“Hurry up, man.”
Marco is my friend. He’s given me food and shelter all summer. He thinks I’m like him, and that because of this, he knows what I need. I can’t tell him that he’s trying to kill me.
I cross the great room without much ado—no one seems to look. The locker room is empty. The transom is open above the door that leads outside to the back, and I can smell the pool, hear the scrape of the pool man’s pole along the concrete edge. I hate the smell of chlorine. It reminds me of day camp and shouting sadistic counselors—their barks echoing off the tile. Mildew in the showers. Naked boys in rows. Pot-bellied, squishy adolescents. The nastiness of their sharp laughs. The slap of their feet, running on those slippery floors, always made me think of gushing head wounds and broken teeth. After the afternoon free swim I’d watch the older boys play pool for quarters until it was time to go. I’m alone and this room is wood paneled, carpeted, and quiet. I check my roll in my pocket. I put it away and take a practice swing, then another, trying to check myself in the mirror. I take off my shirt, catch the reflection of my torso. I’m thinner than I thought I would be. I swing again—things seem to be moving in tandem.
There’s a splash in the pool, but it doesn’t sound heavy enough to be a body. I sit down on the padded bench and exhale. I could lie down here on the carpet, in a corner, and just close my eyes for a moment. There’s another splash, and then someone curses sharply. This is the camp where Marco’s kid goes, the one C has come home talking about—“They have things to do there . . . ,” he chided his mother once, not being able to appreciate the time and space he had at the beach. We played bombardment in our camp—prison ball, some called it. The rules were simple: Whip a rough maroon rubber ball at someone else’s bare arms and legs. Catch the ones thrown at you.
I stand and take out my new shirt. It’s an extra large. It seems enormous, and when I put it on, it is huge—all except the arms, which are too tight. I check my proportions in the mirror, but I can’t tell if it’s me or the shirt that’s wrong. It hangs off me like a dress, so I tuck it in, a good eight inches of shirt, uncomfortably into my shorts. I hope Marco knows what he’s doing. I need to hit the ball right. A poor mantra, but one that will have to do, and it’s done well already—gotten me to focus on the job at hand.
The door opens and a man with the same shirt walks in. He’s whistling something—“Ain’t She Sweet,” I think. He stops when he sees me or, rather, quietly holds the note until he passes. I cinch up my belt, bag my old shirt, and start out.
“You hit a long way?”
I mumble-grunt something at him. He straightens—somewhat surprised by my incoherence. I try to redeem myself.
“Going out or coming in?”
“Coming in. Played nine,” he says, not looking up. Comforted or offended, I don’t know. “It’s a bear. Really playing hard today.”
“It’s always hard, for me.”
He doesn’t laugh. He pulls off his polo, then straightens his undershirt.
“Best of luck.”
“Good day.”
Our clubs are waiting for us at the first tee. They’ve been scrubbed shiny—even mine. The boys are there, too, chatting with Dan and Buster, who gesture out toward the flag. They both have clubs and swing them slowly. They look like they know what they’re doing. I can tell that they’ve had lessons—perhaps from the same pro. Marco stands on the path by the sign for the hole, a good five feet lower than the tee box—345 yard par four, it reads in script. Marco examines the sign closely, checks his scorecard, and then joins in the ritual of stretching, flexing, posing, and swinging. I’m still somewhat awed by how clean my clubs are and I don’t know whether I should show my wonder or act like I’ve been to a place like this before, which, I’m sure, everyone knows I haven’t. I pull out a club, a no-name five iron, and I think I hear the white kid snicker, but when I look up, he’s looking down the fairway with Buster. They look almost like family in profile—perhaps involved in strategy or discussing club lore.
Marco calls out to me, “How’s the short game?”
I shake my head and they laugh, except for the black kid, who looks as though he’s checked into an alternate reality in his head.
“Gentlemen, 7:18 on the tee, please.”
I’m the farthest away, but they all turn to me. I shake my head and extend my hand back.
“Well,” says Dan. “I’m here.” He places his ball and steps back. He has the same club as Marco. The shaft is too long for him, though. He takes two slow practice swings. His face goes blank—all that boyish goodwill erased. He takes a wide path around and behind the ball. He looks at it, then the flag, then back to the ball. He takes another slow swing and then one sharp step to address. One more look, then into his stance. He seems ready to swing, but inexplicably he opens up his stance to the point where he seems to be aiming at the row of oaks that line the fairway. His swing is quick and short—pinched. The ball heads straight for the trees, then slices back to the fairway, just short of the one-hundred-and-fifty-yard marker.
“Nice ball, Dan,” says Buster as Dan, still surveying his work, picks up his tee.
“Well,” he replies, “it’s in the fairway.” He walks off the mound. Both caddies nod their approval. He ignores them. “I didn’t get all of it,” he says back to Buster. He stops and fusses with a contact lens.
“No,” Marco calls out. “It’s fine, Dan. Nice one.”
I’m not sure if I envy Marco’s ability to lie straight-faced like that, or disdain it. I do, however, want him to turn to me and wink—give me some sign that he is in fact, lying.
Buster is already over his ball. He’s a large man—much taller than I’d thought earlier—like a pro-sized tight end. But he, unlike Tom Buchanan, isn’t very athletic. He looks awkward in his stance, like he isn’t quite sure what to do with all his height. His legs and arms are splayed horridly, like he’s some arachnid partial amputee, his spider eyes looking in too many directions, seeing too many things for the humanoid brain to process. He swings jerkily. The ball goes up, disappears into the cloud bank above the fairway, then drops out of the sky about twenty yards ahead of Dan’s, just to the right.
Dan claps. “If you could just translate some of that height into length—man!”
“It’ll do,” says Buster quietly and holds his club out for the black kid.
Marco looks at me, and I point to the tee. He pulls an iron out of his bag, then shoves it back and gets out his enormous driver.
“Oh, the big dog,” coos Dan.
Marco walks up the mound, places his ball, and stands behind it. I wonder what his fingerless father thinks of his son—if he would come to such a place. He must be proud of his boy. Marco looks the part in his beige pleatless slacks and his navy polo. He stretches his hamstrings and I think, while watching his head down there, that if Marco was the least bit vulnerable to perceiving the absurd, it would explode. He straightens, and at address, he looks tense. Perhaps I’m projecting, but I’m right. He rushes what would otherwise have been a good swing and hits a duck hook—two hundred yards straight and sixty yards left.
“Fuck!” he growls, and almost throws his club down, but he checks himself—keeps his back to us, cools off, and bends to pick up his tee, which, when he finds it split to pieces, he throws away into the thick grass in front of him. “Quack,” he mutters, coming down the mound. No one laughs.
“You’re up.”
I take the five iron I’ve been fondling and climb up to the tee. They try not to stare, but they do. It must look ridiculous—at least unusual. I place my ball—Marco’s reject ball—and I know I can’t hit it. I wonder if I’m the youngest or the first, the largest, Black Irish Indian to play at The Country Club. I wonder if they’re considering it, as well—perhaps not. Perhaps they only see me in my wrinkled shorts, my hairless legs, and my shirt, identical to Marco’s, only two sizes larger—sleeves like a muscle shirt, body like a muumuu. The shiny no-name club with the cracked vinyl g
rip.
“Playing it safe?” calls Buster, with just enough humor and politeness so as not to be considered an egregious breech of etiquette by anyone but me. And although Marco is my friend, I still haven’t dismissed the notion that this is all a setup. And I haven’t really swung a club in a year. And I wonder if they can see my legs shaking. Even the black kid is watching, and I can’t help but think that he has something invested in this moment, too—from a perverse claim to caddy shack bragging rights to the complete emancipation of himself and his people. And I know, as I look down the fairway one last time, that to them, if it is bad, my first swing will be my last—the one—no matter how well I play after. There can be no redemption, not for him, not for me, nor for those to whom—because of some treacherous failure or triumph of synapse or courage (whichever you believe in) the many thousands gone, here and yet to be—we are linked. And I hear them, be it by spirit, madness, or some ventriloquist’s trick. I hear them pleading, exhorting me to hit the ball straight and long, just as I hear the founder rasping from his canvas on the great oak wall—“Swing, nigger, swing!”—and his brothers hissing in unison, “Amen.” It’s too much. It’s always been too much, even divested of all I love. I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t take it. I try my mantra—I need to hit the ball right. Head down. Go slow. I swing. Up then down. I hear nothing, but I’m standing erect at follow-through and the ball is like a supersonic missile, ripping the air. Silent, then the sounds: the whoosh of the club past my ear, the sharp click of metal on hard plastic, then the ball flying with a high turbine wail in its wake. It carries the ridge and drops out of sight.
“Goddamn,” snorts Dan—almost hushed. Buster says nothing. Both caddies grin stupidly. The black one snaps out of it and reaches for my club. I wave him off because I can tell I’m about to cry.
I stuff the five back in my bag and shoulder it. Marco steps to me and offers a high five. I shake his hand instead. He points to the bag and then to the boys.
“It’s okay,” I squeak. I wish I had sunglasses. He looks at my eyes.
“Pollen,” I whisper. “Something out here.” He nods his head—relieved.
“Great shot.”
“Thanks.”
I know it’s rude, but I turn my back on him and start out on the fairway. My clubs rattle on my back like pans in a nation sack. He’s right on my hip. The tears start to come. I wipe the first wave away.
“What was that you hit—a three? You don’t have a two iron, do you?”
“Five.”
“A five—fuck!”
The next wave comes—harder. He reaches in his pocket and produces a pack of tissues.
“Thanks,” I snuffle. I take one and hand them back.
“Keep them.” He reexamines my eyes. “You look miserable.” He slaps his pockets. “Damn! Wait—no!” He turns back to the rest. “I think I have Benadryl in my bag. Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
“Does it make you sleepy or jumpy?”
“Jumpy—anxious.”
“Me, too. Gave me palpitations once.”
“Is that yours?” I point to the next fairway, on the first cut. I don’t really see his ball, but it must be in that area.
“It must be.” I don’t know what he sees, but he starts for it. Then he stops. “Hey, man,” he says, secretively.
“Yes.”
“These guys—you won’t get anything out of them unless you back off a bit.”
I look at him for an instant because I don’t understand. And when I do, I keep looking into his dark brown eyes, and I want to keep crying. I want to tell him why—“My people were on that ball.” He takes off his glasses, cleans them on his shirt.
“Capiche?”
I wipe my eyes again, take another tissue, and pretend to blow my nose.
“Capiche.”
“Bene.” He puts his glasses back on. He looks at me, then widens his eyes as if to refocus them. He looks out over the ridge and points. My ball is about ninety yards from the green. He shakes his head. “Nice shot.” He turns and goes.
I stop crying so I can make my next shot—Hit the ball right. Or, as Marco has coached—don’t. I try to fuck it up, but since I don’t have any semblance of a short game and am clueless as to what to do. I don’t know what not to do. Golf, some people have told me, is unnatural. The movements are counterintuitive. But of course, many others have advised against thinking. All I know is that it’s far easier to sandbag than it is to fake being good. I set up and take an awkward whack at the ball. It skips onto the green and settles about ten feet from the hole. Even Buster nods his approval.
“Not bad for first hole,” says Marco as we walk to the second. Dan, who I realize hasn’t acknowledged Marco since the stoop, finally addresses him directly.
“What’ll we play?” he asks. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, looking almost as innocent and stupid as the boys. “Stroke? Match?”
“What about both?” asks Marco.
Dan nods slowly. “Okay. Okay.” He keeps nodding but speeds up a bit—hands still pocketed. He keeps looking at Marco, but I sense that he’s looking at me. He stops nodding, drags his hands out, and claps softly. He’s made some evaluation. He’s not worried about the other two, and now he’s realized that because I have no short game, he can beat me. He’s been taking stock—my bag, my clubs, my sneakers, my skin. He knows the only time I spent on a golf course as a kid was at night sitting with Gavin on some green-side hill, practicing at becoming a hobo.
“Match and stroke. Two a hole. No validation. How much for low score?”
Marco and Buster shrug. Dan looks to me. I don’t respond. I pretend to be considering the yardage for this next hole. I don’t want to admit to myself that I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“We all seem even,” says Buster. “It always ends up as a wash anyway.”
“What do you think—five? Everyone kicks in one and a quarter for the pot?” He puts his hands back in his pockets and looks directly at me. “Can you handle that?”
Instead of saying fuck you, I nod earnestly while trying to do the calculation. So the upside is a few grand. I can bow out if I lose my stake. We don’t shake, just all nod vaguely.
“Anyone beat a par?” asks Dan rhetorically as he holds his hand out for a club. The white kid starts to hand him the driver, but Dan shakes it off and points to an iron.
It doesn’t go well. At first the other three comment and question my poor swings as though they’re aberrations. By the fifth hole, though, they seem to believe they’re the norm. The white kid seems quietly amused by my plight, but I can’t tell if he’s smirking or squinting under his low visor. He doesn’t talk to me—hardly looks my way. He’s a little prick. A face you’d like to punch in, but not like Gavin’s. There’s nothing going on behind this kid’s eyes.
Each hole the black kid gravitates toward my bag, but I always pick it up first and walk away by myself up the fairway. Dan saw something in my long swing. So much can go wrong—some little hitch can throw it all to shit. There’s too much room for error. And Dan keeps dink-slicing his way to the hole. By the turn—after the eighth hole—I’ve lost track of the numbers because I’m out so much. And no one, not even the black kid, seems to notice I’m there at all.
Dan rolls in a putt on the ninth and quietly applauds himself. It fills me with a sleepy, impotent rage. I would like to believe that there was once a time when there weren’t any rules. When barbarians flooded endlessly over the embankments of the civilized. Dan sets up to sink another putt, to pocket more of my nonexistent capital, and I know that the image is all wrong. I retreat to the old boxing adage—“A good big man always beats a good little man.” And I assume that the queen’s rules were made for the big man—but it doesn’t make sense. I should, by decree of a much older rule, one people like Dan, like Marco, followed, be able to pick Dan up, spin him around, and shake him empty, take everything that drops from his pockets onto the green—cash, photos, me
mberships, the promissory notes to deep streams of capital—and call it my own. I should take everything, even the bald spot, the little paunch, which, because of his hatless head, his tightly tucked shirt, he seems proud of. I outweigh him by fifty pounds—so whose failing is it that I’m tyrannized by his credit cards and his titles? And by extension, it doesn’t seem like a crime to raise my ancient putter and drive it into the red patch of his skull. I’d take his fancy clubs, too. But somebody, some martyr wannabe, raised me right, or wrong, and I’m stuck with my gut and my own head rebelling, in chorus, the refrain: Broke-ass chump.
Buster asks if I want anything from the clubhouse. I’m hungry, but I figure I’m going to need everything I have to pay off my debt. He looks perplexed. “You need to eat something,” he says—almost maternally—and stands waiting for a moment. I say no thanks again. Dan, comfortable with his lead, throws a soft salute my way—trying to convince me that he’s the mild guy he was earlier.
“What’s up, man?” asks Marco.
“What do you mean?” I say irritated by his concern. It seems phony. Either he doesn’t get it or he doesn’t care. His facade offends me—the sad eyes and the Roman nose are almost cruel in their mocking of both me and him.
“I don’t know. You started off great, but you seem to be having a hard time controlling your shots.”
I stare at him, but he doesn’t acknowledge. He’s looking inside, trying to figure out my swing.
“It’s not like you’re doing one thing. One hole you’re hooking it. One you’re pushing it—like you’re overcompensating for the last. I don’t know.” He does a slow-motion backswing—holding at the top. “You’re good here.” He starts down. His swing looks nothing like mine. It’s closer to his own. He brings it up again, swings half speed, and watches his imaginary ball’s flight. I follow it, too—the sky, the trees, and then the promise of the bay. The marsh, the sea grass and seabirds. The beach. The swells and the beach break seem flat—without power—one roll of water and then another. And the colors are green, blue, gold, but without texture or heft, past or promise. They threaten nothing. They promise nothing and speak of no other time. And I, too, seem forgotten, a fleshy marker on the green. A scarred hand on the old club and the sunlight on it, then on my face as I turn away. And it’s just warm. It stops there.
Man Gone Down Page 38
