[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  She paused, as if she didn’t quite know how to go on. “There was a man on the other end who was most definitely not a client. He didn’t say anything at first. I kept saying ‘hello,’ and almost hung up. But then he asked for you by name. I said that you were at lunch and asked if I could leave a message. He said, ‘Tell him that I know who he is now.’ Then he hung up.”

  Cole took this in but didn’t have anything to say about it. “So?”

  “So, it was disturbing, Cole. This man sounded…cold. His voice was really just awful.” She shuddered at the recollection. “Have all your calls been like that?”

  “No,” Cole assured. “Most of them were pretty harmless. Crazy, but not, you know.”

  “Well,” said Anne Marie, still concerned, “I want you to let me know if you get any more calls that could be threatening. If we need to call the police, we can certainly do that.”

  Cole stood up. He was ready for his boss to stop giving him her undivided attention. “Thanks, Anne Marie, but I’m sure this will all be over by Monday.”

  Anne Marie looked up like she had failed to get her point across. “Fine, just be careful. The criminally insane have already cost our office once this week.”

  “Right,” he said, starting to leave.

  “Oh, and Cole?” Cole looked back. “Feel free to hang up on anyone you want today.”

  * * * *

  That night, the festival was packed and the amps were loud. He had given his extra ticket to the only high school friend he still talked to. Within an hour, that friend had found a girl and Cole never saw him again. He stayed a while longer, but although the music was as good as he’d anticipated, he found his interest waning. The experience just wasn’t what it could have been. He felt tired and left early.

  The drive home was quick. Not much traffic, very few stop lights. Cole watched the houses go by, with snow-covered lawns and gleams of ice on the sidewalks. His usual practice was to drive while soaking in a healthy wash of electric guitar from his custom stereo. That night, he just turned it off.

  The entrance to his apartment complex was a left turn up an incline, past a stretch of lawn and hedges. In the yellow lights of the street, he couldn’t see that one of the sprinkler heads had burst earlier in the day, spewing a flow of now-frozen water across the driveway.

  Making his left turn quickly, Cole zipped up the incline. The front wheel hit the ice patch and skidded, bucking the car sideways so that the left wheel knocked into the curb. He spun the wheel left, then right, trying to get the car under control before reaching the parking lot. When the car finally stopped, he was at an angle in the lot, with the front bumper six inches from the back end of an expensive-looking coup.

  He sat for a minute, hands clenching the steering wheel, replaying the event. What just happened?

  After checking himself once over for good measure, he eased carefully into a parking spot near his door and got out gingerly. No back pain, no spinal twinges. Safe.

  “Excuse me?” a voice said behind him. Cole turned around and saw a figure, about twenty feet away from the stairs, standing rigid in a hooded sweatshirt. The man was massive and heavy, like a weightlifter. He had glasses that reflected the yellow lights over the parking lot, but most of his face was obscured by shadow under the hood. The figure was perfectly still, both hands deep in his pockets. Cole began digging for his keys uncomfortably.

  “Yeah?” he asked back.

  “Do you live here? I was looking around at apartments and was wondering if this would be a great place to live.” The words were spoken slowly, as if there were no rush to get his meaning across.

  “Sure, it’s fine, for what it is.” Cole found his key and used it.

  “I see,” the figure stated, still unmoving. Cole turned again as he waited for more. It came, after an irrational silence.

  “And the inside?”

  Um, weird. “It’s fine. I’m going to…”

  “It looks nice. Like a nice place to set up. To plan for the future. Is it nice?”

  Cole opened the screen door. “Yeah, real nice. Look, it’s really cold outside. I’m going in now. Good luck with the apartment hunt.”

  “Yes, yes it is cold,” said the figure. “But you never know. It could get warm real soon.”

  Cole took one more look back. “Sure,” he said, and quickly closed and locked the door behind him. By the time he’d unzipped his jacket and peeked through the front blinds, the figure was gone.

  * * * *

  The next morning, when he left his apartment, something fell to the ground. It was a piece of paper with a typed message on it. A poem.

  As the stone rolls forth

  From David’s arm,

  The giant’s reach will

  Cease from harm,

  And bracket’s glory

  Will lose its charm

  For one man’s blood is

  Earth’s alarm.

  -Ichabod will come-

  [East Division: Elite Eight]

  [Sunday, March 29]

  Cole took three phone calls from his bed on Sunday morning. The first was from Deborah Cheney, who couldn’t help but notice that his bracket was still perfect halfway through the Elite Eight. To congratulate him, and as a human interest element to their Annual Spring Fundraiser that night, he was invited to meet the entire station as a guest of honor at the Player Pier in Hartford. He really, really didn’t want to go. But he didn’t think guests of honor could turn down invitations, so he said yes.

  The second call was from Nera, who was very excited to hear about Cole’s invitation. With a surge of hope, Cole suggested that he could really use some familiar company to help him avoid March Madness faux pas. Nera laughed and said it was too late for that, but she’d be there anyway.

  The third call was a wrong number.

  In none of those conversations did a large man in a hooded sweatshirt come up.

  * * * *

  The Player Pier, said to be the best sports bar in a city without any professional sports, stood expansively on manicured grounds overlooking the Connecticut River. The river, along with everything else, was half-frozen that night. The lights from the small group of skyscrapers to the east were reflected darkly in the water. It was a stark contrast to the vibrant, audibly throbbing, neon mayhem inside the Pier.

  Cole stood in the parking lot outside, looking at the building and watching people hurry to get out of the cold. He preferred freezing to going inside just yet. It was one thing to go into a concert, where he could lose himself in the anonymity of big noise and flashing lights. It was another to be a sideshow in celebration of a sport that he didn’t really understand. There was no way that he was going in alone.

  He recognized the blue Jetta as soon as it pulled into the lot, and he walked over to meet the car where it stopped. Nera stepped out and gave him an unexpected hug.

  “Hi!” she squeezed. “I’m so excited! This is the weirdest thing. My parents don’t even understand what’s going on. Who would have guessed that you’d be a celebrity?”

  “It’s not a big deal.” Cole downplayed. “I’m actually hoping I’ll lose a game tonight, then we can steal as many wings as we can and life can get back to normal.”

  “Cole, you’re the only man I know who would consider this a bad thing,” she said.

  They walked up to the building together. The curved facade of the Player Pier was a gaudy tribute to every sport imaginable. It was built to look like a stadium, with embedded pieces of green turf, leather, netting, and other sports paraphernalia surrounding the belt of stadium lights that marched around the entire building. But the outside was understated compared to the interior. Huge, cinema-sized screens filled the walls surrounding a phalanx of sofas, tables, and high seats. A small stage and microphone had been set up directly in front of one of the screens. What appeared to be the entire staff of WHAR, their family members, and half the city of Hartford were watching the game between Oklahoma and West Virginia. West Virginia was
up by seven at ten minutes into the first half. Cole tried to remember if he had WVU winning. Nera would know.

  They stopped by the bar, then found the least noisy corner of the upper level and sat down close to each other, Nera facing the big screens.

  “So Cole, I have to ask you,” Nera started. “Why are you not thrilled about your bracket? This really is a big deal! I heard this story a few years back about an MIT physicist who thought that he’d found some algorithm for predicting March Madness winners, and his system only got like 60% of them right. He said the stock market was easier to predict than this. I know you’re not into sports, but what you’re doing is seriously cool!”

  Cole stirred his drink and fidgeted under Nera’s unblinking gaze.

  “I guess…it’s because it shouldn’t really be me, you know? Smart people who know a lot about sports—people like you—you should be the ones making the perfect picks. I just feel like people are going to find out I’m a fake any minute.”

  Nera laughed and shook her head as she took a drink. “Cole, you aren’t a fake. You can’t fake luck. I mean, there you are, a secretary at a tiny real estate agency, typing all day…”

  “I know,” Cole interrupted, hiding a smile, “it’s amazing that someone so, um…”

  “Oh I didn’t mean—I don’t think you have a loser job or anything.”

  “No, I’m just messing with you. Seriously. And actually, it is kind of a loser job, but less of a loser job than I’ve had in the past.”

  “OK, then,” she smiled. “So what were the worse jobs?”

  “Oh, night clerk, janitor for dentist offices, data entry, cashier. My favorite was cleaning the ball pit at Chuck-E-Cheese right after I got out of my body cast. I’ve actually been at this job for longer than anything else. It has its perks.” Cole couldn’t keep himself from looking up at Nera as he finished. “But what about you? I know you can do more than just drive rich people around to big houses.”

  “Ha! No, Anne Marie keeps the rich ones to herself. You’re right though—I actually got a master’s in sports psychology at UCONN, did you know that? I was doing an internship with the women’s basketball team and things were looking really good, but…”

  Nera’s voice faded, and she seemed overly interested in the Oklahoma coach calling a time-out. Cole just waited.

  “So my mom has cancer. Pancreatic, so things aren’t looking good. Only Anne Marie knows about it at the office, I don’t really want Tom blogging about it. Anyway, Anne Marie knew my mom from way back, so she suggested that I get my real estate license and stay close to home. Anne Marie’s been good to me, even if she is, you know, Anne Marie. And getting someone to buy a house isn’t that different from getting a player to get back on the court.”

  Nera went back to watching the Oklahoma coach bawling out one of his players. “That guy needs to keep his cool,” she said. Cole waited a little more, then reached over and put his hand over Nera’s. They passed the rest of the game that way. With just five minutes left in the second half, they felt, then saw, the presence of a camera coming around to their side. And where there was a camera, there was Deborah Cheney.

  “Hi, you two. Having fun?” she asked, putting her hands on their shoulders like a diplomat.

  “Yeah,” they said at the same time.

  “Well, it’s about to get even better. We’ll be seeing more of you at the end of this game.” She walked away with a sly grin to interview others in the crowd.

  “What happens at the end of the game?” Cole asked Nera.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll give you something for winning.”

  “What if I don’t win?”

  “You will. Oklahoma is falling to pieces, and I think the last game will be more lopsided than people think. Besides, you’re riding the luckiest wave I’ve ever seen. It would be almost unnatural for you to not win.”

  “Every streak has to end.”

  “Says who?”

  “I don’t know. Statistics guys. Me. It’s like …so when I was in high school, my senior year, I was dating this girl, my skateboarding was going awesome—I was going to compete in an X games qualifier the week before I graduated. Everything was good, and then my accident happened. I was laid up for eight weeks, and then it took me another two months just to get right again. I missed the games, my girlfriend dumped me because she got bored, I missed my prom and my graduation. My point is, luck changes, fast, like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Was that your point?” Nera raised her eyebrows. “I thought your point was that if a streak of bad luck can last four months, a streak of good luck could at least last one.”

  Cole was about to retort when the final game buzzer blared and the sound to the television feed was shut off.

  “My friends and co-workers!” Deborah Cheney began, now on the stage behind the microphone. “Are you having a good time tonight?” The crowd cheered that they were. “We’d like to thank Player Pier for hosting this party,” applause, “and our wonderful executives and staff for putting this together for us.” She joined in with more applause.

  “We have five minutes before the final game of the evening begins, and I want to make a very special announcement.” Cole noticed one of the cameras turning toward him. “As you know, I’ve been paying close attention to a certain South Windsor resident in my broadcasts this past week. This young man had a perfect bracket going into the Elite Eight. I can now tell you that if UCLA wins this next game, he will have a perfect bracket going into the Final Four. Cole Kaman, stand up and let us see you!”

  Cole stood and gave a tight-mouthed wave. He stayed up long enough for everyone in the bar to turn around and notice him, and then he made a move to sink back in his previously anonymous seat.

  “Wait, wait, Cole, stay standing a moment, because I have an extra special announcement. It turns out that Cole is not the only one to make it this far with a perfect record. Our colleagues at ESPN are telling us that there are three more people on their website who have also registered perfect brackets. And wait, wait, here’s the amazing part. Cole, each of these contestants has the exact same Final Four teams that you do.” She paused, knowing that she had everyone’s rapt attention now. “But, each has a different team winning the tournament! Four people. Four brackets. Only one possible winner. Ladies and gentleman, the intriguing and improbable race for bracket perfection is on! Put that bracket up on the big screen!”

  A dynamically animated version of Cole’s picks went up, with each of the correct choices lighting up in exploding bright green. The crowd reacted in direct proportion to their individual drunkenness before Deborah put up her hands again.

  “I know, I know, it’s amazing. But now I have an even more special announcement.” Cole wondered how many special announcements there could be in a row before they weren’t special anymore. “ESPN awards a cash prize of one million dollars to whomever wins that year’s bracket challenge, which Cole did not sign up for. But…” she continued, “the CBS higher-ups have agreed to officially sponsor Cole and award him the same cash prize should he be the final winner! And,” she added, talking over the tide of voices and applause, “all four bracket holders will be flown out to Washington DC with a guest of their choosing to watch the Final Four in person!”

  The camera found Cole’s face again; it found his eyes opened very wide.

  “Now, I don’t care if you’re a Hawaii fan or not. Let’s cheer for this UCLA team, and let’s send Cole Kaman to the Final Four!” Deborah applauded with everyone else in Cole’s direction, then signaled for the screen to go back to the game. It meant just a little bit more to everyone there to see that UCLA had already gone up by six.

  Nera watched as a few inebriated station members began making their way back toward their table. “C’mon,” she said, grabbing his arm. “You need some air.”

  The Player Pier boasted a large deck overlooking one of the walking trails that paralleled the river. Crusts of snow capped the railings; the cold would
give Cole and Nera some much-needed seclusion for as long as they could endure it. They leaned against the railing, looking out over the river to the sparkling constellation of streetlamps and windows that disappeared into the clusters of barren trees.

  “So, wow!” said Nera. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, if you make it to the championship game, they play it on a Monday night. Anne Marie will probably give you paid leave as long as you wear a Cheney t-shirt.”

  Cole chuckled. They looked around in silence, watching their breath evaporate in white wisps.

  “So how do you really feel about all this?” she asked sincerely.

  Cole shook his head and laughed to himself. “Like I’m on a game show, one of those where they have some crazy thing that they have to do, but they keep adding things to make it harder, like, ‘OK, you have to run from here to there carrying this egg in your mouth, but you’ll have to cross this pit of cockroaches barefoot! And you’ll be blindfolded! With a boa constrictor!’”

  “Is that a real show?”

  “I don’t know. I’m saying that it feels like stuff keeps piling up for no reason. And the weirdest part of it all is, I don’t have to do anything, and this will still go on. I could lock myself in my apartment, I could leave the country, and people will still get excited about this piece of paper that I filled out. And now there are three others with the same luck as me, and our pieces of paper are competing with each other for a million dollars. How did that happen?” Cole raised and dropped his shoulders with a deep breath. “But maybe it’s just tonight. Maybe in a week people will calm down and they’ll see all this for what it really is, and life will start being normal again.”

  “Maybe,” Nera said thoughtfully. “But people like to believe that special things can happen. Like, not everybody can play college basketball, but everyone can fill out a bracket and maybe get it perfect one year. To see someone actually do it is fun; it gives people hope and excitement. The fact that there are four of you and four teams—that just adds mystery. It’s good for people to see that improbable things can happen.”