The Putt at the End of the World

by Lee K. Abbott

  “Jesus Christ,” Alfonzo moaned. “It’s like watching my ex-wife in a boutique. Choose your weapon, for God’s sake.”

  “Tough wind,” Billy murmured.

  “Not that tough.”

  “Pretty tough, though.”

  Rita eventually settled on the nine-iron. Which was unfortunate.

  As always, her swing was flawless — nerves of platinum, Billy thought — and the ball screamed high into the rain, dead-on at the flag, disappearing for a few seconds, then reappearing as it dropped onto the green two feet short of perfect. The ball bit like a police dog. It jumped backward, seemed to hesitate for an instant, then wobbled and caught the slope and began a slow, torturous, deadly trickle toward the pot bunker in front of the green. “Oh shit,” Rita muttered. Slowly at first, then rapidly, the old Titleist journeyed ten, twenty, thirty, forty yards, finally plopping into the deep bunker.

  Start to finish, the shot consumed a good three and a half minutes of play time. (In a sanctioned PGA tournament, the entire threesome would have been disqualified for slow play.)

  “Well,” Alfonzo said, and feigned a sigh. “Guess you should’ve grabbed that ol’ eight-iron, right?”

  “Right,” Rita mumbled.

  “Next time don’t be so rash. You got to think things over. Like my ex-wife, sort of.” Alfonzo cackled his irritating cackle. He strode quickly onto the tee box, took a single practice swing, and then cracked a perfect eight-iron high into the clouds. He stood waiting.

  For a long, long while he waited. The ball seemed to have been swallowed by the clouds.

  Alfonzo finally turned. “Anybody spot it?”

  “Spot what?” said Rita.

  “My ball. All this fog and rain — these fucked-up eyes of mine — I couldn’t see the damn thing come down.”

  Rita rolled her shoulders.

  “Probably on the green somewhere,” Alfonzo said. “Maybe in the friggin’ hole.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Billy Sprague said. “Or else lost.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hard to tell,” Billy said. “The thing to do, I guess, is hit a provisional.”

  “On a par-three?”

  “Just in case.”

  Scowling, talking to himself, Alfonzo teed up for the second time. Once again he rifled a lovely eight-iron high into the clouds; once again he waited; and once again the ball did not reappear.

  “That’s it!” he yelped. “No more provisionals. One of them two babies has got to be safe.”

  Immediately, without waiting for Billy to hit, Alfonzo hoisted his bag and waddled off rapidly into the gorge, heading for the green. Within seconds he had vanished into the heavy weather.

  “Your turn,” Rita said.

  “Forget it,” said Billy. “I’ll just pick up and watch you two slug it out.”

  “You’re eight under, man.”

  Billy shook his head. “It’s not the score, it’s the game.”

  “Stuff the metaphysical Michael Murphy crap.”

  “Seriously. I’m done for the day.”

  Rita studied him for a long, disbelieving moment. “Shit, man, no wonder you never made it as a pro. You’re just too damn pure, Billy. Too damn noble. At least for this gal.”

  Then she followed Alfonzo into the rain.

  For a few seconds Billy stood alone on the tee box. The day’s bleakness had now seeped into his heart. Too pure, he thought. Such nonsense. The sad truth, of course, was precisely the reverse: the pressure had been too much for him. He was a quitter — terrified of collapsing on the final hole. Terrified of ruining a perfect round of golf.

  He nearly wept.

  When Billy finally trudged up to the ninth green, Alfonzo Zamora was still scouring the landscape for his two missing balls. Nothing on the green. Nothing on the fringe. And the cup, too, was empty.

  Rita tapped her wristwatch. “Your five minutes is almost up,” she said. “Two lost balls.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not fair!” yelled Alfonzo. “My damned eyesight.”

  “Real pity. Like somebody just told me, them’s the breaks. Go hit another one.”

  “Forget it. Those balls are here somewhere.”

  At that instant, just off the left fringe of the green, Billy Sprague spotted a dull glint of white. He looked away, took a breath, then looked back again. The ball lay under a bit of blown heather, almost entirely obscured, not twenty feet from the pin. Imprinted across the dimples were the letters AZ — it was Zamora’s all right. Almost certainly his original drive.

  Billy stood paralyzed for a time. To speak up, he realized, would be to hand the match to Alfonzo; he might just as well escort Rita to the man’s bed. And the image of their lovemaking was intolerable to him. He couldn’t help but picture the moist suction at their bellies, Rita’s eyeballs rolling toward the ceiling.

  Billy glanced down at the ball, then up at the heavens, then back at the ball again. Silence, he tried to tell himself, was not cheating. He was a spectator after all, and nothing in the rule book required members of the gallery to point out lost balls.

  Even so, deep in Billy’s golfing heart it somehow felt like cheating.

  Briefly he looked over at Rita, who stood watching him from near the deep pot bunker. Maybe she too had spotted the ball. Or maybe not. Either way, her eyes seemed to bore in on him, partly in mockery, partly challenging, partly as if to ask a single devastating question: Which will it be — love or honor?

  Billy closed his eyes. The moral tug-of-war was ripping his heart in half.

  “Over here,” he said quietly.

  Alfonzo Zamora spun around. “Say what?”

  “Your ball. Right here.”

  There was a moment of immense quiet — even the rain went silent — and then Rita shook her head and spat and turned away.

  Alfonzo hustled over to his ball.

  “Numero uno!” he crowed. “I’m lying one. Looks like it’s all over but the fuckin’!”

  For Billy Sprague, whose heart had gone brittle, the next several minutes were little more than a blur. He watched Rita disappear into the deep pot bunker. A moment later, in a great splash of sand and water, she managed to hoist her scarred old Titleist onto the green — but still thirty-five feet from the cup. Alfonzo chipped to within two feet.

  Something sparkled in Zamora’s eyes. Confidence, maybe. Or maybe greed.

  “All right, señorita, I tell you what,” he said and grinned at Rita. “Double or nothing.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Very simple. If you make that putt, babe, we’re all even. No blood spilled. Even-steven. Miss it, though, and you owe me a whole week’s worth of hay time. Plus two thousand bucks.”

  Rita’s eyes narrowed.

  She looked over the thirty-five-footer, pulled a flask from her hip pocket, took a quick nip, and then slowly nodded.

  “You’re on,” she murmured.

  “Except there’s one little catch,” Alfonzo said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Billy putts it for you.”

  “Billy? No way. The guy couldn’t sink a clutch six-incher.”

  “Take it or leave it,” Alfonzo purred.

  And there it was again: that greedy sparkle in his eyes.

  Rita sighed. “Oh, well,” she groaned. “No choice, I guess.”

  Billy was already striding off the green — trotting, in fact — when Rita snatched him by the neck and squeezed hard.

  “Mister Integrity,” she snapped. “You got me into this pickle, now get me out. Show some guts.”

  “Look, I’m just not — ”

  “Do it.”

  “But I can’t,” Billy whimpered. “I swear to God, if I hit that putt, it’ll end up in Glasgow. Or maybe Aberdeen. You never know.”

  He tried to wiggle away, but Rita still had him firmly by the neck. She marched him across the green, squared him over the ball, and forced her putter into his hands.

  “Just roll it home,” she said. “Nice and smooth. An
d don’t forget, my virtue is at stake.”

  “You don’t have any virtue.”

  “Totally beside the point.”

  “Yes, but — ”

  “Run that putt in, Billy, and all’s forgiven. Even the Michael Murphy crap.” She gave him an encouraging pat on the butt. “Come on, now, you can do it.”

  Then she released him and stepped back.

  Billy’s world went topsy-turvy. For a good three minutes he hovered over the putt, trying to steady himself. His whole body was shaking — everything — arms, fingers, knees, brains. His head buzzed with evil memories. A whiffed six-iron back in junior high, a yanked drive in his first club tournament, a three-foot putt that sailed out of bounds on the final hole of an exhibition match in Sioux City.

  Billy closed his eyes. There was no point, he realized, in trying to read the green, or lining up the putt, or even taking aim.

  Blindly, with a short, plaintive moan, Billy took a desperate stab at it.

  The ball jumped off the putter as if launched by NASA. For the first thirty feet, the old Titleist did not touch the earth, heading for orbit, engines roaring, but then suddenly the rain and wind and fog forced a scrubbed mission. Gravity reasserted itself. By pure chance — a miracle, some would call it — the ball dropped heavily onto the green, not five feet from the cup. When Billy opened his eyes, he was stunned to see Rita’s beat-up old Titleist rolling gently holeward. Incredible, he thought, but the putt actually had a chance. It caught a sidehill slope. It wobbled off line for a second, then straightened out and continued its erratic pilgrimage toward destiny.

  Rita let out a whoop.

  Alfonzo uttered a cussword that would be cause for lethal injection in the state of Texas.

  The ball was now four feet from the cup.

  Three feet.

  Two feet.

  Then it came to a complete halt, six inches short. For a few seconds nothing more happened — so close, Billy thought — but after a time the old Titleist seemed to suck in a breath of air, recharging itself, igniting its boosters. The ball took another half turn. Then another. As it approached the lip of the cup, still rolling, Billy released a cry of simple joy. All those years of frustration.

  Then the scarred old Titleist exploded.

  First came a flash of yellow, succeeded by bright orange, succeeded by a shock wave that blew Billy backward. Alfonzo was picked up, carried skyward, and then dumped back to earth like a family-size bag of tortilla chips. Rita lay face-up on the green.

  Where the cup had once been, there was now a yawning six-foot-wide crater.

  After a moment Alfonzo dusted himself off.

  “Now there,” he said quietly, “is one spectacular case of the pressure-yips.”

  Chapter Six

  IMMOVABLE OBSTRUCTIONS

  by Richard Bausch

  Ned Gorman and Edna Zuckerman had made their way through the rain and mist, the dripping trees, to the road, and then got in the car, soaking wet and shivering, and drove to the castle. Neither of them looked at each other. She was angry, sulking. “It was one of those trick balls,” he said. “I’ve seen it before. You buy them in the novelty shops. This one had been beefed up a little, but any twelve-year-old can do it.”

  “You don’t think it had anything to do with our boy.”

  “I’d be very surprised if it did. And for Franklin to come running out there from the clubhouse, like the goddamn U.S. Cavalry — well. We’re gonna have hell now, because Le Tour, if he’s here — and he’s here, you can bet on it — knows we’re here too, now.”

  “Tom could have seemed a course official. It was an explosion, after all. It didn’t look like anyone was seriously hurt. They were all standing around afterwards.”

  “That putt was in the hole, too.”

  She said nothing for a moment. “Why would it have to be the U.S. Cavalry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s the way it is for you Americans, isn’t it? The whole bloody world revolves around you. I can’t tell you how tired I am, for instance, of your fucking Civil War, like nobody else ever had one. We had one that lasted a hundred years for Christ’s bloody sake.”

  “They just call it the Hundred Years War. It didn’t really last a hundred years.”

  “It lasted longer than yours. It was bigger than yours.”

  “Okay,” Ned Gorman said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

  “We’re not negotiating.”

  “Look,” he said. “What’s got into you? We watch a little golf and suddenly you’re Margaret Thatcher.”

  They had come into the parking lot of the castle, and as he spoke, the former prime minister loomed up on his left, waiting to step out into the lot. She was wearing a clear plastic raincoat and was holding an umbrella herself, and was alone, but it was Margaret Thatcher.

  “You saw her,” Edna Zuckerman said.

  “I swear I didn’t,” said Gorman. “Not until after I’d said it.”

  “Well, it makes no difference.”

  “I’d like credit for the remark.”

  Edna Zuckerman was staring at the high facade of the castle, the thousand windows. “What if the plan is to blow up this whole building? Make it collapse like those pictures you see of buildings disappearing into their own cloud of debris?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He watched Margaret Thatcher get into a black car and drive away, like anyone else, a private citizen. So many of the world’s celebrities were here, or were on their way here. If Le Tour blew up the castle with everyone in it, what would happen in the world? Movie stars, news anchors, pundits, media moguls, political leaders, the pope, royalty, everyone who was anyone, or had ever been anyone. In the morning they had seen Tammy Faye Bakker without makeup, escorted by two very tall, very imposing boys in Ole Miss jackets. Tammy Faye Bakker. He had turned to Edna and said the name.

  “Who’s Tammy Faye Bakker?”

  “A once-celebrity in the States.”

  “Oh.”

  “She was a religious lady who’d paint herself thick as the whore of Babylon and then cry on television so the mascara would run. Teased hair, enough mascara to fertilize a couple of acres of bottomland. She was a sight.”

  “And you watched her?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “For fun. Sure. You don’t have religious fakes over here?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed. But then I’ve been busy.”

  “My God, everyone’s here,” he said.

  A little later, in the enormous, overdone, palatial dining room, he had watched Henry Kissinger and George Shultz come face to face and decide not to speak to each other. Kissinger sat across from Joe Paterno. John Warner sat at Paterno’s side, looking like an undertaker.

  Now, parking the little car, with Edna Zuckerman musing in the passenger seat, looking at the castle, he had a moment of foreboding. They were not going to be able to stop Le Tour.

  She gathered her coat about her and opened the car door.

  How odd, that he could be wondering if she still wanted him, or had been toying with him. How insistent were the demands of simply being alive in the minute, of answering one’s desires and wishes, one’s need for solace and hopes for comfort. He got out of the car and looked across its wet roof at her. She was not beautiful. This fact rather endeared her to him.

  She said, “I guess Thomas will have whatever he’s been able to find out.”

  “It won’t be much.”

  “I guess not — if you say so.”

  They started away from the car. There were several people standing in a small group near the door. Gorman recognized Brad Pitt, Jane Fonda, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw. Brokaw had his hands shoved down into the pockets of his coat and looked uncomfortable. They were all talking to a young man in a ratty leather jacket and jeans, with an angelic face and blond curls, eyes blue as the principle of blue, the idea of blue.

  “Who is that they’re talking to?” Gorman asked as they passed into the caverno
us foyer.

  “Billy Angel. The new British rock star. He’s supposed to be better than Jewel. Well, actually he is. Want to hear one of his lyrics?”

  They got to the elevators. He pushed the up button and then hesitated.

  “Well?” she said.

  He pushed the button again.

  “I’m sorry I got so irritable, Ned.”

  It struck him that she had not spoken his name before. He couldn’t remember that she had used the name. He wanted to kiss her.

  “I asked if you wanted to hear one of Billy Angel’s lyrics.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  The elevator opened and Barbara Walters got off, without quite seeing them. They stepped in and the door closed, and now they were looking at a bronze reflection of themselves, wet and still dripping, still shivering. “I wonder what they all thought of us.”

  “We’re security people,” she said. “Like Thomas F.”

  “Oh, Thomas, right.”

  “Do you want to hear the lyrics?”

  He nodded.

  She sang, her voice taking on the low whisper of a torch singer, but the melody rambled, and in fact it sounded as though she was making it up as she went along.

  It’s bad to hate Jews. And not good to be against black people either, or Arabs or

  Irish types or Chinese or Japanese too. It’s not a good thing.

  My mother was codependent and neglected me, and I forgive her

  Because I don’t hate anyone. I know I can forgive my sister too,

  Though she got pregnant and didn’t know which of the football

  Guys was the father, and she told Mother I ate all the cheese one

  Day when I hadn’t done any such thing. But that’s all right because

  It’s bad to hate, and I try my best not to hate anyone.

  She stopped, and looked at him. “That’s all I can remember.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “No, I memorized it, because I couldn’t believe people were actually buying it. He’s a big star and they think he’s a poet. Especially the teenagers. But I saw Hugh Downs talking about him as a bloody poet. He’s got a best-selling book of this shit. I wish I was having you on about it, but it’s true and those are the actual words of the song. It’s called ‘Me,’ by the way. Can you imagine it? That’s where we are. I mean we sort of gave Shakespeare to the world and we’ve come so far down, to this sod with the pretty blue eyes and the blond hair and the simpering voice.”