Page 119 of Something Tattered
"The fighting?" He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I dunno. It's complicated."
I waited for him to explain. And when he didn't, I gave him a pleading look. "That can't be the whole story."
"It's not. But the rest of it's so messed up, you wouldn’t want to hear it."
"You're wrong," I said. "Idowant to hear it. Like, where do things stand now?"
"Nowhere," Joel said. "A few weeks ago, I was set to go legit, but the deal went south before it happened."
"What do you mean?"
"I was about to sign with this big sports agent, but the deal was squashed."
"By who?"
His jaw tightened. "My brothers."
I wasn't quite following. "You mean, like they talked you out of it?"
"Hell no. They screwed me over."
"How?"
"My brother Jake? He killed the deal."
My mouth fell open. I almost didn't know what to say. It was horrible. And yet, a tiny part of mealmostwanted to send Jake a thank-you card.
Probably, this made me a terrible person, but there it was. I knew that Joel was tough. Really tough. And obviously, he could handle himself just fine. But there was something about him – a sweet, sensitive side that seemed at awful odds with the level of violence that Mike had described.
I hadn't known Joel for long. But I'd seen his face every time fighting came up. It wasn't the face of a guy who loved what he was doing.
Trying to get a better sense of the situation, I asked, "So, about that deal, is it killed for good?"
Joel gave a bitter laugh. "That's the funniest part. The guy tells me, come back in year, maybe it'll blow over."
"Maybe what will blow over?"
"Jake. That's what."
"Sorry, I'm not following. How, exactly, did Jake kill it?"
"Easy. He bribed the agent to drop me."
I felt my eyebrows furrow. "So Jake paid him off?"
"Yeah, but not with money. What that prick did was tell the agent that if he dumped me, Jake would stop messing with the agency's other clients."
Oddly enough, that made sense. I recalled Jake's fight videos. A bunch of them had involved sports stars, some pretty big names from what I remembered. From the little I'd seen, all of those stars had taken serious beatings.
It was easy to see why a savvy sports agent would do anything to make those beatings stop.
I looked to Joel. "So just like that, he dropped you?"
"Yeah. Just like that."
I almost didn't know what to say. "Wow."
"And then Bishop?Thatprick won't back me when I try to fight it. Tells me it's probably for the best."
