The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper

Author:Jonathan Tropper [Tropper, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological
ISBN: 9780434011827
Google: q5dZuzwV_zoC
Amazon: B000FC1B4C
Barnesnoble: B000FC1B4C
Goodreads: 7001237
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2003-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

“I heard it was Sean Tallon who beat your ass yesterday,” he says conversationally as he pilots the Mercedes at dangerously high speeds through the shopping district of Bush Falls.

I pull on my seat belt. “Where'd you hear that?”

He ignores the question. “He's one crazy fuck, you know.”

“So I hear,” I say. “But what exactly does that mean?”

He shrugs and takes a hard right. “Probably that you shouldn't have fucked with him.”

“Your dad didn't seem scared of him.”

“Go Dad,” Jared says sourly.

I look at my nephew thoughtfully. “What's the problem between you two?”

“This week, it's the earrings.”

I start to say something, stop myself since it's none of my business, and then, typically, say it anyway. “You do realize that you're going through a stage right now, don't you. That in a few years you'll have outgrown all this rebellion bullshit and none of it will matter.”

“Maybe so,” he concedes, keeping his eyes glued to the road. “But I still have to fight the good fight while it's mine to fight.” He grins lightly. “You might say it's my job.”

“Well, you certainly throw yourself into your work.”

“Whatever,” Jared says. “What's the problem between you and him?”

“Nothing that a few years of intense family therapy couldn't fix.”

“Well, I think the boat's pretty much sailed on that one. What with Grandma gone and Gramps . . . you know.”

I've never heard my mother referred to as Grandma before. It's never occurred to me that the title could be acquired posthumously, and hearing Jared say it is momentarily disorienting. I feel a chill in my belly, a pang of mourning so intense it renders further conversation impossible. We sit in silence for a few minutes until I see that we're headed out of town on Porter's Boulevard. “Where are we going?” I say. “The only thing out here is Porter's.”

“Bingo.”

“What the hell are we doing at Porter's?”

“You'll see.”

P.J. Porter's corporate headquarters is a massive, sprawling five-story building whose exterior is comprised primarily of forbidding dark glass panels and burnished fieldstone, a monument to capitalism. The building is surrounded by acres of rolling, immaculate lawns and strategically placed ponds and fountains, as if it had been plunked down in the middle of a championship golf course. Adding to the overall sense of deliberate seclusion is a perimeter of forestry, roughly one acre deep, that has been deliberately left intact to surround the campus. This expansive, idyllic setting is either a grand testament to modern ergonomics or a corporeal manifestation of the grotesquely inflated collective ego of the Porter family in their financial heyday.

Jared drives past the main entrance, which is gated and locked, and we ride for another few minutes on a narrow road that winds its way through the trees until he suddenly pulls onto a dirt lane that runs into the woods. The lane ends at a gated section of the eight-foot chain-link fence that surrounds the perimeter of the Porter's campus. A group of kids suddenly materialize like ghosts in the narrow

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