[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  Tucker squeezed through the press to get over to her, but once there, he still had to yell to be heard. “What do you think?”

  “Fun,” she yelled back.

  “Yeah?” The conversation stalled out before it really had begun.

  “So I finished reviewing that press statement.” Carla started pulling something out of her purse, but Tucker held up his hands.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—this is game time. That’s sacred time. When we’re watching a game, we are here,” he pointed down with one hand, “and work is waaaaaay over there.” He pointed out the window toward campus. “Let me get you that beer I promised, and we can look at it in…” Tucker peered over the heads of the crowd to see the screen, “…two minutes of playing time.”

  He waded into the kitchen, wondering how he might be able to get the all-business girl to loosen up a bit.

  His roommate poked his head in. “Dude, somebody at the door for you.”

  Tucker stared blankly. “Tell him to come in.”

  “They said they wanted to talk privately.”

  “They? Wait…a guy and girl?” His roommate nodded. Tucker rolled his eyes.

  “Okay, do me a favor—give this to the blonde girl in the back and tell her I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Tucker approached the door hoping to end the conversation very quickly.

  “Tucker! You are the man!” Rick yelled with both arms up in the air as soon as Tucker appeared. Abby stood behind Rick, applauding. “You could have told us you had another perfect round in your bracket! Why don’t you ever call?”

  “Uh, how did you know…”

  Abby had put her arm around Rick and patted him on the shoulder. “We saw an article about you in the school paper, and Rick had to go look you up on ESPN to make sure. That’s really amazingly impressive, Tucker.”

  Tucker shook his head. “What are you doing here? How did you two even find me?”

  “Yeah, like it’s really hard to find an address for a college student. You know about the internet, right?” Rick snarked.

  “I asked you what you were doing here,” Tucker asked, now very impatient.

  “The bracket par-tay, of course.” Rick looked over Tucker’s shoulders at the game, now in its final thirty seconds.

  “And…” prompted Abby, “there’s something that we want to talk to you about. Privately.”

  “Right,” said Rick. “That, too.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Look, I still don’t know who you are. I have no idea why you keep bothering me. But whatever it is, I don’t want to be involved. So if you wouldn’t mind just leaving and letting me get back...”

  “We understand,” said Rick, semi-serious now. “You don’t want to talk with us at all, you want nothing to do with us, you just want to watch some games. We get that, you’ve actually made that very clear from the beginning. So, let’s do this. Thirty seconds, we pitch our idea, then we leave. If you don’t like it, you never have to see us again.”

  Tucker hesitated. Rick looked at him steadily while Abby stood holding Rick’s arm, her eyes a little graver. An explosion of applause in the living room indicated that the game was over. People started to get up and move around. Tucker sighed.

  “It’s going to be a madhouse here until everyone leaves. We can go to my room. For thirty seconds.”

  Turning to lead the way, Tucker stepped right into Carla.

  “Oh, sorry—everything okay?”

  Carla looked around him at Rick and Abby.

  “Weren’t we going to talk after the game?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah, um…this is going to take thirty seconds, I swear. Grab whatever you want and I’ll be right out.” They passed quickly into the hallway.

  “So was that the girlfriend?” Rick asked, following Tucker into his room.

  “Uh, no, Carla is from work, Lena is the girlfriend…why do you need to know all this?”

  “That one’s not hard on the eyes, all I’m saying.”

  “Rick!” Abby warned. “Sorry, Tucker, sometimes he steps out of bounds.” She shot Rick a look as she handed Tucker a folded piece of paper. It looked familiar when he smoothed it out.

  …peaceful end to the crisis in Southeast Asia to be accomplished through mediation, given the reluctance of western countries to become too involved and the reluctance of the smaller ASEAN countries to trust Chinese intervention, which stems not just from China’s open antagonism towards Many Hands, but also from their long history of seeking to take geopolitical advantage of the smaller nations. Without a local nation like South Korea mediating the conflict, or until one side gives up or wins, Many Hands and the Chinese/Western coalition will be locked in an extended conflict with potentially dangerous consequences. However, the South Korean govermnent currently lacks the political will and social backing that would be required…

  Rick and Abby looked on while he read. “Recognize it?” Abby asked. “You misspelled ‘government’, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” said Tucker sarcastically. “How did you get this?”

  Rick jumped in. “We found it in your boss’s recycling bin. We wanted to ask—”

  “Wait, you went through Dr. Tonkin’s trash? I seriously need to call the police on you people.”

  “No, Tucker,” Abby paused to glare at Rick. “We didn’t break into your boss’s office. We went there this afternoon to see if he could get us a visit with Wol Pot, but he got called out to talk with somebody. While we were waiting, Rick started messing around, doing some shooting practice with paper in the recycling bin. That’s how we found this—Rick couldn’t make the stupid basket into the trash can and he finally uncrumpled the paper claiming that there was something wrong with it.”

  “Which there was,” Rick inserted loudly. “Staple in the corner totally threw off the center of balance.”

  “Anyway, when we figured out that you wrote it, we realized that you were the one we needed to talk to. You see, the world has changed a little since you wrote this, but your idea is still good. The South Korean higher-ups might be willing to go along with some of the suggestions that you give here.”

  “How do you know that?” Tucker asked.

  “Because,” said Rick, “we’ve been talking to the South Koreans. That’s why we’re here.”

  Tucker surveyed the two, Abby looking earnest and worried, Rick also looking uncharacteristically serious. The more he learned about these people, the less he understood them.

  “Here’s the situation,” Abby continued. “Wol Pot will probably end the hunger strike soon. We think he will actually leave over the weekend. That gives us a small window of opportunity to send them a message…”

  “Whoa, whoa,” said Tucker, backing up, “I’m not going to do anything, like…”

  “No, no,” Rick corrected, “she means we want to literally give them a written message.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right. Sorry, bad choice of words,” Abby apologized. “Anyway, Wol Pot may have won over a lot of Americans, but he still has to report back to the Thai government, and they aren’t very happy about what he’s done. If he goes back and all he has is the plan that our State Department has put on the table, he won’t last a week in any kind of position of power. If that happens, the Thais go the way of Myanmar and become a Many Hands state. But, if we can get Wol Pot this message before he leaves, that the South Koreans can step in to ensure a balance in the negotiations, then he goes back with some leveraging power and he can help them turn things around for good.”

  Tucker processed what he was being told and shrugged. “So go tell him. Or go tell Tonkin. He’s the one in those meetings. Why are you talking to me?”

  “Tonkin’s under pressure to push Maxwell’s plan. Maybe he would have considered it if he were under less pressure, but at this point he’s just repeating what he’s being told; he isn’t seriously considering other options, even from you.”

  “He said that?”

  “Uh, no. We inferred it.
Your memo was in the recycling bin, right? As for Wol Pot himself, he’s not taking any more official visitors or calls. He’s basically hunkering down with his aides to make his final decision. So we need someone to get this message to him just to let him know that there’s another way.”

  “Then tell the South Koreans to figure out how to tell him.”

  “Tucker, you aren’t listening. Our being here right now is South Korea trying to tell him. We kind of are South Korea. Anyonghaseyo.” Abby bowed slightly.

  Tucker folded his arms and thought. “You think I can get in to deliver this message?”

  “We think you can, yes.” Abby extended an envelope to Tucker.

  Tucker put his head down and listened to the party breaking up in the living room, reminding him of the parts of his life that used to be normal. His roommates would be eating the last of the Skyline Platter, analyzing the play-by-play on the couch. His neighbor would be moving his TV back, freaking out about scratching it. Lena might be stopping by to check in—and Carla would still be there. Tucker’s head snapped back up.

  “Your thirty seconds are up.”

  “So will you do it?”

  Tucker looked at the envelope and rejected all courses that would make his life more complicated. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t want to get involved. This isn’t my responsibility. You can find some maid to slip this under his door or something, but I’m not in.”

  “Tucker, you know what will happen if he doesn’t get this message. We know you know. You have to think beyond yourself here.”

  Abby sounded so much like Lena in that moment that Tucker immediately stopped listening. Stone-faced, he shook his head.

  “Fine,” said Abby, a little critically. She handed him a card. “Here is our number. You call us when you change your mind.”

  “I thought you said I wouldn’t ever see you again,” Tucker said with a spark of irritation.

  Rick grinned. “We said that you wouldn’t have to see us again. But if you decide to help us out, you may get to see us again.”

  Tucker didn’t say anything. He just nodded towards the exit, and Rick and Abby filed past him, down the hall, around a few remaining partiers, and out the door.

  “Who were they?” Carla asked, coming up to him as he closed the front door behind the departing couple.

  “Oh,” Tucker shrugged, wondering how exactly to answer that question. “Just some people that have been trying to get interviews with Dr. Tonkin. I keep telling them that it has to wait until next week, but they keep coming back to bother me about it.”

  “They want to talk with Tonkin?” she repeated slowly.

  “Yeah,” Tucker said, wondering why she suddenly looked so alarmed. He didn’t think long.

  “Come here a minute,” she said, grabbing Tucker’s arm and pulling him back into the hallway. Tucker was so surprised that he didn’t think to resist. Carla put him against the wall and pulled up close.

  “Uh, you should know that I have a girl—”

  “Shut up, I have to tell you something,” she ordered quietly. He shut up. “I think I know who those people are.” She brushed her hair from her forehead as if thinking things through too late.

  “OK.” Tucker wanted the answer.

  “I…am not exactly a student here,” she began. Tucker rolled his eyes.

  “Does everybody have a secret identity this week?”

  “I said shut up,” she ordered again. “I was sent down here as a recruiter to check out a potential hire.”

  “You came to give me a job?”

  “No,” she snapped, “Tonkin. I came to see if he was really as brilliant as everybody thought he was. But my boss said there might be other people that were also interested in him. That has to be who they are.”

  Tucker was dubious. “That’s stupid,” he said. “If someone wants to hire Tonkin, why not just interview him like normal people?”

  “This is the interview. Watching him during this Thailand mess is the best way to see how he operates; it’s telling us everything we need to know. Besides, my firm isn’t exactly normal. Not many people know who we are and my boss wants to keep it that way.”

  “OK,” Tucker muddled. “So what am I supposed to do about this?”

  “Keep them away from Tonkin,” Carla responded immediately. “Just for another week. You would be doing him a favor. Can you do that for me?”

  Tucker looked down at the girl and heaved a deep, weary sigh. “Whatever. So I guess this means you didn’t fact-check Tonkin’s statement, huh?”

  Carla looked briefly confused.

  “Of course I did. It’s right here.” She pulled out a USB key. “It’s all fine.”

  “Hey, if you want to keep doing my job so I can get in some game time, I’ll do whatever you say.” Tucker reached out for the USB key.

  It was right then, just as his hand was touching Carla’s and she was still within inches of his face, that Tucker heard a gasp from the living room. He turned around. Lena was standing there, staring as if she’d just been slapped in the face.

  “What’s she doing here?” she asked, focusing on Carla.

  Tucker quickly moved toward her, his arms in the air like a man at gunpoint.

  “Babe, relax, she was just telling me about office stuff. It wasn’t anything,” he said. But Lena wasn’t listening to Tucker. She was still staring at Carla.

  Carla cleared her throat. “I was just leaving,” she said as she made her way carefully around Lena. Tucker noticed the two exchange some look of unspoken, private communication. Carla turned away and left. Others in the room pretended not to notice.

  “You two know each other?” Tucker asked.

  “We’ve met. She didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” Tucker said. “I just met her this morning. When did you meet her?”

  Lena looked down at the ground and wrung her fingers. At last, clearly unresolved in her internal conflict, she said, “We should talk about it later. I just…I just came by to tell you that Wol Pot just announced that he’s ending the hunger strike. It’s all over. I thought you might want to know.” Then she turned around and nearly ran out of the front door.

  Tucker just stood there. When he finally looked around, he noticed his roommates staring.

  “I got no idea what just happened,” he told them, and went back to his room to think.

  * * * *

  Late that night in his room, lying on his bed, he fingered the card with a phone number written in careful penmanship that he guessed was Abby’s. He flipped it through his fingers for a few minutes, then opened the envelope with the message in it and read the details. Thailand would denounce Many Hands and accept a Chinese offer to provide assistance to the hard-hit regions in the north, including a free two-year power infrastructure project using electricity produced in southern China. South Korea would provide funding and a small force of neutral inspectors who would report directly to Thai authorities to ensure against long-term Chinese encroachment. It didn’t say what the South Koreans would get, but there must have been something. It could work.

  Tucker read through it a few times and lay back on his bed to think some more. He looked at the clock. Typically, he would have called his dad by now to deconstruct the game. But it wasn’t a typical night. And if he did what he thought about doing, he might not have a typical night for a while.

  A few minutes later, he picked up the phone and dialed the number.

  The phone rang once.

  Rick answered. “Hello?”

  “It’s Tucker.”

  “Hey! You’re still awake?”

  “Yeah, sorry, I didn’t think about the time. I’ve been…did I wake you up?”

  “No. Abby’s asleep, but I just found Jurassic Park while I was flipping channels. I love this movie. What’s up?”

  Tucker rubbed his head. “Let me ask you something. Let’s say I sent your message. How would I do it?”

  Rick shuffled with something in the background. “
You know Wol Pot’s doctor, Mongkut Thaifun?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hear he likes basketball.”

  [Midwest Division: Elite Eight]

  [Saturday, March 28]

  Tucker arrived at the campus rec center holding his good sneakers in his left hand. While he had been dubious when Rick and Abby told him to show up at the gym at 6:30 AM on a cold Saturday, it somehow didn’t surprise him to see Abby behind the admissions counter, giving him a thumbs up and waving him through. Two of the four friends that he had miraculously convinced to wake up that early on a weekend were already there.

  The court had been newly refurbished and the floor, still smelling slightly of varnish, reflected a polished golden yellow. Tucker stood dribbling a ball at the free-throw line, filling the spacious rectangular interior with a reverberating clamor. To him, it was a beautiful sound, loud and lonely, matched only by the quick schwoop of the ball going through the net. There was a pure and distinct rhythm to it: bounce, squeak, breath, clang, schwoop, bounce, over and over. The simple rhythm of sports.