His cautious attitude paid dividends for two holes; he stayed even with Forsythe. But on the third, he shamefully four-putted. For Billy, putting was like a visit to the dentist; he just wanted to get the pain over with as quickly as possible. The double bogey cost him three hundred bucks.
With all the Sunday traffic the next hole, a par three, had backed up. There were two foursomes ahead of them on the tee, giving Billy time to regroup and calm down. Also, sexy Joanne arrived on her refreshment cart. Nobody else wanted anything, they were keeping a Presbyterian Sunday, but Billy sauntered over to her.
“Where you been, Mr. C.? Haven’t seen you in ages.” Joanne was always glad to see him. Knowing that she was a single mother he always tipped her outlandishly and made a point of asking after her little boy.
“I guess you didn’t hear. I quit the club. Too much business on the go. No time for golf …” He faltered. “Except now and then.”
“That’s a crime. Otherwise, how are things?”
“They could be better. I’m down three hundred to Forsythe.”
“He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks. Put a little pressure on him and he’ll choke.” She seized her throat, crossed her eyes, and stuck her tongue out. Billy laughed like a madman. Joanne was a great girl, even if she was what Marva called a “trailer tramp.” Billy happened to like saucy trailer tramps. They were the reason he had always volunteered to take the boys to the Exhibition when they were little. Marva had accused him of lusting after corn dogs, but it was the young women in high heels and ankle bracelets, little crescents of jiggly white bum peeking out from under their cut-off blue jeans, that attracted him to the midway.
“How can I do you?” asked Joanne.
“I’ll take two beers. Any brand, whatever’s coldest.”
During the time he stood chatting with Joanne, Billy drained one beer and got another underway. When she hinted it was time for her to go, he fumbled out his wallet and pressed a twenty on her.
“Hey, Mr. C., that’s mighty big of you.”
“Self-interest. So you don’t forget me,” Billy said. “Keep them coming.”
“I’ll catch you at the turn.” With a cheeky wink she sped off, the contents of her cart merrily rattling.
Billy hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch; his guts had been too twisted up anticipating Jenkins’s phone call for him to contemplate eating. He checked his watch quickly, but reminding himself how many hours were left before his future was decided was not a good idea. The beer on an empty stomach had started to give him a nice mild buzz. The last thing he needed was to spoil that feeling, get all jangled, get his nerves stretched banjo-tight.
By the time their foursome were ready to hit to the fourth, a green surrounded with water blinking hot sunlight, Billy’s arms felt relaxed, loopy, boneless. Normally, fear of sending his ball into the drink tensed him up, but the beer had eased the wrinkles out of his swing, allowing him to follow-through with an easy, relaxed finish. Textbook. Landing with a feathery hop, his ball settled four feet from the pin. Miraculously, he overcame his yips, sank the birdie putt, and won a hundred back from Forsythe.
This easy, contented feeling carried over to the next hole and he won it too. Joanne was right, seeing Billy creeping back on him, Forsythe started to feel fingers tightening around his throat, began to piss and moan about bad breaks and bounces; his forearms had bunched up into knots he was gripping the club so hard. By the time they made the turn to the tenth, Mr. Big Shot Car Salesman was two hundred down.
When Billy glanced at his watch again, he was shocked to see it was already two-thirty. Where the hell had the time gone? The course was congested, but he hadn’t realized they were moving so slow. Three hours to play nine holes. Could he make it home in time to catch Jenkins’s phone call? He would be cutting it close. Maybe he should pack it in, hike back to his car right now. Forsythe would certainly be happy to see him go and save two hundred smackers.
That thought was enough to make Billy decide to stick in there. After all, who did Jenkins think he was, expecting him to sit around all day like some girl hoping that her big crush would ring her up for a date? And scheduling a phone call on a Sunday. Who the fuck did business that way? Better to forget about it and swear off the clock-watching. Besides, here was Joanne waiting for him just as promised, parked in the shade of a stand of poplar, flashing him a lovely, toothy grin.
“Well?” she said. “How goes the wars?”
“You were right, sweetheart. Apply a little pressure to Forsythe and he wilts. I’ve got him pretty much where I want him – by the short and curlies.”
“Good for you. Two more?”
As Joanne dug down to the bottom of the cooler to find him the frostiest brews, Billy studied the crowns of the poplars. They ran with a liquid ripple in the faint breeze, streamed like a green brook. All at once he was filled with the loveliness of it. He thought of his father, his grey, harassed face. A journeyman plumber, Richard Constable had made the daring leap to go it on his own, to run his own business. A mom-and-pop affair where he was the only worker and his wife kept accounts on the kitchen table. Slowly, conscientiously, Billy’s father had nurtured the company, step by careful step, until forty years later it had become a prosperous, moderately sized concern. As long as the old man was alive he’d kept a sharp eye on the workers, on the bottom line, and above all, on his son. But when his father died seven years ago, Billy seized the chance to turn Constable Plumbing into something truly impressive. He had believed that in ten years he could get himself and his family where they deserved to be, on easy street, enjoying the good life his pop had been too timid to seize. What had the old man ever done but work? He had died in the same boxy bungalow Billy had been raised in and his mother had chased her husband’s heels to the grave only one year after his demise. When had his pop ever savoured a day like this, had a pretty young woman like Joanne wait on him hand and foot? Flirt with him? Billy’s bet was never. Live large or don’t live at all, he thought.
His reverie was interrupted. “You okay, Mr. C.?” Joanne was holding out his beers to him, a look of concern on her face.
Billy wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Goddamn allergies,” he said. “June is always bad.” To cover his embarrassment, he took a slug of his beer.
“Whip Forsythe’s ass, Mr. C.”
“Consider it whipped,” said Billy.
But Forsythe was far from whipped. He kept grinding away, relying on his short game to save him. Every time Billy was sure he had him on the ropes, Forsythe scrambled off them with a crisp wedge, a deadly chip, a seeing-eye putt. Neither of them managed to win a hole outright; the pot steadily increased and, as it did, Forsythe’s play grew more and more maddeningly deliberate. He pondered each shot endlessly, excruciatingly studied his putts, stalked the green back and forth, back and forth. For Billy, who liked quick, brisk play, it was torture. Agonizingly the minutes ticked by, marching towards five o’clock. Despite his promise to himself, Billy found himself checking and rechecking his watch, fuming. His thoughts wandered and circled. Maybe he should ring Jenkins up and leave his cell number with him. But wouldn’t that look weak, candy ass? Like he was begging?
On the fifteenth green, he leaned over and muttered to Herb Froese, “Hello? What the hell’s he up to? Christ, the weekend is officially over in another eight hours.”
“Why,” said Herb with that sweet innocence Billy found so endearing, “he needs that putt to halve the hole. He misses, it costs him six hundred bucks. Don’t tell me you lost track?”
As a matter of fact, Billy had. He knew there was substantial loot at stake but hadn’t figured it to the precise dollar. It was how he had always operated, guesstimates, ballpark figures, even when it came to placing tenders. Gritting his teeth, he said, “No way he’ll make that. No way.”
But Forsythe did make it, a downhill, snaky, twenty-five footer. Snatching his ball from the hole with a flourish and pretending to sheathe his putter like
a rapier, à la Chi Chi Rodriguez in his cocky prime, he strode past Billy chirping, “Drive for show, putt for dough.”
The standoff continued until the eighteenth, nine hundred bucks on the line at the final hole. Billy had belted down two more beers and found another one lodged under the seat of Froese’s cart, God alone knew how it had got where it was, or how long it had been there. It was warm as piss but he swigged it greedily, Herb watching him out of the corner of his eye, forehead disapprovingly furrowed. All that brew was catching up with him, but luckily there was a toilet nearby, so Billy trotted over to take a slash. When he flicked the light switch in the privy nothing happened, some electrical malfunction or the bulb had burned out. So he left the door open, fishing his unit out just as a cart bounced up, one with women on it. Startled, he kicked the door shut and was cast into what would have been utter darkness except for the wan glow of his wristwatch. Looking down he read the numbers 5:05.
The heat stored in the still, confined space seemed to suddenly increase, popping sweat out all over his body. He felt dizzy and short of breath, had to brace himself on one arm above the urinal. An ominous red light was blinking in the swarming blackness, a trick of his light-deprived eyes. It rooted him to the spot while a cruel, indifferent hand squeezed his heart in time with the pulsing light, filling him with superstitious dread. “Fuck,” he said. “Oh fuck.”
When Billy reached the tee box, everybody was annoyed with him. Forsythe said, “We got tired of waiting for you. We all went ahead and hit.”
“I needed to siphon the python.”
“Little wonder, the way you’ve been knocking back the beer,” said Forsythe.
Billy put what he imagined was a contemplative, philosophical look on his face. “Ever think what a great game golf is? The only one where you can smoke and drink while you exercise.” He lit his last cigarette, crumpled the package, and tossed it in the trash. “Just for my information, you didn’t happen to hit it in the bush, did you, Forsythe?”
“Dead solid perfect. Just past the dogleg. Too bad for you.”
“The plot thickens then, doesn’t it?” Billy sat down on Herb’s cart and began removing his golf shoes and socks. Skip Jacobs, who had scarcely said a word to him all day, squawked, “Jesus, what now? You got a stone in your shoe?”
Billy didn’t answer, simply strolled to the tee box in his bare feet, coolly swishing his driver back and forth in one hand.
“Showboat,” said Forsythe. His voice was nasty, contemptuous.
Right now, there was nothing Forsythe could say to Billy that could touch him. He was in the zone. He could feel it. “Sam Snead used to say when he needed to find his swing, he’d hit balls in his bare feet. He wanted that connection with the earth. Me too,” Billy calmly said.
“Shit.”
Billy was remembering when the twins were small and just learning to walk, how he had pulled off their shoes and socks and put them down on the newly sodded lawn of their first house. He and Marva had roared with laughter as the boys capered about in a high-stepping chicken gait, squealing with delight as the soft shoots of grass tickled the soles of their feet. Billy looked down at his own feet, wiggled his toes ecstatically, then looked up and peered down the long channel of fairway bounded by trees on either side, directing his gaze to a spot on the right where a peninsula of spruce extended into the fairway, pinching it even tighter at the two-hundred-yard mark. He was doing what the great ones did, visualizing the shot.
Toughest hole on the course and Billy Constable meant to bring it to its knees by hitting a high cut that would turn the corner of the dogleg and land the ball neatly on the fairway beyond. If he couldn’t shape the shot, if the ball didn’t curve exactly as he wanted, it would all be over. Tits up. Billy smiled, waggled the head of the driver, and took a mighty cut.
The ball soared upward like a jet rising in a steep climb off the tarmac. Billy leaned forward, held his breath, saw it bank right on cue, a slow swoop to the right, all systems go, pilot firmly at the controls, guiding it on the correct flight path, curling it around the trees. The pressure shot of a lifetime.
Forsythe looked like somebody had put his nuts in a vise grip. “Horseshit luck,” he spat out.
“Drive for dough, putt for show,” said Billy, jerking his pitching wedge from his bag. He had played Fairview so often he knew exactly where his ball would lie. Striking the down slope of the fairway it would have run hot, maybe as much as three hundred yards. Without hesitation, he started off walking. Moments later he heard the whine of an electric motor. Herb pulled alongside. “Hey, Billy,” he said, “hell of a shot. Hop on.”
Billy shook his head. “I’m walking this one. For the pleasure of it.”
“You don’t look so hot,” said Herb. “Kind of pale. You all right?”
Waving him on, Billy announced, “Couldn’t be better.” Herb zoomed off, looking back over his shoulder with a perplexed expression.
He didn’t need to see Forsythe frenziedly thrashing the ground with his club after he duffed his second shot to know that the dough was as good as in his wallet. Billy had known it was a done deal on the tee box, just as he had known, leaning against the wall of the hot, reeking toilet, that the other deal with Jenkins was done, but done in a different way, cooked like a goose. That tiny red light blinking malignly at him was a sign, a warning to him that there was a message waiting for him at home, and that the message light blinking on his phone was not an announcement of glad tidings, far from it. That evil little red eye on his answering machine was giving him a mocking wink: Your last hope is gone.
For weeks he had been ducking the obvious truth. Sure Jenkins had politely listened to his sales pitches, but only out of pity. Even that famously hardhearted bastard hadn’t been able to bring himself to smother Billy’s optimism in the cradle. At least not face to face with the victim. But then by choosing to golf this afternoon he had gone and provided Jenkins with an easy out. Given him the chance to administer a short, quick knife thrust between the ribs, a dry, matter-of-fact communication committed to tape. Thanks but no thanks.
Billy paused and looked around him. An aeration fountain on a nearby pond was fluttering a rainbow-coloured fan in the sunshine. Massive billows of cumulus rode above the clubhouse. On the terrace, blue and white parasols beckoned with the promise of shade and ice-cold drinks. His mind opened, and he saw again the bird-like cloud on this morning’s horizon, when everything seemed salvageable. The word for it was phoenix. The emblem claimed for himself by that English writer with sex on the brain. The professor said it was mythical, an imaginary bird that rose from its own ashes. The only bit of information that ever claimed Billy’s attention in the entire boring class. Well, he was toast now. Burned to a crisp and nothing left for his creditors to do but sift through the blackened crumbs of him. There was no rising from these ashes. Not with overdue goods and services taxes owing to the government, unpaid suppliers, bills and more bills.
He started for his ball, tramping right through a fairway bunker, a terrible breach of etiquette, but he was never coming back to Fairview anyway. The powdery white sand seared his feet and then he felt the lush, cool grass caress and soothe his soles.
It was only June, but Billy Constable figured he had less than twenty minutes of summer left to him. He intended to make the most of it.
Where the Boys Were
WHY THE PEEL BROTHERS? Let’s say I’m a retiree who likes to reconstruct, to restore things. While whatever I write here concerns them, Donny and Bob Peel, supply and demand is always part of the story. Memory is an old whore eager to turn tricks with the body of the past to satisfy the customer. Think of me as the customer. Which means I’m always right. I need to see it this way.
Not all of this is speculation, my years of being the confidant and friend of Donny’s wife, Anne, has given me a chance to hear a lot of Peel family history. But some of it I witnessed for myself, as a somewhat distant but extremely interested observer. Of course, there are many
gaps in the story, but where’s the pleasure in reconstruction if you can’t tart things up a bit? The vintage car boys put a little extra car wax on those 1950s fins to bring the shine out.
A little background first. Donny was three years younger than Bob, who was both father and mother to him. That doesn’t mean their parents were actually dead, just that they were dead from the neck up; two mean, stupid drunks. It was Bob who kept Donny’s nose above water in the early years, towing him through the choppy waters of his youth until Donny’s toes scrabbled bottom, took hold, and he was able to wade ashore under his own power, into life.
Which he eventually did. Donny has been on solid, happy ground with Anne for thirty-five years now. Most couples of their acquaintance envy them because all the Peels’ disagreements are fondly trivial, minor. I know, for example, that whether or not to answer the phone when they are otherwise occupied ranks as a Big Issue in their marriage. Donny frequently reminds his wife that dodging annoying phone calls is one of the reasons he pays for voicemail. But if the telephone rings, Anne can’t help herself. Her mouth gets twitchy, her eyes turn skittish and desperate, and she has to rush to answer it, just the way she once had to rush to her toddlers whenever she heard their squawks and cries.
This is how I picture it. Not too long ago, as they are settling down to eat dinner, the phone begins to peal. On the third ring Anne spooks up out of her chair and flies out of the room, Donny bellowing after her, “It’s a goddamn telemarketer! And if it’s somebody looking for me, just remember, I’m not home!”
But his wife’s hushed voice, the tense intervals of silence radiating ominously from the kitchen, prompt Donny to lay down his fork and strain his ears. After a few minutes, Anne returns to the dining room white-faced, trembling, and announces, “It’s about Bob. Oh, honey, it’s bad.”
Daddy Lenin and Other Stories Page 11