by Bruce Jones
They had played golf often at the old country club since Richard had moved back to town. Not rich boys of not rich parents pretending to have a little more money than they did, just as their parents had doubtlessly done, and enjoying each other’s company every bit as much as they had lounging around the swimming pool scoping chicks and snarfing burgers. Well, almost as much. People do change. Not so much in their hearts, maybe, Richard was thinking, looking across the table at his old buddies as their drinks came, but in the way outside forces makes us all change: work, kids, obligations, life shared with a woman the other guys didn’t know. Outside forces…
“—‘I wonder about the trees’…” Scroogie said, quoting Frost as the others ignored him, sipping his Tom Collins, the same Tom Collins (probably made from the same tall glass) his father had always sipped, probably in this very seat.
Richard accepted his rum and Coke from the waiter, disappointingly dressed in simple jeans and white shirt as opposed to the crisp ice cream uniforms and black bowties of yesteryear. Disappointingly curt as well. The waiters who had served their parents were always overly solicitous, nearly obsequious—it got them big tips, no fools they—(never bored looking or snapping gum like this kid here with the rings in his nose) accepted his rum and Coke and smiled back at Scroogie. “I don’t wonder about the goddamn trees. Actually, I’m thinking of outside forces,” he told him.
Scroogie rolled his eyes at the others. “Oh Jeez!” doing his dead-on Archie Bunker, “here we go with the dreamy artistic writer thing! When ya gonna get a real job dere, meathead?”
And was that just the barest little moment of uncomfortable silence that followed, or was Richard merely imagining it? Had the Maze broken his promise and let the others in on his little secret? Or was it that other thing—that you’re-back-in-town-Denning-because-you’re-all-washed-up-in-Hollywood thing?
But no. He was just being paranoid; the guys would never stick it to him that way even if they believed it, which they probably didn’t. These were his friends. All grown up, maybe, off to some extent in their own worlds with their own wives and kids and jobs and all the other Outside Forces, but still his friends, the best friends he had ever had. Would ever have. Family. Real family now that his parents were gone. If you couldn’t trust an Ender, well, then trusting was just something you couldn’t do.
“Leave the poor hack alone,” Pete Shivers put in, nursing his Vodka and Tonic, wincing a little like he didn’t really like it all that much: he would have settled for just a Coke, but he was determined to play grown-up with the others this morning. “Least he got out of this one-horse burg a few years and made something of himself. What the fuck you ever done, Scroogie, beyond making more money than God, chasing pussy all day and beating off all night over pussy you never caught?”
Scroogie nodded into his drink, not dignifying the Shiv with even a glance. “An asshole as a child, an asshole as an adult. Know why I hope I outlive you, Shiv?”
“No, but I gotta strong feeling you’re gonna tell me.”
“So I can be there to make sure they spell ‘asshole’ right on your gravestone.”
Maser snorted into his White Russian. “You are sooo freaking jealous,” he grinned.
Which raised Scroogie’s brows and simultaneously sent his elbow into Shiver’s ribs. “Of this dweebo?”
Maser shook his head, jerking it toward Richard. “Of our writer friend here. Specifically of the gorgeous hunk of stuff he brought back with him from the golden valleys of Hollywoodland. Five-foot-four of pure prick tease.”
Now Richard rolled his eyes, smiling. “Thanks, Maze. You are a master of the back-handed compliment. I’ll pass that right along to Allie.”
“The frug you will,” Maser grinned.
“Hey,” Scroogie defended Maser, “he’s right, I am jealous of your wife’s melons. I got that issue you know, oh yeah. I got it pal, tucked safely under my bed! And I beat off to it every night, whether Sally’s watchin’ or not!”
“Sally probably beats off to it too,” the Shiv snickered.
“Up yer twat sideways,” from Scroogie.
The famed ‘issue’ was the 1987 Playboy containing a centerfold of a blonde in undress who looked very much like Richard’s own little Allie--the truth and reality of which Richard had neither admitted nor denied. Mostly because he knew the others preferred it that way, to have their little vicarious fantasy at a time when dreams were fewer and less likely to come true, and he wasn’t about to deny a fellow Ender.
“Sure you do, Scroogie,” Maser grinned. “You got photos of all our wives along with half a dozen of Charlene Freznel removing her C cups.” Charlene Freznel had been the favorite wet dream of every boy with a modicum of pubic hair at Topeka High. “Dream on, little man.”
And to everyone’s surprise, Scroogie (rarely one not to counter with a clever rejoinder from somewhere down there in his arsenal) only frowned vaguely and stared absently at his drink. “Wish I could,” he finally muttered, not a little low and cryptically.
The others looked at each other. Then they turned to look at Scroggie’s normally plump and cheery face, the normally ruddy cheeks, somehow always ruddy beneath those freckles, even without winter’s chill. For an unusual (very unusual) quiet moment, no one said anything.
It was Richard himself--finally sure Scroogie wasn’t holding out for a tag line-- who broke the gloom and doom. “S’matter, Scroogie? Look like you just swallowed a wet turd.” A gross metaphor admittedly, but a favorite from the good old days.
Scroogie, still without clever rejoinder and, in fact, taking a quick and perhaps just slightly trembling slug from his drink, finally graced the group with a round-shouldered shrug. “I dunno.” Followed by another quick shrug as if to show the others it probably wasn’t important anyway, no big woop. “Just haven’t been sleeping too well lately is all.”
Richard frowned concern.
“How come, Scruge?”
“’Cause he’s afraid he’ll mention your wife’s name out loud,” Shivers sniggered, “and his old lady is a ball buster!”
“Yeah,” Maser added, “and ole Scruge has only one ball left!”
Most of the group was thinking the same thought at that moment: that, no matter how well each of them spoke the King’s English apart, they all lapsed into the colloquial vernacular of their youth when brought together. Why was that? Because it made them feel closer? Because they all missed the old days? Maybe. Or maybe the sound of the other guy’s voice triggered some internal brain mechanism, some familiar synapses that linked the four of them. Always had, probably always would.
Most of the group was thinking these thoughts, but not Richard. He was staring sympathetically at Scroogie.
“Bad dreams, Scroogie? That it?”
John Scruge shrugged at his drink. “No dreams at all, really. Just lie there thinking.”
Maser gave Scroogie a quick sharp look, or it seemed quick to Richard, but maybe it was the booze, which tended to speed everything up for him. At any rate, Maser looked away again without comment.
And Scroogie kept on looking forlorn.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Scroogie shrugged again, took another drink. “Nothing to say, really. Just—“and did he glance over at Maser for just the quickest instant?—“just generally bad feelings about stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” Richard pressed.
Scroogie seemed to consider a moment then tossed his shoulders again dismissively. “Nothing specific. Just, you know…stuff.”
Richard looked around at the others but no one seemed particularly concerned about Scroogie metal health. Was this old news, something they’d been through before, so many times it bored them?
“So how long has this been going on?” Richard said.
“Ever since you moved back to town,” Shivers said dourly, but nobody chuckled back and Shivers made a sour face and flipped the bird at their general presence. Actually, of all of them Shivers seemed to
Richard to have changed the most. Where once he was the most talkative of the group, now he seemed bitter and taciturn. Maser told Richard once in confidence that Shivers had had a nervous breakdown a few years ago and had had to put in some time at the State Mental Hospital.
Of course you couldn’t blame him. Shivers had had a hard life.
Richard suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Scroogie; nobody seemed interested in the poor slob’s troubles.
“Maybe you’re dreaming and don’t remember it,” Richard offered.
“How about the improbability of his dreaming if he ain’t sleeping?” Shivers said, irritation coloring his words.
“How about we change the whole boring subject,” Maser said above the rim of his glass.
“Tell the truth,” Richard admitted to Scroogie, “I’ve had some pretty weird dreams myself since moving back.”
“Here it comes,” from Shivers, “the final admission that he’s gay.”
“Like what?” Scroogie asked Richard and got that quick look from Maser again.
Richard thought about it a second; he wasn’t going to bring this up. “About the past, I guess.”
“That ain’t weird,” Shivers said defensively, “that’s all I ever dream about…”
“—and there’s this horrible smell. A nightmare smell. Like something that’s risen from the grave.”
Scroogie laughed, choking on his drink. “Don’t fart in your sleep, dummy!”
Richard, to his surprise, found himself flaring. “You know, you guys have really turned into a bunch of jaded assholes.”
Another awkward silence, then Shivers attempted to break it with, “Not me. Just saw my proctologist and he guaranteed me there are no jades around my asshole.”
Maser winced at Shivers and jabbed a thumb at Richard. “Hey. Short-stroke. He’s the writer, let him do the jokes, huh?”
“So what are we doing in your dreams?” Scroogie said guardedly and Maser rolled his eyes and said, “Oh for chrissake, who cares!”
Richard gave him an even look. “What’s your problem, Maser, demons in your subconscious? Why this hard-on for dreams?”
“Why the hard-on? Because I spent two semesters dredging through Freud in pre-med and I came to the conclusion that even in the remote possibility that dreams are relative to anything, nobody will ever figure them out!”
“Why is that?” Shivers wanted to know.
“Because you can create them yourself! You wanna nightmare? Eat a banana split, a box of cookies and get smashed on Tequila before you go to bed—you’ll have bad dreams, believe me!”
“That what you did, Rich?” from Scroogie, “eat banana splits?”
“I hate bananas,” Richard said. “And I never said they were nightmares, exactly, just a little…weird.”
Maser groaned. “Okay, let’s hear all about your Technicolor, Cinemascope epic.”
Richard tried to remember. He’d had this dream three or four times since they’d come back to Topeka, the same dream detail for detail, but he hadn’t really thought about it until now.
Now it seemed—relevant somehow…
Richard fingered his drink without sipping it. “We’re walking along usually…” he said. “The four of us. The Enders.”
“Walking where?” from Scroogie.
“Just let him tell it!” Maser snapped.
Richard glanced up at him. “Just…walking. Around.”
“Boy, this is riveting,” Shivers grunted.
“Around where?” from Scroogie, getting that quick look from both Shivers and Maser now.
“Just…” and Richard frowned concentration, “…just…I think it’s…it’s…”
Say it! Scroogie’s eyes seemed to say, just say it! We’re all pals here!
--and then Richard felt himself shrink. Shrink far back into his chair there at the table of the Arrowhead Room of the Shawnee Country Club where their parents had sat together so many long years ago. Shrank back because he wished now he hadn’t brought the damn thing up, it wasn’t important anyway, just a stupid damn dream, Maser was right, he was being a bore.
But Scoogie’s eyes kept insisting.
“I think…” Richard said softly, mostly to the table in front of him, “…I think…the woods…” --yes they were in the woods in the woods in the dark and something was following them something they couldn’t see something that shambled and stank it was coming back to him now but no Laurie no Laurie just the four of them and the—the--
Bang!--Shivers slapped the table so hard it made Richard jump. Made his heart skip a startled beat or two.
“Love to stay and chat, girls” Shivers said, his voice unexplainable angry. Richard looked at him. There was actually color in his sallow cheeks, as if something were hiding beneath his skin, something dark, something almost uncontrollable. Shivers looked around. “Whose turn is it to pay?”
Which put everyone’s mind elsewhere.
At least for the moment.
* * *
All of them (save Richard, the notable exception) had other Sunday kinds of things to do. And all of them left the clubhouse at approximately the same time, Scroogie, almost too drunk to drive, waving good-bye by way of an up thrust middle finger from the side window of his new Porsche, just as he’d done from the window of his high school Mustang and his junior high Schwinn before that. Maser lagging around to wave back, waiting until the last of their departing cars was out of sight, then turning to stroll the temporarily empty practice-putting green with Rich Denning.
“Funny, isn’t it, Rich?” It was getting on toward noon and heating up, but not yet uncomfortably for July.
“Funny?”
Maser shrugged, hands in his golf trouser pockets. He kicked along the manicured grass with a smile of nostalgia. Of the crew, Maser was the only Ender who still didn’t wear weekend jeans; maybe in anticipation of an emergency call? Certainly not vanity, not The Maze. “The way we all ended up,” he said, “getting pretty much what we wanted, what we pretty much talked about, becoming what we wanted to become.”
“Yeah, “Richard grinned, “I could hardly wait to grow up and die.”
Maser turned to him with quick concern again, then shook his head. “I’d be worried except you’re smiling.”
Richard nodded. “I’m smiling because I can hear you, Bobby. Perfectly.”
Maser glanced at him casually, not immediately getting it--then did a double take when he finally caught on. He was next to Richard’s “deaf” ear. Maser had been there when it happened, although like a lot of things it was vague and hazy to Richard now.
“How perfectly?”
“Perfectly perfect,” Richard said slowly now. “Every syllable, loud and clear.”
Maser gave him a dubious look.
“It’s true, Maze. I can hear every inflection in your voice. Not to mention the birds in the trees over there and the swish of the grounds keeper’s sprinkler on Tee Seven. Maybe even hear in the deaf ear a little bit better than the good one.”
Maser slowed, watching him. Then stopped altogether. “Huh.”
Richard leaned into him just to underscore the moment. “Wanna check me out, Doc, right here on the practice-putting green?”
Maser was still squinting skeptically at him. He didn’t look like Bobby Maser the doctor at all for a moment, more like a confused intern. “Huh,” he finally muttered again. “You know, that’s pretty rare, Rich. Not unheard of exactly, but damned rare. Done any sky diving lately?”
Richard nearly laughed. “Say, what?”
Maser shrugged. “It’s been known to happen. Someone loses hearing in one ear, usually something pressure oriented, then parachutes out of a plane, hears a little pop and suddenly they’re listening to their old stereo lp’s again. Sudden change in air pressure reverses the original effect. What about bumps? Experience any kind of head trauma lately? I mean,” he gestured helplessly at the air, “how did this happen?”
“’I Was The One’, I think.”
Richard watched the blue Kansas sky in thought. “Or maybe it was ‘I Want You, I Need You’…one of the early Elvis’ numbers. I was reminiscing last night. Listening to the old songs. I was wearing headphones.” He looked at Maser and held up his hands as in supplication. “I don’t know, Maze, it just happened. Suddenly everything went stereo, like you said.”
Maser shook his head very slowly, still frowning in fascination at his friend’s ear. “You didn’t fall down, didn’t bang your head against something, or--?”
“Nothing. I was just lying there quietly listening to The King.” He raised a sudden brow. “Maybe it’s--the cancer? Somehow?”
Maser gave him a jaundiced look. “A medical first if it were.”
Maser, still fascinated, actually reached over and tugged at Richard’s lobe, peering inside. “It’s not unheard of as I said,” he muttered, searching, “scuba divers have been known to experience similar restoration. But it’s usually always something fairly dramatic. A distinctly bio-physical cause and effect.”
“Maze?”
“What?”
“You wanna quit staring in my ear now, please?”
Maser stepped back, still shaking his head in slow wonder. “You might want to consult a good ear, nose and throat man.” He folded his arms, still shaking his head with incredulous delight. “Isn’t that damnedest frugging thing, though…?”
“Won’t hear me complaining,’ Richard said. “Get it--? ‘Hear me’ —“
“I get it, Rich.”
They walked a little further.
Richard could feel the sun beginning to warm the back of his neck again, a pleasant feeling, but he’d have to cut this short soon or apply more sunscreen, they’d already walked eighteen holes.