ap of Shades
Brian S. Wheeler
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler
A Handicap of Shades
Lyle Davenport refused to allow the old clubhouse’s ashes damper the joy he had felt for over forty years when turning upon the lane leading to the Bounding Hart Golf Course and Country Club. For reasons Lyle didn’t understand, the ruble remained piled where the original clubhouse stood. It had been almost a year since fire destroyed the course's original clubhouse Lyle once cherished, and he believed it would be easier for him to release the nostalgia that tugged his eyes towards that rubble if only some trucks would carry the remains away.
His Tuesday and Thursday rounds of morning golf remained Lyle’s favorite habits of his week. Thus Lyle regretted the melancholy that arrived with the clubhouse’s loss to stain more than a little of his cheer. Age was never easy, however blessed Lyle felt when comparing the effects of his years with the discomfort suffered by many of his peers. With age came a knowing that, even in morning rounds of golf, joy was doomed to feel diminished.
Lyle recently celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday, and he hated to consider how many rounds of golf remained to him. His bag of golf clubs felt heavier each time Lyle pulled them out of the trunk, but he hated to sacrifice his low irons or fairway hybrids only to make his set lighter. His knees wavered and his back ached as he forced his feet into his golf shoes. Glenn Addison would have been happy to help Lyle prepare for his morning round if only Lyle asked. But Lyle refrained from seeking assistance, determined not to let Glenn trick him into a golf cart.
Lyle golfed for memories instead of birdies, and when playing rounds with ghosts, a golf cart was a dreadful invention for how much time a motor shaved off a round otherwise walked on a Tuesday or Thursday morning.
His heart still pined to enter the old clubhouse where rubble now heaped. In the early morning’s light, Lyle could easily imagine the original, thick door. He could hear the thud of darts striking a bristle dartboard in games of Cricket. He could hear the laughter suspended over crowded tables of Poker, the crack of billiards, the radio mumblings of baseball games. His tongue still tasted the frosty mugs of beer, the spices of weekend buffets of fried chicken. The old clubhouse, with its fire wavering in the hearth during both cold winter and humid summer, with its good barkeep patiently listening to fables of eagles and denials of bogeys, with the growl of good company rising above the tables, had possessed the power to turn the most miserable of rainy days into a blessing. And though that clubhouse was reduced to a rubble pile, Lyle still saw its lost dimensions, and still he saw the silhouettes of shades drifting where the windows had once been.
Lyle sighed and did his best not to fault youth.
Most of the Bounding Hart’s members believed that the course superintended Glen Addison’s son Brett, who spent so many afternoons sweating in the summer sun while tending to the course sandtraps and fairways, neglected an unattended grill after preparing a midnight meal of fried tacos. Many blamed excessive drink, for Brett was often seen sneaking beer onto his mowing tractor. Most of the course members agreed that the conflagration was born as a grease fire. Fire would move quickly through a clubhouse so old.
Lyle suspected otherwise. He thought something was implied by the way the tee boxes were less frequently mowed each year. He thought there were clues as the fairways turned a bit drier, the grass allowed to grow sparser, during July and August. Lyle worried when the parking lot held fewer cars in the afternoon. The Bounding Hart’s acres held no tennis courts or swimming pools. There was only golf at the Bounding Hart, and Lyle saw signs that business did not prosper as once it had. Lyle worried great pressures rested on Glen Addison’s shoulders to keep the course open. The fire that claimed the original clubhouse, Lyle suspected, might well have started from motivations much more complex than an unattended grease fire.
The ugly, steel structure that replaced the original clubhouse contained five folding tables, a cashier counter, and a cooler, and combined for a sad imposture of the building Lyle's memory cherished. Air conditioning kept the building cool, but Lyle felt such comfort a meager reward when the growl of lawn mowers and tractors stored on the other side of a thin, metal wall vibrated the laminate flooring. Many could accept that the original clubhouse’s warmth might not be replaced, but they choked upon the sight of such an ugly building claiming to be a successor.
“Morning, Mr. Davenport.”
Lyle smiled weakly as he slid open the double doors and entered the metal clubhouse. The current building held no bar, and only a cooler filled with soda and energy drinks stood where Lyle thought a tap and a keg might better fit.
“You’re at work awful early, Brett.”
“I know it’s Tuesday morning,” Brett grinned. “Gotta get out of bed to get the course ready for you. I’d have an awful day if I didn’t get the place unlocked.”
“I’m surprised your father’s never had a key made for me,” Lyle thought much of Brett’s effort, “I could’ve paid my fees after the round.”
Brett shook his head. “Oh, I trust you, Mr. Davenport, but then, who would be around to hand you that cold beer for the first tee?”
“You hiding cans behind the orange juice again?”
Brett winked. “Dad always stocks a few six packs with the tractors for whenever you veterans walk up to the counter.”
Lyle stood still until Brett handed him a second beer to accompany the first. “You all get the scorecards updated yet?”
Brett chuckled. “The yardage on the old scorecards are plenty close enough for you. Let dad know which hole you think is ruined by miscounted yardage, and maybe we can discount your round.”
“Sounds fair.”
Lyle sipped at his first can of cool beer as he pulled his clubs towards the first tee. There, the rumble of Glenn’s tractor greeted him. The superintendent waved at Lyle and turned his rusting machine towards the day’s first golfer. Glenn stopped his machine close enough for conversation after a puff of smoke and a clang of gears.
“How’s the course, Glenn?”
“Awful dry again this summer.”
“That should add some yards on my drives. Old men like me roll it more than fly it.”
Glenn smiled. “Gonna start having a course pro come in on Mondays.”
“I’ve been in my habits too long now,” Lyle answered. “Pro’s not going to do me any good.”
“Anyone ever do your swing any good?”
“Ken Sutton sure did.”
Glenn’s shoulders slumped at the tractor’s seat. “You really witness him shooting nine straight birdies out here?”
“You know me to be a gentle man,” and Lyle was pleased to see Glenn nod, “but I’d take my seven iron to any man who calls me a liar on it.”
“That round had to be something,” Glenn looked into the early morning’s sun.
“Sure was,” Lyle took a long pull at his first cold beer.
“Well goo
d luck to you,” Glenn tipped his cap. “I’ll make sure Brett has a beer ready for you when you finish the round. You meeting Ken again this morning?”
“Just like I do each Tuesday and Thursday.”
“Then I’ll leave you to your peace.”
Glenn’s tractor shuddered awake and pulled its mower to a different fairway. Lyle watched him roll away, wondering if the superintendent might willingly burn the old clubhouse down so that a little insurance might maintain the course a few years more. Lyle thought highly of the Addisons, and he harbored no doubt that the father and the son did all they could to keep the greens. Glenn never questioned Lyle’s claim that he played his rounds with Ken Sutton. Glenn never laughed at him, never called him foolish. Lyle was thankful for it, and he knew that the work of those Addisons afforded him the chance to be blessed with his morning rounds of memories.
Lyle blinked as he followed a twist in the course’s cart path leading to the first hole, and Ken Sutton appeared between the tee box’s white markers. Young Ken stood beyond six foot, with an athlete’s lithe frame and tanned skin that
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