They sat at opposite ends of the sofa. There was a half-full jug of wine on the floor. Vic pushed it around the side, where Eddie couldn’t see. He gave Eddie a sidelong look, then fastened his eyes on the TV. The man in the party hat was laughing till it hurt.
“You were something in the pool,” Vic said.
“Not that good.”
“Yes you were. One hell of a swimmer.” He turned to Eddie. “Not as good as Jack, but one hell of a swimmer.”
Eddie said nothing.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you were better.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You beat him in the fly. Why don’t you say it?”
The same old shit: trying to get him to rise to the challenge of Jack. A cheap coach’s trick, and so long ago, stupid then, meaningless now. They’d already fallen into their old pattern. Eddie kept silent.
Vic began his rebuttal anyway. “So what if you did beat him in the fly? What does it prove? The fly is for animals. Freestylers need finesse.”
The next moment Eddie was on his feet, standing over Vic. Just a stupid and meaningless trick, but he had a fistful of that stringy hair, slick and oily, in one hand and his other hand was cocked.
“I’m not an animal.”
“Jesus,” said Vic, “what did I say?” The good part was the lack of fear in Vic’s eyes. Eddie realized that was as close as he was going to get to a homecoming. “I was talking about swimming, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t mean nothin’.”
Eddie let go. Sorry. He almost said it. Vic was drunk. Eddie had seen him drunk before. Fifteen years had passed and now Vic was one, that was all. Eddie walked to the window. Wind and snow. Nice. He could just stroll out into it if he wanted.
Behind him, Vic reached for the bottle, took a swig. His hair stood up like a cock’s crest. He held the jug out to Eddie. Eddie shook his head. He’d thought a lot about his first drink on the outside. He wanted a drink, but he wasn’t sure he could stop at one, and that meant not now.
Vic took another drink, a long one. “It’s all fucked up, isn’t it?” he said.
“What is?”
Vic waved the jug around. “This town. Everything. You guys were great. Coulda gone to the Olympics, anything.”
“We weren’t that good.”
“Good enough for USC.” Vic’s voice rose. “After that, who knows? You never gave it a chance.” Vic rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, hard enough to redden the skin. “Ah, hell,” he said. “What’s it matter anyway?” He picked up the remote control and snapped off the TV. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. “You never wrote, or nothin’. Or called. Can you call from a place like that?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you just turn up.” Vic stuck the remote in his shirt pocket. “Jack writes.”
“He does?”
“Sure.” Vic rose, a little stiffly-once his movements had been quick and smooth-and left the room. Eddie heard him go up the stairs, walk along the floor above. He got up, found the wine jug. It had a nice label-vineyard, wagon piled with grapes, setting sun. Eddie sniffed the wine, raised it to his lips, drank. It disgusted him, as though he was too pure or something. A laughable idea. But he spat the wine on the floor anyway.
Vic returned, saw him standing there with the jug. “Left over from a party,” he said.
“I don’t remember you as a party-giver, Vic.”
“People change.” He thrust an envelope in Eddie’s hands. “Jack writes.”
Eddie opened the envelope, unfolded the letter. The first surprise was the letterhead: J. M. Nye and Associates, Investment Consultants, 222 Park Avenue, Suite 2068, New York. The second was the date. The letter was ten years old.
Dear Uncle Vic:
Sorry to hear things aren’t going so well. Here’s fifty. Hope it tides you over. We wouldn’t want to make this a habit, what with being “family” and all. Keep plugging, as you used to say down at the pool.
Jack
JMM/cb
“I told you,” Vic said.
“Told me what?”
“Jack writes.”
“This letter’s ten years old.”
Vic snatched it out of his hands. “That’s a crock.” He stuffed it in his pocket, behind the remote.
Ten years old and a brush-off besides, Eddie thought. But he left it unsaid because of the expression on Vic’s face: pissed off and crazy at the same time. He’d seen that expression often enough, not on Vic’s face, but on plenty of faces inside.
“Sounds like he’s doing all right,” Eddie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Two-twenty-two Park Avenue. Investment consultant.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Vic said.
“Me neither. Maybe not much, or he would have sprung for more than fifty.”
Vic glared up at him, more crazy, more pissed off; with the rooster crest Eddie had raised on his head, he looked like a fighting cock about to do something bloody with his talons.
Shouldn’t have come, Eddie thought. He said, “I wanted to see how you were, that’s all.”
“Broke,” Vic said. “Stony broke.”
“And other than that?”
Vic blinked again. Eddie didn’t remember that blinking. It was a sign of the loser, too slow to keep up. Vic had become a loser.
“Other than that, what?” Vic said.
