The Franchise Babe: A Novel

by Dan Jenkins

  Trey said he hadn’t expected anything like this to happen to him, but Ashley had captured his heart the night he arrived—the moment she served him the bowl of chili at My Adobe Hacienda, the restaurant where she worked. They spent two days snowboarding, and were married last night.

  They were married at the foot of Flame Out, the second toughest run in the Taos ski valley—next to Maxine’s Miscarriage. The ceremony was performed by an old buddy of Trey’s, Chigger Donnelly, who operated the snowboarding school. Chigger Donnelly had become an ordained minister on the Internet.

  Trey had realized his body and mind were experiencing a change the moment he met Ashley. Now he intended to “take life to another level.” Chigger had hired him as a snowboarding instructor.

  Trey was sorry Ginger’s clubs had been stolen out of the trunk of the car, but a golf club was only as good as the person swinging it. He asked that they send the money owed to him to his new address. He had moved in with Ashley at the Slalom Gates, Apartment 3, 2205 Edelweiss Circle, Taos.

  I said, “Trey says he wants to take life to another level? Surely drugs don’t have anything to do with it.”

  After dinner we cruised the casino. Long enough for me to drop two hundred at blackjack, for Thurlene to smoke Capris while dropping one hundred in the slots, and for the three of us to watch a poker game in which men in cowboy hats kept dealing a game called Little Tavarich. In the game your low red card in the hole, your little red, was wild in high only, and all like it in your hand and on the board were wild along with it. Four cards were dealt to each player and five were turned up on the table, one at a time, with betting on each.

  A bystander in dark glasses and a Stetson explained to us that if you expected to win both ends of the pot in a high-low game like Little Tavarich, it was best to be holding “five tickets on American” for high—five aces—and “the course record” for low. Meaning a 64.

  When we left the casino we went back to the lodge and wandered up and down the corridor where the shops and boutiques were to be found.

  Ginger and Thurlene exchanged hellos and nods with other competitors who were browsing and shopping.

  We looked at a lot of white beaded Apache dresses and assorted cowboy hats.

  I expressed disappointment that I hadn’t seen a bullfight poster or a painting on velvet of a pinto pony at sundown.

  “Perhaps we can find you an art gallery in town,” Thurlene said, with what I could have sworn was sarcasm.

  I was fascinated with the shop that sold antique Apache weapons. I’d never known such a wide variety of tomahawks existed, or two-foot-long wooden-handled clubs with carved animal heads on the end.

  I said to Thurlene, “I wonder if the Apaches turn these out as quick as the antique club makers in St. Andrews turn out their relics for the tourists. They’ve taken hickory and rust to a new artistic level over there.”

  She said, “Nobody’s going to trick you, are they, Jack?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I said. “One day my mother tried to tell me that pickles were cucumbers, prunes were plums, and raisins were grapes. I said, ‘Come on, Mom—what kind of fool do you take me for?’”

  There was a surprise for the ladies before we left the corridor of shops and boutiques.

  We ran into Debbie Wendell and Tang Chen.

  Ginger and the mom had seen Tang Chen’s name in the pairings for Thursday’s first round, but they’d thought it must be a typo. Yet here she was, back in the States, back on the tour.

  Debbie Wendell said, “Hi, Gin…Miz Clayton…Mr. Brannon.”

  Ginger smiled, looked friendly. Thurlene managed a nod before she tossed them in the refrigerator.

  To me, Debbie said, “This is my friend Tang Chen. She’s the best lady golfer in China.”

  Tang Chen said, “I am from Beijing. You have been?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure,” I said. “Are you a Communist?”

  “No, no, no,” Tang Chen said. “I am golfer. No Communist. Only government Communist. In China people different from government. People want to play golf, own McDonald’s.”

  Debbie said, “Tang has fallen in love with American Indians. She bought a book so she can learn to speak Apache.”

  The Chinese girl said, “Ka-ya-ten-atee-nod!”

  “Oh, for Christ sake,” Thurlene said. “We should be going.”

  I said, “I know what that means if it’s Mescalero dialect.”

  Thurlene looked at me.

  “What does it mean?” Debbie asked eagerly.

  I said, “It means, ‘I want to shoot John Wayne and rape Natalie Wood.’”

  Debbie blinked, thought it over, giggled. Ginger did the same thing. The Chinese girl looked puzzled.

  “Hey!” said Debbie. “I got a tattoo Monday, in downtown Ruidoso.”

  “You did not!” Ginger said.

  “It’s only temporary. Want to see it?”

  Debbie pulled up the slip-over golf shirt she was wearing and displayed her midsection. Below her navel with the rhinestone in it was the tattoo. An American flag postage stamp and three words:

  Lick Me Here.

  “I don’t believe you!” Ginger said.

  “Your mother must be very proud,” Thurlene said coldly.

  “Mom hasn’t seen it yet,” Debbie said. “I’m going to wait till I have a really good round before I show it to her. I think it’s funny.”

  “I’m sure Ann will think it’s hilarious,” Thurlene said.

  “Play good tomorrow,” Debbie said to Ginger.

  “You too,” Ginger said back.

  As we walked away we heard Tang Chen behind us, saying, “Iszain-naad-zon-bahtee-eeche.”

  Thurlene glanced at me. “Which means…?”

  “One Big Mac, large Coke, fries.”

  21

  Ginger Clayton’s 66 in the first round, four under par, was carved out of the slopes with a new set of clubs, a new caddie, and only one practice round behind her. It was almost as remarkable as the way I handled the golf cart on the asphalt path that curved sharply around the death-defying turns on the mountainous layout.

  Thurlene jumped out and opted to walk after three holes.

  “I don’t have enough Xanax with me to ride in this thing with you,” she said.

  The golf cart was provided for me by the genial tournament director of the Speedy Arrow Energy Bar Classic. His name was Hoyt Newkirk, a man in his seventies, paunchy, thick-lipped, wearing a white Stetson and a light blue Western-cut shirt with double breast pockets.

  Hoyt was from Ruidoso by way of Abilene, Odessa, Midland, and Las Vegas, and he was the general manager of the casino, hotel, country club, and bordering real estate development.

  I found Hoyt Newkirk likable right off. He rode in the cart with me over the last nine holes of Ginger’s round, which at the end of Thursday gave her a two-stroke lead on the field.

  “I knowed I had a lock on the deal when I scared up my first Indian,” Hoyt said. “You get you a Indian to ask the federal gubmint for something, you can get anything you want. Indians make the gubmint feel guilty, don’t you see? Ain’t nothin’ else to it.”

  “Your first Indian was Sinking Canoe or Smokes Loco Weed?”

  “Canoe come first. He has a particle of sense. He brought in Loco, who thinks yesterday is next week. That Indian will smoke anything he can strike a match to. Smoke your pants leg if you stand still. Smokes gypsum weed, if you can ’magine that. It’s where he got his name.”

  “What kind of business interest do you have in all this?”

  “I got a taste of the casino, plus the real estate deal…Golf shot!”

  Ginger had clubfaced a four-iron into the middle of the par-five thirteenth green in two.

  “I believe that there’s my head pro carryin’ her golf bag.”

  “He volunteered. Ginger’s regular caddie didn’t show up.”

  “Some of these girlies can play good, can’t they?”

  “Yes, they c
an.”

  “They don’t all dive for the frog hair, do they?”

  “You mean are any of them straight?”

  “What’d I say?”

  “More are straight now than the old days. I’d say the majority.”

  “That there pretty little Ginger. She’s straight, is she?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “All that and golf shots too.”

  “Son,” he said, delighted to hear it. “She’s stronger than laundry.”

  We rode along for three holes. We watched Ginger and Linda Merle Draper, the competitor Ginger was paired with. Debbie Wendell and a South Korean American were two holes ahead. Three holes back were Tang Chen and another South Korean American.

  Going by the big scoreboard that hung on a ledge behind the fifteenth green, Debbie was two under par, having a good round, holding down second place behind Ginger.

  It occurred to me that if Debbie could make it to the house with a 68 or 69, she would show her mother the tattoo.

  “I enjoy a wager,” Hoyt said nonchalantly.

  “That’s hard to believe, Hoyt,” I said. “A man from Abilene…Odessa…Midland?”

  “I’m seventy-six but I can shoot my age if you let me tee it up everywhere, even in the bunkers.”

  “I’ll bet you can too, Hoyt.”

  “I like them dope dealers. They come out here with cigar boxes full of cash…nothin’ else to do with it but give it to me on the golf course.”

  “Do the dope dealers let you tee it up everywhere?”

  “I name the game. They spring for it.”

  “It doesn’t sound like much of a wager.”

  “Best kind, is what it is.”

  “Do you ever go to the track in Ruidoso?”

  “I can’t beat animals. I can’t beat the jockeys either. Them little warts can pull an elephant…they’ll put you in the can like Maxwell House coffee. I stick with humans. I can beat humans. Lots of humans think they’re smart. Hell, I used to win money on the Miss America pageant.”

  “You bet on the Miss America pageant?”

  “I went up there for twenty-five years. A bunch of us would go together, stay at the Ambassador Hotel. Jimmy Choo Choo from Amarillo, Eddie Wing Tips from Dallas, Both Hands Billy Bridges from Houston, Green Sheet Garvey from Tulsa, Circus Face Jordan from Fort Worth.”

  I said, “You must have had a nickname.”

  He said, “Aw, some folks called me ‘Halftime Hoyt’ in those days. Biggest lock I ever had in the Miss America was Phyllis Ann George from Denton, Texas. She won it in ’seventy-one. Actually, she was my second biggest lock that year. My mortal lock was Nebraska over Alabama in the Orange Bowl.”

  “Did you ever have another lock in the Miss America?”

  “Tara Dawn Holland in ’ninety-seven. She come from Kansas. There was something about the name. I had her all the way. I quit goin’ when they moved the pageant out of Atlantic City. I don’t pay much attention to it anymore. You married, Jack?”

  “What…?”

  I was watching Ginger drain a ten-foot birdie putt.

  “I was askin’ if you’re married.”

  “Not now. I’m a two-time loser.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ to be embarrassed about—or take pride in either, for that matter. I’m on number four. We’re close to the same thing as happy.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “She’s a Jap, is why.”

  “Oh…?”

  “Name’s Miyuki. If you go at it again, Jack, you ought to get you a Jap. You don’t have to go over to Hawaii. I found Miyuki in L.A. Japs is good-natured. They’re hard workers. They’re real clean. They don’t know shit to talk about. Most of your Japs come a little light on the tits, but you can have that taken care of.”

  “Thank you, Hoyt. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “What done it for me, the first time I seen Miyuki, she reminded me of that woman in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. The old movie? I love that old movie, but they shouldn’t have killed William Holden. He had the good sport coats.”

  “Are you talking about Jennifer Jones? She played Han Suyin.”

  “That who it was?”

  “I’m pretty sure her character in the movie is supposed to be Chinese or Eurasian. She wasn’t Japanese.”

  “She wasn’t? I should have scared me up one of them Hand Sueys instead of a Miyuki. They’re clean too, I reckon.”

  We were behind the eighteenth green. I’d driven the cart up on the rise so we could sit and watch Ginger finish her round. She was down the hill, back on the tee. The scoreboard on the veranda revealed that Debbie Wendell had come in with a 68. Debbie was the leader in the clubhouse, to coin a phrase.

  There wasn’t much gallery on the course. It was therefore easy to spot Thurlene trudging up the left side of the fairway toward the green. Despite the fact that she’d been up and down the hills today, she looked plenty good in her khaki skirt that hit her about four inches above the knee and her snug white knit top that was starting to make her look like she was entered in a wet golf shirt contest.

  I’d pointed out Ginger’s mother to Hoyt Newkirk earlier on the back nine. He’d said they were a jam-up mother-daughter combo, the kind that would entice a man to buy them automobiles in assorted colors. Good-looking women like slick automobiles, he said. It had been his experience that new cars made women horny.

  “You sure you ain’t been there with the mama?” he said.

  “Not even close, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t crossed my mind. She’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Make a mummy over there in Egypt hammer on his box, is all.”

  “We’ve become friends,” I said. “I like the kid too.”

  Hoyt said it had been his experience as he traveled the road of life that friendship tended to get in the way of cooze.

  “Cooze,” I said. “I haven’t heard that word since high school.”

  “You got a word you like better? Some folks prefer juicy.”

  I was thinking about it when Hoyt’s cell phone beeped.

  Answering, he said, “It’s me. Go ahead on.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. A pause. “Uh-huh…that’s a pile of it…uh-huh.”

  Hoyt looked at me. “It’s Canoe. You ain’t gonna believe this.”

  Back on the phone, he said, “Uh-huh. Limping Turkey said that?…Uh-huh.” Another pause. “Smells a Possum is part of it too, is he?…Here’s what you do. You tell them two drop cases if they put my golf tournament in a jackpot, they’re gonna think the whole damn United States cavalry is after their war-paint asses.”

  He hung up.

  “Ain’t no end to trouble in this world,” he said. “Two local pissants, Limping Turkey and Smells a Possum, they’re talking about organizing a protest out here Saturday. They’re threatening to bring a thousand ‘social conscious’ residents to dance around and holler and disrupt things. They say they’ve discovered that Burch Webb, the architect we give a million-five to design the golf course…they say he ‘knowingly’ and ‘with careless disregard’ designed and built this eighteenth green on top of a sacred Apache burial ground.”

  “Is it possible?” I asked innocently.

  Hoyt said, “Who gives a shit? It’s not like I went and throwed a bunch of bent grass on top of live Indians.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I could have sworn he grinned.

  He said, “Aw, I been in worse traps than this, don’t you see?”

  22

  The commissioner of the LPGA, Marsha Wilson, arrived at the Mescalero Country Club & Casino Resort on Thursday afternoon and left notes for Thurlene and me, insisting that we join her and a group of other “important people” for dinner that evening. Cocktails at seven thirty. She had arranged for a private dining room in the lodge that would be easy to find. It was directly across the hall from Dances with Jalapeños.

  Ginger Clayton, the tournament leader, was taken to dinner that night by her new caddie, Tyler Hughe
s. He wanted to show her that there was a “gourmet” restaurant in downtown Ruidoso.

  I told Thurlene that the last time I was in downtown Ruidoso a restaurant qualified as “gourmet” if it didn’t have ketchup.

  We went to the commissioner’s dinner together, and you would be guessing correctly if you said I was startled by the sight of Marsha Wilson. She was in a buckskin skirt and jacket with fringe hanging off it, and animal-skin boots, and she wore a beaded Apache headband with a feather sticking up in the back.

  Other than that, the commissioner looked like everybody’s aunt who’d always worked in ready-to-wear and dyed her hair shoe-polish black.

  “Jack Brannon, Jack Brannon!” the commissioner squealed as she pumped my hand. “I am so thoroughly, genuinely delighted to hear you have discovered our wonderful world of women’s golf! I have heard nothing but good reviews about your visit to Toppy and Connie’s. Aren’t they the cutest couple in the world? And generous! May I say bravo for our sport? May I say grrreat for our sport? May I gush?”

  “May she?” I said to Thurlene.

  “She may.”

  Undaunted, the commissioner said, “Jack Brannon, Jack Brannon, I am so happy you are here. I must tell you how much I love—love, love, love—SM magazine! Dare I say it is my sports bible?”

  “Dare she?” Again to Thurlene.

  Thurlene nodded her approval.

  Still undaunted, the commissioner said, “The major reason—major, major, major reason—I am thrilled you are here with us is because this little raffle—the Speedy Arrow Energy Bar Classic—is my very own brainstorm. How did it come to me, you ask?”

  “I did?”

  “It came to me when I was eating—yes, yes, yes—a Speedy Arrow Energy Bar. It was on the corner of Sixty-third and Madison Avenue. So full of nutrition. The brown rice, the oats, the barley malt, the roasted soybeans, the palm kernel oil, the rice crisps…the sugar cane drippings.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “No amphetamines?”

  The commissioner pressed onward. “To myself, I said, I must have Speedy Arrow for a title sponsor. That’s when I called Rusty Morrison, Speedy’s vice president in charge of marketing. You’ll meet Rusty. He’ll be along. Rusty and I go way back. But that’s another interesting story. Rusty came on board el pronto. Now I needed a venue. Somewhere out West. I thought of Ruidoso. I’d heard of Mescalero. New. Needs exposure. The old marketing mind ticking away. What did I do? I called Hoyt Newkirk and asked him if he liked to sell dirt. That’s real estate talk. He said, ‘Does a brown bear…?’ Well, I won’t repeat it, but it was a yes. So here we are!”