The Stories of Richard Bausch

by Richard Bausch

  “Hey, let’s forget about it. Man, I need some practice putting.” Hopewell brings the putter out of the new bag and holds it up, rests it on his shoulder like a baseball bat. He’s clearly anxious to cover everything in talk, and begins by remarking that McPherson has put on weight, filled out. “You don’t look anything like the kid I knew. But I always thought you were too skinny and rangy to be behind the plate.” He turns to Darlene. “Sweetie, when these two guys were kids, you’d’ve thought we were brothers. We even looked alike—three skinny, crew-cut boys.”

  “People who overindulge are not my cup of tea,” Darlene says, as if this has all been an intellectual discussion. “It’s like they’re carrying their sins around on their bones. You three have kept reasonably trim at least.”

  “Well, but your metabolism slows down at a certain age,” Hopewell says.

  “Metabolism,” Barnes says, dryly. “There’s a word I love to think about at night when I’m lying on my back in bed with a plate of sausages on my stomach.”

  “We’re vegans,” says Darlene.

  Barnes stares. McPherson says, “Pardon me?”

  “I said we’re vegans.”

  After a pause, Barnes says, “What the hell is that?”

  “Please,” she says. “Language.”

  “It’s a language?”

  “Sweetie,” Hopewell says, “come on.”

  “No,” says Darlene, ignoring her husband. “What you—your language. I wish you’d watch your language.”

  “What the hell did I say?” Barnes asks. He seems sincerely puzzled.

  She rubs her arms and turns slightly away from them. “My mother should be here.”

  “Is it a religion?” McPherson asks. “Vegan? They don’t like swearwords?”

  “Sounds like something from Star Trek,” Barnes says. “Wasn’t Spock a vegan?”

  Darlene says, “What it means is, we don’t use or eat anything that comes from animals.”

  Again, there’s a pause; it’s as though they’re all trying to think of the various kinds of food and materials that fit the category. “What about makeup?” McPherson asks. He recalls having read somewhere that cosmetics come from animals.

  “I don’t wear it,” Darlene says, as though responding to a challenge. “My lipstick is made with animal-free substances.”

  Hopewell speaks so fast that it’s as if he’s chattering: “Of course it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but did you know that you can make chocolate without using anything at all that comes from animals?”

  “I can smell animal fat on people,” Darlene says.

  The shade moves with the slightest stirring, and the amplified voice rasps the names of the next group of golfers scheduled to tee off. McPherson putts, walks a few feet away; he catches himself marking that he is downwind.

  “I told her it’s a talent I don’t want,” says Hopewell, still talking fast. “It’s been a year since I’ve had anything made from an animal, and I’m beginning to sense the odor, too, you know. Like I’m about to be able to smell it around people. It’s all around us, of course.”

  “The smell of meat,” says Barnes. “Bacon on the grill in the clubhouse. I like that smell. You’re not gonna tell me I’m not supposed to like how that smells?”

  “I can smell meat on a person’s skin,” Darlene says. “Sometimes it actually makes me nauseous.”

  “No shit,” Barnes says.

  She glares at him and then turns away again.

  McPherson sinks a practice putt, then sees Hopewell gazing intently, nervously, at him. He thinks of Regina, and has the idea of going to the clubhouse to call her on the phone. He craves the familiar timbre of her voice.

  Hopewell says, “But I’m all health food now and I weigh less than I did when I left here for California in 1973. Darlene has me on this vegan thing. I feel like a million bucks.”

  “Health is not just a privilege,” she says as if reciting it. “It’s a sacred obligation.”

  “Well, shitsicles,” Barnes says. “I feel guilty. Even being reasonably trim for my age.”

  “Please,” Darlene says, low. “Do you have to speak so crudely?”

  “Is that part of this Vulcan thing? Language?” Barnes says. And when she ignores him, he says, “So—this—this Klingon thing—”

  “Vegan,” she says, patiently.

  “Okay. So—you don’t take anything from animals because you don’t believe in killing them, is that it?”

  “Yes, exactly,” she says. “I’m very strong for animal rights. I believe in that totally.”

  “He’s kidding you, sweetie,” Hopewell says to his wife. “That’s Jerry all the way.”

  “I gathered that, Eugene.” She turns to Barnes, who’s standing there swinging his putter back and forth in a gentle small arc, concentrating, but with a smirk on his face. “I am an advocate for the rights of animals,” she says. “And so are a lot of famous people.”

  “I guess you’re against torturing animals, then.”

  She’s wary. “You mean with the medical experiments and all that? If you mean that, then yes, I’m very much against it.”

  “Well,” Barnes says. “No, the thing is, I was basically talking about torturing them.”

  “I’m sure you think that’s funny,” Darlene says, folding her arms.

  Barnes goes on. “You know, nothing real serious. Just light stuff—like, say, bury a cat up to its neck in the yard and run a power mower around it in an ever-shrinking circle.”

  McPherson steps forward and makes a remark about the breezy day, no threat of showers. His own voice sounds shaky and uncertain to him. The others don’t respond. He says, “Jerry would never do anything of the kind, of course. He’s just being—trying to be funny. He’s got dogs—and cats—at home. A regular menagerie.”

  There’s a long pause, now. No one quite looks at anyone else.

  “Some people,” Darlene says, “think they have a sense of humor. And they’re just sick.”

  Barnes seems to ponder this. “Maybe I should be a Vulcan. I bet meat eaters laugh more, though—what do you think? And they all cuss a blue streak, too, I’m told.”

  “It’s just teasing, sweetie. He doesn’t mean a thing by it.”

  Again, there’s a pause.

  “That is one heck of a pair of shoes,” Barnes tells Hopewell. “Yeah. Six hundred dollars.”

  “You said five fifty,” McPherson puts in. He recognizes the literal-minded sound of it, and feels dull, unable to catch up with the unfriendly turn everything is taking.

  “Well, taxes and all,” says Hopewell.

  “Mr. McPherson is apparently into accuracy,” Darlene says.

  McPherson feels unjustly attacked. He says, “I’m not into anything.”

  Darlene hasn’t heard him. “And his friend is into sick jokes.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Barnes says. “You thought I was joking about the torture.”

  Hopewell quickly remarks that Barnes certainly hasn’t changed. But she speaks over him, at Barnes. “If I thought you weren’t just being childish, I’d call the police on you.”

  “He is just joking, sweetie,” says Hopewell. “Come on, you know that.”

  “Don’t the shoes come from some animal or other?” Barnes asks.

  “Synthetic.” Hopewell emits a forced-sounding laugh. “Look, why don’t we change the subject?”

  For some reason, Darlene glares at McPherson, who tries a smile. Her expression is that of someone who is trying to achieve a lofty indifference.

  Hopewell indicates the first tee, with its crowd of waiting women. “Are we gonna get to play or not?”

  Barnes addresses a ball, then steps back from it. McPherson gives him a pleading look, which he doesn’t react to. Everything feels out of control now, almost pathological. There doesn’t seem to be any way back from it. Hopewell drops a ball, then hits it hard, and it hops past everything, off the putting surface and into the woods.

  Barnes says, �
�What’re you using, Eugene? A driver?”

  “Underestimated myself,” Hopewell says with studied good-naturedness. “It’s been a couple weeks.” He moves to the edge of the woods and stands there. “I hope I didn’t lose it first thing.” He steps into the underbrush, sweeping it aside with the putter. Then he swings the club like a machete, heading into the thick growth, hacking at it. His motions are oddly desperate looking; there’s something exhausted about it all. Darlene has walked over there. The green wall of brush and leaves closes behind him. She waits at the edge, all her weight on one foot, arms folded.

  “If he plays every week,” Barnes says, low, “you can have my house.”

  “What the hell were you trying to do back there?” McPherson asks him.

  “Exactly what I did do. He’s so anxious for us to see his fucking trophy wife. And she’s as humorless as a goddamn speed-limit sign.”

  “I didn’t think what you said was funny,” McPherson tells him.

  “What’re you whispering about?” Darlene says, looking over her shoulder at them.

  “Nothing,” says Barnes. “Accuracy.”

  She faces the woods again. McPherson tries to concentrate on a putt. Some of the AARP women have wandered down and are practicing on the other end of the green. He misses a putt, and as he lines up another, he hears one of the women remark about the thrashing around in the woods. He looks over at Barnes. “Aw, hell, Jerry, let’s call this off.”

  “Language,” Barnes says, with exaggerated piety.

  Hopewell emerges from the dense woods. “Couldn’t find it,” he says. “Sorry.” He takes off his cap and runs his hand through his hair, then adjusts the cap.

  Barnes says, “You ever played golf before, Eugene?”

  Hopewell straightens. “It has been a while.”

  “More than a couple weeks, huh?”

  “A while, Jerry. Okay?”

  “You realize you lost a ball off the green? The practice green?”

  Hopewell says nothing.

  “Why don’t you trade those fucking shoes in on some lessons?”

  “Hey,” says Hopewell, not smiling. “I’d appreciate it if you’d watch the language.”

  “I don’t think I’m up for a game today,” McPherson tells them all. He has an almost spooky feeling of menace now. It’s as though they’ll all be shouting soon. It strikes him that he feels rankled by Hopewell’s history, as if it’s something the other is merely dramatizing, more of the once-boy’s corny love of the high moment: his great story; his alcoholic missing years. McPherson experiences a rush of antipathy toward the other man and his pretty, young, sour wife.

  “Maybe they’ll let us tee off at the tenth,” says Barnes. Obviously, he wants to get this day over, too. “You realize there aren’t any other men here? Where the fu—where’d they all go?”

  Darlene says, “We can’t do anything until my mother arrives.”

  Again, they’re all quiet for a time. They watch the few older women putting, and talking in murmurs, waiting their turn. Occasionally, there’s a response from the crowd around the tee, someone getting off a good hit.

  Darlene sits down on the edge of the green, and clasps her hands around her knees, watching. Barnes putts, sinks the ball, then retrieves it. He looks at Hopewell. “You got any kids, Eugene?”

  The other man seems to come out of a reverie. “Four boys. None of them’ll speak to me.” He shakes his head. “I made their mother miserable. They know their stepfather better than they know me.”

  “Eugene actually got a small part in a movie, once,” Darlene says, looking off toward the parking lot.

  “Honey,” Hopewell says. “You promised you wouldn’t start this. We agreed.”

  She ignores him. “Next time you rent Dead Watch II you can see him. He’s one of the guards standing by the gates of hell. The one on the left. He even had a line. Eugene, give them your line.”

  “Aw, hell, sweetie. You said we wouldn’t—”

  “You were so proud of it last night, Eugene.” She turns her dark eyes on McPherson. “Most of the time Eugene feels like it’s some sort of breach of privacy for people to know he was in a Hollywood movie. Dead Watch II. You can rent it at any video store.”

  “I never saw that,” says McPherson, feigning interest. “I’ll have to get it.”

  “Low-budget horror,” Hopewell mutters. “Not much good. Not worth mentioning.”

  “They made five of them,” Darlene says. Her tone is nearly argumentative. “As you kept pointing out, darling. You felt different about it last night.”

  “Sweetie, where’s your mother?”

  “She’ll be here.” Darlene’s pulling at the grass. Her voice still has that tone. “Say the line, for your pals. It’s just a line.”

  Hopewell does nothing for an awkwardly long space.

  Almost pleasantly now, Darlene says, “I don’t see what the big deal about it is.” She looks at Barnes, and her smile is artificial, as if she means it as irony; yet it’s rather petulantly adolescent. “Have you ever been in a Hollywood movie?”

  “Sweetie, please,” Hopewell says.

  She points at McPherson. “This—friend, as you call him, is so interested in accuracy. He’ll appreciate how accurately you get the whole thing. The whole—what is it called?—emotion of the moment. Eugene thinks he’s a failure because he got one line in a movie. How many people ever get a line in a movie? How about you, Mr. Animal Torture. You ever been in a movie?”

  “I made a movie,” Barnes says. “It’s called Animal Torture. I’m amazed that you know about it.”

  “Now, look,” Hopewell says. “Come on—everybody.”

  “I’m sure no one means to offend,” says McPherson.

  “Oh, yes they most certainly do,” Darlene mutters.

  Hopewell says, “Sweetie, these—these’re pals of mine from high school, and I’m sure everything’s gonna be fine.” He looks at the other two men.

  “I’m going right out and rent the movie,” McPherson puts in.

  Darlene stands, then starts walking toward the clubhouse, hands on her hips, the attitude of someone tired and bored.

  Barnes murmurs, “She’s not playing all eighteen holes with us, right?”

  Hopewell follows his wife. As they cross the expanse of grass between the parking lot and the clubhouse, a gray Cadillac pulls in, and Darlene alters her course, heading toward the car, which hums to a stop in the nearest open space.

  “Jesus Christ,” Barnes says. “Help us all.”

  Out of the Cadillac steps a thin, short, scarily pale woman with a head of hair that seems to dwarf her face; it seems in fact to dwarf her whole body.

  “God almighty,” Barnes says. “She looks like Louis the XIV.”

  The two women head down to the practice green, followed by Hopewell, who seems more hangdog every second. Darlene is a full head taller than her mother, but her mother’s outlandish hairdo makes the older woman seem somehow bigger. “Mother, these’re a couple of Eugene’s friends from back when he was in high school. This is my mother—Luanne. Not Tex-Mex Mary—though as I said, she owns Tex-Mex Mary’s.”

  McPherson steps forward and offers his hand. “Hello,” he says.

  Luanne nods slightly, gives him a firm grip, then drops his hand and turns to Barnes. “This makes a fivesome,” she says. “We can’t get away with that. We’ll have to divide up.”

  “I’m not playing,” says Darlene. “I’m just tagging along, remember? I hate this stupid game. I don’t see why we can’t all go around together. I thought we discussed it already this morning. This rotten morning.”

  “Now, Darlene.” Luanne appears to want to say more. Instead she shakes her head.

  Darlene gestures at Barnes. “Well, this guy’s been making jokes about torturing poor helpless animals.”

  “I think I might’ve indicated that I wasn’t actually quite joking,” says Barnes, with a wide grin.

  “Listen to that,” Darlene says.
>
  “Sweetie,” says Hopewell, “nobody means any harm. Really.”

  “I’m not going around this stupid course.”

  Barnes leans toward her, and says, “Actually, you know it might’ve been a woman that invented golf. I think it was, in fact. I think her name was Eleanor. Eleanor Golf.”

  Darlene puts her hands to her face. McPherson is astonished to see that she’s fighting tears.

  “Hey,” says Barnes. “Okay, I’m just messing around, here, teasing. I’m just teasing.”

  Hopewell steps close to Darlene, speaking in a low, placating murmur. “Come on, sweetie. Everything’s fine. We always made stupid jokes like that. He’s just being cute, like we always were. We played baseball every day growing up and Jerry was always getting after people. He doesn’t mean anything by it.” He glances over at Barnes. “Right, Jerry?”

  “I was teasing,” Barnes says. “I admit it was a little rough.”

  “My daughter’s high-strung,” Luanne says to McPherson from the prodigious tangle of dark hair. She walks over and takes Darlene by the arm and says, “You come with me now. Come help me get my clubs out of the car.” They move away along the sunny lawn, in the direction not of the parking lot, but of the clubhouse. They go in, and the door closes on them.

  “Anybody want to tell me what the fuck this is all about?” Barnes says.

  Hopewell looks down. “She—you went too far.” He shakes his head. “As long as we’re being accurate, Jerry—the accurate part of this mess is that I had a few beers last night. Okay? I got drunk. I was so excited about seeing you guys. I thought—one beer, you know? So I had one beer, and then I had a few others and I was saying my goddamn movie line. You understand me, Jerry? You see what’s happening here? I bought all this shit because I thought we’d go around and have one of the old times together. I got overconfident. She’s not like this normally….”

  The ranks of the tournament golfers on the tee have thinned out. Several of those who have been practice putting are walking over there. McPherson watches them, and tries to think of something to say. He wants to find some polite way to excuse himself, and go home. But home is hundreds of miles south, in Carolina.