14 Fictional Positions

by Williamson, Eric Miles

  He did not realize that she had stopped when she stopped. He sat slumped in the chair and she stood over him and nudged him.

  “I am finished,” she said.

  “I did not listen.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It was very nice.”

  “You are tired now.”

  “I need to rest,” he said.

  “We will not make love,” she said. “You have heard enough for tonight.”

  “No,” Romero said.

  Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

  Life is a self-paced suicide.

  Historians will speak of us in the past tense.

  We were once young and fresh, but now we are old and we smell.

  It’s better to shoot the wrong man than not to shoot at all.

  Change is absolutely necessary for growth and for buying cigarets.

  Sex without guilt: what’s the use?

  I only know what time it is when I don’t have to tell somebody else.

  Good digestion is the blessing of the philosopher of the stomach.

  Near the end of our lives time becomes a gas and we watch and feel it dissolve.

  On the interstate highway of letters, I am roadkill; in the Mexican party of life, I’m the piñata;

  Failure is not as easy as it seems.

  Consider the sincerity of incompetence.

  Our lives are perfect spheres, and we roll from room to room.

  Some of our colleagues have been incarcerated, others have not. The point is moot: we all do time.

  The severest vice is a clear conscience: to overcome a vice is to murder a virtue.

  Education does not help the mind much, but neither does anything else.

  The only thing that gets us through the waking hours is the sleeping hours.

  Sometimes a hangnail can make all the difference.

  How can one enjoy oneself without offending one’s self?

  Psycho-sexual responses necessarily lead to cannibalism, but just try to tell that to young people.

  The Winnebago of our culture is parked in a tow-away zone.

  The are oil slicks in the harbor, but that is preferable to periscopes.

  Armageddon: If you don’t survive, so what. If you do, think of the smooth commute.

  We can’t help thinking we have forgotten something: the tragedy is we have not.

  You can’t steer a train.

  To create a system is to destroy a system: destruction is the employment of the artist.

  The Cow Island Open

  1

  Theobald Carnwad thinks about the shanty on stilts, rising out of the gray swamp. He sees the sixteenth tee of the Cow Island Open, and his shiny white Titlist sailing over the barbed-wire fence toward the wood-slat shanty.

  He sees himself standing on the planked porch, looking between the gaps in the boards at the slime and water below, his clothes soaked with rich dark mud, his hand about to push open the door and reveal what is inside.

  2

  This is the first round of golf Theobald Carnwad has shot since the ‘53 Cow Island Open. That was when he sliced his shiny white Titlist off into the swamp and blew his lead over Clinton Hannah. For twenty years, Carnwad has been trying to gather the courage to play another round of golf, and today Carnwad has done it—he has spent the day on the course.

  It has been a lonely day, very few other golfers, as it has recently stormed and the course is still sloppy. The sun is setting, and Carnwad has made par on the fifteenth hole.

  3

  Theobald Carnwad’s best friend in college was Clinton Hannah, even though Carnwad hated him. Carnwad hated Hannah because Hannah beat him at everything.

  Their freshman year at LSU they were roommates. They drank a great deal at the negro bars which surrounded the campus, and Hannah usually had to guide Carnwad home, because Carnwad could not drink as well as Hannah.

  One time Carnwad wanted to get some exercise, so he asked Hannah to come shoot a few buckets at the basketball courts.

  Carnwad was obliged to wait for Hannah, because Hannah was putting on his red silk shorts, his expensive basketball sneakers, his head and wrist bands, his numbered jersey. “I was going to play college ball,” Hannah said, “but I decided on engineering instead. I got six offers from universities, you know. Marquette, UCLA, Syracuse. Decided to major in physics.”

  Carnwad remembered the time his mother sat him down to have a man to man talk. He remembered the look of disgust she gave him when he told her he wanted to be an accountant. “Your Daddy was a golfing man,” she said. “The finest. And Big Daddy before him. They wanted you to be a golfing man too, Theobald. And just look at yourself.”

  Carnwad looked at himself. He looked at his belly, his oversized feet, his fat squishy fingers.

  “You are the last of the Carnwad men, Theobald. Do not disappoint me, boy. Do not let down your Daddy, and Big Daddy before him. God rest their gentlemanly souls.”

  The day after the basketball game, Carnwad lay on his bunk watching Hannah get dressed for class. He wondered how many days would pass before he would be capable of doing the same.

  “Aren’t you going to class, Theo old boy?”

  “Must have pulled a muscle in my back,” Carnwad said. He thought about all the stairs on campus, and how he would have to clutch the bannisters just to keep from falling down.

  “Darn rotten luck old boy. Darn rotten luck.”

  Carnwad decided to try his luck at something less physical. One day, while it was storming outside with hot delta rain, he asked Hannah if he wanted to play chess.

  Hannah did not look up from his book. “I don’t really like chess,” he said. “It makes me tense.”

  Carnwad grew excited. He started talking fast. “Come on Hannah what’s the matter Hannah don’t want to play chess Hannah it’s just a game Hannah a brain game Hannah come on!”

  Carnwad was not expecting a six move checkmate. He looked at the board and tried to figure out where he had gone wrong.

  “You see, Theo old boy, if you would have moved here, then I couldn’t have done this.”

  Hannah started rearranging the board, playing a new game against himself. “And then you moved the rook here, which is always a mistake, given my opening. I was wondering what you were up to—you had me concerned. I didn’t think anyone would do something like that unless they had something up their sleeve. Won a tournament in New Orleans when I was in junior high school, you know. Quit playing the circuit because it made me too tense.”

  When Carnwad found out that Hannah had never played golf before, he offered to teach him the game. Hannah bought clubs at a garage sale: putter, 7-iron, driver.

  “Don’t worry,” Carnwad said, as Hannah sat steel-wooling rust from the clubs’ faces. “Those are all the clubs you’ll need at first.”

  Carnwad beat Hannah by twenty strokes their first time out. Hannah liked the game, though, and wanted to start playing every Friday after classes, which was just fine with Carnwad. Hannah was hooked. Carnwad was happy.

  And Carnwad’s Mama was happy, too. Carnwad was getting better and better, and half-way through winter semester his junior year, he quit and joined the PGA tour, following in the footsteps of Daddy and Big Daddy before him.

  Hannah quit school, too, during his senior year, but he didn’t win a tournament until the ‘53 Cow Island Open, when he and Carnwad were both fifty-eight years old.

  4

  Carnwad had always hated the sixteenth tee. It seemed like every time he drove at that hole, he sliced the ball over the low barbed-wire fence and into the swamp beyond. He would stand there, stupid, watching the little white ball curve between the cypresses and plop into the swamp. There was a rotting shanty on stilts out
there, partially obscured by the moss hanging from the thin boughs of trees. Carnwad’s balls seemed drawn to it like insects to a decaying carcass. There was no telling how many balls he’d lost on sixteen.

  5

  “We’re here on the sixteenth tee of the Cow Island Open. The surprise sensation of this year’s Southern States Tournament has been Theobald Carnwad, making a comeback after over twenty years off the circuit, leading his arch-rival Clinton Hannah by only one stroke. The crowd falls silent as he eyes the fairway.”

  “Four-wood, caddy. My Titlist, please.”

  “Just look at that poise, that youthful bounce. Baton Rouge must be very proud of Theobald Carnwad, its prodigal son, at seventy-eight the oldest person on the PGA tour!

  “Carnwad raises his club, swings, good contact with the ball. It’s heading straight, rising, curving, slicing to the right, slicing off the fairway, over the barbed-wire fence and into the swamp. Looks like it’s going to plop into the water by an old shack. That ball’s gone for good, and Carnwad’s going to have to take a two stroke penalty. Darn rotten luck for Theobald Carnwad….”

  6

  His back arched like a sapling in a Louisiana hurricane, twisting, quivering and about to snap. With his 4-wood circling slowly above his head, he tried to guide the distant white Titlist back onto the fairway. Carnwad had chosen to play alone so no one would see shots like this one.

  Carnwad didn’t want to trudge through the swamp to retrieve his Titlist, but the sixteenth tee was a long way from the Pro Shop and it had been his last ball. He looked out at the swamp, at the sagging trees, gray Spanish moss hanging from thin boughs, the sky and mud the same dull color, no horizon, just miles and miles of endless muck and mire and moss and dead and dying trees.

  Except the shanty.

  The shanty shimmered like a mirage, rising out of the mud on its stilts, the reflection streaming through the trees halfway to the barbed-wire fence. Carnwad squinted, trying to see if there was anything moving inside.

  7

  It is the ‘53 Cow Island Open, and Clinton Hannah is talking to Theobald Carnwad as they walk the path to the sixteenth tee.

  “Lost a lot of balls here, Theo old boy. Ever wondered why?” Hannah grinned. “Come on, Theo old boy, haven’t you ever wondered why?”

  Carnwad looked across the swamp at the shanty.

  He looked at Hannah.

  Hannah was still grinning.

  8

  On the first tee, Carnwad sank a thirty foot putt by hitting the Titlist extra hard to compensate for the sogged green. He used his 3-iron out of the sand trap on the fourth because he knew the wet sand wouldn’t suck the ball down. But how is he supposed to finish his round without a ball?

  Distraught, he watches the ball dropping, and listens for the noise it will make when it splashes down.

  He straightens his back and lowers his 4-wood. His bag of clubs slung over his shoulder, Carnwad starts the long walk back to the clubhouse.

  9

  Carnwad remembered the ‘53 Cow Island Open. He was leading Clinton Hannah by only one stroke. But that was before the sixteenth tee.

  Hannah’s drive was strong and true, two hundred forty yards, mid-fairway.

  “Four-wood, caddy. My Titlist, please,” Carnwad said.

  Carnwad felt the cold steel shaft in his palm. He held the club out horizontally to make sure the shaft had not incurred a warp, and when he had assured himself of its trueness, his eyes focused on the stilt-supported shanty which rose out of the swamp.

  Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or was there someone watching him from inside, from between the gaps in the rotting gray wood?

  When Carnwad swung, out of the corner of his eye he caught a slight movement. His shot sliced, and the ball curved over the barbed-wire fence toward the depths of the swamp.

  “Darn rotten luck, old boy,” Hannah said. “Darn rotten luck.”

  Carnwad padded to the edge of the fairway, the already moist sod becoming increasingly sloppy toward the rough. He stopped where the slick mud began. His Titlist was out there, somewhere by that shack on stilts. He stood there on the edge of the rough, his feet sinking into the warm mud until he could feel it beginning to wrap his ankles. He watched that shanty, watched the crevices and cracks in the wood.

  He thought he saw something move inside, but he couldn’t be sure.

  10

  With his hands placed between the burrs of the barbed-wire, Carnwad tries to see between the wood slats of the house on stilts.

  The sun has set, and the flat gray color of the sky is darkening. The trees look like shades of the dead. Carnwad places his left foot down on the lowest wire of the fence, and with his gloved left hand lifts the next wire up. He hunches over, making himself as small as he can. Carefully, he moves his head, then his right leg, between the barbed-wires. Once on the other side, he stands, inhales the humid air deep into his lungs, and begins walking into the swamp, toward the shanty. The mud is warm and creamy, and it feels good on Carnwad’s ankles, shins, and knees as it gets deeper and deeper. His trousers are heavy and tighten around his thighs. Carnwad keeps pushing through. The mud is up to Carnwad’s chest, and it takes all his strength just to keep moving. He stops to rest, mud beneath his armpits, arms draped out in front of his body, seemingly floating on the surface. He squishes gray noodles of mud through his fingers by squeezing his hands into fists. It is very dark now, and Carnwad can barely make out the silhouette of the shanty through the trees.

  11

  Carnwad sees a golf ball. It is only a few feet in front of his outstretched arms, a nearly submerged white egg nestled in the gray mud. Carnwad lunges toward the ball. The mud rolls in a slow wave. His feet are no longer on solid bottom, and the ball moves farther away. He lunges again, and the ball moves. Carnwad sinks deeper into the mud. He feels the mud on his neck, beneath his chin.

  He lunges.

  He lunges.

  He lunges…

  12

  Carnwad treads water below the shanty. He sees a rope-ladder hanging from the porch and into the water. He is covered with light gray moss, and because of the swim, the mud that once caked his clothes and body is now a thin film of slime. His soaked undershorts are uncomfortable, shirt clinging to his belly and shrinking around his armpits.

  After climbing the rope-ladder, he pulls himself onto the porch. The boards, old and weak, bend under his weight.

  Carnwad hears something plunk into the water.

  He turns around and looks back toward the course, toward the sixteenth hole.

  The half-moon is just above the flag, and the flag shimmers like a distant torch fluttering in the breeze.

  13

  The shanty sways, making creaking and moaning noises. A gust of wind whips across the porch, across the swamp, the Spanish moss swinging from the trees. Carnwad shivers and feels goosebumps rise on his skin.

  He turns and faces the door. He hesitates, then places his hand on the coarse wood. He smells the mold, the staleness, the decay. He feels the air press against his temples, wrapping his head, weighing down his shoulders, his extended arm.

  Carnwad takes a long breath, and pushes open the door.

  14

  Carnwad sees golf balls.

  No furniture, no windows, just hundreds and hundreds of old yellow golf balls covering the floor.

  The door behind him swings gently back and forth in the breezes that move through the shanty. He stands, motionless, listening to the wind and the creaking of bending wood.

  He walks through the golf balls to the opposite side of the room. He fits his hands into a crevice between two boards, gripping tightly with his fingers. With a jerk, he rips a board from the wall. He stands there, the broken board in his hands, looking at the dark swamp through the hole in the wall,
the moon reflecting off the rippling water. He examines the board, holding it in his hands. The board is thin enough that, gripping, he can touch his fingers to his palms.

  He drops the board to the floor. He starts ripping down boards, examining them, then throwing them down.

  15

  Carnwad has made par on the fifteenth hole. He hates the sixteenth, and, as he approaches the tee, he thinks about the ‘53 Cow Island Open, when he blew his lead over Clinton Hannah.

  He holds the wooden tee between his index and middle fingers, thumb on top of the shiny white Titlist, and pushes the tee into the sod with the ball on top. The early evening skies are dark, and it is starting to sprinkle.

  He looks at the distant flag fluttering in the wind.

  He raises his 4-wood and swings.

  16

  Carnwad has torn a large hole in the wall of the shanty.

  The hole is as wide as three doorways, and reaches from the low ceiling to the floor. He holds a board in his hands as he stands on the edge, looking down at the swamp. He has lined up the golf balls in neat rows. With the board, he leads a ball along the floor to the edge. He looks out at the swamp, focuses on a cypress stump poking out of the water like a witch’s thumb. He sets his feet, positions the end of the board behind the ball, coils back, and swings, sending the ball sailing into the air, into the swamp, straight and true toward the stump.