and big. But guess what he wasn’t?”
“What?” I asked.
“He wasn’t eight.” Brock let me chew on that a moment. “Lou had lied to get his nine-year-old into the eight-year-old league. And let me tell you, a year makes a big difference at that age.”
After the soccer game, Brock had acted on a hunch and cashed in a favor with a guy at the vital records office. Sure enough, Lou’s son’s birth certificate said September 30. Which happened to be the very last day of the year for school cutoff, league cutoff … basically, the kid was facing a lifetime of always being the youngest.
“Dear old dad must have seen this baby in his arms—future soccer star, baseball star, whatever—and realized how much better it would be if only his birthday were a couple of days later. So he decides, October 2—why not? And suddenly his kid goes from being the youngest to being the oldest. It’s a lifelong edge,” Brock said, “and Lou is all about edges. I mean, the kid himself thinks his birthday is October 2.”
I tried to imagine what kind of man would lie to his own son about his birthday just to gain an edge in youth soccer. The answer, of course, was a man like Lou Husk.
“Is that illegal?” I asked.
“What, forging a duplicate birth certificate for schools and sports leagues? Yeah, it’s illegal. But the bigger issue is that if the other parents were to find out, they’d kill him. His son would suffer. They’d be pariahs. You can’t imagine what these people are like. And Lou knows it. If he ever found out that some neighborhood dad did that to give his kid an unfair edge, Lou would be the one leading the lynch mob.”
I was still trying to get my head around it. “Soccer, huh?”
“I’ve been holding on to that little secret a long time,” Brock said, “waiting to leverage it. And I have to be honest—I could probably get a lot more out of him. But I happen to like you.”
“I’m glad.”
“I was going to call Lou on Monday, but I was driving this morning and passed him on the road walking his dog. Some designer ball of hip dysplasia. Anyway, we had a chat about what it might mean to him and Junior if the original birth certificate from vital records were ever to make the rounds. And Lou’s thinking about your lawsuit suddenly … evolved. Didn’t hurt that his eye is healing well. He looks good. No more eye patch. He’s driving again.”
“I’m really glad,” I said. “So does this mean …”
“It means you’re a very lucky magician.” And just as I was beginning to feel like one, he added, “We’re settling for fifteen thousand.”
“What?”
“With your approval, of course.”
“Fifteen thousand dollars?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Wait. You aren’t disappointed, are you?”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said.
“No.” His voice hardened a little. “Two hundred thousand is a lot of money. That’s how much he was going to sue you for. Don’t forget, Lou is an ass, but this isn’t a frivolous suit. You did fuck up the guy’s eye. He’s had expenses. This is a legitimate claim.”
Brock was right—I knew that. But it was so much money. Money I didn’t have. I told him so.
“We can work out a payment plan with Lou,” Brock said. “Or if he insists on getting paid quickly, we could probably get you a loan. We’ll work it out. But can I please tell him you’re okay with this deal?”
What choice did I have? I told him yes, but evidently without sufficient enthusiasm, because Brock reminded me that this was “good news, an excellent outcome,” and then we hung up and I told myself You are lucky, you are lucky, even though it felt less like luck than like drowning.
And I’d be lying if I didn’t think of Ellen and her poker game. A cut of whatever she was planning would go a long way right now. Of course I thought that. Of course I was tempted. But to do it would be to cross over, that was how I saw it. I’d be betraying my art and my livelihood. I’d be betraying my father, who was not a criminal.
While I had my phone out I checked my email. I was hungry for the details about my convention performance. Not that the details mattered, but whatever they were, they would make everything feel more real. I needed that to look forward to. My fastest route to fifteen thousand dollars, I knew, was a string of solid bookings. That meant building from the ground up again, and the WOM convention was the ideal way to start—the way to remind all the people who mattered that I was still in the game.
No new emails.
Just as I set down the phone, it buzzed. I figured it was probably Brock calling again, having forgotten to relate some other bit of wonderful news, like maybe I had herpes. Turns out it wasn’t a phone call at all: it was a reminder I’d set on my calendar.
Oh, shit. I’d been so focused on the convention I forgot I had a show tonight.
Kyle Horowitz was becoming a man.
5
The bar mitzvah was a fancy evening
