what am I supposed to tell Marvetti? My grandfather said no deal. I can hear the buzz now. ‘Jud Banning is a real pussy. A puppet. He does exactly what his grandfather tells him.’ Great … just great.”
“You want me to give you all the answers and I’m not going to. I didn’t have anyone to tell me what to do. Solve this yourself. Show the world the kind of a man you are.”
“So in this hard-edged, tough business world of yours, you become a man by welshing on a deal? How in the hell will anyone ever take me seriously?”
Victor leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and merely looked at him. He refused to lead Jud through life by the nose.
“Damn you, Victor. This is my deal. I have to lose my respect and integrity because you don’t like Marvetti?”
“You lost your integrity when you let his flunkies lure you into a business deal with him. Find out for yourself why. Then you come and tell me how good your deal is.”
Anger, humiliation, and something almost elemental were in Jud’s taut features. “I want the chance to make my own mark on this company, to do things my way.”
“Your way is wrong.” Victor didn’t move. Jud was pigheaded but Victor knew he wouldn’t cross that final line—the one that would send his butt out of the company. The silence between them was tense, and silence between people said more than words ever could. “Go on.” Victor waved a hand and looked away. “Get out of here.” He picked up a folder on his desk, but when Jud was almost out the door he called his name. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to do things the right way.”
Jud jerked open the door. “You mean your way.”
“Yes. I mean my way.”
Loyola University Marymount College, Del Rey Hills, California
There were no doctors in the Banning family. Cale wasn’t trying to follow in some relative’s hallowed footsteps. He defied Victor’s rule of natural order, but not for the sake of defiance. When Cale was young and someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer was always the same. While his friends vacillated between a cowboy one week and a fireman the next, he saved the life of everything from earthworms to a neighbor’s half-drowned cat. Whenever a seagull flew into the almost invisible glass windows of the Lido house, Cale would put the senseless gull in a box with a beach towel warm from the dryer, and an hour later the bird would have flown away.
Those nights he would sleep without moving. He would crawl out of his bed the next morning, the sheets still tucked in, and later Maria would swear he’d slept on the floor or in Jud’s room. The truth was, he never tried to sleep in Jud’s room after that first month. Their boyhood closeness was just that, part of boyhood. Jud was his brother, but like those unsuspecting seagulls, Cale had slammed headfirst into a glass wall Victor built between them enough times to not fly there anymore.
By the time Cale started high school, he sought his comfort from the opposite sex. At college those first few years, partying was preferable to catching some Z’s, and he had a new freedom living away from home. Everyone slept in dorms, which was where he headed that afternoon as he left the student post office with an envelope from the University of Washington.
A cool afternoon breeze swept in from the Pacific, pushing the smog farther inland and away from the campus perched on a bluff above the western fringes of the LA basin. Students sat on benches and lounged across lawns surrounded with the clean smell of mown grass and beds of rosebushes with flowers the size of an open hand. As on most days, older priests and nuns played boccie at one end of the green, a spot called the Sunken Garden, and some students tossed around a Frisbee at the other end. A banner painted with a bulldog behind bars and the cry Pound the Zags! hung between two huge magnolia trees in the middle of the mall, because tonight—the last night before spring break—was the night when Loyola challenged Gonzaga for the number one position in their division.
Cale’s mind wasn’t on the big game when he left Saint Robert’s Hall and headed straight for the senior apartments, a three-story stucco-and-wood building that could have easily melted into any block of apartments in any part of LA. Four seniors shared each two-bedroom unit, but the place was empty when he tossed his books on an orange Formica table, grabbed a cold Coors, and headed for his room, which smelled like old socks, wet towels, and pizza. He sat down on the bed, staring down at the white envelope for a long time before he opened it and unfolded the letter.
March 24, 1970
Dear Mr. Banning:
We regret to inform you that you do not meet our requirements for admission into the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Blah … blah … blah … He crushed the letter into a ball and rested his head on his fists. Every letter was the same. The rejections from the first-tier schools had come rapid-fire fast—Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins. The rest came week after week, like some unending boxing match he was destined to lose.
The door flew open with a bang and his roommate and teammate shuffled in singing the team fight song off-key, “Willie and the tall boys are dancing, on the home court tonight.”
William Dorsey was the grandson of a big band leader whose musical talent was not passed on to subsequent generations, but whose showmanship was. Will loved a cheering crowd, whether it was on the basketball court or in the dorm back in their freshman year when he was the only guy who could chug a six-pack of Colt 45 malt liquor in under three minutes and not throw up. He was a basketball star. Six foot six, a loose walker, all rubber arms and legs, and on the court he was magic in motion. His jump shot was tops; he could score more points in two minutes than any other player in the division; and it was no surprise when he was unanimously voted captain of the Lions. Scouts had been around him at almost every game.
Will kicked the door closed and stopped to blow a ritual kiss at a color eight-by-ten photo of Jeannine Byer, a knockout blonde, a Mount Saint Mary’s nursing student. He gave Cale a quick glance, then stopped. “Who died?”
“Me.” Cale held up the crumpled letter.
“Another one? Which school?”
“U Dub.”
“Ah, hell, man. You didn’t wanna go there anyway. It rains all the time.” Will dropped his books on the floor, picked up a metal wastebasket, and balanced it on his head. “Here.” He pointed to the basket. “That letter belongs in here. Those sorry bastards. One throw. Come on, man. Go for it!”
Cale pitched the letter into the air; it arced across the room and dropped inside the basket with a soft ping.
Will lifted Cale’s Coors can to his mouth like a mike. He blew into it, making a hollow sound. Mimicking a famous American sportscaster, he said, “We have an-nuther goal scored by Cale Banning tonight. He is well on his way to breaking all … ex-zisting records for med school rejection! But there’s hope! This erudite fuckup of Loyola has not exhausted all his options. Canada? Mexico? The third world countries? Or if all else fails, Mis-ter Cale Banning can apply to Uncle-Sam-Wants-U, where he will swiftly be transferred to the renowned University of Da Nang!”
“Funny.” Cale threw a wet towel at him. “University of Da Nang, my ass.”
“Hell, if I were sending men into the jungle, I
