

Minimum

Opus

Short Stories

Red Wassenich

Copyright 2018 by Red Wassenich

Smashwords edition

This book is available in ebook or print editions.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

The author may be contacted at redwassenich@gmail.com

These stories were written over the past thirty years. They are in alphabetical order, except for the final section, Back Nine Stories, which is explained there.

Also by the author:

Keep Austin Weird: A Guide to the Odd Side of Town

Nothing Before Something: A Novel

Keeping Austin Weird: A Guide to the (Still) Odd Side of Town

## To Karen, fortunately, a long story

# Contents

Customer Satisfaction

Dealphabetization

Kinship

The Long, Cold Shower

Semidetached

Success

Back Nine Stories

Paul B Has a Plan

The Unisex Championship

Mind Game

Miracle Off 38th Street

Spikes of Clay

T'was Tee Time at the Circus

Luck

About the Author

# Customer Satisfaction

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this Mr. Ralph Tra—"

"How many times did the phone ring before I answered?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe six."

"Really? That many? I was dreaming and—"

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry I woke you up. But I wanted to tell you that you've won—"

"Don't apologize. I was having this fascinating dream, and you're waking me up let me remember it. In it I was—"

"This is Mr. Ralph Trataphoge?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, Mr. Trataphoge, my name is Brad Cranfill, and I'm happy to tell you that your name has been selected as one of our grand prize winners—"

"You're one of the few people who has pronounced my name correctly the first time. I mean my last name, of course. Ha ha."

"Well, actually I went to school with someone with that name. But to the business at hand. As one of our grand pr—"

"What was his or her first name?"

"What? Oh, uh, it was Trina, I think. Yes, Trina. She was a cheerleader. Boy, I hadn't thought of her in a . . . but, Mr. Trataphoge, I think you'll be overjoyed to hear that—"

"Was this in Illinois by any chance?"

"Um, no, Mr. Trataphoge. It was not. It was in Alaska, actually."

"Alaska! Gad, I'll have to add that to my list. Alaska! I'll be darned. I've heard of Trataphoges in every state in the Midwest, except Illinois. You'll notice I say 'Illinois' without pronouncing the 's.' I read in L.M. Boyd that that's technically the way to say it, although I grew up pronouncing the 's.' Not many people do, about ten percent, I calculate. It's from an Indian word meaning 'man.' But don't ask me which tribe—"

"Mr. Trataphoge, please. If you'll just let me finish. Our computers here at Bartola Enterprises have selected your name out of thousands of others to win one of our fabulous grand prizes: a brand new microwave oven! And to pick it up, we'll take you and a guest out to our -new lakeside development, Pine Mecca, for a fun-filled weekend! How does that sound, Mr. Trataphoge?"

"Uh, well, Mr. Cranfill, what if I don't have anybody to—you know—take along? Do I still win?"

• • •

On advice from Brad Cranfill, the driver who picked up Ralph Trataphoge pretended to be deaf.

Ralph, ready for any eventuality, sat in the backseat, opened his massive backpack, and pulled out his Walkman. For the next two hours, he played Norwegian language tapes, repeating in the overly loud voice that people wearing headphones use, the banal phrases that form the backbone of everyday language. He unconsciously twirled his handlebar moustache and his nose hairs and his ear hairs.

The car turned off the interstate at the Pine Mecca billboard (which showed a thirty-foot long carved beaver wearing an Arab headdress amidst an elaborately painted forest). The development was named and the sign christened one week before 9-11. The developer couldn't bear to tear down the $75,000 sign and change all the stationary, website, employee shirts, and related stuff, so he announced he was keeping the name as an act of defiance. Along with many other factors, it hadn't gone well, as the many bullet holes in the sign showed.

What Ralph liked most about nature were those aspects for which he knew the Latin names, and he began to loudly rattle off the passing foliage, inexplicably to the tune of "Camptown Races."

Catalpa bignoides, doo-da, doo-da,

Cnidoscolus texanus, all the doo-da day.

Sabatia campestris, Cleome houtteana,

Utricularia inflate,

Polygala ramosa.

The driver headed down the increasingly narrow road at increasing speed. Soon they came to the entrance gate to the resort. It was an elaborate construction of limestone with pine logs embedded spelling out "Welcome to Mecca!"

The first two hundred yards were nicely paved and lined with tall pine, dogwood, and azalea, but after a sharp turn, the road became a two-rut red-clay backroad. Scrubby hackberry trees and spindly pines competed with bogs of poison ivy. A smoldering pile of deadfall was being tended by a sullen throwback who leaned against his idling bulldozer and flicked his cigar butt at Ralph's passing car.

But Ralph didn't see, having just noticed his shirt was misbuttoned by a factor of two. He undid it and then decided to change clothes. Before he had left, he thought for quite a while about what to wear. Since he was a grand prize winner, there might be photographers who would get his picture while a pretty girl kissed him, so perhaps his dark brown suit was the correct dress. But, after, all it was a vacation resort, so maybe a short-sleeved white shirt with a turtleneck dickey and Bermuda shorts would set the right tone. He had decided on the suit but now felt the latter ensemble would be better. The driver recoiled at the blinding white of Ralph's none-too-solid flesh, which filled his rear-view mirror. Ralph donned the dickey quickly, then the shirt. But he made the mistake of trying to take off his trousers without first removing his shoes, large brogans. Though made of stretchable material, his pants became firmly lodged around his ankles. He rolled around on the backseat, frantically tugging at his pants, then trying to remove his shoes, bellowing like a walrus.

So involved was Ralph that he didn't notice that the car had stopped, that Brad Cranfill had opened the door, or that a group of sniggering workmen had gathered. Cranfill stared into the car, his nightmare vision from the phone conversation come to life. It was tempting to just slam the door and tell the driver to leave, but he shooed away the workers and leaned into the car. "Mr. Trataphoge! Please calm down. Let me help you." Cranfill grabbed one of Ralph's pant legs and leaned back. Slowly the fabric eased over the shoe, like an arthritic stripper's last performance. "Here, let's go inside where you can finish, uh, dressing in privacy."

Ralph, still with his pants wadded around one ankle, wearing briefs that sported a varied pattern of yellow and brown, peeked out of the car and surveyed the parking lot. He looked at Cranfill. "No pretty girls?"

"No, I'm afraid not," said Cranfill, speaking as one would to a mental patient. He grabbed Ralph's bulging backpack and led his new customer gently by the elbow into one of the model condominiums. "This is where you be staying tonight, so why don't you relax for a while and I'll soon be back to show you around. OK?"

Ralph, still breathing hard from his struggle, nodded dumbly.

• • •

Cranfill sat staring at his reflection in a cup of coffee. He jabbed a plastic stirrer directly between his own eyes. "Of all the damned luck! I would have to get a deranged fat-ass who can't even dress himself. How am I sup—"

"That, Cranfill, is exactly what I've been telling you," interrupted his boss, Spanky Bartola. "If you are ever going to make it as a salesman—and I'm seriously beginning to think you are not—you have to see this kind of person as a blessing. You think it's easier to get a totally normal person to buy a time-share condo? Do you even know what 'normal' means these days? Skeptical, cynical, jaded." Bartola accented each of those words with a stab of increasing power into Cranfill's chest.

Cranfill started to tell his boss that Pine Mecca was just the sort of place that made people feel that way, but he thought of his new Firebird, his new golf clubs, his child support payments. "Yes, sir, Mr. Bartola. You're right, of course. Well, I'd better go fetch him."

Cranfill's knock on the door was answered with a bellowed hello. He entered cautiously, expecting an awkward scene following Ralph's inauspicious arrival. However, his guest was standing on the dining room table, reaching for a moth that was dodging in and out of the facsimile Tiffany chandelier.

"Charaxes verea, no less!" Ralph announced loudly. "Here, give me a hand."

"Careful, Mr. Trataphoge." Cranfill picked up a sales brochure from the table, climbed on a chair, and began swatting at the insect.

"Good lord, man!" screamed Ralph. "I'm attempting to capture it, not exterminate it."

"Sorry, sorry. Here, let me herd it toward you. There! You got it! Well done." Cranfill helped his guest down. Ralph carefully unfolded his hands to reveal a handsome brown and gold specimen, which slowly opened and closed its wings. Ralph opened the door and gently threw his hands up. The moth fluttered off.

Cranfill followed its flight for a moment, then pounded Ralph on the back. "A nature lover, eh? Well, my friend, you have found the right spot in Pine Mecca. We've got more kinds of nature than you can shake a stick at. Let me show you around. First and foremost, these magnificent pines—"

"This area was a landfill until fifteen years ago. Did you know that, Mr. Cranfill? By gosh that rhymes—landfill and Cranfill. Is that an English name?"

Cranfill stared off, searching, perhaps, for the moth. His eyes rested on his shiny black Firebird. "Yes, I think so, Ralph." Unsuccessfully trying to get his voice to rise above a tired monotone, Cranfill asked, "What sort of name is Trataphoge?"

"Melting pot, I've come to decide. I've done vast amounts of genealogical research—that, actually is my primary avocation—and I am convinced my forebears were Italo-Balkan, but I've yet to find the smoking gun--or should I say 'smoking gene?' Hardy peasant stock, it seems. The plurality ended up in the grain trade in our nation's breadbasket, the others became banausic toilers in various blue-collar pursuits, and there is a small but persistent criminal element. I believe myself to be the first Trataphoge to attain a bachelor's degree since our arrival on these hallowed shores."

"Over here you'll find our tennis courts and sauna, which you're welcome to use dur—"

"That's why I was dumbfounded to hear of your Alaskan Trataphoge. Which of the currents that sweep across our mighty land floated that fair lass to Alaska?"

"She was a fair lass, all right. Ever since you and I talked on the phone, I've thought about her all the time. Hell, I even dug out my high school yearbook from under fifteen years of dust to look at her picture. A lot of those girls I thought were cute back then looked terrible, but not Trina. I hate to admit it, but I've spent too much time the last couple of days on Facebook and Instagram looking for her. No luck. Probably got married and changed her name."

The two of them stared into the rusty water of the fountain that bubbled next to the sauna room. Cranfill sighed and shook off his vacant stare. "Ralph, check out this sauna. If you've never used one before—" The door creaked open, freeing a reek that managed to combine locker room and abandoned sauerkraut. Something with many green legs scuttled into the shadows. "Oops! Looks like the cleaning folks missed this." He slammed the door, laughing mechanically and heartily, stealing a sidelong glance at Ralph. No emotion was evident; he seemed to be mumbling numerical calculations. "Well, Ralphie, let's go see Indian Lake."

As they walked, Ralph posited several possibilities on which Indians might have occupied the area. Many interesting facts on the etymology of tribal names were forthcoming. Ralph repeated his struggles with changing the way he pronounced "Illinois."

The path led past several incomplete condominiums. It was difficult to tell if they were being built or falling apart. The two men came to a boat dock for a 100-foot-wide pond. A dented johnboat and a canoe with three inches of algae in the bottom were tethered there, but the ropes were unnecessary—neither looked fit enough to escape the duck weed that lined the shore like a bathtub ring. A bird ("Ceryle guttata!") dove into the pond, coming up with a spent condom. Cranfill, with labored exuberance, tried to skip a stone, but the bilge swallowed it on first contact.

Cranfill slumped. He spat into the pond. "Look, Ralph, I give up. This suckhole hasn't got anything going for it. We've only sold two condos, and those people are trying to get their money back. Just take your crappy little microwave and leave. Let's forget it."

"I like it here, Brad. I'll take one."

Silence ensued, marred only by the distant chattering of chainsaws. "You will? I guess I'm a bit surprised. Everything hasn't exactly worked out since you got here."

"Ah, Brad, it's so magnificently bland here. It's perfect. Most fools make the mistake of seeking excitement on their precious vacations, thus exacerbating rather than ameliorating their stress. I've actually written a pamphlet on the phenomenon. But here, what is there to detract from the unadulterated banality? Nothing! It's meditative by its very nature."

Cranfill explored Ralph's eyes for signs of sarcasm or legal insanity. He saw the calm of a visionary. The idea grew in his salesman brain. It was a modern-day goldmine: an untapped demographic niche.

"My boss is going to love this!" He grabbed Ralph's hand and dragged him toward Spanky Bartola's office.

And so was born the wildly successful chain of spartan time-sharing monasteries known as Bartola's Nirvana.

The bodies of Brad Cranfill and Ralph Trataphoge were never found.

# Dealphabetization

## By Red Wassenic

Imagine the English language being able to eliminate over 11.5 percent of the alphabet without any unsightly loss of vocabulary. It can happen now with my three simple changes. The letters k, q, and x are not needed! With only minor changes, we dump these picturesc but unneeded symbols. In fact, the "changes" are merely an adoption of a consistent approach to how we already deal with the usual pronunciation of these letters. Painless gain.

I recently was driving to a friend's house and for the umpteenth time was annoyed by passing a "banc." This tics me off every time I see it. The reec of phony urbanity seemed to embody my hipster town's desire to being a shiny metropolis. But this one time the logic behind the spelling broce through. A sudden insight: We do not need the letter k.

When I got to my friend's house I ecsitedly told him of my realization. He was sceptical, being the sientific type. But he could not come up with a violation of substituting a c for any k. The only adaptations necessary are to consistently use the hard c (cat, cobra, coma), ecsept when it is used in combination with h (church, chow, churlish). Sch become simply sc (scizophrenia). We do away with the soft c (cinnamon, cipher, city), substituting the perfectly capable s for the c (sinnamon, sipher, sity).

In fact, this makes the maces the language much more logical, a fact we should applaud as a further step in having English become the global tongue, which of course would obviate the need for us to study other languages. Scools will save millions of dollars!

Tace the word circa. Within one five-letter word, c is pronounced in two very different ways. Why should we ecpect someone to have to memorize this when my new rules would logificate the whole approach? It should be spelled sirca. Back becomes bac, king becomes cing, kiss will become the more sensuous ciss.

Language being inconsistent, there are inevitably a few maveric words that don't follow normal "rules" anyway and which will have to be altered on an ad hoc basis: conscious will become conschious, psychology becomes psycology, for examples.

Sure, it takes a little getting used to it, but the logic is so powerful as to become a moral force.

I was preaching this to a small congregation gathered at my neighbor's house when they began speaking in tongues and suggesting other letters we could sacrifise. Q and x, we agreed, are also unnesessary. The codification of c as always having the hard k sound eliminates the need for q. Queen becomes cueen. Acquaint becomes acuaint. X, already stuc with a lame-duc cuality, is easy picings. The now-powerful c takes up much of x's worc (ecsess, nocious). Those handful of sideshow words that actually begin with x (xenophobe, xylophone, et setera.) will be mopped up with z. When you go to the doctor in the future, you might get an ecs-ray.

In a flush of ecsitement, we thought y was also ecspendable, but unlice x, y's use as a beginning letter renders it necessary (yard, yawn). Technically minded linguists may argue that this initial y could be substituted with ie, or some such, but to me, this is forsing the matter; the changes discussed above are readily understandable, whereas seing ieap and saying yap is too different. The old ways are the best ways sometimes.

I am reluctant to bring in a personal matter here, but an insident I ecsperienced at home pointed out a factor that must be dealt with in my proposal. My wife, Karen Pavelka, hit me in the stomach when I insisted that her name, too, would have to change. Caren Pavelca looks cind of nise to me, but we must ceep in mind that emotions and pure logic will always butt heads.

The alphabet is something we thinc of as immutable and reassuring. We all have our favorite letters, and all three of the now doomed letters—k, q, x—are among the most graphically interesting. So many plases to hang a tiny hat. But looc at Sanskrit if you want to see beautiful letters.

Just thinc of the advantages of eliminating three entire letters! Beyond the above-mentioned educational cost savings, this reform almost assures the universal adoption of English. And our computers will automatically have more memory. Typewriters will have goofy, gap-toothed smiles. People who sew monograms will be able to spend more time with their families. Everything will be OC.

#

# Kinship

To show you how dim-witted I'd gotten, I was standing at the bus station gate when it dawned on me for the first time—I hate to admit this—that I had no idea what my daughter would look like. In front of the handful of other people waiting, I dug through a trash can, but the only thing in it was a half-drunk styrofoam cup of Dairy Queen sludge. I poured it out, cut the cup down the side with my knife and wrote her name, Claudette, on it to hold up. I hadn't seen her since my wife threw me out fifteen years ago, when Claudette was five and I was twenty-four, and my latest girlfriend was about halfway between.

Fort Worth had been getting too big for my tastes anyway, so I'd settled down in Snodgrass, Texas, and started leading an honest life of catting around.

Anyway, I got a letter from Claudette a month ago saying she'd finally— after about a dozen years of trying— got her mom to give her my name and address and she really wanted to meet me. Could she come visit? It got to me more than I expected. I guess you can file things away so deep you think you forgot them, but, boy, when they pop out in the open, they can torque your gourd. I had to borrow some of the money, but I sent her a Greyhound ticket and bought myself new boots.

She wrote back a really sweet letter of thanks, saying she had to wait three more weeks till the university semester finished. She said she was taking classes in "Mythology of the Future," "Cross-Cultural Archetypes," Calculus, and Bowling. This took me aback a little. No one in my family had even wanted to go to college, much less take classes like those first two (whatever they were), and taking bowling in college sounded so stupid I had to vow to myself not to make fun of her. I have to admit I was scared she'd be either so much smarter than me or such a priss that I'd hate her.

So I was about as calm as a cat on coffee and feeling like a real jerk, standing at the bus station in my brand-new boots, holding up a ripped-up dripping piece of styrofoam. As it turns out I would have recognized her anyway. She looked quite a bit like I did at twenty, especially the short haircut. It was exactly the same one I had at that age.

• • •

I got us another beer, and we sat in silence for a while on my front porch. A dog walked down the sidewalk and nodded to us, which made Claudette chuckle. I told her I'd known that dog for ten years.

We'd been fencing around in our conversation—me trying to sound smart, her trying to sound country. But the third beer loosened us to normal.

"I have to admit, darling, some of those college classes you mentioned sounded pretty, uh . . . "

"Pretentious? Stupid? Both the mythology and archetypes courses were really down-to-earth. Don't you snort like that! Look, don't you think humans, no matter if they're Ubangis or rednecks here in Snodgrass, have more in common than they have differences? I mean, don't we do the same things with our time? We gather food by going to the supermarket; they do it by hunting with spears, or whatever. Fundamentally, it's the same. Jackals in Asia, wolves in Russia, coyotes in Texas howl and strut just alike. They just look a little different and have different names. And humans are animals, make no mistake about it."

"And these folks in Africa go bowling too, I suppose?"

"Actually there is a game among some of the Central African tribes that's pretty similar."

We drifted off into me telling her about what I'd been doing since I left, leaving out the parts about my lady friends. She seemed like a combination a of kid listening to her dad blabber and an adult stranger asking the normal sort of questions. Somehow it all made me feel like a father, something I hadn't felt in a long time. I felt pride in how she'd turned out—smart, feisty, and even the way she looked—which I hadn't liked at first, a little too modern and sharp edges—seemed okay. I knew I couldn't take any credit for this, but I still felt it.

"Honey, it just dawned on me you haven't called me anything. Don't worry, you don't have to call me daddy or nothing. Doyle's okay."

"Well, Doyle, you want to go bowling?"

• • •

Snodgrass, Texas, has one bowling alley, a private one of which I am the treasurer, owing to my position as a meter reader and resulting skill with numbers. It is a 100-year-old remnant of Snodgrass's German heritage. There are only four lanes and it doesn't have any hot air hand dryers, but the boards are true and there's a cafe part open to the public where the drinks are cheap. I introduced Claudette to the folks there and brought up the fact that she'd taken advanced college work in bowling.

I beat her three games to two. She had a mean hook that would teeter on the edge of the gutter then break back into the pocket real sharp. Between games we'd go sit in the cafe part of the bowling alley and have a beer. We had good talks, combinations of pretty serious family stuff—sometimes she had hated me for leaving but had finally just accepted it—to stupid kidding around, which she was better at than most women. The main way men talk to each other is to heap shit on one another, and most women just get offended if you talk to them that way, but Claudette gave as good as she got.

A couple of hours after we got there, a really beautiful woman walked in by herself and ordered dinner. She was citified-looking but wore jeans and boots like they were native to her—a combination that I favor. After Claudette saw me staring over her shoulder several times, she swiveled around to see what I was so taken with. She stared at the woman for a while and nodded appreciatively.

"You've got better taste than I expected, Doyle. I figured you'd go more for the gum-snapping Dolly Parton bimbos. This one's more what I think looks good in a woman. How old do you figure she is? Thirty? About midway between you and me?"

"Yeah, she's about thirty, and I won't lie to you, she's the best-looking woman I've seen in a while. No offense, hon, but I wish I was here alone. There's a good band over at Pepino's. I would mind sliding around the floor with her. Damn."

"Don't let me cramp your style, go on ask her. I understand these urges, daddy. I can entertain myself."

Her saying "daddy" made me feel lower than hammered snake shit. I had really let my catting around go too far if I was rude enough to say I wished she weren't here after I hadn't seen her in fifteen years. I apologized but she said it wasn't rude, she was family, not some stranger. She insisted I ask the woman, but I declined.

We sat there without saying anything for a minute, then Claudette walked over to the woman and began talking. I couldn't believe it. The woman was confused at first but started laughing and looking over at me. I had one of the stupidest looks it's possible to have when the two of them came walking over.

The woman stuck out her hand. "Hi, I'm Ellen and I understand we're all going dancing."

All I could do was laugh and say sure.

Ellen wanted to take her own pickup to the club, so she followed Claudette and me. When I asked my daughter what she had said back at the bowling alley, she refused, saying she wasn't going to give up any of the techniques she'd perfected. I stared at her for about twice as long as it's safe not to look at the road.

"Daddy, I'll bet you a hundred dollars who gets in Ellen's pants tonight."

• • •

I'm not accusing Claudette of cheating, but the shock value she used made it hard for me to get going with Ellen at first. I was acting like a teenager, asking pissant questions about where she was from and hadn't they had a lot of rain there. Meanwhile, Claudette was touching Ellen's pearl shirt pocket snaps, saying how pretty they were, and telling her she must be an expert horse rider, she could tell by how strong-looking her thighs were. I was glad the club was dark, 'cause I knew there had to be at least a dozen people I knew lurking around.

I was kind of offended by my daughter's forwardness, and although Ellen seemed to be enjoying it, she did shoot me a couple of looks that I couldn't decipher. Was she wondering what this female (my daughter!) was up to or was she wondering why I wasn't making more of a move? All I could think to do was bide my time till the band came on and I could get her on the dance floor.

When the music finally did start, like lightning Claudette grabbed Ellen and commenced to guiding her around the club, doing a flashy two-step, her right thumb slung through Ellen's back belt loop, holding her close, then doing spins. Although women do dance together sometimes around here, which might surprise city folks, this couple had people staring. They were dancing fancy, Ellen was a looker, and now that I thought about it, Claudette did look kind of masculine in her jeans and boots and short hair. She was whispering to Ellen, who was giggling. A couple of times they looked over at me and waved. I could only get about half my face to smile back.

When they came back, all flushed and wiggly, I almost got up and left, but Ellen said, "Claudette tells me you like to dance yourself, Doyle. Let's give it a try."

We danced the next three songs, and the last one was extra slow so I got in some buckle polishing and some sweet talk that she seemed to take seriously. She said that Claudette had told her about this being the first time we'd been together in fifteen years and that she was real proud to have me for a father. I glanced over at Claudette, who was fanning herself with a hundred-dollar bill. If I thought about it very hard, this seemed like the weirdest night of my life, but I didn't try thinking very hard.

We went back to the table, and Ellen went off to get us some beers.

"Well, Claudette, I'm up three dances to one, and I definitely got to first base on that last song."

"I could tell right off you fancy yourself as some kind of stud, Doyle, but you don't seem to have too many tricks. Just the old stuff that's been around since Homo erectus. I'm sure it still works with some old-timers your age, but Ellen's ripe for some new ways of thinking. We're all animals, and which flavor doesn't matter so much anymore."

"Honey, I think I'm doing a reasonably good job of being open-minded about you, but I know when I spot a red-blooded female, and Ellen's a pedigree."

"Doyle, I know your type and I know Ellen's type, too. College really can teach you some things, as much as your type hates to believe that. Ellen's part of a new 'pedigree.' The old roles that both women and men can play have gone kablooey. Women have changed, cowboy. When she comes back, don't put your boot in your mouth."

"Excuse me, but I don't think you're one to tell other people what body parts they shouldn't put in their mouths."

We traded insults for a while, then laughed at a woman from the audience who took over the stage and slaughtered Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight." She got booed off and the band played a real good slow version of that same song. Claudette and I noticed Ellen at the same time, dancing with a fifty-year-old pipsqueak with a bald head and silver tips on his shirt collar.

"Goddamn," I said, "that's the son of a bitch that owns the Ford dealerships in Utley and Carlotta Springs and Salt Oak."

"Rich, huh?"

I just snorted. We watched them go sit down at his table and order a round. We stared, but she didn't look our way. After a while, they got up to dance again. I grabbed Claudette and we got on the floor. We maneuvered around till we were next to them.

"Look, dear," I said in a loud, shocked voice to Claudette, pointing at Ellen. "It's that woman." I turned to the Ford mogul and spoke in dignified rage. "Sir, I don't know how familiar you are with this, this pervert, but you should know that earlier this evening she made overtures toward my daughter here. I frankly was disgusted and am considering pressing charges. Come, darling, let's us leave."

We strode off the dance floor and out the front door. Before we drove off, we let the air out of the tires of Ellen's pickup and every Ford in the parking lot.

#

#

# The Long, Cold Shower

Mary was a problem. She and I had worked together at the Museum of Natural History for two years. We had basically the same job; our desks touched. She was smart, funny, tall. And for these very reasons, she was married. Over the past year, I had unsuccessfully fought a growing infatuation, one that had steadily consumed my thinking to the extent that I was unable to pursue any other romantic involvement.

We had struck up an immediate friendship, and for the first year, my conviction that married women were off-limits had kept things on an even keel. That's probably a major reason we hit it off: I wasn't seen as a predator. But I saw her all day, five days a week. My glands eventually vetoed my morality to the extent I had to admit my predicament to myself. But I was a good enough actor to pull off the friend role—though I came to find it difficult to believe she couldn't sense my intent somewhat. But I wasn't smart enough to minimize our contact. I was too entranced not to seek her out. The future looked to be a purgatory—an unobtainable heaven and a hellish reality. As I said, Mary was a problem.

The two previous days had been perhaps the worst. I seemed to be staring in the monster's face without letup.

My infatuation had become a frequent topic of conversation among the small group of friends to whom I had an exposed my emotions. Their reactions to my situation became the way I judged them. At a get-together two nights before, one friend had slathered me with oily concern. One thought I was purposely exaggerating it just to be a romantic. Another was too worried about my mental health and offered me the name of a good psychiatrist. I knew I was in deep, but that offended me.

One newcomer hadn't heard the origins of my torture, and I told the story I would have been thinking about anyway . . .

The museum's Christmas party a year before had been spectacular. A thousand employees gathered on a Friday night in the Hall of Ocean Life, a gymnasium-sized room lined with dioramas of stuffed dolphins leaping eternally out of constantly breaking waves, a murky squid enveloping a giant clam, a polar bear sitting on a plaster iceberg forever eating a salmon. Above it all hung a life-sized ninety-foot long blue whale, suspended from the ceiling. Champagne appeared unheralded from a dozen sources. A band played old songs. I danced a half-dozen times with Mary, who was in her cups even more than I. A stroll around the museum to clear our heads was suggested.

We paused on the mezzanine overlooking the party, eye level with the largest living whale. She steadied herself on my arm and pointed.

"Do you see the blowhole? There, go straight up from the pectoral fin. Got it? Well, you know those stupid rubber sharks they sell in the gift shop? A couple of years ago someone—a schoolboy out to impress his buddies, I'm sure—threw one of those sharks up there and it landed right next to the blowhole. Totally ruined the effect. You couldn't look at this incredible thing without focusing on the damned shark. It was there for a week. The first time they tried to get it down, the ladder was too short, and they ended up knocking some paint off the whale's side. Finally, old Mr. Peavy, that guard who's been here forever, brought in his fly-casting rod. He stood right where we are and got it on the second try." She cast a few imaginary flies.

We walked out into the darkened museum. The beady glass eyes of taxidermed creatures from the world over followed our staggering, laughing progress. We came to the Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaur hall. The dim light cast a maze of skeletal shadows everywhere. The giant skull of the Tyrannosaur, twenty feet above us. He seemed to be smiling, Mary said. I told her I shared his happiness and how much I had enjoyed working with her the past year. She said the same. She wished me a merry Christmas kissed me softly but at some length on my mouth. We headed back for more champagne . . .

My friends were sombered by my tale. They waited a respectful amount of time, chatting about nothing, before leaving.

• • •

With their damned sympathy on my mind the next day, I was asked by Mary to join her and a group from Invertebrate Paleontology for lunch. As the pack walked the two blocks to the restaurant, I maneuvered like an experienced thoroughbred among them, positioning myself for the crucial seating arrangement. With the quickness of a nailbiter, I snapped into the chair opposite her. I much preferred that to sitting next to her. Although the occasion elbow parry and shoulder friction were treasured, the direct look into her face was my desire. I had studied this.

The table talk turned swiftly to a TV awards extravaganza from the night before that everyone but me seemed to have watched and thought about to a bizarre extent. I never quite caught the emcee's name—something like Carryl Chessman—who all agreed was going to be a star. I'd noticed a recurring phenomenon lately: wildly successful TV series or music groups that I had never heard of. It made me feel old and distant. The current mess with Mary made me feel old and immature. Aren't these boiling-over infatuations supposed to go away about the time your skin clears up? This horrid, hopeless, fumbling attempted courtship that ricocheted from edgy happiness to self-loathing moroseness? The TV table talk persisted. Mary said little and seemed distracted. Out of boredom I had arranged the astrology sugar packets into the zodiac. Mary noticed and smiled.

• • •

At this same time, the day before—the night after that vapid lunch—I'd as soon been drinking Drano. But now, in the reflection behind the bottles, I saw Mary and me taking seats at a bar. As we were leaving the office, she, for the first time ever, had asked the question I had posed a dozen times before with rare success: "Would you like to go for a drink?"

On the brief walk to the bar, Mary said the cold reminded her of the upcoming museum Christmas party. God, had it really been almost a year since that kiss among the dinosaurs? It seemed like sixty million years and like yesterday. I said I could hardly wait.

She ordered Irish whiskey. I was suddenly paralyzed with indecision. After a full fifteen seconds, I inexplicably ordered a Mai-Tai. Mary gave me a look. We were dangerously quiet waiting for the drinks. Mary downed half of hers at once and spoke in a rush of relief. "You're actually the first person I'm telling this to, but I really need to talk to someone. I'm leaving my husband."

"Oh?"

She was clearly upset but no tears. Lots of deep chest-heaving sighs and clenched jaw ripples, horribly appealing. She recited one of the standard menus of dissolution—she was paying his way to be a sloth, the only time they seemed to communicate was during arguments.

I was exultant in her misery. As I nodded in woeful sympathy, I swizzled my awful drink, my wrenched and wretched brain fancying me as the smirking cad. Yet another man left choking on my dust.

"I hadn't seen this coming," I said.

"I guess I'm a good enough actress. And really, I'm sure you don't know it, but you've been a big help. You're always so jolly around the office and at lunch. It's kept me from getting too morbid. Thanks." She squeezed my hand and headed for the restroom.

I must have had an extraordinary look on my face as I watched her walk away, because when I turned to my drink, the bartender was looking at me with amusement. "Whatever it is, pal, good luck."

It was the variety of emotions that washed and dribbled and zapped through me that I most remember. Joy that the forbidden was now available. Guilt that I seemed to have helped precipitate the breakup. Pride, horrible pride, for that same reason. Fear that I now had to play the suitor, carrying an immensity of excess baggage. But over it all reigned joy.

When she returned, I excused myself. In the men's room, I stared at my reflection. Every one of those emotions was right there, direct, dancing on the outermost layer of my skin. I had a vivid memory of a time two or three months before, staring in the mirror while shaving. The whiteness of the shaving cream had looked wrong on me; my skin looked the wrong shade. A radio ad had come on for Life Savers, featuring a nasal teenage boy and baby-voiced girl shrieking about "really letting loose and going for it." I had felt deflated, thinking I too had once had those goals. Then I felt a weak victim at the realization I was reacting to a fucking radio commercial as if it were an oracle of my conscience. I cut my self the usual two times. The cold water I dabbed on them had dribbled a gory traverse down my neck. It felt like badly imagined penance for my sins of inaction.

But the cold water I splashed on my face in the men's room of the bar felt rejuvenating. I realized that the complexities of life made ideas like "really letting loose and going for it" simplistic. I had unconsciously and wisely taken the more painful path of quiet pursuit. It was all blooming nicely.

I returned to the bar and ordered us two whiskeys. "I hesitate to play the wise old sage, Mary, but you know, these things are usually positive in the long run. I'm sure it's shit now, but you're getting out of a lousy situation fairly easily it sounds like. No kids, not much joint property, you've got a decent job. You're free." And, of course, you have me.

I began weighing whether to push ahead with some romantic move right then or wait a respectful few days. I leaned toward the latter, which satisfied both the gentleman and the coward in me (there being, no doubt, much overlap between the two). Then a perfect ploy dawned on me. I could, with a veneer of politesse, ask if she wanted to stay the night in my spare room. She had a long commute to an unwanted husband, while I offered a short walk to paradise.

She took the check. "Let me pay for this. I'm sorry to bury you in my garbage, but I think I feel better. Things are so muddled right now I'm not sure of anything...except I know I don't want to even think of getting involved with another man for a year, minimum. I've had it."

Mary paid and we stepped out into a cold wind.

"Mary, you have a long commute and I do have a spare room...."

"No. Thanks, though. I think I need to just go home."

#

# Semidetached

The whirr was everywhere in the flat. It slid like subatomic particles through walls, through other sounds, through sleep. It came and went. In the first few days, before I figured out what it was and who was responsible, there were moments I almost enjoyed it. It had a trainlike chugging pulse. But those moments gall me now. There was another sound—a sudden metallic clunk following a strenuous grunt—that led to the realization that my new neighbors, the American couple, with whom I shared a common wall, were exercising in some mechanized fashion. The clunk was weight lifting, the whirr turned into a stationary bicycle. I was torn between the annoyance of the noise and the satisfaction of being around such an intensely American ritual. It confirmed one of my prejudices (that most satisfying event): that exercisers are banal. I learned the couple was from some town in southern California that had an ersatz Spanish name like Los del Condo; the husband worked for a behemoth conglomerate that actually made nothing but controlled everything. Its overly modern logo appeared on much of the material world, from microchips to potato crisps. I learned this much about them from my landlady, who found them exotic, no doubt associating them with the all the American television dramas emanating from the wretched part of the world that spawned them. About the only thing that seemed at all unusual was the fact they had taken a semidetached flat in an ordinary neighborhood in a north London borough such as Camden rather than in a high-rise near the center of the city. Our paths didn't cross for an inordinately long time—I slept late, they went to work early, they worked late, I was at the pub from 5:30 on, they went to bed early. The only contact was the whirring and clunking, typically in the interval between my awakening and their leaving. My god, exercising in the morning! I had, in fact, only seen their vague, trim silhouettes through the lace curtains as they got in their sensible car.

The social dam broke one Thursday late afternoon with a knocking on my door just as I was heading out to the pub. My grinning neighbors proffering a bowl of fruit. "Well, old bean, we thought it was about time we met the hermit on the other side of the duplex. I'm Rob, this is Pammy—the Crandalls." A bone-crushing handshake forced me to admit I was Anthony Pemberton. "Perfect, perfect! A real English-sounding name," yelled Rob. "I tell you, Tony, England's great, just great, but you guys need to get a little better weather. It's been more like slogging than jogging lately." I dodged an attempted backslap and invited them in. They accepted tea. We settled in for a chat.

"You run?" asked robust Rob.

"No, do you read?" The wife chuckled slightly, nervously. Jolly Rob didn't react. The cement was either a façade that hid umbrage or an impenetrable slab of masonrylike personality.

He worked as a systems analyst for Dietech; his gig, as he called it, would last six to nine months. Pammy wasn't working. I asked why she was gone all day. She had been picking a different section of London each day and walking it, then meeting hubby to come home.

And what did I do? "Assyrian art, British Museum. Quite low level, I assure you," I added when they ohhed in respect. The idlest of banter ensued. They gobbled, I nibbled the fruit. Rob grew more appalling with each moment. He carried on about the inclemency of the weather vis a vis jogging, he fanned the air whenever I lit a cigarette, he performed dynamic-tension exercises (a term I recalled from backs of comic books) by pulling his arms against each other, doing so in a manner that called attention to itself by its attempt to not.

Pammy wasn't as bad as her name—I had prepared for the worse when I saw it on their letter box—though too quiet, diffident to the lunk, little mental rigor. She, however, was the explanation of why they were in a normal neighborhood like Camden Town. She seemed actually interested in seeing London from some sort of supratourist perspective. She surprised her clod by asking me if there were any particularly good pubs in the vicinity. I named a couple, not mentioning my regular. This torture session ended by them asking if, when spring arrived in a month or so ("Or do you only have winter here?" quipped guess who), they might do some planting in the garden we shared. I gladly acceded, that being a responsibility that I sloughed off, rankling my landlady. Of course all English are inveterate gardeners—neat rows of farkwinkles backing banks of barely colored pastel plimsols, or whatever those boring little bits of useless, inedible foliage are called. I looked forward to the Crandalls planting avocados and soy. Happily, their early bedtime left me time to rush out to the pub.

• • •

The next day, through the glaze of my hangover, everything looked monstrous, each detail defining the evil that life is. Fragments of an alabaster relief I was piecing together were the broken, perverted lives we all lead. The Assyrian king I was reassembling for the hordes of ignorant tourists to admire was a mass-murdering tyrant. I could see in the gloating expression of this monarch, dead and forgotten for 2500 years, our own rippling Rob Crandall pedaling his way to nowhere, secure in the knowledge he was better for the torture. It was absurdly easy to see me ordering a fifth pint of Abbot, a minute before last night's closing bell at the Victoria, weathering the pointed ashtray emptyings and repeated calls of "Time, ladies and gentlemen" and "Drink up, please" bellowed in my direction from two feet away. It was all magnified into horrible clarity. Everyone's life was so obviously an elaborate contrivance of details meant to fill the void. I slogged through the day, thankfully a Friday, brightening gradually to normality as cocktail time approached—that wonderful forgiving phenomenon that blesses drinkers.

But at 4:30 I was informed I had a visitor. I went to the department's public office to find Pammy Crandall, an umbrella resting on her shoulder, staring at a photograph on the wall. My hello made her jump, and she stammered her greeting and blushed in a surprising way. "I hope you don't mind me dropping in, Anthony. I was doing the walking tour of Bloomsbury today. The literary thing, you know." She held up the tourist's flag—a green Michelin guide. "I thought maybe you'd be leaving work soon and maybe we could share a cab."

"Certainly. Or we could walk. But how about we pop into a pub first? It's been a bit of a day."

"Well, I guess it'd be okay. Rob's gonna work late, so, yeah, let's."

"Super, let me put away some things in the laboratory first. Come on back." I have to admit it's a ploy I've used before to impress people. Me in my labcoat in a sophisticated laboratory. (I could see Pammy's brow crinkle at my "extra" syllable on that word. How veddy British.) I've always made a point of being totally honest about my menial position at the museum, but appearances seem to win out in my favor.

We headed north from the museum on foot, skirting London University. Most of the businesses in the museum's environs are upmarket or touristy, and paying extra for an atmosphere I hate is its own punishment.

After we had passed a couple of pubs—or, more properly, wine bars—Pammy asked why we hadn't stopped. "Have you ever heard of Karl Marx?" Rolled eyes. "Well, he worked at the British Museum for several years. He wrote Das Kapital in the reading room there, so I don't feel quite right patronizing these overpriced trendy places. He lived in Hampstead, a good eight kilometers north. One time he had a drink in every pub from here to there on his walk home. It's actually recreated once a year, the Karl Marx Memorial Pub Crawl, and believe me, it's no mean feat. Now you and I are going barely a couple of kilometers. What say we give it a go?"

"What? Hit every bar? No way, José."

"We could just share half pints. It could even be lager, and believe me, that's a compromise on my part."

She reluctantly agreed. The first couple of places were still within the economic vale of Bloomsbury and thus suitably normal to Pammy's homogenized tastes, but as we crawled northward, especially once over Euston Road, the bars became pubs—the locals, many still divided into public houses and saloons (in deference to her tastes, we went into the saloon half). Actually, she showed more spunk than I expected: holding her own in a game of darts; switching to ale (served "warm," as Americans incredulously and repeatedly note), and claiming to prefer it; not decrying primitive lavatories. I questioned her on her daily explorations of London and was impressed with the variety of her wanderings. Not only had she done the Trafalgar/ Buckingham/Crown Jewels level of nonsense, but had explored offbeat spots—Limehouse, Camberwell, Brixton (to even venture much south of the Thames is all but unheard of for tourists)—and places even a lifelong Londoner such as I had never visited—Chigwell, Hatch End, Tooting Bec—because they were stops on the Underground and she liked the names.

At our seventh pub, two hours later, she smacked her forehead. "Rob! I forgot all about him! And my cell phone doesn't have the right SIM card yet." I handed her mine and watched as she stood across the room speaking antically. She really was quite attractive. In her early thirties, a veneer of mere prettiness had begun molting, leaving real beauty. She set me to thinking of the subtle but real physical differences between Americans and English—their rounder, slightly swarthy faces, bigger aggressive bodies. Pammy had that round face, but it hinted at voluptuousness rather than the gluttony I thought so appropriate to most Americans. Her hair, that most controllable aspect of our bodies, was overdone—a rather farcical puff of curls floated above the forehead that was showing a few character lines. Her eyes were an honest grey. They met mine for a moment. She rolled them skyward and pursed her mouth to induce dimples of exasperation.

She returned. "Rob's a bit p.o.'d, but no big deal. He's coming down here. I'll go get a couple of pints while we wait. Does this joint have Abbot ale? I like that."

Soon enough, he arrived, got a half of Budweiser (I'm humiliated to admit it is popular), and joined us. "Jeez, does everyone in England smoke?" and vigorous fanning served as his greeting.

"Oh, Rob, bars in L.A. are smoky too, " said his wife. "This isn't the most smokiest one we haven't been in yet." I burst out laughing. Pammy joined in after reconstructing her sentence. "Cheers," she said and tried to clink glasses.

But stolid Rob, the modern man of fanatical moderation declined. "I think we need to go home, Pammy."

"No, no, no, we got—what?—eight more blocks to crawl." She raised her pint and spoke loudly. "Here's to Karl Marx!" A few nearby drinkers raised their glasses.

Utter incredulity spoiled Rob's otherwise personalityless face. "Good lord, dear! Shut up. You're making us look like fools. We're representatives here."

I must have sniggered, although I really thought I had controlled it. But ambassador Rob turned to me with a comical attempt at a withering stare. "You stay out of this. You're the one who's caused this."

"Egad, sir, you're right. Why, just look at the poor woman. My god, she's not exercising, and to make it worse, non-Americans have seen her drink and—dare I say it—laugh."

"Put a lid on it, buster, or I'm gonna stick my fist down your throat, you limey."

"I've always thought it a great deficiency of British English that there is no derogatory name for Americans, so I guess I just have to call you a 'Rob.' Go to hell, you Rob." His already exaggerated neck muscles widened as if his assuredly empty head had suddenly been filled with gravel. He rose and began to remove his coat, the cinematic preface to a fistfight. Pammy grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door.

"Ta-ta, cheerio, pip pip," I called out after them.

• • •

"I'm assured I owe you an apology, Anthony." A proffered hand, but attached to the wrong Crandall, to Pammy. Although I ultimately knew I was in the right, I had spent the rest of the previous evening listlessly replaying my confrontation with Rob and deciding I had been a bit over the top.

"But why are you apologizing? Rob and I should either apologize or fight a duel, I suppose, but what on earth did you do? No, sorry, apology not accepted." Pammy cocked her head and crinkled her mouth in a portrayal of vexation, reminding me of a television advertisement; would she stamp her foot and say, "You guys, grrr"? She repelled me. I repelled myself.

"Look, Pammy, I am terribly sorry about how it ended up. A sorry little kerfuffle. Tell that to Rob, would you?" I closed the door. Twenty seconds later the whirring, faster than ever before, came through the wall. Rob, undoubtedly garbed in one of those fantastical elastic casings he wore while exercising, had mounted his trusty stationary steed and was rehearsing running me down, living in the illusory world where emotions are sweated out as if they were expellable germs. It occurred to me that's why Americans are the way they are: They actually only believe in the tangible world. Even states of pure feeling can be controlled by some physical act—riding a stationary bicycle, shaking a hand, punching a wall. That quality has made them the masters of the planet, the tamers. Even their religions are celebrations of the physical; they've eschewed the abstract and chosen as their "spiritual" leaders, at best, sincere do-gooders or, at worst, humorously greedy swindlers. No contemplative movements have been born or flourished there since they slaughtered the Indians. The only major native denomination they can claim is the weird Mormons—celebrants of conquering the material world through serious procreation and devout insipidness. I picked up the phone and dialed next door. Rob answered. In a rapid-fire American accent I said, "Pardon me, sir, but this is Rob Crandall of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and it is later than you think, if indeed you do. Yes, brother, we are starting a fund drive here in London to buy Westminster Abbey and convert it into a gymnasium for underdeveloped bankers. May we count on your support?"

"Rob, uh, Cr...? Wull, that's my name."

"Of course it is. And thank you again for your generous confusion." I hung up. After a few minutes, a slower, more thoughtful whirring began. As Rob's vestigial brain figured things out, it grew into a ferocious metallic thrashing. I lounged around the flat the rest of that Saturday, even though it was sunny and warm. While Mr. America went for a ten parsec jog, I watched televised darts and occasionally emptied the ashtray. After a while even I was finally driven into the back garden by the splendor of the day, but, alas, there I beheld a totally naked Pammy sunbathing and I fell hopelessly in love.

• • •

The door closing behind me startled Pammy. She made the traditional movements of covering herself, then simply relaxed back to the wrenchingly revealing pose. "Oh, Anthony, I hope you don't mind. This is the first really nice day, and I just hate wearing, you know, anything. And besides, we're in Europe, where you guys do this all the time, right?" This inane chatter coming from this vision made me wish the auditory and visual worlds could be separated as on television. Pardon me while I turn the sound down, Pammy, and just look at the glisten on your bronzing breasts, piled so handsomely on you. Let me admire the well-tempered stomach muscles rippling above the crinkly mat of sorrel hair. Let's have the camera pan slowly down those long, slender, firm legs. Let's attempt something approaching human vocalization.

"Most of my countrymen would give you an argument about England being part of Europe, but under the circumstances I shan't. No, no, never have I felt more European."

"Is that a yes or a no? Do you mind?" she said in her inexhaustible supply of mock exasperation.

"Don't mind."

"Good. You never know how people are going react to nudity. Say, how are you feeling, you know, after last night?"

"Physically, I've recovered totally. However, I'm still bothered about the ill will of your husband." Aha! I suddenly realized that's why she was out here in full lust-inducing mode while her husband was out running in circles. It's the high sign. "It would be rather bothersome if Rob and I continued to quarrel. We do share a wall, after all, and I'm certain there are other important things we could share as well. Don't you agree?"

"Sure do. In fact, that's what I had been thinking while I was lying here."

Oh, bloody hell! Let me strip off my clothes and have her right now!

She continued, "I mean, we're behaving just like the stupid governments of two countries would. People are always saying if only countries could just act like individual people do, there wouldn't be any war or anything. But we're acting just as dumb."

As my engorged brain tried to come up with a suggestive political metaphor, we heard Rob clomping up to the front in the sprint with which he finished his ritual sweatings. "I'd best retreat, Pammy. Finding us in this juxtaposition probably wouldn't get me back in Rob's good graces. Why don't you two drop by in an hour for tea?"

"OK, Anthony. I'm glad we got to see each other."

• • •

In this corner, wearing red, white, and blue trunks, weighing in at fifteen stone, the Soul of Corporate America, Rugged Rob Crandall! In this corner, wearing nothing at all, weighing ten stone, the Cad of Camden, Pasty Tony Pemberton! Alright, gentlemen, you know the rules—no mentioning of what's below the belt, let's have a nice clean fight. Rob and I shook hands and apologized in the tritest possible fashion. We three sat stiffly, swilling my excellent tea. Pammy leapt rather ably into the occasional conversational breaches. She perplexed me greatly. Her locutions could be so laughably insipid, but a native intelligence winked through sporadically. How I shall enjoy exploring her gaping dichotomy. We killed most of the time exploring the obvious topic of Anglo-American differences. Rob asked me the meaning of a word that sounded like gay-ohl. After spelling, gaol turned into an American jail. We discussed kerb/curb, bonnet/hood, boot/trunk, knickers/panties. That last word suddenly struck me as so utterly funny—an absurd baby-voiced image of diminutive panting—that I began unshared fierce chuckling. Trying to explain this while laughing brought on a terrific coughing fit, the ripe harvest of two-packs a day. Through my streaming eyes, I could see Pammy's embarassed downcast glances and Rob's grimly satisfied stare at my rhythmic doubling up. It maddened me. When they returned home, this is what he would mention as he peeled off Pammy's panties. I willed myself to stop coughing. Once again Pammy effectively caulked the conversational gap, this time with prattle about London's parks. "Regent's Park has tip-top formal gardens," I said, "but give me Hampstead Heath anytime. It retains some semblance of nature rather than some anal English wet dream of what a garden should be."

As I burbled, the image of Pammy lying in the back garden suddenly possessed me so absolutely that I actually arose from my chair and took a step toward her, fully intending to touch her breasts. I caught myself, hand outstretched, smiling the smile of the madman I obviously had become. "There's, uh, a, uh, mouse in your hair." She of course leapt up, screaming. I swiped at her hair, not coming within a foot of it. "There it goes!" I yelled, stomping toward the kitchen. Rob had remained oddly calm during all this, the detached psychiatrist viewing his worst patient through a two-way mirror. I followed my ruse through by going into the kitchen, making rattling sounds as if searching for the hallucination while I tried to compose myself. I lit a cigarette, then threw water in my face, extinguishing the cigarette. When I returned to the parlor, my neighbors were standing, ready to leave. Rob's proprietary arm around his wife, my fancy, infuriated me. Pammy looked on me with a sorrowful pity, perhaps reconsidering the intentions she displayed with such magnificent openness only two hours ago. I was suddenly losing the game by playing on my turf. I decided to take on my mutton-headed rival on his.

"Oh, folks, do you two by any chance play golf?"

"Yes, we play occasionally. Enough that we brought our clubs along. You play?" Rob asked incredulously.

"Well, I did play when I was younger, though not for the past seven or so years. Anyway, I know how much you enjoy sport. How about we play tomorrow? There's a nine-hole course not too far, over in Ealing. Nothing fancy." They agreed, their previous pitying, superior attitudes shaken a bit.

• • •

I abjured from the pubs that night and tried to recapture the inner feelings of confidence and detachment that are the hallmarks of golf. I had been obsessed with the game during my mid twenties, attaining a handicap of eight, which is good, not great. It's physical and mental requirements had filled my thoughts. On crowded London streets, I would calculate what club I would hit to reach the tube station. I would imagine lofting a wedge shot through a specific fifth-floor window as I sat at a pub's outdoor table. Kneeling to tie my shoes, I would read the break on whatever surface I happened to be. For the first and only time in my life, I felt in touch with some transcendent force within me. I still well recall a moment on the practice range when mind and body merged. I simply let go when I swung and smacked the ball twenty percent farther than I ever had. My obsession waned with my employment at the museum. Playing only occasionally was so unsatisfactory compared to the disciplined razory game I had loved that I preferred abstention. Thus I now had a seven-year accumulation of sloth to go with the neighborly vitriol that would cloud my mind. Plus devils live on the links.

I only flirted with sleep that night. Dimpled orbs, of both flesh and balata, bounced through my hypnagogic meanderings.

• • •

My tension was somewhat vented the first thing the next morning when the Crandalls arrived. Rob sported a laughable set of tartan plus fours. "Cool knickers, huh?" said Pammy, her choice of word bringing back to me yesterday's laughing jag over the word panties.. She was clad in an enticing sporty miniskirt and an oversized T-shirt, ARSENAL, the north London football team, emblazoned across her chest. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that gave her a straightforward, unmade-up look that whetted my desire to vanquish her idiot husband on the field of play. We loaded into Rob's car, which had no fewer than three "Thank you for not smoking" signs. As I stared at the back of Pammy's slender neck, Rob blathered on the fascinating topic of driving on the "wrong" side of the road. The golf course is pleasantly situated on a hilltop that presents an oddly bucolic vista of London. As we began warming up, my rustiness was most evident in my putting, that maddening aspect of the game that consumes close to half the score and relies so much on honed intuition, something I had let shrivel. Rob began writhing on the ground in some form of stretching ritual. Another golfer on the practice green asked me if Rob was all right, perhaps having an attack?

"He's from California," I explained.

I was counting on Rob's bloated male ego to be his golfing downfall, the type who swings fiercely and skids a ball a hundred yards or bends it 300 yards into the rough two fairways over. His warmup swings looked promisingly militaristic. The concomitant to this type is a lack of touch on any sort of short shot, and my nemesis paid pale obeisance to this part of the game, hitting a half dozen six-foot putts, sinking two. After some rather absurd stretches of her own, Pammy began lackadaisically putting and chipping. I guessed the game held little fascination for her, although she seemed competent at it. I was staring at her, the ache induced by yesterday's encounter flooding my loins, when she sank a twenty-foot chip and looked up at me. Her smile was a contradiction of childish joy and conspiratorial sexiness. Finally, it was our tee time.

"Hey, that's funny. We're in England and it's tee time. Get it? Tee, tea?" Rob's linguistic insight brought a welling of bile that interrupted the inner calm I was seeking for the first shot.

To determine our starting order, Rob flipped a coin, of course commenting on the bewildering nature of British currency, and he teed up first. He swung mightily and duck-hooked it into some lush verdancy 150 yards away. He slammed his driver into his bag and rudely began to edge down the fairway before we shot.

When I felt only pale pleasure at his predicament, I felt I had attained the correct detached state for this match, but then Pammy, who gamely said she would play our tees rather than the forward ones, leaned over to tee her ball and her loose shirt opened to fully divulge her breasts. I had to turn away.

She waggled and swung easily, sending a nice controlled fade 175 yards to the right side of the fairway. Aha, we both played a fade—the prospect appeared before me of a series of convivial starboard rendezvous, perhaps a few intimate searches for errant balls through sun-dappled rough.

Standing over my first shot, I felt too many emotions to even approach a reasonable swing. I backed off and involuntarily looked up at Pammy. She gave me a particularly warm smile and a little encouraging nod. I took my stance again, my mind emptied, and I took a full, smooth swing. A sound I had missed for these past seven years, the smart crack of a soundly struck shot, told me all I wanted to know. It ended up 230 yards, right center, leaving me 140 to the green. Pammy gave me a wink.

Poor Rob had a nasty lie in six inches of damp grass, with shrubbery restricting him to a half backswing. The prudent tactic was to chop an eight-iron out into the fairway without trying for any significant forward progress. Happily, Rob opted for a full three-iron. What small contact he managed caused the ball to hop straight up comically and return to its lair. He reattempted the same strategy without any pause. This time he managed to send the ball scuttling at a forty-five-degree angle across the fairway, where it came to rest a couple of yards ahead of his wife's. He pounded his iron into the ground and stalked over, stopping only four or five feet from her as she addressed her ball.

"Dear, could you back up a few feet?" she asked in a reasonable tone, for the golf swing requires isolation. Rob looked at her as if she had asked him to smoke a cigarette. He took a baby step back. Her cutesy exasperation face rather than a repeat of the request was her too-mild response. She hit a five-wood twenty yards short of the green, in nice position.

Rob over-swung, blading a four-iron that trickled into a greenside sand trap. This was too good. My gut feeling that golf would bring out Rob's inferior mettle was clicking right along.

My eight-iron settled just on the edge of the putting surface, twenty feet from a birdie. Pammy's wedge left her ten feet from a par, and Rob's two lusty sand blasts left him forty feet away. He lagged decently and sank a two-footer in for a quadruple bogey 8.

I bent to line up my putt and my knees crackled loudly enough for both my partners to hear. I stood over my putt with nary a thought of how to hit it. Self-consciousness and a stew of lust and disgust suddenly overwhelmed me. I swung at least twice as hard as I should have but stubbed the putter into the green an inch behind the ball. These two idiotic moves compensated for each other so that the putt ended up on the very rim of the hole. I snorted in derision and looked at my partners. Rob was chewing the inside of his mouth furiously and avoided my eyes. Pammy ran toward the hole and jumped high, landing close to the ball, which didn't fall.

"That's totally against the rules, Pammy," huffed hubby.

"Oh, c'mon, Rob. He'll get a birdie if it drops."

She got down on her hands and knees to blow the ball into the hole. Her shirt once again fell open to reveal her divine bosom. But this time it was shown to both me and bug-eyed Rob.

"Pammy! Good lord! You're displaying yourself to the entire British Empire!"

This was the first remotely clever thing I'd ever heard Rob say. Pammy very slowly straightened, her eyes little wads of aluminium foil. "Don't you ever accuse me of that," she spoke with fierce slowness. Rob countered and she reattacked, all with obvious ugly comments.

I walked back to my bag and headed to the second tee to let them fight in peace. The way she had leapt at his initial comment, which simply pointed something out much more than it accused, made me realize that Pammy was in an oversensitive adulterous mindset that I had induced. I chuckled.

What had been a muffled miff suddenly grew to shrieks and roars. I made myself comfortable in the shade of a fine old tree.

After a few moments, my prey walked resolutely to the tee, lunkhead nowhere to be seen. My rakishly arched eyebrows inquired after his whereabouts.

"He's gone home to sulk, the feeble little turd. Christ, he made me mad. Damn it, let's play golf."

Her hellion demeanor was the most radical transformation imaginable. Even during my most lustful moments, I had been troubled by Pammy's watery fundament. This development of spunk was frosting on an already enticing sweet.

I went to her, placing a comforting claw on her shoulder. "You're sure you want to play on?"

"Damn straight, I am." She shoved my hand away and walked away swinging her club fiercely. "Go on, it's your honors. Hit it."

Number 2 was a short par three, 135 yards. I hit an eight-iron a bit past the pin, on the green, thirty feet away. Pammy swung as hard as she could and bladed a five-iron ten yards past the green, into an overgrown swale.

I knew to let her mood vent itself. She stormed off and began hacking at the foliage with her wedge, looking for her ball. I gingerly approached and pointed it out, mostly hidden in some gorse. She foolishly tried to blast it out, gaining four inches and much color in her face. Two more strokes got her into a reasonable rough, from where she reached the green in two more shots. Three putts and she was in.

My putt ended up three feet away, and I sank that. "Three for me, and you, my dear?"

"Oh hell, I don't know. But I bet you were keeping close count, weren't you?"

"Nine."

Pammy glowered an icicle at me, which I met with a bemused smirk. This was the test. I had to know this about her.

"I don't know which of you two is worse—Rob trying to bully me or you and your snotty English ways."

"The third hole is a longish par five, dogleg left. But try to keep your drive to the right, so your second shot is clear. You should be able to do that. You hit a lovely fade on the first hole." She sullenly trudged ahead of me to the third tee and began to place her ball.

"Excuse me, Pammy, but it's my honors."

She backed away without looking at me. I took my stance, glanced down the fairway, which was gorgeous, and envisioned the flight of the ball. I slowly drew the driver back, and an utter sense of relaxation came over me, centered in my lower midsection. Oddly, the feeling was most like a experiencing a particularly gratifying bowel movement. My shot flew as foreseen, 260 yards.

Pammy made no acknowledgment. This time as she teed her ball she bent from the knees rather than the waist. Although less vicious than before, her swing had little of the graceful control I knew she had. This shot skittered along the left side of the fairway, getting decent distance from the roll, but lacking any satisfaction.

She veered away from me, and we approached our next shots in isolation. The day was even nicer than the previous. As I paused to watch my partner's second shot—a mediocre four-wood close to the forest perimeter on the right—the sunny warmth brought back the wonderment of yesterday's emergence into the back garden to behold her laid out in gourmet fashion. This all had to be followed through. If left unsated, insanity would be inevitable.

I hit a shot that had always eluded me before—a controlled draw. I was left with a seventy-yard pitch.

Pammy paid no heed to my shot and continued to avoid me. Her third shot was perhaps her most violent swing yet, and only the barest of contact was made. The ball hopped and resettled. She hung her head for a moment, idly tossed her club toward her bag, and walked into the shady fringe of the fairway. She leaned against a tree, rubbing her face with both her hands.

As I approached I made sure to crackle a few leaves. I felt like a crafty angler in pursuit of a beautiful fish once glimpsed through silvery waters. Very particular bait had to be cast in very particular ways. She remained facing into the woods. "Pammy, I'm not going to say 'It's alright. This is only a game. You and Rob just had a little spat.' All that sort of thing is just palaver that's an insult to the intelligence of both of us. You know as well as I that both your and Rob's golf game and little spat are the symptoms of larger dissatisfactions. You and I are meant to collide in some spectacularly fiery way, my lovely Pammy. "

"This is interesting," she said as she turned toward me. "I feel like an anthropologist or something. Which society produces the biggest egos? Rob's so full of that macho he-man crap sometimes I can't stand it. It's so damn obvious that it can really get, you know, boring. But you, I think, take the cake, buster. You really win by a mile on the slime level. I have to admit I was thinking you were all right 'cause you really seemed to treat me straight when we went drinking and you seemed to handle seeing me, you know, without anything on yesterday. But when you said 'my lovely Pammy' just now, it made my flesh crawl. It was like a sewer talking."

I, in all honesty, must admit some considerable degree of consternation overcame me here. I said nothing. My mind was quite blank, only wordless vile constriction. I stared at her back. The only thing that came into my head was how well I was golfing. I turned, picked up my bag, and headed for my ball, the nine-iron or pitching wedge were the only choices left me.

#

# Success

When we stand at our desks, we can look over the tops of the pastel partitions and behold a maze of fifty cubicles in the one huge room that makes up the regional office of Dietech, Incorporated. Into this den of normality crept Abe Boint.

He started as a temporary filing clerk, so he never went through the formality of being introduced around the office, a process that, however mindless and routine, does serve as a punctuation: "This is X, his rank is Y, he fits into slot Z." We all feel comfortable. Boint had been there for two months when someone noticed in the crappy little company newsletter that hardly anyone actually read that, "We are happy to announce that Mr. Abraham Boint is our new Records Assistant." (The fact he was the only person in the Records Department made the "Assistant" in his job title seem like an insult.). All this and his shaky personal hygiene and horrible wardrobe made him an ineffectual recluse and contributed to the fact that no one had even been aware there was a vacancy or any interviews. There was little contact with him in the course of our work—filing was simply dropped in the Records Department basket—and no one make any attempt to socialize, thus it developed into one of those touchy social spirals wherein the longer contact is put off, the more embarrassing and uncomfortable it will be, so it's avoided, and so on.

But that particular office constipation broke through in a fashion that had the odd Bointian style. A month after his formal hiring, a full three months after his first appearance, Abe Boint gave everyone in the office glazed doughnuts that he was cooking in a deep-fat fryer in his cubicle. He was churning them out and running around delivering them to our desks. The doughnuts were incredibly hot and delicious. A food frenzy took over for a full half hour. People were eating six, seven, eight doughnuts. The Mr. Coffee was growling like a rabid dog. We roamed the aisles, lips glazed, groaning with pleasure, happily babbling about doughnuts. Everyone finally introduced themselves to Boint in his cubicle, thanking him but quickly leaving. The grease-specked grinning host in his sickly sweet-smelling cubicle was too much.

• • •

The afterglow lasted two or three days. Nodding hello in the hall, saying how great those darn doughnuts were as we dropped off filing. Boint's reclusion and borderline repulsiveness, however, brought things back to a state only slightly less formal than before—he sat filing in his cube, we put paper in his basket, he was odd.

A series of foul-ups began to surface over the next two-month period. The boss was reprimanded when an internal auditor from the head office found some discrepancies; a semi-major deal went to a rival company when a load of statistics were garbled or outdated; everyone's paycheck began varying five or ten dollars from week to week, keeping Payroll in a state of siege.

Pickering, an up-and-coming go-getter in Accounts Payable, broke the code first but didn't tell anyone. We all wondered when we saw him drop by Boint's cube and schmooze for ten minutes, laughing, nodding in vigorous agreement. He just said Boint was an alright guy if you just gave him a break. We all stopped wondering when Pickering was given a bonus for figuring out the auditing snafu.

The best-looking woman in the office went to lunch with Boint and got an unasked for but very useful compilation of sales figures that afternoon.

A midlevel idiot in Purchasing got an official commendation from the CEO after his report saved Dietech a few grand. He had taken Boint to a doubleheader.

A few people couldn't take it. The office manager was the major holdout. "I just can't do it. He comes waddling up, all white socks and earwax, stares at your belt buckle, says something vague about that filing you dropped off, and you just know he's saying you'd better be his buddy or he'll fire up the paper shredder. It's not that I'm not friendly, but I'm not going to participate in this sick blackmail." We were all impressed with how quickly the new office manager became Boint's pal.

It was difficult being around Boint. He had a likeable streak, as the doughnut episode had shown, but his gurgley voice and his constant impressions of TV figures like Howard Cosell or Dan Rather—people many in the office weren't aware of—could make your flesh crawl. Finding yourself detesting such a sad loser added a layer of guilt to the whole mess.

As he became a larger figure around Dietech, speculation about his personal life occupied much of the office grapevine. "I heard him on the phone saying, 'I'm not going to stand here in front of my colleagues and discuss the carpet smelling like rat urine.'" Someone thought they saw him at an art opening of abstract paintings. The clicking of pen on toilet-stall wall followed by Boint's emergence led to the graffito "I've got a date with my palm."

These odd bits never formed a cogent whole person, but that was perhaps quite accurate: Boint was not a whole person. He was an outcast who had stumbled upon a position of power.

• • •

After four months, he was in solid. He kept discovering new ways for files to exert great power. No one was immune to his control, and people were kept coming up with new bribes. He seemed put off by extravagance—a pricey wristwatch was declined and the offerer punished; a coffee mug that said, "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps" amused him no end. He often said the line when people dropped by to shoot the breeze. The sounds of forced laughter served as the office Musak. We all feared him to the extent we didn't discuss him amongst ourselves for fear any negative comments might find their way back to him.

He loved all standardized office humor. A poster of Snoopy saying, "I hate Mondays," a plaque with "I never make missteaks, and several similar items adorned his cube.

After this period of success, perhaps inevitable attempts by Boint at appearing to be an important executive began creeping in, but they only cemented his regulation twit qualities. Baggy, worn-smooth corduroy pants and flowered polyester shirts were replaced with checkered suits, checkered shirts, and checkered ties. Occasionally he would do something right like having a nice handsome silk tie, but the narrow end would hang two inches lower than the front section. He got a $40 haircut—he proudly announced—but it was still frosted with greasy dandruff. He began flossing his teeth fastidiously, but at the public drinking fountain.

On some level Boint had the unnerving ability to correctly read people's true feelings about him. Even as they were lavishing gifts, he knew their friendship wasn't quite real. So he made an attempt at a variation of the doughnut episode, the one instance of genuine fondness in his tenure at Dietech. But his new tendencies toward playing the sophisticate were his undoing.

This time he struck around 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Work had virtually stopped as everyone was chatting about the weekend, whining about work, shooting trashcan free throws with wadded paper. The sudden whirring of blenders from Boint's cube sounded like jet planes warming up. Within a minute, Boint emerged in an ill-fitting maroon tuxedo with a huge tray of maroon drinks. At first it appeared he was scoring another coup as he jollily distributed them, but they tasted so vile—they were cheap rum, raspberry syrup, and what seemed to be strawberry preserves—that no one could stand more than a few sips. However, they seemed to be a favorite of Boint's. In the next excruciating half hour, he knocked back three of them as he roamed the floor being too loud and too familiar with his captive guests, slapping us on the back, making us tell jokes. Everyone came up with a reason they had to head on out to meet someone important.

On Monday things had changed. Before, there had been a perverse respect for Boint; Although he was an extortionist, he wasn't pushy, didn't yell or threaten. He had found a hole in the system, the loser was winning. But his crudity was enough for us to cross over the thin line. Boint was a villain. He probably could have salvaged himself with an apology or a self-deprecating joke, but like all petty dictators, he took himself very seriously. It became a stand-or-fall situation suddenly, with the entire office against him. Boint became Nixon.

The new office manager, Barker, who had so quickly adapted to Boint, read the change in the office zeitgeist and became the leader of the opposition. It was risky. Boint nailed a couple of minor executives with a fusillade of screwy monthly reports. The bribes he expected became grander. The obligatory five minutes of idle chatter when dropping off filing became very one-sided as Boint expounded on the issues of the day. But Barker knew now he had the workers solidly behind him. Boint was going to be his stepping stone.

Barker came up with a brilliant attack. He worked late for weeks, came in on weekends, skipped lunch. Finally, he sent off a report to the central office that he was sure was irrefutable. It contended that it was absolutely crucial to fully computerize Dietech's antiquated filing system. Delays were costing a fortune.

Barker looked like a haunted man for the next three weeks. Then, out of an inconspicuous interoffice envelope one day, Barker pulled a memo from Central. He read the first line: "Congratulations, we are going to implement your automation proposal immediately." He let out a whoop that stopped the office. He ran to Boint's cubicle, spun him around in the fancy swivel chair Barker had given him and waved the memo in his face.

"Boint, you nauseating little twerp, your reign of terror is over. Get the hell out of here and go take a hot shower, you smelly psychopath. We're putting in a computer system that going to take your job."

Boint looked at Barker calmly, quizzically. He surveyed the crowd gathered outside his cube. "I know that, Barker." He pulled out a copy of the same memo. "It says in the second paragraph that I'm in charge of installing it."

# Back Nine Stories

The remaining stories originally appeared on the defunct web site Back Nine Stories. It was a collaboration with my friend Craig Van Dyck. We alternated stories, sharing the same premise (and usually characters). The Austin Golf Club was a down-at-the-heels members-only course in an Austin, Texas, that was reeling from a massive economic meltdown, caused by the discovery that silicone led to lethal disease. The golf course had been reduced to nine holes when the back nine were sold off to what was now a derelict shopping center. The old guard at the Austin Golf Club seethed with hatred of it.

These stories are mine, selected out of about a dozen I wrote for the web series.

#

# Paul B Has a Plan

It was with an eye jaundiced to a bilious golden hue that Paul B, the most junior senior member of the Austin Golf Club, surveyed Hancock Shopping Center. He was wont to regard all shopping centers with at least an ocher eye, but these stores sit on land that was once the back nine holes of the original Austin Golf Club. That such sacred ground was now the home of third-tier franchise food troughs––Old Wobbly's Alpo Fixin's and Omega Marsh Buffet-––and parking lots where once were tree-lined doglegs with swales and ponds galled him no end. Number 7, on the extant front nine, a seemingly easy short par 4 whose only defense was a view of the shopping center, was Paul B's nemesis. He either pulled his drive to the adjoining fairway where he couldn't see the travesty or pushed it into the right rough or even OB into the street that divided the two parcels of land, a doubly infuriating jaundicizer

The center could also be seen from the tenth hole lounge balcony, where Paul B, as was his habit, caressed a Falstaff, pondering ways to return Hancock Shopping Center to its glory. The obvious was to formally request the AGC board try to buy the land, but even in the shattered economy of Austin, it would be millions more than the club could afford. The area's broken workforce led to much hobolike traveling, and the shopping center used its position next to Interstate 35 and railroad tracks to become a low-rent transients' mall: fast-food, tire rental, temp agencies, self-storage units, cash-only doctors. Hideous, depressing, profitable.

Beyond purchasing, the choices for reacquiring the land became limited. City funds were obviously nonexistent. A petition drive of the nearby citizenry requesting (although in the inevitable language of citizen petitions, it would be a "demand") using eminent domain to reacquire the land? The shopping center owners would chuckle. An earmark slipped in federal legislation? The general anarchistic nature of the AGC constituency didn't sit well with archconservative Congresswoman Bovinia Eohippus, whose district ran from the south suburbs of Waco to the groin of Rockport on the coast, with a casual arm reaching out to embrace a swath of central Austin. Nothing could be expected from the state of Texas, which viewed private property ownership as that white light that dying people see, proof of the existence of heaven.

Thus Paul B's troubled thoughts turned down darker avenues. He returned to his study from the local weather bureau of historic wind patterns.

• • •

The odds of five separate deep-fat fryers in five separate fast-food franchises catching fire in the middle of the same night are millions to one. The odds of the resulting fiery oil flow igniting a porn shop, a casket rental agency, and a drive-through barbershop are incalculable.

What was easy to grasp was the odor from this conflagration. The back room of the Hands-Free Adult Megaplexxx and the burnt-orange silk lining from a reusable plywood casket and smoldering hair which, were all sautéed and flambéed in aged palm oil used to fry durian-and-clam flautas, created an emanation notable to the east of Hancock Shopping Center for miles. In fact, the highway was clogged with fleeing citizens, driving one hand on the wheel, one hand on the nose.

To the west, a mild version of the stench suggested itself to the AGC balcony, but it was easily masked by lighting a Travis Club cheroot and opening a Falstaff.

• • •

A month later, Paul B's jaundiced eye had darkened to the color of the bottom of a divot. He had had to stop playing at the sixth hole; he could not face the view of Hancock Shopping Center from the seventh since the fire, seeing the new manufactured homes that had moved in where the burnt-out stores had been and opened as new businesses. One was a puppy mill, another sold refurbished false teeth, but the capper was a dealer in used golf balls, ones Paul B knew were retrieved from this very course. From his perch on the veranda he accidently cut his finger opening a Falstaff and took a blood oath to reclaim the back nine.

#

# The Unisex Championship

Sinfonia Dugger and Paul B, the most junior senior member of the Austin Golf Club, had a checkered history. There had been run-ins, flirtations, squabbles, and rapprochements. But upon the occasions they happened to actually play golf together, they consistently clicked. They had similar games: medium length, stay in the fairway, decent short game. To anyone observing, it's boring and methodical, but inside looking out, it is just as exciting as a big undisciplined basher who elicits yows and wows and woos and oys. Indeed, either Sinfonia or Paul B would bend your ear at great length on how much more in keeping with the spirit of the game their style is.

They also shared or, more accurately, obsessed upon, the etiquette and rules of golf. Woe be unto a member of their foursome who hit into the group ahead or failed to repair a pitchmark. Having a competitor talk during his backswing once led Paul B to kneecap the offender with his driver during a club championship match, leading to a disqualification and a temporary nickname of "Tonya." Both could explain the rules pertaining to casual water.

Paul B had never won any of the various club championships—the Men's Single, the Men's Team, the Mixed Team, the Senior Men's Single, the Senior Men's Team, the Senior Mixed Team—and Sinfonia had not won any of the distaff versions. Both had this stuck in their respective craws but knew not to speak of it, knowing it would be grist for others' jibes.

But it came upon the land that the Competitions Committee decreed a new match: the Unisex Championship. It had a new scoring system that the chair of the committee had appear to him in a dream, which he explained in an odd trancelike voice to the crowd at an open meeting. Each fairway hit got a score with a formula based on distance and accuracy (white stripes would be put down the middle of each fairway as a gauge). Each green in regulation got a score. Fewer putts-per-green led to more points. In the meeting room where the new system was introduced, the formula filled a three-foot by five-foot chalkboard with smallish figures. But everyone stared at it for a minute after his explanation and then went, "Yeah. OK. Got it." It was immediately dubbed the Dream System.

Part of the system was that handicaps were not used. The only advantage proffered was that women hit from the front tees, men from the back. (The Austin Golf Club had only ever had two sets of tees.) The man always hit first, otherwise the Rules of Golf applied—penalties, hazards, the whole wonderful 192-page collection of arcana that true golfers relish. Thus, men and women were to compete intertwined, as it were. There would be but one champion.

• • •

The usual group of male duffers gathered on the verandah overlooking the ninth hole to chew the new championship over.

"Well, as I've pointed out before," said Paul B—a phrase that preceded a large portion of his statements—"golf is the only sport worth being called a sport where the low score wins. This new Dream System goes against that, but I must say I rather like it." The others mumbled agreements of various sorts, all inwardly thinking that the new format was a perfect match for their imperfect abilities. Around the fireplace in the clubhouse, the women golfers were having a parallel confabulation about the Dream System.

• • •

One of the many minor oddities of the Austin Golf Club course is that the first hole is a par 3, 150 yards. An elevated tee looks down on the stone banks of Waller Creek. Although the carry is no more than 125 yards from the back tee, the psychological impact of a water shot on the first hole can be considerable, especially in a tournament.

Paul B, outwardly maintaining his phlegmatism, was annoyingly nervous, but managed a decent 6-iron to the far left edge of the green. He scored one point in the Dream System but was left with a sharply breaking 30-footer.

Sinfonia Dugger's 5-iron on the 140-yard hole was bladed badly and bounced wildly off the rock ledge on the far side of the creek, rocketing to the right onto the fifth tee box, thirty yards from her intended green. Her ears swiveled, waiting for snickers from her opponent, Paul B, or his cronies in the gallery. But none were heard, such was the gravity of the moment. Theirs was the final twosome of the day.

Sinfonia was faced with the double whammy of now having to hit a hard lob wedge after having skulled her opening shot. If she bladed the wedge it would go screaming into the unkempt foliage beyond the green. She concentrated on supination and hit a high soft one that stopped ten feet below the hole. Paul B's putt weakly ended almost exactly on her ball marker. Her putt went in, giving her two points; his didn't, but he got one for a green in regulation.

Number 2 is the hardest hole on the course, the only par 5. The right side has scrubby trees and horrible soil. The baked, packed, gravelly areas here and there on three of the nine holes was either a distinctive element or a sad commentary on the groundskeeping. Waller Creek runs down the left side of the fairway for three-fourths of the hole, then cuts across where the hole takes a sharp left turn. Even a long, straight drive probably left one with a layup due to the tall trees that created only a narrow window over the creek. The green was severely elevated.

Each scored a point for the accuracy of their drives and Paul B got two for his one putt, never mind his medal score would have been an 8. Sinfonia made an even worse hash of the hole, but as they stood on the third tee, someone in the gallery reported that Paul B's three points was the most anyone had made on the hole that day.

The third hole, a par 4, requires a high drive due to the trees lining Waller Creek, which again crosses the fairway. How many courses have the same body of water come into play on four of the first five holes, Paul B wondered as he waggled. A tough reference question he might phone into the library just to annoy them. Paul B had found that his swing thoughts were best left to graze where they might. He had tried concentration on supination, pronation, weight shift, axis rotation, grip tightness, shoulder looseness, et cetera, but had decided randomness worked best. His 5-wood rose nicely and faded to match the dogleg. Another point. Sinfonia, being closer to the creek, actually was disadvantaged: Her drive had to go high more quickly. She hit a smart 7-wood. Point.

Each hit onto the tiny green with their second shots and each two-putted. Three points to each.

Number 4 is an undistinguished par 3. The hole was newish, from the 1970s, the last time any course changes had been made. The only thing of interest about the hole was in the minds of the old-timers who remember that it had once been the last 150 yards of what had been a second killer par 5. All were relieved to have it gone. Both our golfers hit smooth 6-irons onto the green and again two-putted. This is the methodical golf each thrilled in, and the Dream System was rewarding them.

But as the Austin Golf Club giveth, so doth it taketh away. Number 5 is a short par 4, only 270 yards from the back tees, but in addition to again crossing Waller Creek, the fairway rose severely and there was a forest on the left. A big drive, even if straight, was likely to end up in the deep swale in front of the microscopic, slanted green. Six feet behind the green was O.B. It was a nasty bit of work.

Paul B rifled a driver directly into the rising fairway. The ball hit the gravelly upslope, bounced almost straight up, and rolled back down to the creek's edge. Only his love of golf decorum kept him from hurling the club into the traffic on nearby 41st Street.

Sinfonia peeled her drive off to the right, bouncing off the huge live oak that stood alone. Her ball ended up on the incline that defined the first tee box. Fear had won the day on their drives. Each hacked away, grateful that it was not medal play. The vagaries of the Dream System let them each score a point for their two-putts. Sinfonia said as they trudged to the next tee that the point felt like a greasy Mulligan.

The members generally refer to the rest of the course as the Back Four. Whereas the opening holes have water and hills and doglegs, the final holes are wide open, fairly flat par 4s where an errant shot is often not punished. Paul B and Sinfonia both took out their frustrations with the previous hole with long, accurate drives, hit the green with their approaches, and Sinfonia one-putted while her oppenent took two, both racking up points. The scorekeeper announced Paul B had a one point lead and that the pair were in first and second place overall.

They both suddenly ingested a kaleidoscope of butterflies. This chance to finally win a club championship filled the air as they stood on the seventh tee. Paul B stared forlornly down the fairway of his nemesis hole. It was the easiest par 4 on the course, only 335 yards for the back tee, 309 for the front. Flat, straight fairway with a large mild green. But Paul B was filled with rage and loathing that took over his game on this hole because it afforded a taunting view of Hancock Shopping Center, the travesty that occupied the old back nine holes of the Austin Golf Club. It was his greatest desire in the world to reclaim this land and restore it to its proper glory. He hadn't played this hole in better than a triple bogey in a year. The best strategy he had was to intentionally hit his drive to the left, onto the next fairway, where his view of the shopping center was blocked. But the Dream System would punish him, so he took dead aim down the center of the fairway and topped a driver 125 yards. But it stopped dead on the white line in the center of the fairway. A galling point.

Sinfonia's 185-yard drive was near the center line for two points. Score tied.

Paul B marched, head down, to his ball. He actually faced back to the tee box for his practice swings so he couldn't have the shopping center in his vision. He about-faced and in his backswing couldn't help but look up at the old back nine. Rage fueled a mighty lumberjack hack with a 5-wood that amazingly connected cleanly—directly at Hancock Shopping Center. The ball flew 200 yards, landed on Red River Street, bounced twice, and went through the window of Pirate's Cove Wart Removal, one of the many cut-rate, sleazy businesses that grew out of the crushed economy of Austin. As the glass shattered, his shoulders suddenly loosened, his jaws unclenched. He calmly walked to where the ball had left the premises and calmly chipped back to the fairway, taking his punishment.

Sinfonia put an 8-iron on the front of the green for a point. Paul B put his fifth shot about twenty-five feet behind the pin. Her putt stopped an inch short but Paul B's didn't, giving him two points to take the lead. Plus he had only double-bogeyed the hole, his best score in ages.

The eighth hole has a giant live oak about eighty yards from the tee, right center of the fairway, so one must either bend one around it or hit over it. Paul B took the high road and Sinfonia the side one, both scoring a point for accuracy. Their second shots into the par 4 were difficult only in that the green is sunken, with only the top three feet of the flagstick visible, and slopes from front to back. Number 8's main claim to fame is that there are only two sand traps on the entire course and they're both on this hole, one on either side of the green. But our players chose to miss these by hitting short. Paul B chipped poorly. Sinfonia chipped in.

In a daze, he three-putted, his coveted championship disintegrating. Down by a point.

The final hole is one of those wonderful sucker par-four holes for big hitters: only 264 yards from the back tee, with a water hazard to the front left of the postage stamp, slanted green. Our pair knew well to hit as close to the hazard as was safe and to lob one on. Paul B placed his 5-wood well and secured a point. He walked up near the front tee to watch his opponent's drive. She was debating club selection with herself, pulling and replacing clubs repeatedly, obviously nervous about her first championship. She absently placed her tee into the ground six inches in front of the marker. As she stood behind the ball to choose her line, Paul B mentally strummed through his encyclopedic knowledge of the Rules of Golf:

If a competitor, when starting a hole, plays a ball from outside the teeing ground, he incurs a penalty of two strokes and must then play a ball from within the teeing ground.

Let her hit, call it, be the first Unisex Champion of the Austin Golf Club. Saying that title to himself immediately led to a clairvoyant vision of the usual gang on the verandah taunting him. "Oh, Mister Unisex Champion—or is it Ms. Unisex?—may I get you a passionfruit daiquiri while I'm up?"

"Sinfonia, you're teed up in front of the markers."

#

# Mind Game

#

Sinfonia Dugger was never referred to as "sunny" or "chirpy," but her mood of late had darkened so much that by the time she was leaving the ninth and final green, her shadow already crept across the women's lounge at the Austin Golf Club. Glumly dragging in, she'd order a Falstaff and a shot of rye and sat in front of the fireplace, staring into the nonexistent flames, it being ninety-eight outside. Her friends had one by one tried speaking with her over the four weeks that this transformation had happened, but she rather coldly deflected them. Now she sat alone. Geronimo, the club dog, as usual, curled at her feet.

The members' quality of golf paled in comparison to their rumor-mongering skills: Sinfonia was pregnant, although she was in her fifties. She had been hit in the head by an errant drive. She had been fired from her volunteer job at the animal shelter. She had been jilted by Reggie Penworthy, the club's owner. Maybe it was the pickled pig's knuckles from the club's bar.

The Ladies Match Play Championship was in two weeks and Sinfonia's victory in the recent Unisex Championship made her the favorite. Her posted scores were the usual solid, unspectacular ones she prided herself on and which looked likely to hold under the pressure of tournament play, so that apparently wasn't the cause of the malaise. Excitement was building more than usual because Penworthy had thrown in a year's free club dues for the winner, quite an improvement from the traditional bag of shag balls fished from Waller Creek.

On the verandah overlooking the ninth green, the men's hangout, Sinfonia was regarded with comical derision, an honor normally reserved for men. These men were too confused by women, including their wives, to normally do anything other than make dismissive sounds like "Bah," "Foof," "Egad," and "Feh" when the occasion called for analysis of a woman. But Sinfonia was different somehow. None of them could tell you how.

• • •

One lovely August morning around 9:00, when the temperature had barely reached 90, Sinfonia and Paul B, the most junior senior member, found themselves on the first tee together. They agreed to play their first match since she bested him in the Unisex Championship. Both hated the complications of betting. Nassaus, greenies, pushes, barkies, bingo bango bongo, sandies were for rubes. They bet a Falstaff on lowest score.

Paul B hit a 6-iron short of the green on the 150-yard opening par 3. Sinfonia hit her 5-iron from the 137-yard front tees and it landed directly on Paul B's ball, croqueting his onto the green, two feet from the hole. Hers sat exactly where his had rested.

"Holy cow!" yelled Paul B. "I've never seen that before!"

"Me neither! Wow! I can't believe it!"

They marched to the green. Paul B fetched his ball and waited for Sinfonia to chip on. He placed his ball in the same spot and chipped. Each made their par putts.

They repeated their wonderment as they walked to the second tee. There was a delay as they waited for players from the third hole, who had sliced into their fairway. Squirrels chattered in the huge pecan trees that shaded the tee. A lawn sprinkler imitated the sound.

Sinfonia sighed. Paul B tried to ignore it. She idly swatted with her driver at the pecan shards and broken tees that littered the ground. Again she sighed. Finally he managed to say, "Yes?"

"Well, it's just that what happened on the last hole was the first time I've been excited on the course for weeks. I'm, I'm...bored with golf."

To admit this to one of the old guard of the Austin Golf Club was akin to telling the Pope you had recently decided Mary to be a run-of-the-mill housewife. Paul B stared at her—confusion, contempt, pity playing across his face. "Bored...with golf.... I am so sorry, Sinfonia. That must be the world's emptiest feeling." He stared down the fairway. "My god, I can only glimpse the edge of such an abyss and that little bit is pure horror."

"I know! It is! It is! I tried denying it, but every round has made it a little worse. I had to drag myself out here this morning. Thank god I happened to run into you." She touched his arm with her gloved hand. Such an outburst was not the norm, neither for the sender nor receiver. Their occasional subterranean hints at flirtation from the past bubbled out of the fissures in their emotional tectonic plates. Sinfonia broke the tension. "Looks like the fairway is clear. Hit away."

Paul B gratefully found his line, took his stance, and began his rather stylish waggle. But midwaggle he stopped. "This cannot stand, Sinfonia. We must find a cure."

• • •

The verandah at 9:15 am on a Tuesday is a peaceful place. The usual crowd is out on the course and not yet ensconced. Paul B fetched a couple of coffees and a pitcher of Falstaff. He questioned her. When had the boredom begun? A few weeks after her victory in the Unisex Championship. Was there a precipitating event? No, a gradual buildup. Was there anything from the outside world causing angst? No, life was its usual pleasant, smooth path.

Paul B stroked his chin. "It sounds like the cause is buried deep, and short of us going to the couch..." They both cleared their throats and took sips. "That is to say, I am a believer in action. I propose a series of exercises to break the pattern."

Sinfonia took a long pull on her Falstaff and stared down at the ninth green. "I would be most grateful."

• • •

They met that night at 11:30 on the seventh tee. Paul B picked up her bag of clubs and led Sinfonia to the east edge of the course, along Red River Street. He emptied out a dozen shag balls and had her hit 3-woods into the stores at Hancock Center, the misbegotten shopping center that occupied the former back nine holes of the Austin Golf Club. He had overcome his avoidance problems with playing this hole by hitting such a shot. She seemed to perk up a bit, especially when there were sounds in the darkness of dented metal and broken glass. But clearly more was needed.

Next they went to the eighth hole. He had her hit her shots with her eyes closed. She drove a bullet down the middle, hit a smooth 7-iron onto the tricky green, and two-putted, still with eyes closed. She stood for a minute by the hole. She sighed. "Nice trick, but what's it really prove?"

Paul led her to the ninth tee, the one furthest from any passersby. "You're probably not going to like this one, but...well, let's say I've found it...uh, exciting in the past. I'll turn away and go behind the water cooler, but you have to play this hole naked."

Sinfonia drew herself up to full height, gave Paul B a stare so scorching it could be seen in the midnight darkness, slammed her 5-wood back in her bag, and begin to peel off her golf glove.

"No, that's alright. You can wear the glove."

She spun back to face him and repeated the stare. Then her shoulders loosened. She snorted. "Maybe I take things a little too seriously, huh?"

"Oh, I take golf very seriously," said Paul B. "It's quite OK to take unimportant things seriously."

Sinfonia thought for a moment. "Alright. But you have to be my caddy on this hole. And you know the dress code. And perhaps you can caddy for me at the Ladies Match Play."

#

# Miracle Off 38th Street

In those days Reggie Penworthy issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Austin Golf Club for the club championship. (This was the first census that took place after his takeover of the club.) And everyone went on his own to register a tee time.

So Paul B also went up from his part of town of Austin called Cherrywood to Hyde Park, the land of Penworthy, because he belonged to the house and line of those born at St. David's, just down the road. He went there to register with Sinfonia Dugger, who was to be his partner in the mixed doubles club championship. While they were there, the time came for them to tee off, and she hit her first hole-in-one, an ace. She wrapped the ball in cloths and placed it in a locker, because there was no room for it in the trophy case.

• • •

And there were homeless men living in Hancock Center, nearby, keeping watch over their flasks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all you people. Today in the town of Austin a hole-in-one has been made; it is a magic golf ball, sure to bring blessings to all. This will be a sign to you: You will find the ball wrapped in cloths and lying in a locker at yonder golf course."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God the Titleist, and on earth pieces of eight to men with whom this ball rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the homeless men said to one another, "Let us go to the golf course and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Sinfonia and Paul B and with them the ball, which was lying in the locker. When they had seen it, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this ball, and all who heard it were amazed at what the old drunks said to them. But Sinfonia treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The homeless returned, with hammers, crowbars, and saws. But Sinfonia cracked a couple of them over their heads with a wedge and they saw stars and left to the east, back to Hancock Center.

#

# Spikes of Clay

There was recurring chatter amongst the members of the Austin Golf Club about its finances. The chatter was based on paranoia and a keen understanding of human nature. Because Reggie Penworthy had personally bankrolled the purchase of the golf course from the city when the economy crumbled, the members felt overly beholden to this enigmatic character who none felt close to and who kept the ledgers hidden from inspection. His devotion to the course might shift into another interest such as gluing rocks together or collecting flattened cutlery and leave the club up Waller Creek without a wedge.

Indeed the members paid an initiation and monthly fees (the former was waived for the group who had been longtime regulars at the public course, the group known as the senior members), but this money was, by their rough and drunken calculations, not adequate to cover costs. Thus they felt insecure and took it upon themselves to plan some events to generate more income.

After an ill-fated attempt at a general membership meeting—kept secret from Penworthy—that devolved into squabbling and one golf tee inserted up the nose of Barker Baines Johnson by Alfred Joe Littlefield, it was decided that a suggestion box be put out for one week to gather ideas, including those from members wise enough to not speak up at meetings. A group composed of Paul B (the most junior senior member), Sinfonia Dugger (an avid golfer and thorn in various sides), and Darian Porter (one of the younger, trendier members) was selected to review and choose any viable options.

The complete list of suggestions:

  * One day a week rent the course out as a leash-free dog park.

  * Build a giant nuclear-attack-proof bunker under the course and sell time shares.

  * Allow the fairways to be changed to advertising-covered artificial turf.

  * Trick two or three very wealthy dumb guys into joining at an exorbitant fee that Penworthy wasn't told about.

  * Add disc golf baskets to the greens and get a second membership group.

  * Sell biofuel made from the grass clippings and the old grease from the grill.

  * Charge members a fee for each stroke taken.

  * Burn down the clubhouse and get the insurance money.

  * Have the Rolling Stones play a benefit concert.

  * Everyone just believe that the money will come and it will.

  * Drill for oil, especially on the dogleg on hole number 2.

  * Grow marijuana in the rough and sell it.Cut down all the trees, especially on the dogleg on hole number 2, and sell the timber.

The meeting where Paul B, Sinfonia Dugger, and Darian Porter reviewed the list was listless. That is, Paul B had lost the list, so they decided to come up with their own ideas, knowing the ones from the members would be imbecilic anyway.

After fumbling through some weak bake sale / car wash / raffle obviousness, Darian Porter mentioned that one of his uncles was Pug Snodgrass, an Oklahoma golfer whose one professional victory on the PGA Tour was the 1968 U.S. Open—the year of the disqualification of the top six golfers for use of morning glory seeds. Maybe they could charge a few high rollers from Austin for an exhibition and lessons from Snodgrass. Although it would be a one-time event, rather than a steady source of income, it sounded more plausible than anything else.

• • •

Snodgrass was quite willing and asked for a reasonable retainer for his services so the plan went forward. Somewhat to their surprise, given the lousy economy and Snodgrass's modest and aged claim to fame, twenty people from outside the Austin Golf Club signed up for the event, at $300 a pop.

The clubhouse was decorated in a 1968 theme, with the club members in attendance to be decked out in bell bottoms and love beads. Long arguments were fought over the mix tape of background music for the luncheon in the clubhouse. Decades-old arguments over the superiority of Procol Harum vs. the Moody Blues reemerged with undiluted passion.

Finally the big day arrived, with the event to kick off at 9 am. Darian arrived at 8:50, sweating buckets. "Has anyone seen my uncle Pug? I was supposed to pick him up at the hotel at 8 and take him to breakfast, but he wasn't there. I've been looking everywhere." The clubhouse was quickly searched without success.

By 9:00, the attendees were gathered on the tee box where Snodgrass was to put on his opening exhibition. For a few minutes they were content to interact and sip the Irish coffees they were plied with, but by 9:10 watches were being checked. Suddenly a golf ball landed exactly where Snodgrass was to stand. It bounced forward twice, bit, and rolled back to its landing spot. Everyone jumped back in surprise. They looked down the fairway and saw a figure 150 yards away wearing flaming-red plus fours and a turquoise-and-lime green plaid shirt. He waved happily, jumped in a golf cart, and took off toward them at full speed. As he approached, he tossed balls ahead of the cart and hit them left-handed polo-style. Each one rolled to the feet of the stunned crowd.

He came to a stop and the crowd got to see that his cart was a smaller version of the Oscar Mayer weinermobile. "Howdy, folks! I'm Pug Snodgrass from Ada, Oklahoma! How you all are?"

A few "Just greats" and "Doin' alrights" were elicited, but they weren't good enough for Pug. "Oh, one of those crowds, huh? OK, I'm gonna hafta force you to shape up. Form four lines of five people each, C'mon, snap to it," he said with a military forcefulness. They complied. "Alright now. I want each of you to turn around and shake the hand of the person behind you." When they tried, of course, they saw the person behind them turning to the person behind them. "Haw, haw! What a bunch of dopes!" The crowd was his by now, except for a couple of cringing curmudgeons.

"Speaking of dopes, I suppose you all know the reason I won the '68 United States Open was because the six dopes ahead of me took dope, so don't be a dope and use dope, OK? Wow, the word 'dope' sounds funny if you say it over and over, doesn't it? Try it, c'mon, say it."

The slightly perplexed group dutifully chanted "Dope, dope, dope, dope, dope...."

After about the sixth "dope" Pug started marching around the tee box in time to the chanting in an exaggerated military style with a 4-iron over his shoulder like a rifle. He marched over to the golf balls he had hit to the box earlier, did an elaborate twirling of his club, and then hit five 250-yard screaming shots in quick succession.

The morning proceeded in like fashion. Pug did something seemingly insane and then turned it into a show of golf magic. He balanced three balls on a tee then hit the bottom one with a wedge while the top two dropped down onto the tee. He had the group hum "The Anvil Chorus" while he hit shots in time with a club in each hand. The crowd loved him.

Finally it was time for the lunch break, to be followed by individual lessons. Janine, the Scottish expat and mistress of the grill, created what she called the "Hands Across the Water" luncheon, consisting of chicken-fried haggis, single-malt guacamole, and Falstaff porridge, all washed down with tankards of Wee Heavy.

The jolly group got jollier as they plowed through the feast. Pug in particular was extravagant in his consumption and praise of the cuisine.

The group reconvened on the ninth green to get their lessons. Pug explained that they would start with putting. He followed his morning routine by beginning with a putt that jumped over another ball like a pool trick shot. He surveyed the crowd and said in a serious tone, "The green's where about a third of your strokes are, and very few practice there enough." He had the group start by trying to simply hit a thirty-foot putt, not even at a hole. Only four of the twenty were within two feet of the distance. One went about ten feet and a couple went almost fifty.

Pug stared for a long time at the putts. He stared at the green. He stared at his putter. "You're pathetic. You three, step forward," meaning those who hit the worst putts. They did, a bit sheepishly but assuming Pug was going to have some fun with them. "Alright, pull down your pants. Down around your ankles. Now! I mean it!" Still thinking it was going to end as a joke, they slowly did as commanded. Pug walked up to the first and hit him hard in the shin with a putter. The man fell to the green in agony. Blood ran down his leg. Pug approached the second and started to repeat the attack.

Darian Porter, who had been watching from the background all morning, grabbed him from behind and they wrestled on the ground, with the much younger man finally pinning Pug. "Are you insane?! You can't hit people like that!"

Pug gasped for breath. "They deserve it! Golf's too good for scum like them. They all should die!"

Paul B and Sinfonia Dugger, wearing the required '60s garb, started herding the guests off the green and apologizing. "Guess he drank a little too much lunch. Sorry. Let's go have a beer to cool off."

After everyone had gone, Pug stopped squirming. Darian stood him up. He had a distant glazed look in his eyes. "What is wrong with you? Are you drunk?"

"No, not at all. It's like I said to them. When they hit those unbelievably lousy putts I had a...I dunno...a revelation. I cannot let golf be ruined by such, such...trash. I work on my game for fifty years. I show them all those shots this morning. And then they do this," he said, sweeping an arm toward the green. "They are not worthy. I am now going to make it my life's work to discourage people from playing golf."

Pug Snodgrass picked up his bloodied putter, got in his weinermobile, and drove down the middle of the final fairway.

The Austin Golf Club had to refund everyone's money to keep it quiet. They held a bake sale the next weekend and made $84.50.

#

# T'was Tee Time at the Circus

Members of the Austin Golf Club had various theories about Reggie Penworthy, the founder—or more properly, refounder—of the club. He had made millions in one or more of Austin's high tech booms and had sold out right before the latest massive bust. He then acquired what had been the municipal Hancock Golf Course in the city's fire sale of public property. But what, the members wondered, would drive a man to spend millions on buying and reestablishing an old semi-defunct golf club and yet to spend so little time there?

It was known he lived in one of the classy yet modest 1930s bungalows that lined the north and west sides of the course, but there was no consensus on which one or whether he lived alone. As the tipplers sat around the verandah overlooking the ninth green, there would be a report of having seen Penworthy at dusk playing the third hole from green to tee using only an 8-iron. No, another said, he had heard it was a baseball bat. The overnight change in the snack bar to all vegetarian fare was assumed to have been on his command. The change back three weeks later to tasty greasy grub was likewise attributed. As was the change to an all-vegan menu a month later. "Can't even get a pickled egg any more," grumbled Boynton Butler. "Thank god he has resisted the Temperance Roundtable."

One Penworthian touch caused sighs from the old guard and made the younger crowd happy. The front and back tee markers on each of the nine holes became small avant garde sculptures that were changed out once a month. The monthly art openings that resulted were lively hip affairs or tiresome swarmings of poseurs, depending on one's views, with the invitees wandering from one tiki-torch lit tee box to the next, where buckets of beer and wine and raw vegetables or pig's feet awaited. Inevitably, these became known as Tee Parties. One of the party games was to spot Penworthy's erratic appearances.

But these events brought up a sticky situation for the club. The original Austin Country Club was established in 1899, back when this area was, in fact, in the country, as opposed to its current spot in the urban core. Then there had been no need for fences to keep the great unwashed out, but now the bathless were a presence on the eastern side, where the decrepit Hancock Shopping Center—once home of the club's back nine holes—housed dozens of cut-rate businesses catering to the large flock of souls made marginal by the economic bust. Used bakeries and on-demand baptism stores drew crowds who then were attracted to the free food and drink of the Tee Parties across the street. After a few unpleasant exchanges between the have-somes and have-nots, Penworthy reluctantly brought forward for the club's consideration whether times dictated a fence was now needed. A public meeting was called.

In broad terms the Austin Golf Club had two factions that matched the reactions to the tee-box sculpture openings: an older crowd who had played the course for years when it was a municipal course and a somewhat younger crowd who had managed to survive the current economic wreck enough to want to join a modest golf club. As is increasingly the case in Austin, it is those whose political and social sensibilities formed in the hippie years who were the more liberal, a contradiction to the stereotypical view that such attitudes belong to the young. Thus it was the young who favored a stout fence and the elders who advocated preserving openness.

Because no one was quite sure how Reggie Penworthy would react, no one was willing to advocate simply discontinuing the parties and thus not attract the outsiders. After much toing and froing, a formidable figure stepped into the breach: Major Saul McAvity, just returned from a safari to Nebraska. He immediately volunteered to establish a militia to patrol the perimeter during the parties. There were the predictable rumblings about rights and dangers, fights and rangers, smites and angers, but the sheer force of Major Saul's Gilbert & Sullivaness won the day. However, his request for chrome helmets and patent leather Sam Browne belts was denied.

Major Saul called for the first training session to be at 5 am the following morning.

• • •

By 8:45 am about a dozen men and women were wandering about, coffee in hand. Several had brought their putters and were engaged in small-change betting games on the practice green. Major Saul walked briskly about, tapping the tops of his cowboy boots with a riding crop he had fashioned out of an old fly swatter. He had rolled the wire mesh and wrapped it with duct tape. There was talk among the gathered whether he had stuffed newspapers in the sides of his Bermuda shorts to make them look like jodhpurs. One wag started whistling "The Colonel Bogey March."

"Men," Major Saul began, pointedly looking at the women, "the training begins. You are to run the perimeter of the course three times. You may use a moderate pace since this is our opening day of training. Be on the lookout for strategic points to concentrate our defenses." He pulled a massive pistol from his dark blue wool tunic and fired it in the air. Alarms on half the cars in the lot began an atonal, postmodern symphony. "Off you go!" he screamed at the bemused and immobile militia.

"No," responded one. "Off you are."

It would, perhaps, be an exaggeration to say Major Saul aimed the pistol at the group, but it was close enough to start them jogging away from him, toward the perimeter of the course.

• • •

Over the next three weeks, at least six of the original dozen hung on, working out a routine where they would show up for training, jog off and play a few holes. There was still enough sentiment that some sort of guard system was needed for the Tee Parties and enough respect, fear, and curiosity for, of, and about Major Saul to warrant the charade. Reggie Penworthy evidently approved of it, also, so the small militia continued.

Some level of excitement built around the Austin Golf Club as the next Tee Party approached. The old guard on the tenth hole verandah overlooking the ninth green ruminated much. Paul B, the most junior of the senior members, opined, "Penworthy needs to climb out of the shadows and take charge here. Major Saul is a wild card, a loose cannon, a maverick, a twerp. I saw too many like him when I was a file clerk in the Army. There could be trouble, my friends. Waller Creek could run red. We need a backup plan."

• • •

The theme of the next Tee Party sculpture installation was "Permanence / Impermanence: A Quandary." The artist, Pelotino Stag-Royfitz, had painstakingly built perfectly realistic boulders out of sugar. As the accompanying brochure said: "Over the course of the month, these will dissolve, reminding the already burdened golfers that in addition to their cartons of clubs they also carry their mortality as they pointlessly walk the Dantesque nine holes of perdition."

There was some talk among the old guard of just going out straightaway with a hose and getting rid of the art then and there, but fear of how Reggie Penworthy might react put the kibosh on those ideas. Plus, Major Saul's new militia guarding the tees might be looking for a little bit of the old ultraviolence so best to be judicious in one's actions.

• • •

An unease settled on the evening of the Tee Party. Major Saul strode along the Red River Street border, gazing toward Hancock Shopping Center through infrared goggles. Off in the east, he could see a small crowd of scruffians gathered in front of Kardboard Klothes, eyeing the tiki torches being lit on each of the tee boxes. He removed his revolver and spun the cylinder. He took out a walkie-talkie. "This is Apex-1. Come in, Falcon Fire....Falcon Fire, come in....Hello? Anyone?"

"Oops, sorry, Major. We were all trying to figure out how to work this thing. Hey, guys, hold it down a second." A steady background of tinkling glasses and laughter died away. "What's up, Major?"

The major stared at the furthest stars for a moment, then spoke. "What is up is that the enemy is forming a phalanx. Plus I see a couple of the reprobates sauntering down Red River, obviously a reconnaissance squad. You need to get your sorry selves over here, pronto. And don't come empty-handed, if you know what I mean. Over and out."

The meaning of "empty-handed" was briefly discussed among the four militia who had actually shown up.

"I think for sure he means bring weapons," said Falcon Fire-1.

"But what if he means a bottle of wine and some crudités?" warned Falcon Fire-2.

"Isn't it 'crudité'? Without the s?" asked Falcon Fire-3.

"No, but that's a common error," responded Falcon Fire-2.

"Aha, you are both incorrect," Falcon Fire-4 noted. "The s is, indeed, present, but it is not pronounced. Interestingly the word comes from the Latin cruditas, meaning indigestion."

"Perhaps we should just call them hors d'oeuvres and get over there," said Falcon Fire-1 Solomonically.

On the eastern front, the crowd of would-be gate crashers had grown to perhaps twenty. They licked their chops. They rubbed their empty bellies while simultaneously tapping the tops of their fierce heads, a sign of preparation for battle in Major Saul's vast knowledge of the arts of war. He angrily looked back at the torch-lit course. "Where are those slackers!? They'd better get here soon. I hope they bring some of those nice appetizers, too."

The Falcon Fire four strolled in lockstep from the crepuscular gloom. "Hey, Major. Anything happening?" One brandished a pitch fork, one a pitching wedge, one a platter of raw vegetables, and one a jeraboam of so-so Champagne. Each sported a stemmed wine glass in his chest pocket, like a battle ribbon from some rare French victory.

The major suppressed every fiber of his being and spoke through clenched teeth. Pointing with his riding crop, he said, "They have two men stationed there and there. The main phalanx is at three o'clock." Only two of the Falcon Fire militia looked at their watches. "Since our group is small, we may have to lay down some fire of attrition. Shock them, awe them." He pulled his mighty firearm from his tunic.

"Whoa, whoa, Major. We can't go shooting at them. That's crazy!"

The gun swiveled a bit in their direction. "Is defending one's home crazy? Is believing in law and order crazy? Is not a golf course one of the last sacred places left? My god, man. In the end, have you no spine?" He turned back to the advancing enemy as the Falcon Fire four slipped into the shadows of the course.

Just as the first of the ravening horde stepped into Red River Street and just as Major Saul raised the barrel of his pistol, a battered small pickup truck pulled into no man's land and stopped. The bed was filled with ice and a hundred bottles of beer and a half-dozen jars of pig knuckles and pickled eggs.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Paul B, stepping from the truck. "Help yourselves. Take it all. But let's let the toffs over at the golf course have their fun. What do you say?"

#

# Luck

The senior members watched one of those towering summer afternoon thunderstorms come tearing out of the west as they lounged on the verandah overlooking the ninth green. The temperature dropped from 97 to 80 in five minutes. A burst of West Texas dust coated the world, soon to be washed away. It grew dark and quiet.

"The clam before the storm," Paul B said for the thousandth time in his life. He had once actually commissioned a painting with that title from a friend. A defiant clam, arms akimbo, staring at an oncoming lightning-filled black cloud. He found the phrase hilarious.

The first fat splat sent the members into the grill room for fear of diluting their Falstaffs. It grew dark enough to warrant the overhead lights, but a sharp crack made the room white, then the power went out. Janine, the grill's bartender, called out in her Scottish brogue, "Drink, lads, the beer's nae gonna stay cold." The storm was duly toasted. It looked like it was going to be a prolonged stay.

Janine carried Geronimo in. The poor dog was shaking with fear of the thunder. The senior members took turns consoling him.

Paul B walked to the dark window and watched a series of flashes. "Did I ever tell you about the luckiest or unluckiest golfer in the world?" He turned back and caught half the men rising and looking to the exit. "Now, now. You'll be glad you heard this one, and every word is true."

• • •

"It actually was the very first round played after we lost the back nine holes, in 1963," Paul B recounted. "And, amazingly enough, it was J. Frank Dobie, the famous folklorist, who was the golfer."

"I never heard of Dobie playing golf," said Barker Baines Johnson, a known skeptic about town.

"Well, did you ever hear of him not playing golf? He lived near here, just down on 26th Street. He used to wander up Waller Creek through Eastwoods Park carrying a few clubs. Never brought any balls because he knew he'd find some in the creek on the way upstream. Dobie was just a hacker, never near par.

"Now this was back when this was a public course, before the idiot population of Austin voted in '62 to sell off the back nine holes to Sears Roebuck." A perfunctory angry rumbling came out of the senior members.

"So through no plan other than being an early riser, Dobie happened to be the first off the tee on an ordinary midweek day in 1963, that first day of infamy when we were reduced to nine holes. He was by himself. And here's when the most amazing round ever played on this course or anywhere starts." More dismissive grumblings from the members.

"On the first hole, he hits a weak iron that bounces off the stone banks of Waller Creek. The ball rolls on the green and into the hole. He looked around for a witness—no one.

A little stunned, he heads to the second hole. An unusually good drive and second shot gave him a clear opening to the green. His 4-iron goes in for an eagle.

"He's an old guy at this point, around seventy-five—in fact he died the next year—and he's jumping up and down, cursing that no one could verify this. He goes to number 3 and hits another good drive. His approach is still a good 140 yards out. He wanted to hit a 6-iron, but was only carrying about five clubs so has to hit a 4. He accidently hits a low screamer that would have gone across onto Peck Avenue except it hits the fluttering flag, gets wrapped up it in, and drops down into the hole."

The eye-rolling and eyebrow-arching is so rampant among the senior members that it's the most exercise some have gotten in years.

"So he's had three eagles in a row, maybe something that's never been done outside of a Putt-Putt course. A score of 6 after three holes, six under par. He's trying to stay calm and not think. Maybe he should just quit right then. But he laughs at himself. 'It's just a game.' His tee shot on number 4, the bland par 3, hits the green, bounces once, hits the flagstick, and drops, stopping right next to the hole. As he walks to the green a big wind, on an otherwise calm day, blows the ball in the hole. At this point, he's starting to think maybe he's insane, but glad it's taking this form.

Onto number 5, where his drive is an ugly slice, hitting a large oak and slowly rolling back down the hill, toward him, almost going in Waller Creek. Dobie's kind of relieved. The past four holes were too strange. But since it's a short par 4 he can theoretically still reach the green. His 4-iron barely gets high enough to get over the rise that blocks his view of the green. He puffs his way up the incline, stopping once to catch his breath. Looking around as he gets close to the green, he doesn't see his ball and reluctantly looks in the cup. Yep, sitting there, staring back at him. Another eagle.

"He's starting to wonder if he's on Candid Camera. That was real popular on TV back then and being a folklorist, he thought the show was like fieldwork. He casually looked around for Allen Funt hiding behind a tree.

"On to the easier next four holes, which for the first time, were the end of the course. On number 6, he can hear, if not yet see, where the back nine were. Huge earth movers, jack hammers, trees falling. He is shaken. He knew this was going to happen but the reality hits him in the gut. His drive is so-so, maybe 175 yards. His second shot is a worm-burner to the left, into a deep swale 50 yards short of the green. He, of course, hits a 9-iron into the cup on the fly. 'Hell, only a birdie.'

"On the number 7 tee he's confronted with the actual sight of the destruction of the back nine. A line of cement trucks is waiting to enter while another line of trucks hauling away cut-down trees exits. Dobie feels like he's in heaven and hell at the same time. He hits two decent shots and is on the green. A 20-foot putt goes in. It feels like the most ordinary hole in the world. Back-to-back birdies, something Dobie had never done before, now seemed like a letdown.

"On number 8, his nice drive sits in the middle of the fairway, but just as he's about thirty feet away, a dog runs out of the trees to the right and picks up the ball in its mouth. Dobie shouts at it and, of course, the dog thinks it's a game. They chase each other around, moving toward the green. The dog finally drops the ball in the sand trap to the left of the green. Afraid the dog will pick it up again, Dobie throws a stick off to the left for the dog to play with, which works. But in tearing out of the trap to get the stick, the dog kicks the ball, which rolls onto the green and into the hole. A hole in one. A double eagle.

"Now Dobie's on the final hole. He tries not to but can't stop himself—after eight holes a score so far of 16, fifteen under par; one double eagle; five eagles, three holes in one; two birdies; a total of one putt."

In spite of themselves, and aided by a constant flow of Falstaff and a lightning-lit Paul B, the small crowd of senior members were leaning forward, eyes wide.

"Now, you all know number 9 has a pond to the front left of the green. Well, when Dobie hit his tee shot, the depression that forms the pond wasn't there, but before his shot landed, it was." Paul B paused and took a long sip of his beer.

"Right as his tee shot was starting to come down, a meteor came flying in from the south, hits Dobie's ball, then the fairway.

"Well, Dobie sat down right on the tee box, staring like a dead man. After about thirty seconds people came running from all over to find out what the big noise was. Dobie slowly approached the crowd. He spotted the club pro and asked him what the rule was for a ball destroyed in midflight by a meteor. The pro immediately said a substitute ball would be dropped where the original would have landed. No penalty. 'But,' said Dobie, 'it would have stopped where that flaming pit is now.' The pro said in that case he could drop anywhere no closer to the hole.

"Dobie hit a nice 9-iron onto the green. His birdie put lips out. The club pro said, 'Aww, tough luck.'"

• • •

The quiet in the grill room lasted about fifteen seconds, then Barker Baines Johnson said, "Hey, Paul B, wait just a minute...."

The group looked at the two of them. Johnson started to say something twice then said, "Forget it. Never mind." As the group got up to replenish their mugs with the warming Falstaff, Johnson sidled up to Paul B and said quietly, "The holes were arranged totally differently back then. For instance, what's now number 9 was number 5 in 1963."

"Well, uh, Dobie didn't really know the right sequence and because his round was so amazing, the management rearranged the numbering to match his."

"Really?"

"May I be struck by a meteorite if I'm lying."

# About the Author

Red Wassenich was born in and lives in Austin, Texas. He has been a librarian, radio evangelist, movie cadaver, and is the creator of Keep Austin Weird. His previous books are Keep Austin Weird: A Guide to the Odd Side of Town; Something Before Nothing: A Novel; and Keeping Austin Weird: A Guide to the (Still) Odd Side of Town.

