Missing links, p.16
Missing Links, page 16
Not only that, I even started believing it.
Besides, Madeline wouldn’t answer my calls and wouldn’t come to the phone. If I couldn’t have her, I was going after my golf career again. And if I lost that, too … well, I didn’t want to think about it.
The one time I thought it was her, returning my one hundredth message, I was stunned to find the voice of Lois.
“Please hold for Mr. Hart.”
Suddenly, there he was.
“Raymond, how would you like to come out to the Mayflower again?” he said.
“Uh, well,” I said, not quite believing my ears. “Sure.”
“Tomorrow, nine-twelve?”
“Mmmm, uh, yeah. I’ll be there.”
“Unless you have a lot of appointments?”
“No, no appointments.”
“Or a game at the Charles River Club.”
“No, no.”
“That’s fine, then. Oh, and maybe you could buy a new shirt.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said. “For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to say anything to piss me off.”
“Raymond, I’m just saying …”
“Forget it. See you tomorrow.”
I felt like a bit of a rodent playing again with the one person I would most like to see sucked into a 747 engine, but, like I say, I had that feeling again. Playing on a great course could do nothing but make my game better. And besides, what did I have to lose? At least I could maybe explain things to her there when I saw her. And not only that, but could it possibly be my father wanted to start making things right with me?
The next day, my father and I, not saying too much, played a pharmacist and some toy-making tycoon in a little alternate shot game (“Makes the game go so much faster,” said my father), and me and the Last Real Golf Club in America were getting along wonderfully well—I hit every fairway and my father played pretty well, too, and I made enough jing to keep me in purple-dot Titleists for a long, long time.
The strangest thing was that my father and I never argued over how to play a hole or a shot or which way a putt broke, as though we had been evolving on parallel golf universes this whole time without knowing it. You could bring up a thousand subjects and there probably wasn’t a single one we’d be able to agree on, but golf somehow was. And I thought maybe, just maybe, that was a start. Somewhere deep in the iciest part of my heart, maybe I could feel a little thawing going on.
The more I played with him, the more I realized that maybe Madeline was right. In a few ways, I was like my father. For instance, I learned to suck down scotch from him—my first wife might tell you that—and I learned to swing a golf club from him—low, slow take-away like Billy Casper, full turn like Couples, never getting it to parallel like Norman, dropping it a little inside like Trevino and a nice, high finish like Weiskopf. It was his brother, Joe, that taught me to play golf, but it was always Father whom I pictured in my mind’s slo-mo.
He didn’t say much to me, but he seemed to be trying the way awkward males will, keeping it within the confines of golf. For instance, he would pick up my MacGregor every now and again and say, “So you say Nicklaus used this to win the Open in 1962?”
“Yeah. They say he never missed a fairway with it in the playoff with Arnie.”
“How did your grandfather get it again?”
“Bought it at a charity auction that year. Paid $550 for it.”
“It’s awfully gorgeous,” my father said.
He took a very long time giving it back to me.
It was the most civil conversation I’d had with my father in probably ten years. It felt very odd not being ignored by him, like suddenly speaking in another language. I kept wanting to look over my shoulder and ask, “Are you talkin’ to me?”
Luckily, Madeline was doing a wonderful job of ignoring me.
“Stupid girl,” my father kept saying. “Why doesn’t that girl ever stop?”
We played twice more together, my father and I, always alternate shot, which was curious, until I realized he either didn’t want to get beat by me or didn’t want any more fights.
The third time we played, I arrived in the parking lot to find that our opponents were Bingsley M. Colchester and his guest, a sturdy-looking gent named Barton Dunlop, known more familiarly to me as Cementhead.
Curiously, this Bingsley guy did the same thing in the parking lot that a friend of mine named Two Down used to do, which is carry about fifty trophies in the trunk of his car. He didn’t win them, he collected them. And he didn’t care as long as they were big and cheap. Whenever he was in a big match, he’d show up in the parking lot about five minutes late, all rushed, and say, “Sorry, sorry, lemme just get my shoes.” And he’d open his trunk and start taking out all these trophies and setting them on the ground. “I gotta get a bigger den,” he’d say. And the poor guy he was playing would get eyes like Barney Google and go out and lose about eight $20 presses.
I mentioned to him that it was just me and he didn’t have to go through the whole trophy act. He seemed disappointed.
As for this Cementhead character, he had apparently been having a hard time making the adjustment from the world’s worst muni to one of the world’s finest private clubs. For instance, when he arrived, he refused to allow the bag boy to take his clubs from his truck, certain the boy was going to steal them.
“Whaddya think I am, stupid?” he roared.
Then he put the clamp on the shoeshine man in the locker room, whom he thought was stealing his shoes. The man had to quickly explain that he would shine his loafers while he played and if he wouldn’t mind unclamping his shoulder because he was starting to lose feeling in his fingers.
Then Cement walked into the pro shop, sank one of his massive paws into the basket of tees on the counter, slowly guided it over to the man behind the counter like a building crane and handed him a dollar bill with his other hand.
“Uh, the tees are free, sir,” said the man.
“Oh,” said Cementhead. “Sorry.” Still, he kept them and walked out of there like there was a porcupine in his pocket.
But once Cementhead got a little used to the place—his first putt on No. 1 went past the pin, over the fringe and into a pond—he was fine. It was this Bingsley guy who turned out to be the gold-plated prick.
It was almost as though somebody really had switched Two Down for this jerk, because there was no Two Down inside this guy. There were no fun bets, only $20 one-downs—no Las Vegas, no bingle, bangle, bongles, no jokes, no lines, no laughs. I’d never seen Two Down so serious in my life. He looked older, somehow, and worried. His skin was pasty white. He barely said a word to me or Cementhead the first 15 holes, which was good, because if he had, I would’ve put an overlapping grip on his throat.
All he did all day was try to screw me. He dropped his car keys on my backswing twice, pumped the cart brakes on my backswing about seven times, coughed over my putts three times, sneezed twice and, with about $200 riding on the final hole, asked me if I exhaled or inhaled on my backswing.
“I am not sure if I inhale or exhale,” I told him. “But at least I don’t suck.”
Even for Ponky, it was over the top. You expect it at Ponky—you’re ready for it—but not at the Mayflower.
I was so pissed off, I hit a two-cheeker about 295 down the middle and we birdied the damn hole on him.
I was beginning to wonder why I used to like the guy so much. Two days before, Chunkin’ Charlie told me that Two Down brought Crowbar to the Mayflower, just to ride along, and the guard called Two Down inside the guard shack and told him, “With all respect, sir, your guest isn’t welcome.” Definitely a black thing.
And Two Down just took Crowbar home and went and played anyway. Here’s a guy that is with Two Down maybe five days out of seven every week for I don’t know how many years and now when it really counts, Two Down stiffs him. Beautiful.
After the round, my father said, “Sorry, Raymond, I just don’t have time for that drink.”
“Oh.”
That made four times in a row I hadn’t been invited inside the club. He was either ashamed of me or wanted some way of punishing me. Maybe he just felt I should earn it.
“Maybe some other time,” he said.
I was thinking about all that as I was leaving the parking lot—learning to hate Two Down and, come to think of it, myself a little for being a cog in the machine that was changing him—when there was a knock on the window of the little Escort I’d bought myself for $500. It was Two Down himself, noted Dorchester humanist.
“Look,” he said. “I’m in trouble.”
“Good,” I said, rolling up the window.
“No, Stick, please. I’m serious. I need your help.”
I let him inside the car.
“What’s wrong? You accidentally swallow a cough drop?”
“No, Stick, please.”
I’d never seen him so shaken.
“Stick, I’m down eight Large.”
“You can’t be,” I mentioned. “You don’t have eight Large.”
“I know! But I am!”
“Impressive. How’d you manage it?”
“Dice and putting for dollars.”
“Big dollars.”
“Big.”
“Two, you don’t lose at dice and putting. Thud doesn’t lose ham-eating contests and you don’t lose at dice and putting.”
“I’ve already cashed Jane’s Christmas Club,” he said.
“Smooth,” I said to him. “So sell the Lexus out. That’s gotta be worth $35,000.”
“Thirty-six,” he said. “I already did. But it was more complicated than I thought. I had to pay $12,000 in taxes right off the bat and the insurance was $4,000, which I didn’t have, so I sold it and that left me $20,000. I blew a lot of that on new furniture for Jane and a buncha clothes for me and then I lost the rest of it plus the $8,000.”
“Jesus Holy Christ!” I said. “Where’s Arnie? Fiji?”
“That’s the thing,” he said. “I had Arnie. Arnie never putted better. That’s why I kept doubling it. This guy Concorde just always drained one more than me. Most unbelievable long-range putter I’ve ever seen.”
“Stone Concorde?” I asked.
He looked lost, running his hands through his bristle-brush hair, his skin kind of clammy. “Yeah. Great guy. Couldn’t be nicer. Why?”
Something about this didn’t make sense. Two Down was twice the putter Stone Concorde ever hoped to be.
“On the putting green?” I asked.
“No, over at Macy’s, you moron.”
“So just disappear,” I said. “Who’s gonna find Bingsley M. Colchester?”
“But, Stick, I can beat this guy,” Two Down said. “I don’t want to disappear. I’ve wanted to be in the majors my whole life, I don’t want to give this thing up. If I can just get back to even with this guy, I’ll stay away from him. Then I’ll be set at this club for life.”
“So whaddya want from me?”
“I don’t know. I just … I’m goin’ against him in a half hour. Stick around—luck?”
“Jesus! Are you taking stupid pills? What’s this guy gonna do when you tell him, ‘Gee, uh, I’m a little short on cash, but I can hook you up with free lifetime call waiting’?”
“I ain’t losing.”
“Oh, well, no problem, then,” I said, exasperated. “Forget it, Two. I can’t watch this shit. You got in over your head this time. This ain’t you and me and Chunk chipping into Manelli’s drive-thru window. This is lawyer whip-out stuff. These guys floss out chunks of guys like you.”
“Buy you the greatest dinner afterward you’ve ever had.”
“I thought you were tapped out.”
“My bill doesn’t come for another week. By then, I’ll either have the cash or I’ll be toast.”
“Hello? Leonard Petrovitz? Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”
“Please? For old times? As a Chop?”
Just then I saw Madeline squeal off. What plans could I possibly have?
I pretended to be hanging around, just putting, when Concorde came out to join “Bingsley” on the putting green.
“Bingo!” Concorde said. “Gonna put it to me tonight, aren’t you, buddy? I can just feel it.”
Two Down had none of that old chip-on-the-shoulder bravado he had at Ponky, that face that said, “I’m about to become your new installment loan officer here in about ten minutes.”
“That’s it, Stoner,” Two Down said weakly. “Gonna get back my little IOU right now.” But he said it like he was reading a cue card. It was as though when he became Bingsley Colchester, he automatically absorbed this Colchester guy’s personality, which appeared to be that of a throw rug.
They started with $100 a hole, aces only, which means if you don’t sink the putt on the first try, you don’t win and the bet is carried over to the next hole.
“All right, Arnie,” I heard Two Down whisper. “Let’s play hide Whitey.”
Two Down may not have been his usual self, but Arnie was. Arnie was taking it to the hole like Charles Barkley and before long Two Down was up about $600. Then Concorde doubled the bet to $200 a hole. Two Down promptly sank a bunch of putts, a 12-footer and a 22-footer and even a 16-foot right-to-left no-chancer that hung on the lip about five seconds before dropping.
Two Down turned Arnie upside down and grabbed him by the throat. “Arnie! How many times have I told you not to show off? No teaser putts.”
A rare sighting of the old Two Down. Now he was up $2,200. Still, Concorde didn’t look all that concerned.
“Let’s try some long ones,” Concorde said.
Two Down got a panicky look on his face.
Stone set up about 30 feet away. “Ten putts from here. A grand for every one you make.”
“Right,” said Two Down.
To me, it seemed like a stupid bet. Any putt that goes in from 30 feet is just pure, unfiltered luck, a no-brainer, and not much else. You might as well put a dime in a phone booth and hope it pays twenty to one. Of course, Two Down was born with an extra luck gene.
Two Down went first. Nobody I ever met made more no-brainers than Two Down, but in his five chances, all he did was lip one out and miss the rest. It was starting to get chilly and so while Two Down was putting, Concorde put on a black windbreaker.
“Nice try, Bingo,” Concorde said in that faux friendly way of his. “Thought you might get one.”
Then Concorde stepped up and simply dunked the first one. Dead center of the hole. I was mortified. So was Two. He missed the second, but he made the next two, an impossible feat, an incredible feat. Now he was up $800 for the night.
“Whooo!” he said. “I am one lucky sonofagun.”
“Rats get fat,” whispered Two Down.
He missed the fifth badly. Still, he was up $800. Two Down had his head bowed. Then he snapped it up and said, “Double or nothing says you can’t make your next two out of three.”
“Forget it, Bingopolous, I got no chance,” said Concorde. “That was just lucky.”
“Triple or nothing,” said Two Down.
“OK,” said Concorde.
I smiled. Why Concorde would take a stupid bet like that was beyond me. Yeah, he’d just made three out of five, but it was just a tear in the fabric of reality. No possible way he can make two out of the next three. A true sucker bet.
Still, there he was, setting up to it, and knocking his first bomb right in the jar. He missed the second badly. He straightened up a moment before he tried his third.
It was right then, something about the way he looked at the hole, that it hit me. It was him. It was the man in black we’d seen in the middle of the night weeks ago, the guy doing the weird things with the hoses. The sturdy-looking build. The black jacket. The black hat. All he was missing was the black pants.
I wanted to yell, but before I could Concorde’s third putt was on the way. And going flat dead in the hole.
“Whoooo-ahhhh!” he yelled. “Unbelievable, huh, Bingo?!”
“Good men die,” whispered Two Down. He was now down $2,400 for the night, $10,400 altogether. His face went white, his eyebrows sank and he looked like he’d just eaten a curtain hook.
“I’ll be,” I said, walking over to the hole that held Concorde’s two balls. “A guy makes five out of eight 30-footers, all to the same hole, all on the same exact line, all five of which go dead center in the hole. What are the odds, huh, Bingo?”
Concorde gave me a quick dirty look and reached into the hole for his balls. I stepped hard on his arm with my high-tops so he couldn’t move it. He collapsed to his knees.
“Hey, motherfucker!” Concorde yelped.
“C’mere a second, Bingo,” I said. “Feel the grain right next to the hole.”
Bingo brushed the grass.
“Do you feel a little indentation?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Two Down. “I do!”
I stepped harder on Concorde’s arm.
“Now, follow that indentation and see where it goes.”
Two Down got on his knees and brushed all around the cup. Pretty soon, his hand was following a path that led to the exact point where Concorde had putted from 30 feet away.
“There’s a fucking little gully all the way to the hole!” Two Down screeched. “I got moosed!”
Suddenly, Concorde swung his left leg around and kicked out my legs from under me. He jumped up.
“I don’t know what you gentlemen are talking about,” he said, rubbing his arm. “But I do know Mr. Colchester owes me $10,000.”
“Up yours horizontally, Concorde,” I said, on my feet again. “You know exactly how that little gully got there. It’s an old Titanic Thompson trick. You come out here at night and lay the hose down on the green and then soak it. I’ve seen you do it. It makes a perfect indentation on the putting green, but nothing big enough to see. You can only feel it. And it feeds every darling little putt right into the cup. That’s why every putt you hit went in hard, dead center, except, of course, the ones you missed badly just to make it look legit.”
By now, Two Down had made two in a row by feeling exactly where the path was, putting his ball down in the gully and simply hitting it hard. When the second one went in, Two Down had manslaughter in his eyes.
