Death from the Ladies Tee

by James Y. Bartlett

  I woke up early the next morning, troubled and restless. I had been having a dream, one of those not-quite-night mares, but strange and disturbing nonetheless. I had been in a conference room heavily appointed in mahogany paneling and brass fixtures, with gilded portraits on the walls. Sitting around the long, walnut table with me had been Wynnona Stilwell, Mary Beth Burke, Benton Bergmeister, Carl the resplendently pith-helmeted doorman, Julie Warren, Carol Acorn, Casey the Delicious Dyke dressed in an off-the-shoulder shimmering black dress, and I think Ronald Reagan, who was catnapping at the far end of the conference table.

  We had been sitting around debating the real meaning of the words “murr, wampy, herrninon, bulldosh and farrinch,” which was what Honie had said to me in the ambulance the night before. The discussion, I recalled, had been quite heated at times. Reagan woke up at one point and tried to get a word in, but no one would let him speak.

  Suddenly, the heavy double doors had swung wide open and Honie Carlton had walked in, wrapped head to tie in as much gauze as an Egyptian mummy. Though muffled by the bandages, her voice had sounded amused. “You are all being quite silly,” she had said. “I said the damn words. The meaning is perfectly clear.”

  She was about to translate for us when I woke up. I got out of bed and stood for a while at the window in my room, curtains pulled back so I could stare out at the soft, early-morning light that was just beginning to give some definition to the trunks of the trees and shapes of the oleander shrubs. With the first hints of light came life, with the first songs of the birds and the buzzing of insects as they began their daily struggle for survival.

  The early morning is always melancholy for me. Some feel the same way about midnight or the wee small hours. But for me, it’s the dawn. I could almost feel a cold, damp fog licking around my feet, working inexorably upward toward my heart and soul.

  I don’t know why. Daybreak is supposed to represent yet another victory over darkness and death. But it always seems to me to be a reminder that the darkness is still there, lurking, waiting to return. We all spend so mich time trying to keep that darkness away. But it’s all just whistling past the boneyard. Because soon or later, the scary and lurid places that dwell within take over. It’s like those contrary ying-and-yang symbols, the happy face and the death-mask grimace. We spend our days imagining our lives are a romantic comedy with Rock Hudson and Doris Day when they’re really the bleak and desolate landscape of King Lear, Act III.

  I shook myself, dropped the curtains and told myself to snap out of it. Laid the melancholia to the events of the last few days .. the conflict with Big Wyn…the squalid story of Carol Acorn’s descent into hell…the brutal attack on my friend Honie.

  Action. I dug out a worn and comfortable T-shirt, an old pair of shorts and my beat-up sneakers. I am not a health freak, nor do I aspire to ever become one. But sometimes, I run. Jog, really, with lots of breaks for wind-gasping walking. I run not to boast to my friends how many miles a week I can do, nor to try to qualify for someone’s memorial 5-K race, nor to get myself into some kind of mythical fighting trim. No, I only run when the spirit moves me, and that comes infrequently. Sometimes I get moved when I look into the mirror and notice the old belly is beginning to sag. Or when I have been a bad boy at the bar and need to sweat the devil alcohol from my system. When I am bored. Or when I need to banish melancholy with physical action. If this kind of exercise happens to provide some other, beneficial, side effects to my overall well being, fine. I could care less. In fact, every time I decide to run, I remember that guy who wrote all those running-is-healthy books who keeled over dead while on a jog one day. I try not to do that. Keel over dead, that is.

  Golf courses, not coincidentally, are ideal places to jog, especially early in the morning before anyone else is awake. As I started off down the cart path on one of the fairways, the air was fresh and cool in the soft pink light of dawn. Dew hung heavily on the carpets of green, broken only by the tiny-footed tracks of some nocturnal animals who had scurried across the fairways even earlier than me. I ran down two holes, keeping to the asphalt paths and, after working through the painful bits, settled into a second-wind, steady pace. To get there, I run in cadence with my breathing: two steps per inhale, two steps per exhale. Once you hit that point, your mind is freed from the constant signals to cut this crap out and stop!

  I held that pace, admiring the world around me which was beginning to awaken to the new day. Fat mullet flopped out of the ponds I passed, making loud splashes as they fell back into the dark water. Long-legged egrets stood regally in the shallows, waiting patiently for a bold minnow to swim too close and become breakfast. The sun suddenly exploded over the line of windbreak pines to the east in a blazing ball of orange and I felt a warm sweat break out on my arms and shoulders.

  Ten minutes later I was way out on the fringe of the Doral property. I had lost track of which hole or even what color course I was on. I spied the figure of a man fishing in one of the retention lakes and jogged over in his direction. As I drew near, I made out the stocky figure of Harold Stilwell, dressed in denim overalls and a fisherman’s vest, dotted with all manner of lures and flies. His tackle box was propped open at the base of a nearby tree and Stillwell was casting a plug out into the lagoon with practiced flips of his thick, beefy wrists.

  “Morning,” I called out in a wheezy gasp. “Catching anything?”

  He grunted at me, staring at the water as he reeled in his line in short, furious bursts, pausing between each burst to twitch the line with his fingers. I watched. Finally, he sighed and reeled his line up and out of the water.

  “They’re dickin’ with me,” he said, turning to me. “There’s a big ole bass out here that I caught last year. I sent him back to grow. I know it’s the same one, ’cause last year it was the same deal. He spent three days in a row nibblin’ at it, spittin’ it out n’ dickin’ with me. Fourth day, finally, the sucker hit it and I got ’im. I laughed in his fool face and sent him back to grow some.”

  He ran the hook end of his lure through one of the metal eyelets in his rod and reeled the line tight. He bent over and closed the lid of his tackle box, then stood up and looked at me.

  “You’re that Hacker feller, right?” he asked, looking at me straight in the eye. I nodded. He looked thoughtful. “Gave Wynnona a big-time hissy fit,” he said. “Had coffee yet?” I shook my head. He gave me a “follow me” wave and turned.

  I followed him around the lake and into a thicket of pines on the other side. In a shady clearing stood a huge motor home, sleek and powerful-looking. VISTACRUISER 98 it said on the outside. The machine was in full camping mode: foldaway steps leading to the side entrance door, canvas awning over the door, aluminum table and folding chairs set up outside. I caught the scent of fresh-brewed coffee drifting in the air.

  I laughed out loud. “Wynnona Stilwell lives here?” I asked, unbelieving. “Camping out? Don’t the chiggers mess up her swing?”

  Stilwell grunted. “Hell, no, you damn fool. She’s got that fancy-ass hotel suite she stays in. Me? I can’t sleep in those places. Hate air conditioning and I don’t like a place where you can’t open the goldurn windows. Naw, Wynnona stays up there. Closer to the golf course and all that other stuff she has to do. Me…I like it better out here. More peace and quiet.”

  “Do you do this at every tournament?” I wondered.

  “Well, Wynnona makes sure they find me a good place,” he said. “Some places are better’n others. Sometimes I just get a place in the parking lot next to Wyn’s hotel, but then I start to feel like a freak at the circus, everyone starin’ at me. I like it better out in the open, where I can kick off my shoes. How do you take your coffee?”

  I told him black and he disappeared inside the camper, returning shortly carrying two steaming mugs of joe. The orange ball of sun had begun its work of the day, raising the heat and humidity to uncomfortable levels. But here in Stilwell’s glen, the shade of the trees retained a bit of t
he morning’s cool comfort.

  “Does Wyn ride with you in this thing between tournaments?” was my next question. I was having trouble picturing Big Wyn as the RV sort.

  “When she can, when she can,” Harold said, settling down into his lounge chair. “There are times when she just needs to get away from it all, so we crank this baby up and head for the nearest nowhere we can find. Do some fishing, listen to the crickets, admire the view…that kinda stuff. Helps get her head back on straight, I think,” he said.

  “How long have you two been married?”

  “Oh, hell, more years than I care to remember,” Harold said, laughing a bit. “I owned this little garage outside of Evanston, Indiana, and one fine summer’s day here she comes, a smokin’ and a coughin’. Like most women, she never bothered much with checkin’ on a car’s oil. Just kept pumping gas into her until she finally seized up.

  “She was heading for a tournament, but in the time it took me to fix up her car, we got to talking.’” Stilwell paused and sipped some coffee, then stared down pensively into the blackness of his cup, as if he could see the events of that long-ago day, the bright cornflower blue of an Indiana summer sky appearing in its inky depths.

  “She come back after her tournament, which she won, by the way,” he grinned over at me, a lopsided, old man’s grin. “One thing led to another, and here we are.”

  “Sounds like a whirlwind romance,” I said. “And it sounds like you give her something she needs.”

  He nodded at me. “That’s what marriage is all about,” he said. “I’m her backstopper. She’s always been a house afire. Never sits still, always something else to do. But from time to time she needs someone to listen to her bitchin’ and moanin’ or to have someone she can just kick around and know it don’t mean nuthin’, or just someone who tells her it’s all OK. That’s my job.”

  He said this with just a hint of something deeper behind it. Pain? Anger? Heavy-heartedness? I almost held my tongue, but didn’t.

  “Do you like that job?” I asked.

  He harrumphed, and waved my question away as though it were a bothersome mosquito.

  “She’s a wonderful woman, deep down,” he said. “And it’s been a wonderful life. Sure as hell better’n spending forty years cleanin’ the bugs off the Widow Feeney’s Chevy.”

  I sipped my coffee. The insects in the glade began a buzzing sound that ebbed and flowed in atonal harmony.

  “How much do you get involved in her LPGA stuff?” I asked.

  “Not a whit and thanks to the Good Lord,” Harold said vehemently. “All that jawin’ and talkin’ and meetings and such is all her doin’ and she’s welcome to it all. I’m a simple man, Hacker, and I’m getting to be an old man and I like my peace and quiet.”

  “Somehow, I can’t quite see being married to Big Wyn Stilwell and being able to find any peace and quiet,” I laughed.

  “Meanin’ what, pard?” he asked, and I noted the undercurrent of malice in his tone. I held up my hand in peace.

  “Nothing, Harold,” I said. “Just that what I see of Big Wyn is a woman in constant motion, juggling seven things at once and always surrounded by a gaggle of people who want something from her. You know…Casey and Julie and Bergmeister.”

  “Ass-kissers, every one,” he snorted derisively. “Bunch a damn ass-kissing parasites, you ask me. That Benton fella’s pretty nice, though he drinks too much. He also takes more shit than a country outhouse.” He stirred in his chair and drained the last of his coffee.

  “But I’ll tell ya something, Hacker,” he said, shaking a finger at me wisely. “I been out here with Wynnona for nearly twenty years now, and I seen ‘em come and seen ‘em go. And they all go, sooner or later. Whenever they start lording their fancy asses over this lil ole country boy, I think about that. They might believe they are the cock of the walk, but I know better. Sooner or later, they’re history.”

  He was getting pretty wound up, and I was planning on waiting for more. But just then, a dark green pickup truck pulled into the glade. The driver blew his horn in greeting and jumped out. Painted on the side of the truck were the words DORAL HOTEL AND CC MAINTENANCE. The driver wore neat green overalls and a broad-billed baseball cap.

  “Howdy, Hal!” he hollered. “Ready to tackle that mower engine?”

  “Soon enough, soon enough,” Stilwell muttered and disappeared inside his camper again. He brought out another mug of coffee and introduced me to Charley Dillon.

  “Charley’s probably the best mechanic in South Florida,” Stilwell told me.

  “But I don’t know half of what you’ve already forgot about engines, Hal,” Charley said, gulping down his coffee. He looked at me. “Man is a goddam mechanical wizard.”

  “Ah,” I said, “So you still hang around the maintenance shed, eh? Old mechanics never die, right?”

  “Hellfire, man,” Dillon piped up. “I save up the tough stuff for when I know Hal’s gonna be in town. He can get anything motorized humming in nothing flat!”

  I laughed and finished my coffee. Stilwell took our cups inside, then locked up the camper and climbed into the pickup with Charley. I waved as they drove away and headed back for the hotel, this time at the slowest pace possible.

  Big Wyn and the Backstop. It sounded like the name of a rock group. Relationships come in many varied shapes and colors, I knew, but this one was very strange. Harold was married to Big Wyn, and Big Wyn was married to her job. I couldn’t help hearing something of a discordant note when he had talked about his marital “job.” I wondered what Harold Stilwell got in return. I wondered if he ever wondered. Wynnona got the freedom to pursue her career and the comfort of having someone to backstop her when times were tough. But who would backstop Harold? How much backstopping was required for a woman as manipulative as Wynnona Stilwell? Did Harold even know about that part of Wyn’s life, or was he happily in the dark, out fishing in his lakes and camping under the stars? Did he put his thick, beefy arms around her and say “There, there Wyn, it’s OK to step on people’s toes and ruin their lives.”?

  And what about Big Wyn’s adventurous sex life? How did Harold Stilwell relate to that? Did he know about it? Did he push it aside because, as he said, he knew that one day they would be history and he’d still be there, by Wyn’s side? Or did he just stay in his homey little camper and keep his eyes shut?

  It seemed to me that the Wynnona-Harold marriage was one heavily tilted to her side. No surprise there. I began to understand why Harold Stilwell enjoyed camping out, far away from the sound and fury that must be part of a life with Big Wyn. He got his peace and quiet, along with a ration of loneliness, in return for escaping from the rest of the harsh realities of life with Wynnona. I felt sorry for and admired Stilwell at the same time. Not too many of us would have the bullshit quotient he did. If he could deal with the weight of the circumstances of his peculiar life with Big Wyn and still find some measure of happiness, that was admirable. I couldn’t do it, and I don’t know too many who could.

  Well, I thought as I came into view of the hotel, different strokes for different folks. I laughed at my own pun, taken sexually. Then I began to think of Big Wyn in a sexual situation. That’s when I realized I was probably suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, or something even more serious, and decided exercise time was over, and breakfast time was nigh.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After breakfast I cabbed back over to the hospital. Honie was sitting up in bed, holding an ice pack to her temple. Her eyes were darkly shadowed and she didn’t look like she was having a great time.

  “Hi gorgeous,” I said cheerfully. “Wanna dance?”

  She looked at me with eyes of the damned. “Fuck. Off,” she enunciated each word clearly. “I want to die.”

  “Not feeling so hot, huh?”

  “Everything I own hurts, plus a few spare parts I didn’t even know I had,” she said mournfully, and shifted her ice pack to her other temple. A nurse
came in, checked her chart, hovered briefly over her bed and then disappeared.

  “Christ,” Honie said. “There’s the pro-am today and I had about seven zillion things to do. And I was supposed to set up some interviews for next week in Sarasota and …”

  “Whoa, girlfriend,” I soothed. “Relax, sit back…You aren’t going anywhere. You almost got yourself killed last night, so don’t worry about bravely carrying on. Isn’t there someone else who can do all that stuff?”

  “Yeah,” Honie admitted, trying to find a comfortable position in bed. “My boss Karla is flying in from Houston this morning. I guess she can handle any emergencies.”

  “There,” I said. “You see? Now tell me about last night. Do you remember anything? Like who it was that beat the tar out of you?”

  She groaned. “Not you, too,” she moaned. “That hotel guy and the police were in here at the crack of dawn asking me all kinds of questions six different ways.”

  “And …?”

  “I don’t remember a thing,” she said sadly. “I remember walking back toward the hotel and thinking how pretty that fountain looked in the pink twilight. Next thing I know, I wake up here with my head about to burst. Oww.”

  She had shifted position again, and it made her wince. I reached over and squeezed her hand.

  “What were you doing before it happened?” I asked.

  She lay back and closed her eyes. “I had been meeting with Julie Warren in the players’ lounge,” she said, her voice tired. “She was giving me a hard time, so I was glad to finally get out of there.”

  “Hard time about what? You don’t work for her, do you?”

  She cracked one eye open and looked at me.

  “Like I told you, she’s on the players’ council and is one of Wyn’s ‘mafia,’” she said. “So that means I do report to her, in a roundabout way. I mean, I’m supposed to report to Karla, who reports to Benton who reports to Big Wyn and the Players’ Council. But it’s more like having the board of directors around all the time. All the players are supposedly equal, but some are more equal than others. So I have to suck up to them all.”