The aide pointed past the president and out toward the maintenance shed. Cack came barreling across the Bermuda, a cardboard donkey affixed to our side of the cage, red, white, and blue ribbons fluttering from the top. He circled in front of the president some fifty yards away and raised the bullhorn. “Mister President, I sure hope you’re more efficient with that golf club than you were in sending relief to New Or-leens!”
W looked ashen. He gripped my 5-iron and addressed the ball. “That’s my moving target?”
An aide leaned in. “Yes, Mister President . . . the golf cart . . . it’s moving.”
The presidential swing was not bad, although he missed Cack by forty yards. After three more attempts, W looked frustrated.
“Anyone ever hit that guy?” he asked.
“Several people have, sir,” I replied, kneeling now so the press corps could shoot over me. “There’s a certain technique that seems to work.”
He promptly handed me the club. “So how about a quick lesson, Chris?”
Just as I’d done with the teenage girls, I lined up five balls in a row and explained my method. He appeared quite interested.
“Remember, Mr. President,” I said as I demonstrated a punch shot, “you are the machine gun; the golf balls are your bullets.”
The aide leaned in again. “And pretend that cart is the Taliban, sir.”
That comment seemed to inspire W. Well, that and Cack’s next insult. Just under a hundred yards away, Cack lifted the bullhorn high and said, “That swing of yours got more loops in it than a giant pretzel. I’m gonna start calling you President Pretzel-swing.”
Unused to such put-downs, the Prez took my club back, addressed the four remaining balls on the mat, and fired. He whacked them hard, in quick succession. His fourth shot bounced into the cage and gonged the donkey. Clang.
Most of the crowd erupted in cheers. Others booed.
“Luck!” shouted Cack through his bullhorn. “Pure dee luck! As lucky as you winning Ohio in ’04!”
W thrust a fist into the air. Then he turned to the cameras. “Did y’all get that shot? Please tell me you got some video of me hitting that loudmouth?”
The press corps said together, “We got it, Mr. President.”
Satisfied, Dubya handed me my club, then shook my hand with vigor. “Thank you, Chris. All the best with your business.” He spoke quickly, a man rushed for time. “This country’s backbone is the entrepreneur, you know.”
“Yessir, it’s a pleasure to have you here at Hack’s.”
He spent half a minute shaking hands with the crowd and autographed three golf caps for the teenagers. The festivities were over quickly, however. They were over as soon as that aide had him by the arm. “Mister President, Air Force One is ready at the airport. We need to hurry to make DC by six thirty. You’re having dinner with the ambassadors.”
W turned and shrugged at us, as if to say, “This is my life.”
And just like that, the entourage streamed past my hitting mats and into the pro shop and out into the parking lot. Cack, of course, was waiting for him there. Wearing his Uncle Sam hat and his widest grin, Cack showed the president the very golf ball that had hit the cart and asked him to autograph it.
With a red Sharpie that Cack offered, W signed the ball, shook his hand, and hurried out to the line of waiting limos. This time he disappeared into the third one.
The motorcade sped away, and as they did, the same protestor shouted again, “When troops are still dying in the Middle East, sir, why would you practice golf?!”
Yes, I liked my simple life.
Cack and I spent the better part of the afternoon in the pro shop, talking about the visit and wondering if Molly had really suggested the stopover. We speculated on whether she’d ever even met the president or if this was all just blind luck. The six o’ clock news gave a brief mention of the event, and while the weather report ran, I began closing procedures. It had been a slow revenue day, disappointing considering what had occurred.
But then Cack came around the counter and pulled from the upper pocket of his overalls what looked like a check. “Boss, I’ve been saving this for a surprise. One of those aides gave me this to give you.”
He handed me a check from the U.S. Treasury. It was made out to Hack’s in the sum of $200.00.
“For renting out your range for ten minutes,” Cack said and tapped a dirty finger on the amount. “At least that’s what the guy told me.”
I admired the check for a moment before tucking it into the register. “Our tax dollars at work, Cackster. Not bad.”
He looked pleased when I reached into the register and tipped him half the total.
At sunset, some five hours after the surprise presidential visit, a dozen seagulls gathered on the far end of the range. At first they appeared to be lingering spectators, still hanging around after a celebrity’s departure. But soon one of the gulls waddled out onto the grass and picked up a golf ball in its beak. He attempted to fly with it, but dropped the ball soon after taking flight. Like a contest of who could fly the farthest with stolen goods, this looked to be a game instead of petty thievery. And to my surprise, the birds appeared to take turns, squawking as if they all agreed on the rules.
One portly gull snatched a ball in its beak and rose more than fifty feet in the air before dropping the ball back to the grass. In seconds another swooped down and did the exact same thing. But then Cack emerged from the maintenance shed, ran out onto the range, and threw a full can of Mountain Dew at the gathering. The carbonated blast scared the gulls away—except for the fat one, who continued to try its best to advance the ball farther.
I, too, needed to advance the ball farther, and so before I closed the shop I typed a quick e-mail to my favorite student:
M
You’ll never guess Who stopped by today.
What do I owe you? (And when can I pay up?!)
—C
14
LESSON FOR TODAY
Flameouts can occur anywhere: on the course, off the course, and sometimes to the course.
My cash register lay burned and smashed in the pea gravel. It was 1:02 a.m. when I got the call; 1:08 when I arrived at my range and saw my golf shop in flames, the front wall toppled over into the parking lot.
Sirens blared over one another, so loud I could not think. Smoke swirled and rose into the night. Firemen ran to and fro, emergency lights flashing in streaks of red and yellow. At first I could not even leave my truck. It was as if my mind had shut down, too stimulated to function. Somehow I opened my door and stumbled out, fixated on a flashing light reflecting off what used to be my pro shop. I stood teetering, one hand on the hood, one knee ramming a front tire as I mouthed, “No no no!”
Seconds later I stumbled forward, toward flames that stubbornly leapt into the night sky.
A stocky fireman, weighed down with a fire hose, brushed by me and shouted, “Stay back, sir!”
The impulse to save things gave way to anger. I looked every direction for someone to blame. Out of options, I looked skyward and blamed God. This is what I get for busting my tail to please customers?
Three more firefighters ran by me. I backed against my truck and collapsed across the hood, one side of my face hot from the metal, the other from the seared air. If tears fell, they immediately dried in the heat. All I could do was watch plumes of high-pressure water spew from two fire trucks.
A minute later my sign fell off the building. It had burned through on one side and toppled forward into the parking lot.
A third and fourth fire hose slithered across the asphalt and blasted twin arcs of water upon the blaze. For long minutes flames ate water. For longer minutes fire and water fought to a draw before fire finally succumbed.
Now a wet, smoky stench engulfed us all. Again I moved toward the remains. An older man rushed over to me. He wore civilian clothes but identified himself as the arson inspector.
“Who did this?” I demanded.
He said
nothing.
Instead he led me over to the east side of the parking lot and pointed ahead of us. On the sidewalk that led to the pea gravel, spray painted in what looked like blue paint, were words that hollowed my soul: Bias goes up in flames!!
The inspector knelt and touched the dried paint. “It’s male handwriting,” he said. His index finger traced through the “B” in “Bias.”
I knelt beside him, desperate to find out who did it and make someone pay. “You can actually know that? From a three-foot, spray-painted ‘B’ you can know an arsonist is male?”
He wiped his finger with a handkerchief. “Well, I believe whoever spray painted these words is male—the majority of arsonists are men. But he could have had friends, so I’m not saying there weren’t females involved. This was planned and executed well.”
I watched firemen swing axes into what was left of the back wall until it too lay flat and was in no danger of falling in on anybody. A brief wind blew the smoke eastward, and everyone without a mask took deep breaths and heaved for more.
Sometime in the night—I had no idea when—I called Cack at home. All I got was his voice mail, and all I said was, “Someone torched our business. Get over here.”
Weary firemen doused the embers, and soon the winds subsided and the smell of smoke and wet wood dominated once again. The inspector—a hyperactive sort who had circled around the site at least five times—called me over to the west end of the building. He’d found fourteen plastic gas containers melted in the debris. They looked like red clumps of lava that had oozed up from below ground.
“This was planned and executed with precision,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. He knelt again and poked at blackened rubble. “Look at how the gas cans were spaced . . . at even intervals around your building.”
My mouth would not form words. Finally I managed to blurt, “Who? Who would do this?”
He pursed his lips, wiped his forehead, but he did not answer my question.
I had not even been to the maintenance shed yet. In the distance I could see that it too had been torched.
“This is a hate crime, son,” said the inspector, standing now, hands on hips. He scanned from one end of the building to the other. Then he walked over and read the spray paint on the sidewalk for a second time. “Yep,” he said, a look of disgust on his face, “lots of hate in this world.”
Time seem suspended, yet before I knew it the sun rose over what had yesterday been my livelihood. My mouth was dry and my eyes stung. I’d been searching for clues all night. Now sweaty and smelly and covered in ash, I found small solace in the Bermuda grass, uninjured by the attack and shiny with dew. Beyond it the gulls had returned, lining up one by one on my fence and gabbing away, as if debating what had gone wrong.
Sometime before 7:00 a.m. Mr. Vignatti pulled into the parking lot in his gray Volvo. He climbed out of his car, a look of disbelief on his face. For a long minute he stared at the charred wood. Then he went over and read the blue words spray painted on the sidewalk.
I stood some twenty feet away, kicking at the rubble and wondering what he would say to me. But he spoke to the rubble instead. “This . . . this politics and rage . . . this is a bad, bad thing.”
Shaking his head in slow bouts of disappointment, Mr. Vignatti got into his Volvo and drove away. He never even acknowledged my presence.
15
LESSON FOR TODAY
CSI plus three friends do not a crime-solving team make.
Pauly Three Seeds said the liberals did it. Benny insisted it was the conservatives. And Cack, well, he waffled between those choices and one of the atheists, who Cack said became quite angry on the range when referred to as a godless hacker. That incident was a week earlier, however, and on this ashy morning every one of our guesses felt inconclusive, more reaction than wisdom.
In what was left of Hack’s parking lot, these three friends stood outside my driver’s side window, alternately commenting on the scope of the destruction, offering sympathy, and speculating on who did it. The arson inspector had just left, and the four of us now gazed alone at my piece of scorched earth.
Cack turned from my truck to stare at the smoke still seeping from the rubble. “Makes a man wanna take revenge, don’t it?”
Benny chimed in. “Makes me want to sit on somebody.”
We all looked at Pauly to hear his version of a threat, but instead he pulled a pen from his pocket and scrawled something on a business card. Pauly said, “At least it’s a start, Chris,” and handed me his card. What he’d written on the back only affirmed what I’d already noticed:
The “B” in “Bias” has a long tail on it.
Soon Pauly and Benny had to rush back to their jobs, so I thanked them for the support and told them I’d let them know if any more great clues surfaced.
Cack asked me to wait in the truck while he went to check out his favorite toy. Around the smoldering remains of the pro shop he made his way down to the maintenance shed. I knew what he would find there; I’d already seen it.
He returned minutes later, head down. “Melted the cart, Chris.” He looked despondent, overwhelmed. “Maybe the cage is salvageable.”
Though my head was not currently programmed for sympathy, I did my best. “I’m sorry, man. I know how much time you put into building it.”
“But that’s not the worst of it.” He pursed his lips, and tears formed in his eyes. “They spray painted ‘Hate-Monger’ on its side.”
This angered me to no end. Cack was the least hate-filled person I knew. He was fun-loving and gracious and customer-friendly. Caught up in silent aggravation, I could not think of what to say to comfort him. He climbed into his own truck, lowered his window, and muttered that he was going home to tell his wife what happened.
He drove away slowly, and for the first time I was left alone to face the consequences. For long minutes I scanned the destruction and ignored the growl in my stomach—I had not eaten a thing since arriving on the scene more than nine hours earlier.
My mind raced through possible suspects. First, of course, were the anticonservatives, the Bush-haters. Then again, this was the pro-Republican South, so the liberal-haters seemed just as likely. But then I thought about the local gangs, kids so bored they had nothing better to do than react with violence when one high school mocked another on my range. Perhaps some Bubbas hated my entertaining the hip-hop guys. Maybe the hip-hop guys hated my welcoming Bubbas. Possibilities swarmed in my head in bee-like flights of speculation. Like the inspector said, lots of hate in this world.
Confusion multiplied by the minute. Thoughts of vindictive rage rose within me. But soon that settled back into something more rational, and I decided to call the person whose suggestions had perhaps led to the crime. I called Molly.
What I thought I wanted to hear was perhaps a little remorse for helping to turn my range into an arena for political venting. That, and perhaps some feminine sympathy. I supposed if I were the sentimental, artsy type, I’d have preceded the call by writing in my journal something like, “She’d come into my life like an unexpected raindrop on a blue-sky day—and she left me with the aftermath of an election-year inferno.” But I was neither a journaler nor artsy nor sentimental. My thoughts on the matter were uncomplicated: Why hadn’t the two of us considered the possible consequences?
She answered on the third ring.
I dismissed pleasantries and got right to the subject. “Molly, some person or persons set fire to Hack’s and spray painted ‘Bias goes up in flames’ on my sidewalk. My golf shop is destroyed.”
A deep inhale, followed by silence. Then, “Oh no, Chris . . . I am sooo sorry. Was anyone hurt?”
“No, it happened after midnight.”
“Do they know who did it?”
“Nope.”
“Are you furious at me for suggesting that you—”
“Not exactly.” I stopped there, battling the impulse to cast partial blame her way. Practicing forgiveness did not come as n
aturally as practicing my golf swing. And yet the blame really fell on me—and she needed to know that. “Hey, I was the one who agreed to run with that suggestion.”
Molly sighed, and I couldn’t quite determine if it was from relief or sympathy. Probably some of both. “Chris,” she said, “again I am sooo sorry. And I hate to cut this call short, but I’m with senior campaign officials and they’re waiting for me.”
“It’s okay. I really just wanted to hear your voice.”
She spoke quickly. “Let me know what I can do. And listen, I have some days off coming up. I’ll drive down and help you solve the crime. I’m good at that stuff. I’ve been watching CSI reruns at night in my hotel room.”
I managed a brief smile and told her I welcomed all the help I could get. “Our best clue so far is the tail on the letter ‘B’ in the word ‘Bias.’”
She paused as if in deep thought. “Does the B have a curving flippy tail like the curl in a woman’s hair? Or is it more of a straight tail with not much curve, like the bottom of a man’s tux?”
“The second one.”
“Then it’s probably a man’s handwriting.”
“We figured that out already, Mol.”
She said she had to run and interview a senator, so we agreed to talk again when we could. After we said good-bye I drove to a nearby Wendy’s and ate lunch in my truck, my feet restless in the floorboard, my hands shaking as I ate my sandwich. Being a victim had fostered in me an extreme amount of energy, a conviction that I had to do something.
I returned to what remained of Hack’s and spent another half hour tromping around the debris, kicking at boards and scattering ash. Down at the maintenance shed I noted the melted cart, the ruined John Deere riding mower. What a waste of good equipment.
I wanted answers—and fast. Cell to ear, I called the arson investigator and demanded an update. He asked me to please be patient. “I’m good at my job, Chris,” he said, “but I’m not same-day good.”
It was now 2:30 p.m., and while the rest of Charleston went about their daily routines I scanned the acreage and swallowed the emptiness of it all. I missed my customers. I missed the old hackers, the young hackers, the too-loud teenagers, the rich women who tipped well, like Mrs. Dupree. I even missed feeling envious of the young fathers who taught their youngsters on my hitting mats. But I was not going to go home and sulk. And I was certainly not going to stand in the middle of the debris and cry. I had to do something, expend the energy. And the only thing that appealed to me came in the form of an old push mower that had survived the blaze.
Par for the Course Page 12
