by James Ross
Julie took the coolers of beer out to the foursome. The boys headed for the lot. Captain Jer grabbed a seat at the bar, placed his head down and promptly passed out. Rollie continued hacking at the back table as Curt reached into the sink to wash his hands. In a heartbeat, the clubhouse got eerily silent as he was bent over. Then he heard a loud thud. He glanced up to see Rollie on the floor.
In a split second Curt rushed to Rollie’s aid. “Rollie! Rollie! Are you okay?” The coughing had ceased. Curt rolled Rollie over onto his back. The adrenalin rush took over Curt’s actions. He sat on Rollie’s abdomen and pushed on his chest. He pushed a second time. He pushed a third time. Curt jumped off to the side and put an ear to Rollie’s heart.
“Curt! Curt! Look what the ladies gave us!” Justin waved a five-dollar bill in the air and screamed as he and Keith entered the clubhouse.
“Justin! Call 9-1-1! Hurry!” Curt yelled. He was rapidly going through the beginning stages of CPR.
“What happened?” Justin shouted back as he headed for the phone. He dialed the number and watched as Curt sprang into action.
“I think that he’s had a heart attack,” Curt screamed. Curt tilted Rollie’s head back and placed his ear to Rollie’s mouth. He listened for the slightest breath. Not hearing anything, Curt pinched Rollie’s nose shut and blew a breath of air into his mouth. He once again placed his ear to Rollie’s mouth. Nothing was heard. Curt placed his mouth over Rollie’s mouth once again and blew air into it.
“What can I do?” Keith yelled.
“Get a wet towel and come over here and take his shoes off!” Curt shouted. He sat atop Rollie and pressed on his chest rapidly, trying to apply enough pressure to get his chest to compress a couple of inches. Over and over and over again Curt pushed on Rollie’s chest. He jumped off, pinched his nose, and blew air into Rollie’s mouth. Curt put his ear to Rollie’s mouth and tried to hear or feel the faintest bit of breath. Still, Curt heard nothing.
“They’re on their way!” Justin cried.
Curt repeatedly continued the steps of cardio pulmonary resuscitation. Rollie lay motionless on his back. Furiously Curt pounded on Rollie’s chest. His eyes were fixed in time. “Come on, Rollie!” Curt yelled. “Breathe for me!”
Justin and Keith watched as Curt tried to coax some life out of his long-time golfing friend. Curt looked at Justin and bowed his head. “I can’t get him to respond.” Once again he pushed on Rollie’s chest. Then he jumped off, pinched Rollie’s nose and blew air into his mouth. Curt placed his ear again to Rollie’s mouth. Sirens blared from the parking lot. Curt shook his head back and forth as the paramedics scurried through the door.
Julie had made sure that the four women got to the first tee alright. After the emergency vehicles screamed into the parking lot she bolted to the front door and followed the medical team into the clubhouse. The first person that she saw was Justin. “Is it Curt? Is he okay?” She frantically asked.
“Curt’s fine,” Justin informed her. “It’s Rollie. Curt thought that he had a heart attack.”
The paramedics worked on Rollie and then placed him onto a stretcher and rolled him out the door. One member of the crew frantically administered CPR. Curt located a trash can in the corner and started throwing up. He heaved and heaved until nothing else was left. Totally exhausted, he slumped into a chair. “I did all I could,” he mumbled as his eyes glistened. Justin walked over to console him. “I need to lie down little buddy. I’m wiped out.”
Captain Jer lifted his head up off the counter. He stared at the top of the bar and tried to focus his eyes. They were three-fourths shut and his head was groggy. He turned his head and noticed Julie. Lacking meaningful conversation he blurted, “Did I miss anything?”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
That night after work Tina and Justin met Dave and his son, Ryan, at one of the local parks for a short bike ride. The temperature during the day had been blistering hot and the foursome thought that it would be a little cooler on them if they waited until the sun was almost down. They agreed that the ride would be shorter, but maybe a little more enjoyable under the milder weather conditions.
Tina pedaled alongside Justin but she could see that he wasn’t focused too much on riding a bike. “Is Curt okay, Honey?” She was concerned that the chemotherapy that Curt had started might have an adverse effect on Justin because the two of them were so close and it would be natural for Justin to worry.
“I think so, Mom. At least he says that he is. But I can tell that he’s not his old self just yet,” Justin replied. He veered off course and stared into space. His mind was somewhere else.
“You don’t look like your old self tonight, either,” Tina said. “You can’t keep the bike on the path. What’s the matter with you?”
Justin stopped his bike. He put one foot on the ground to steady himself. From the look on his face Tina could see that he was fighting back tears. She stopped alongside him and he grabbed her arm. “I saw a man die today, Mom.” Justin started to sob. Then he stopped and composed himself the best that he could. He rubbed the tears out of his eyes.
“What happened?” Tina asked. She was shocked that he had kept quiet about it for so long. Then she paused and realized that her son must have been in a mild state of shock.
“Would you two come on?” Dave yelled back at the pair. He and Ryan had pulled way ahead of Tina and Justin. “Tell him to quit whining and catch up before it gets dark.”
Justin stomped his foot and threw the back of his hand in Dave’s direction. “Tell him that I don’t want to listen to his crap right now.”
“Justin!” Tina reprimanded him. “I’ve never heard you talk like that!”
“I’m not in the mood for him tonight.”
Tina put her arm around her son’s shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were all in the clubhouse and Keith and I had to leave to put some clubs on the cart for a bunch of ladies,” he started.
“That was nice of you,” Tina consoled him.
“When we came back inside, Curt was pounding on Rollie’s chest trying to make him breathe,” Justin continued. “He said that he had a heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tina said somberly.
“I felt so bad for him, Mom,” Justin said as he started to cry. “Keith and I couldn’t do anything to help Curt. All we could do was watch. And Rollie just lay still on the floor.” Justin took a large sniff to keep his nose from running then used the back of his forearm to wipe up the remainder.
“Oh, Honey,” Tina said as she nurtured her youngest son. She reached out to put her arms around him
“I felt so sorry for Rollie,” Justin railed. “He didn’t deserve to die. At least not like that.”
“That’s something that each and every one of us must go through,” Tina tried her best to generalize death.
“Justin, quit your complaining and catch up to us!” Dave yelled as he looked back at Tina and her son. “Crying on your mommy’s shoulder isn’t going to solve any problems.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Honey,” Tina said quietly. She ran her fingers through his hair.
“Curt tried as hard as he could to save his life, Mom. He kept yelling for Rollie to start breathing. And he just wouldn’t do it. Then when the paramedics got there, Curt went over to the corner and threw up in the trash can. That took a lot out of him.”
“Curt got unhooked from his pump today, didn’t he?” Tina asked.
Justin nodded. “He almost threw up when he saw Keith and me eating lunch. Then when he had to give mouth-to-mouth first aid to Rollie, it was more than he could handle. He told me that he wasn’t feeling good and said that he wanted to go home and go to sleep.”
“Oh,” Tina said. “You two went through so much today.”
“And all of the guys in the clubhouse lost a really good friend of theirs. It’s just sad, Mom.”
The long wait had Dave in an uproar. “Forget about it!” Dave yelled. “We’ll see
you back at the house!”
CHAPTER FIFTY
The summer of 2007 was brutally hot across the country and especially so in the St. Louis area. Triple-digit temperatures scorched the countryside and burned up everything in sight. Record-high humidity stifled the life out of the faint of heart. Any outdoor activity needed to commence in the wee morning hours and be completed by mid-morning. The body just couldn’t handle the heaviness of the midafternoons.
J Dub scheduled an early morning golf course ceremony for Rollie. It was a ritual that seemed to occur far too often among the old-timers that played golf at Prairie Winds. The guys would get together and reminisce about good times that they enjoyed with their long-time golfing partner. Inevitably an entertaining memory would come out of the session. More often than not the best story seemed to be centered on a hole-in-one. That normally was every golfer’s dream and an important highlight in their golfing life.
Rollie’s claim to fame came one day when he was out golfing with the boys. It had been one of those times when nothing had gone right. His swing was out of sync, his rhythm was off, and his timing was non-existent. Easy Earl, who died years earlier, was playing with him and had gotten under Rollie’s skin. The banter was going back and forth and Easy Earl was winning while Rollie was losing. That didn’t set real well.
In his haste, Rollie stepped up to the par-four seventh hole. He took his driver out and promptly topped his tee ball to start the hole. He became so infuriated that he broke the shaft of his driver over his knee. The ball had been advanced approximately forty yards. It was lying in a low area of the course that tended to attract moisture. So the ground was soggy. To get the ball back in play, Rollie took out his six-iron and proceeded to shank the ball to his right while getting covered in mud from the divot. He then snapped the shaft of his six-iron over his knee.
If it wasn’t the shot that angered him, then it was the fact that he got covered in mud. At any rate, he was laying two and was still almost two hundred seventy-five yards from the green. Rollie had never hit a ball that far in his life, so he pulled out his three-wood and sent one into orbit. The ball landed on the cart path, took a hefty bounce forward along the path, took a second large bounce off of the path, ricocheted off a cart parked on the right side of the green, caromed to the left, went between the legs of one of the players that was playing in a foursome in front of him, and dropped into the cup. It was the most improbable birdie that anyone had ever witnessed at Prairie Winds and it silenced Easy Earl immediately.
Whenever the boys got rowdy in the clubhouse, the chatter would always come back to the day that Rollie birdied number seven from two hundred and seventy-five yards out. J Dub’s decision was easy. They would place a tree near the spot where Rollie launched his shot and commemorate the moment with a special plaque.
The boys gathered early, barely after the sun peeked over the horizon. A caravan of eight carts proceeded to the spot where J Dub had designated for the tree. Justin and Keith had worked hard the day before digging the hole in clay soil as hard as concrete. They had helped J Dub load the cypress tree into the John Deere and placed several bags off peat moss in with it. A couple two-gallon containers of water also went to the scene.
After the guys gathered, J Dub made it short and sweet. “Rollie will be remembered by all of us. Only a few of you were around when he holed out from near here to make a highly unlikely and improbable birdie. But most of you will remember him from his chatter in the clubhouse and his competitive spirit playing backgammon and gin. This tree commemorates the good times that he enjoyed at Prairie Winds. May his soul rest in peace.”
Justin and Keith placed the tree in the hole and poured the peat moss around the base of it. They took the leftover dirt and filled in the remainder of the hole. Then they got the jugs of water and soaked the roots.
“We have a plaque on order. When it gets in I’ll place it at the base of the tree,” J Dub told the guys. One by one Rollie’s buddies came by and placed a flower at the base of the tree.
“Don’t you kids ever start smoking,” Dr. DV said sternly as he turned to the adolescents.
“You saw the way it was toward the tail end. Those darn cigarettes did him in,” Curt reminded the kids.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Once they returned to the clubhouse, nine of the guys decided to go out and play a round of golf in remembrance of Rollie. It really didn’t make any difference if they said it was in his remembrance or not. The guys were planning on playing anyway. But it sounded good and made them feel like they had a heart for their lost golfing buddy.
“Are you going to be able to play today?” Elia asked Curt.
“Yeah, my energy level is fine. The doctor said that the stitches were healed up. I’m going to give it a try,” Curt said.
“How long has it been?” Elia asked.
“It’s been about five weeks or so,” Curt answered. “The blood work said that my hemoglobin level was on the rise. My energy is there; the after-effects of chemo only lasted a day; and I’ve got another seven or eight day window before I have to go in again. I’m ready to live life.”
“That’s part of it,” Dr. DV interjected. “A healthy mind and spirit has a way of overcoming the disease.”
Pork Chop was itching to get into the fray. He had been standing by the box of doughnuts that Fred had brought in for Rollie’s service and had been busy stuffing them into his mouth. “Hey you guys, we have a celebrity in our midst,” he announced to anyone in the clubhouse within earshot. The words came out garbled through the dough. He used the back of his wrist to wipe some of the sugar off of his lips and went on, “Did you hear about our story the other night at the Aqua Mermaid?”
“I missed it. What happened?” Paco wondered.
“BowTye has been holding out on us,” Pork Chop yelled out. The smile that spread across BowTye’s face was infectious. “You should hear that dude get after it.”
“I’m lost,” Elia interrupted.
“BowTye is really Peel It Backe!” Pork Chop cried out.
“So,” Paco questioned him.
“Who is that?” Elia asked as he shrugged his shoulders.
“All you foreigners are alike,” Pork Chop said as he shook his head back and forth pathetically. “You came over here to our country and you have no appreciation for our rock and roll history.”
“Don’t feel so bad guys,” Dr. DV said as he turned to Elia and Paco. “I had no idea who he was either.”
“You have to admit he had the roof coming down,” Pork Chop persisted. He turned to Dr. DV. “I saw you tapping your foot to the beat.”
“What did he do, Pork Chop?” Justin butted in. The teenager was all ears to the story that was being relayed to the group.
Pork Chop took it upon himself to educate the golfers in the clubhouse. As humble as BowTye had been since his arrival, Pork Chop knew that he wasn’t about to boast about his accomplishments. “You guys have to realize something about our good friend that sits so unassumingly in the corner every day,” he began. “This man . . . and I call him a man . . . partly because of all of his accomplishments, is one of the pioneers of a type of music that we have in our country. It’s called rock-a-billy blues.”
“What kind of music is that?” Justin asked.
“Maybe it would be better for him to explain,” Pork Chop countered. He glanced at the figure sitting in the corner.
“No. No,” BowTye begged off. Pork Chop’s compliment had embarrassed him. His deep voice resonated through the room. “There will be a time and place for that. You fellas go and play golf today.” He went back to cleaning a pair of shoes.
“See how humble he is,” Pork Chop reiterated. “We’ve got a living legend sitting among us and he doesn’t want to talk about himself. Maybe we’ll have to go to the Aqua Mermaid later tonight and witness it for ourselves.” Pork Chop glanced around the room. “Are you up for that, Curt?”
“Sure, why not?” Curt nodded. He happened to notice
the box of doughnuts out of the corner of his eye and the sight of them made him feel sick to his stomach. He quickly turned his head away, shook it violently for a quick second, and placed his hand to his mouth.
No one saw the action except Justin. He walked over to Curt. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Curt whispered, “I just get a flash now and then when something doesn’t strike me right. Those doughnuts hit me like your chips did the other day.”
“Are you going to throw up?” Justin asked.
Curt shook his head from side to side. “ . . . Nah. I can’t explain it. A nauseous feeling hits me out of nowhere and it leaves just as quick.”
Captain Jer had been up at the counter getting two coolers packed full of beer. Julie placed a can in front of him. “Would you listen to all that crap Pork Chop is carrying on about,” he whispered to her. “That guy is nothing but a shoeshine boy.”
“I thought you were with them the other night at the boat,” Julie countered.
“I was, but it wasn’t any big deal.” On that night he had been too drunk to remember that BowTye performed.
“Curt said the whole place was coming down,” Julie stated as she defended BowTye’s honor.
Captain Jer waved his hands at her as if to indicate that it wasn’t anything special. “Just load me up with that second cooler. I want to make sure I don’t get too hot out there today.”
“I’m in later for tonight,” Pork Chop cried out. “It looks like Curt is going. Anybody else want to go to the boat with us?”
Justin and Keith could only observe. They were much too young to go with the guys to the Aqua Mermaid. Justin walked through the hustle and bustle of the clubhouse and approached BowTye. “When can Keith and I listen to you?”
A warm feeling came over BowTye. It was the kind of sensation that only came from years of understanding and experiencing life. He put down the brush that he had been using to clean a pair of shoes. “Well,” he drawled, “Mister Justin, for you and Mister Keith maybe I’ll just bring my banjo in one day and give you two boys a private concert.”