Par for the Course

by Ray Blackston

  Soon I exchanged People for Business Weekly and learned that interest rates on premium money market accounts had risen to 4.25 percent. I applied this rate to the roughly thirty grand that I estimated I’d net from Allstate for my golf shop equity and my equipment. Until I began new work, that would be my income: about a hundred bucks per month in interest.

  Just as I flipped a page and grew interested in the after-work rituals of Wall Street’s elite, a placement rep stuck his head out from his office and summoned me inside.

  We shook hands, and I thanked him for seeing me. I sat opposite his desk in a plastic chair. He held my resume in hand and spoke over the top of it. “Christopher, what have you done besides teach golf?”

  “Not a lot. But I have a little bit of writing experience . . . short stories mostly.”

  For a full minute he thumbed through a stack of job openings. “The only thing I have in a related field is a part-time reviewer for a biweekly arts and music newspaper. This is a very part-time position, no more than three or four hours per week. The paper is one of those ten-page freebies that people pick up at newsstands. They’ll pay twenty bucks per review. But you gotta be good.”

  “What would I review?”

  He showed me the hiring requirements at the top of the page. “First assignment is a threesome of new CDs. One’s country, one’s rap, one’s heavy metal.”

  I sat back in the chair and pondered this for all of four seconds. “Sure, I can handle that. Can I do it next week?”

  “No, you’d have to begin today. They have deadlines.”

  He rose from behind his desk, went to his copy machine, and made me a copy of the instructions. “First you have to write a trial review for each CD. Then it has to be approved by both the paper’s manager and its editor.” He walked over and handed me my copy. “We can’t just assign this job to someone without knowing if they have ability.”

  “Of course not.”

  Next he strode into a back office and returned with three CDs, all of them still in their clear plastic packaging. He handed them over. “Go home and listen to these, write a review for each, use no more than one hundred fifty words per review, and have them on my desk within twenty-four hours. Got it?”

  “Will do.”

  Trying to forget all that had gone wrong that week, I drove straight home and spent a few minutes kneeling in front of my stereo, debating which CD to listen to first. Since Molly would be here tomorrow, I had extra incentive to get this done. The top CD in the stack of three was by a group called Momma’s Corn-fed Quartet, which I figured was the country CD. The second CD was by Thrilla Chilla Killa, and I guessed correctly that this one was rap. The third utilized some disturbing artwork, apparently a drawing by one of the members of the heavy metal group who had joyfully named themselves Morbid Mummies of Blackness.

  I decided to begin with the debut album of Momma’s Corn-fed Quartet. Somehow the group consisted of six band members instead of four, which their drummer explained away on the back cover of the CD by stating that their natural gifts lay in the realm of music, not math.

  An hour later I had typed my review on my computer and printed two copies, one for the manager of the job placement service, one for myself in case I needed to build a portfolio of work:

  Momma’s Corn-fed Quartet serve up a charbroiled brand of country and bluegrass that is better than Burger King when you’re really hungry for a charbroiled burger from a fast-food restaurant that serves charbroiled burgers. Their music soars like a well-struck 3-wood shot from an elevated tee on a downhill golf hole with a spectacular view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The drummer pounds his drums like a PGA Tour pro pounds practice balls. The singer’s voice is smoother than the greens at Augusta National. Overall, I highly recommend this debut album from Momma’s Corn-fed Quartet, who surely must eat lots more than corn because their members average over 290 pounds each.

  —Reviewed by Christopher Hackett, September 30

  By three o’ clock I had typed my review of the debut album from Thrilla Chilla Killa:

  Backbeats and percussion drive the harmonies on singles like “Bust Yo Lip Wif My Heavy Brick Rhymes.” However, worn-out ghetto themes boasting of fancy cars and big-bootied women do not distinguish this album from any of the other forty million rap albums that boast of fancy cars and big-bootied women. Listening to this album is kind of like watching a robot hit golf balls over and over, with no difference in the distance or direction the golf ball travels. However, the members of Thrilla Chilla Killa have great tempo, the kind of tempo that would allow them to become very good golfers should they ever decide to spend some of their money on golf clubs and golf lessons.

  —Reviewed by Christopher Hackett, September 30

  Making the switch from country to rap and now to heavy metal made me genre dizzy. Nevertheless, I ejected the second CD and replaced it with the one from Morbid Mummies of Blackness. One more to go.

  My walls shook as this metal CD played, and by four fifteen I had typed my third review:

  Distorted guitars and much yelling by lead singer Vyle Putrid makes it difficult for this listener to understand the lyrics. Apparently, Mr. Putrid and his Morbid Mummies band mates are mad at the entire world, even tiny little countries like the Dominican Republic, whose citizens surely have better things to do than figure out mummy lyrics. In fact, understanding the lyrics on this album is as difficult as hitting a golf ball from the deck of the Manhattan Ferry, making it carom once off the Empire State Building, roll down Broadway, hop into the lobby of the Imperial Theatre, and settle into a front row seat for a matinee showing of Les Miserables. Overall, I think Morbid Mummies of Blackness should tone things down a bit, perhaps try playing something slower and softer, like the background music CBS plays during The Masters telecast every April, when the azaleas are in bloom.

  —Reviewed by Christopher Hackett, September 30

  I ran a spell check and confirmed that the word count did not exceed my limit. In general I felt proud of my reviews, especially the fact that I showed diversity of knowledge by including lines about Dominican Republic and Broadway.

  I figured sixty bucks for three hours’ work was not the worst job in the world. And perhaps I could grow this into a bigger gig, at least until I found another piece of land to lease. Thus inspired, I returned to the temp agency at 4:45 p.m. and promptly handed over my reviews to the young assistant manager. He excused himself, entered his manager’s office, and picked up the phone. Then he closed the door.

  I hoped he had called the ten-page freebie paper and gained permission for me to review a dozen more CDs. Perhaps two dozen. I mean, getting to sit in air-conditioning and listen to music and get paid for it was just the kind of break I needed from the stress of the past week.

  The agency manager walked out into the lobby, which was empty except for me.

  “Your former job was golf instructor, right Mr. Hackett?” he inquired in a tone vaguely reminiscent of my third grade teacher, Mrs. Pennington, queen of condescension.

  I gripped my ink pen like a club and made a swinging motion. “Yessir, that’s what I do best. Or rather, did best until someone torched my business.”

  He pursed his lips, ran a hand through his buzz cut. “Chris, perhaps you should look for a job in that industry.”

  I stepped toward him, palms extended. “Aren’t my three reviews at least . . . publishable?”

  He shook his head no, looked down at the second review, paused, shook his head no a second time, reread the third review, paused again, and shook his head no a third time.

  Finally he set the reviews on his desk and just let his arms hang at his sides. Then he squared his shoulders to me, extended his own palms—the posture of complete honesty. “Look, man, just pursue your passion, okay? I’ve loved the job placement business ever since I graduated from the Citadel. Why don’t you just go full bore back into the golf industry?”

  Stunned to hear a stranger blurt just what I was thinking, I backed to
ward the exit. “You can have those reviews. No charge . . . feel free to use them in case you can’t find something better.”

  He waved his good-bye. “Good luck to you, Mr. Hackett.”

  Losing a one-day job meant little, but now I also feared losing Cack. He pulled into my driveway Friday morning, rolling slowly toward me as I loaded tools into my pickup bed. I wasn’t sure what to say to him. He’d been my only salaried employee, and now there was no way I could offer him anything resembling an income. I had no emergency fund for such matters. No supplemental income for lost wages. I couldn’t even give him a promise of when—or if—the business would start anew.

  My intent this morning was to go dig through the rubble again. Now Cack had arrived unannounced, though it was good to see him again. I pushed my shovel into the rear of my truck and turned to greet him.

  He pointed at the tools and let his gesture suffice as a question.

  At his door I said, “Was about to go sift through the debris again . . . and maybe go look for a new piece of land.”

  He remained seated in his truck and popped the top off a Lipton tea—an unusual beverage for him. He drank once and turned off his engine. “Land’s expensive in these parts.”

  “I know.”

  He held his can up and stared at it as if it contained some alien liquid. Without looking up at me he said, “You suspect that man-hatin’ woman set the fire?”

  Not expecting the question, I shut my eyes, sighed, shook my head. “Nope, I really don’t. But I’ve got an idea how to help the investigator figure out who did it.”

  He took a long drink of his Lipton. “You and I both know who did it.”

  “No, Cack, we don’t.”

  His patented head shake was all I needed to see to realize how strongly he disagreed. “Consider this: The Prez is here one day, hamming it up on your range and poking jabs at the liberals, and then the next day someone burns down our shop and paints ‘Bias goes up in flames’ on our sidewalk. That ain’t hard to figure out.”

  I folded my arms and frowned. “I know what it’s like to be falsely accused. I just want a little evidence before I go pointing fingers.”

  He thumped his forefinger against the tin of his can. Over and over he did this, as if this helped him think. But he wasn’t thinking about solving crimes; turned out he was thinking about how to tell me his news. “I got a job offer yesterday.”

  “Where?” I demanded, not wanting to hear this. “Joey at Yeamans Hall offered you a job?”

  He pursed his lips, tapped a finger on his steering wheel. “Yep.”

  “And you took it?”

  “Told him I’d work hourly until I knew if you’d rebuild or not.” His expression broadcast a mix of sympathy and duty. “My wife takes medicines, Chris. I gotta have an income.”

  So did I. After he’d backed out of my driveway and left, I felt an even greater urgency to begin anew. Cack was not only a great employee, he was also a very good friend.

  I left my house a minute after he did. En route to sift rubble, I sped to save time. Molly was due in at noon, and together we were going to solve a crime.

  20

  LESSON FOR TODAY

  If a player in a foursome loses his or her golf ball (or a member of a double date loses his or her date), etiquette calls for all playing partners to assist in the search.

  Whether gazed at from a distance or up close, Hack’s looked ugly. In addition, the whole place smelled like burned wood after it’s been watered down and left to rot. Even uglier was the bin full of three thousand golf balls melted in the fire. Like a truck full of candles set ablaze, the outer covers of the golf balls had melted together to form a grotesque patty, black and crusty and reeking of burnt rubber. I kicked the bin twice, just to see if some of the balls would shake loose. But no, they remained stuck, married to the patty.

  I knew to avoid self-pity, and yet I also knew that three other golf ranges thrived in the Charleston metro area. All had a working pro shop. None had been the target of political rage. Worse, I was now losing revenue during the busy and prosperous fall months, when the low country air rid itself of humidity and ushered in the first cool whiffs of fall. This was the season, as the Bubbas might say, when “the gettin’ was good.”

  But there was to be no gettin’.

  Not that the range was totally unusable—had Mr. Vignatti not cancelled my lease, I could have set up a temporary building on the range and still used the grass and perhaps half of the thirty-six hitting mats. At least he’d given me thirty days to move. Now I felt out of sync with humanity. Here I was on a Friday morning, picking through ash and splintered wood while the rest of the work world went about their daily tasks. The still gray chaos of the scene stung my pride. For relief I walked out onto the range, where the Bermuda still drank up the sun and awaited its daily pelting.

  Already I missed giving lessons. Already I missed all those slicers and hookers, hacking away and trying so desperately to improve. Pauly Three Seeds was right—this was my arena of competence, and the decisions for how to proceed rested with no one but me.

  I walked the land unhurried, until out near the 100-yard marker I discovered the arsonist had also used a type of delayed fuse. He’d poured something—gas, I imagined—onto the middle of the range, spelling out an insult to punctuate his evil. Four days had lapsed since the fire, and now, in five-foot letters, the gasoline had burned the grass and broadcast its message.

  Biased Loser!

  The arson investigator had said it first—lots o’ hate in this world. More annoyed than angry, I fetched the shovel from the back of my truck and tromped back out to the grass. Fortunately the grass remained soft from a recent rain, fairly easy to uproot and flip over. Shovelful by shovelful, I dug up sod and turned hate facedown in the dirt, where it belonged.

  When I finished shoveling, I looked the width and breadth of the acreage, numbed by the knowledge that this would soon be someone else’s land, that atop this manicured grass would lay a stranger’s business. Perhaps an industrial park. Or perhaps Mr. Roycroft would expand his nursery. Regardless, I knew I’d just worked my last hour at Hack’s—and not for pay either.

  I set the shovel over my shoulder and trudged back past the rubble pile, through the pea gravel, and out to the parking lot. I made a fist but stopped short of punching my truck.

  Hungry now at 10:00 a.m., I drove down the road to an Atlanta Bread Company and bought an unbuttered bagel—Asiago cheese, lightly toasted. But it had little taste. Not that I was sick, I was just preoccupied with why the arson investigator hadn’t called with an update and why Allstate had not called with a settlement offer on the building. Nothing was moving fast enough, nothing except bad stuff, anyway. I kept asking myself why it was that bad stuff comes turbocharged, tires squealing, but good stuff creeps along, its news riding shotgun atop a tortoise shell.

  In a corner booth I thumbed through my Day-Timer and called everyone who had scheduled a lesson during the next month and cancelled the lessons. All of the calls were similar in content, though different in tone:

  “Yo, Tongue Depressuh. Sorry man, my golf shop burned down. No golf lessons till I get back in business.”

  Next call. Then another and another. Each one removing future dollars from a wallet that could not afford to lose its dollars, be they future or current.

  “Is this Ted Stephens, coach of the Hanahan golf team? Yessir, this is Chris Hackett. I’m afraid I can’t host your golf team practices on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Hack’s is closed . . . yes, completely gutted.”

  The hardest calls were to my longtime clients, even though some of them tried their best to distract me from my plight:

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Dupree. How are you? . . . Yes ma’am, that’s a great exercise for improving flexibility. . . . I guess you heard about Hack’s. . . . Four days ago . . . Yep, it is sad. . . . I don’t know when I’ll be back, or even where. . . . No ma’am, my lease got cancelled. . . . Yes, it may have been th
e liberals. . . . I have some insurance, but I don’t know how much money I’ll get. . . . Your one-brick dog is pregnant?! . . . The father is a ten-brick dog? . . . Oh my . . . No, I’ve never heard of a long-haired brickette.”

  I returned to Hack’s and found Molly standing in the parking lot beside the rubble pile, her back to me. Excited to see her, I parked next to her rental car, hurried out, and spoke over its roof.

  “Not quite what it used to be, right?”

  She spun around, met my gaze, and without a word rushed over and hugged me.

  “You’re early,” I said and stepped back to admire her in jeans and a T-shirt. I’d never seen her in such casual clothes. She looked great, and I told her so.

  She motioned to the charred debris. “I guess my idea sorta backfired, eh?”

  “Our idea, yes.” Next I told her about Mr. Vignatti canceling my lease, and she said she felt bad. Then I told her about “Biased Loser” spelled out in the range, and she said she felt worse.

  I didn’t want this to become a pity party, however, so changing the subject seemed a timely gesture. “How’d you get here so quickly?”

  She looked at her watch. “I left Montgomery at five this morning. I wanted to help and to not waste time.”

  I motioned to her rental car. “Do ya need to check into a hotel first?”

  “Did that.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Ate in my car.”

  I was all ready to buy her lunch, but this was feeling less and less like an appropriate time for a date. So while Molly opened her trunk and exchanged her sandals for a pair of sneakers, I called the arson investigator, faked a calm demeanor, and asked for an update. He surprised me when he told me to stop by, that he had some things to show me. I asked if he’d permit me to bring a friend along, and after a moment of hesitation, he granted my request.

  I turned to ask Molly if she wanted to ride with me and smiled when I saw her already seated in my passenger seat.

  Those DC women think fast.