The Man Who Built a Purple Pool

By David Krause

College-bound Tom Cochrane isn’t rich enough to place his kidney-cancer-stricken sister on America’s twelve organ donation waitlists, so he quits school and takes a job as a carpenter in Las Vegas, sending his weekly paychecks back home, hoping to make enough to add her name to each list. Unfortunately, Tom’s paychecks aren’t coming fast enough, and his sister is getting worse, so he turns to what he thought should be his last resort: gambling. He spends each night inside Vegas’s casinos, life-savings in hand, trying to calculate the probability of winning big, even just once, all in order to overcome a system in which income inequality has become a matter of life or death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483590264

Book preview

Dedication

Prologue

I want to tell you a story, but I keep screwing it up. Thankfully, my good friends, Tom and Jessie, keep coming back to tell me how it really goes. They’re both real nice and probably the two best friends I’ve ever had, which is maybe why I keep telling their story wrong. Maybe a part of me doesn’t want to get their story right, because I know if I get it right, they’ll be gone forever.

Anyway, I’m going to give it another shot, because they’ve asked me to try again. So, here we go. Tom and Jessie were brother and sister, and they lived together with their parents in the Silicon Valley in the year 2009. Tom was a senior in high-school who’d been accepted into San Jose State’s Physics Department, which he was partly excited about, but partly not sure about, because he also liked to speak out against authority, which he’d started to do all the way back on his first day of kindergarten when he explained to his teacher how the Superman character on his lunchbox could fly. He said that Superman’s extra-long red cape let lots of air underneath it and lifted Superman into the sky all the way up to the clouds and, when Superman touched the clouds, he floated just like they did – smooth and easy and in a direction that was best for them. But Tom’s teacher didn’t want Tom to get the wrong idea about the world. She didn’t want Tom to think that people or Superman could fly like clouds. She leaned down and told Tom that Superman couldn’t really fly. Tom leaned forward and told her she couldn’t really imagine.

And then Tom leaned back and kept on imagining, although as time went on his willingness to speak out against authority began to dissolve. No one liked a know-it-all, especially the older people, and so he started to spend most of his time with high-school friends and the girl he liked, Lisa, who had strong blue eyes and glassy lip-gloss lips. He would walk with Lisa every day to their 5th period class and, when senior prom approached, Lisa talked about how excited she was and, one time, mentioned that she didn’t have a date. Tom said he didn’t have one either. But that’s all Tom said. He didn’t ask Lisa to prom; he knew he should have, but he didn’t and he wasn’t sure why. Instead, he stayed home and hung out with his best friend Dan.

And that was almost it. That was almost the end of Tom’s story. The rest of this book was almost full of blank pages for coloring because after high school, Tom figured he would just choose a college, get a degree, maybe a graduate degree, make his way into some corporate cubical, and start to calculate derivatives on how to derive more money for company profit sake. That’s it. That’s all. A story told in three paragraphs.

But three paragraphs just didn’t feel right. Something was wrong. Tom was too young; too young for college; too young for the travelled path. He was a rebellious eighteen-year-old and it wasn’t because he didn’t have a great childhood or a loving family. His younger sister, Jessie, was a freshman at his high school, and he’d drive Jessie to piano practice twice a week. Most mornings Jessie would turn the stereo up and roll down her window and let the cool air flow in and sing.

No one was more proud of Jessie or Tom than their dad, John, who wanted nothing more in life than to take pictures of his kids, cook breakfast for his family, and ski every now and then. John worked as a computer programmer for Hewlett-Packard, and he’d graduated from the University of Minnesota, where he swam backstroke and studied math. Not long after moving to California, he met his future wife, Elise, who was strong in character and furiously competitive, both of which sometimes caused problems in her career as a financial analysis for Wells Fargo Bank. One time in a quarterly review meeting a VP asked Elise if she could pick up his dry-cleaning after the meeting was over. Elise did not respond. She didn’t want to get fired but she also didn’t want to be pushed around by testosterone. So she waited until the meeting ended then she unleashed Elise-fury: calculated and methodical and justice-seeking. The next day she called the Wells Fargo HR Department and filed an official complaint and, although the VP remained a VP, he never asked her to do anything again.

Sometime soon after, Elise and John bought a house in San Jose, where they’d decided they’d start life. They’d mapped it all out: house, family, mortgage, and save for retirement: the whole American Dream. The prospect of the American Dream was enough for them – this made them happy and content, and their happiness grew stronger after they began to raise two healthy children, Tom and Jessie.

But, as often the case, something suddenly happened. John suddenly lost his job. In 2008 Hewlett-Packard cut 24,600 jobs, and John was sent home with a 6-month severance package. Immediately John started to look for a new job, but couldn’t find one right away, which produced moments of unmasked doubt that could be seen by Tom. And with these new struggles, Tom’s college hesitations intensified and, instead of college, Tom began to think about money. He started to think about making money, about figuring out a way to beat the system that said his dad wasn’t good enough for a job. And it wasn’t because his dad didn’t want a job. It wasn’t because his dad hadn’t gone to work from seven o’clock to five o’clock every day for eighteen years, only calling in sick a few times. It wasn’t…it wasn’t fair.

So Tom thought about it and thought about it, and the last sentence in his third paragraph ende—

Up turning into the first sentence of his story. And his story begins now.

Part I

Chapter One

Tom stood on the edge of a large boulder and looked down into Lake Anderson’s blue-black water below. He’d jumped from the boulder hundreds of times, but today he hesitated. He wanted to try something new: a front-flip.

Through the air a purple flower petal wobbled back and forth like a misaligned pendulum and just short of the water’s surface lifted back up and toward the dry yellow hills that surrounded the lake. Tom looked back down at the boulder’s base, where his best friend, Dan, stood next to an open box of Coronas. Dan wore knee-length brown boardshorts and his stomach flopped loosely over the boardshort’s front strings.

I wouldn’t do it, dude, Dan said.

Tom nodded at the box of Coronas. Can you bring me up a beer?

Yeah, hold up. Dan reached into the twelve-pack and pulled out a beer, then started to climb the boulder. Tom thought about the optimum angle to jump off the boulder. Force equals mass times acceleration. Gravity, a small wind resistance, his weight of 150 pounds, and the height of the boulder—Tom should jump off at about a forty degree angle.

Here, Dan said and handed Tom a Corona.

What are you going to do? Tom said and twisted open the bottle.

A cannonball—the usual. I want to make a splash big enough to get the box of Coronas wet. Dan pointed at the box on the lake’s shore. But we got to go fast, cuz we have to leave soon. I got to be home right at 3:30 today. Dan took one more step forward and then jumped off the boulder and tucked his knees and fell straight down. A large splash mushroomed up like an atomic bomb and spread outward onto Lake Anderson’s rocky shoreline and onto the twelve-pack box of Coronas. Dan popped his head back up through the water and looked up at Tom and shouted, Did I get it? and Tom said, Yeah, soaked the box real good, and laughed and finished his beer.

Okay, time to go, Dan said and rolled out of the swim hole and onto the hiking trail.

It was time to go; it was time for Tom to make a decision. Life is about deciding and then moving on and deciding again. Tom thought: should I do the front-flip? Yes. Of course.

A bluebird whizzed by. And then another bluebird. Or maybe it was the same one. Tom wasn’t sure. And his thoughts drifted. Time to make a decision. Okay. Should I go to college? What is the logical solution? What is college good for? College is for a job, right?

But his dad had gone to college and now his dad didn’t have a job. And it wasn’t because his dad didn’t want a job. It wasn’t because his dad didn’t deserve a job. It wasn’t right. Tom thought about his school, Cumberland Charter, which prided itself on efficiency and final scores and test-taking strategies before anything else, a philosophy that worked because the school had some of the highest standardized test-taking scores in the State, and Tom couldn’t blame Cumberland—this was the only way the school could stay open. Score higher and higher on standardized tests, win more and more money for new books and better teachers. Score lower and lower, and get shut down.

Tom was ready. He lifted his arms and took a breath and smelt dry grass. Then he bent his knees and sunk into his thighs and thought Screw It and launched himself into the calm air. He quickly somersaulted forward, but then continued to rotate and suddenly smacked stomach-first on the water’s top. Ears ringing, he sank down and closed his eyes and then quickly kicked back up and came through into the sunlight.

Dan was standing on the shore, laughing and holding his stomach as if he’d been the one who’d belly-flopped. Tom swam to shore and stood up and then felt a burning sensation on his stomach, like a rug-burning sensation only amplified, like he’d had just been dragged face down across a carpet as long as the California coastline.

That was gnarly, Dan said and picked up the box of beers and began to walk along the shore, back toward Lake Anderson’s parking lot. You sure you’re alight, dude?

Yeah, Tom said and thought about the front-flip, about how he pushed off the boulder’s top with too much force, causing him to over-rotate and belly flop. He knew he could do the front flip but he didn’t understand why he had pushed so hard. Maybe that bluebird had distracted him. Or maybe he shouldn’t have chugged that Corona. Forty degrees; that is the perfect launch angle; it should have worked.

On the ride home Dan couldn’t stop talking about how he’d wished he’d gotten Tom’s epic flop on his phone, so he could upload it to the world tonight. Tom said at least he’d gone for it, unlike Dan, who’d done the same cannonball for eight years, although each year had resulted in a bigger splash, thanks to a heavier ball.

Dan parked outside Tom’s house. Tom walked away and up to his front door, where today on the handle was a brochure for ½ off Round Table Pizza. He pulled the coupon off and went to his room and flopped down on his mattress. Quietness. No one must be home. The emptiness in the home was strange because for the past two weeks, Tom’s dad had been home every afternoon, sitting at the dining room table, scrolling on his laptop. His dad’s wide shoulders would block the laptop screen so that Tom couldn’t see what his dad was searching for. But Tom knew what his dad was searching for: a job. He knew his dad was searching for a job because a JavaScript reference book sat open on the table. His dad would search all afternoon, then stop his search around six each night to cook dinner.

Tom heard keys opening the front door, so he stood up and walked out of his room and expected to see his dad but, instead, saw Jessie, who wore jeans and her favorite purple V-neck T-shirt. Her arms were crossed and she said, Hi, brother, and smiled gently. She wasn’t supposed to be home right now. She had piano lessons every Tuesday, which she hardly ever missed, especially for the past month, because tomorrow she had a recital in front of a representative from her dream school: the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  

What are you doing home? Tom said and yawned.

"What are you doing home?" Jessie said and shut the front door and looked back at Tom.

I thought you have piano practice right now.

I did, but I’m just really tired so I came home instead.

Tom walked passed Jessie and opened the refrigerator and said, Oh, okay. I’m tired too. I’m going to nap and probably skip dinner. Can you tell Dad that?

Sure, Jessie said and went through the kitchen and into the living room and lied on the sofa.

Tom took out from the fridge a zip lock bag of two blueberry pancakes—leftovers from breakfast—and went back into his room and sat at his desk. From his backpack he pulled out Physics for High School Students and read about the mysterious properties of light. Light was both a wave and a particle and travelled the same speed no matter how fast everything else was travelling, a riddle that fascinated Tom, who found light’s uncertainties to be one of his only imaginative escapes. Light’s properties produced questions about other particle interactions, like the scattering of electrons, which, when fired at a fixed charge, either stay on course or react violently and digress completely off course, and neither result could be predicted.

Tom chewed on a cold blueberry pancake. He closed his book, then went onto his computer and logged onto San Jose State University’s website and looked at web page that showed the college’s brick dorm rooms. In front of the windows of the rooms were tall evergreen trees that seemed to provide a sense of comfort, and Tom wondered if maybe these rooms were the next place he was supposed to be. He closed his computer and lay on his bed and fell asleep.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Tom rode his bike along San Jose’s cracked suburban sidewalks toward Cumberland Charter School. A partially risen sun reflected off his top cross-bar and he turned into Cumberland’s teachers parking lot and went past a bunch of classrooms, each with glass doors and full-height glass windows that were transparent so that the teachers could be watched by administrators at all times—kind of like fish-filled fishbowls surrounded by wide-eyed cats.

At the school he locked his bike and went inside Room 210, where his statistics teacher, Ms. Melancoff, stood in front of a projection of general directions for today’s AP final exam. Ms. Melancoff had a large nose and curly dark hair and was in her second year of teaching at Cumberland. She would tell the class her life story about once a month (although each time she said it like it was new, important news). She was a twenty-seven-year-old Yale graduate who had joined a two-year Teach-For-America program, and Cumberland School was her assignment before going back to Yale next year for her MBA, so pay attention!

Tom pulled back an empty desk chair and looked at the seat to his left and saw Dan, whose leg was shaking like it always did before tests. Tom took out his Android phone and started to play Tetris.

Welcome, Tom. Ms. Melancoff said. You’re a bit late today.

I forgot to hear the bell, Tom said.

You can’t forget to hear something, Ms. Melancoff said, missing the point. She looked back at the projection screen and continued reading the AP Exam directions. Again Tom took out his Android and started to play.

Tom! Ms. Melancoff said. No more playing video games in here or you’ll be in detention all of next week.

I’m not playing games, I’m writing an essay, Tom said and kept pushing on his phone.

About what?

About SpaceX. They’re planning civilian trips to Mars – it’s a chance to be the first colonizer of a different planet. You should check it out. I think they’re looking for investment bankers.

Ms. Melancoff smiled, but that kind of fake smile, to conceal her anger that must have been eating away. Calmly she asked Tom to see the school principal, Mr. Breckenridge, after the test today.

It was a joke, Tom said quickly, then closed his phone.

Keep telling jokes and you’re going to end up cleaning toilets one day.

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