The Book of Moon

by George Crowder

  “Not online, but I do have pictures.” I pulled out my phone, set up the gallery, then tossed it to Mac. He and Aron bent over the tiny screen hungrily.

  “Sweet Jesus, who I don’t believe in,” Mac groaned appreciatively. “Slow down, man, this is something to savior—I mean, savor.”

  “You don’t get out much, do you?” said Aron. “But this is impressive. Sorry, Mrs. Robinson, youth trumps plastic surgery.” He looked up, suddenly serious. “You had something going with this girl?”

  “Not really. I was just teaching her math.”

  “Please. You were her algebra gigolo,” Mac frothed. “She paid you to stroke her equations.”

  “Ummm,” said Aron. “I’d say her breasts have a very positive slope.”

  “Nothing negative about the rest of her, either,” said Mac, grabbing the phone. “Enquiring minds want to know, Moon, did you get into her variables?”

  “That will remain an unknown,” I said.

  Mac tossed my phone back. “No wonder you’ve got a bone to pick with God, but I think you’re barking up the wrong burning bush. It’s no deity’s fault that your mom’s a piece of work—no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that this is your karma?” asked Aron. “Some Hindus believe that children actually pick their parents—and vice versa.”

  I made a sick face. “Do you believe that stuff?”

  “No. But you can, if you want. Another spin is that you’re paying for the sins of a past life.”

  “I don’t remember committing them. Doing time for unknown crimes doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not buying it.”

  “So thumbs down for the principle of reincarnation?” asked Mac, gesturing.

  “I’m out,” agreed Aron, thumb down. “It’s too ‘blame-the-victim’ for me.”

  “Me, too,” I gestured. “No metaphysics that offend my sense of justice.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Mac. “If I were to believe in God—which is very doubtful—I would create him in my image, not vice versa.”

  “A scary thought,” said Aron. “But I agree in principle.”

  “This puts us totally out of step with the religious left, right, and center. They relish the opportunity to worship at the altar of unreason,” said Mac.

  “Faith is belief without reason,” I said.

  Mac looked at me more seriously. “You said you wanted to talk about Job.”

  “I do.”

  “Old Testament. Right up my alley,” said Mac.

  The pizza arrived and we momentarily busied ourselves with serving out slices.

  “There’s something about that I’d like to know,” said Aron. “Is there any connection between the words ‘Job’ and ‘job,’ or is that just a linguistic coincidence?”

  I spit up my Coke, but Mac didn’t miss a beat. “Biblical scholars have argued about that for years, and ultimately they’ve agreed that it’s a really stupid question, Aron.”

  “It’s a relief to know they figured it out. My dad explained it to me different. One day he looked kinda depressed as he headed out to work and I asked him about it. He shrugged and he told me, ‘That’s why they call it a job, not a blowjob.’”

  This time Mac spit up his Coke.

  “So about that Job…” I persisted.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Mac, mopping Coke off his face, “God 1.0. Lotta bugs in that version. Major hard-ass. Tended to overreact, like a giant killer bee. Got slightly miffed at Moses and let him wander in the desert for forty years.”

  “Yeah, but that’s on Moses. He coulda asked for directions,” said Aron. “Moon, aren’t you taking this too seriously? It’s just a story.”

  “That hundreds of millions of people consider to be God’s word, upon which they base their life, their laws, and their politics,” I retorted.

  “No,” said Aron.

  “No?”

  “People say they do, but the vast majority don’t. They treat the whole religious deal like going out to dinner. They, or more likely their parents, pick the particular buffet at which to worship. Once inside, they walk around with their plate. I’ll take a little of this, a little of that, go very light on commandments, thanks; load up on consolation, God’s love, hope for a good afterlife, reinforce my prejudices…”

  Mac regarded Aron thoughtfully. “I only have one problem with your analogy. My family takes buffets very seriously, and we would never compare them to something as mundane as religion.”

  “You know, that Old Testament God is not what most people would consider a model authority figure,” said Aron.

  Mac added, “He says so Himself. He’s a jealous god, He’s an angry god.”

  “He’s got issues,” I said.

  “Big time,” said Aron. “He’s working his shit out. Sorta like, if I may, your mom.”

  “Another authority figure,” said Mac, “who you can submit to out of fear or respect, but you can’t exactly trust.”

  “So…you think my problem with God is mostly a problem with my mom?” I asked.

  My friends regarded me with wordless pity. I looked back at them, stunned by the obvious truth of what they were saying.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hot Links

  In the last blistering days of August, Moss, Dad, Mr. Smith, and I were getting set to tee off at a public course out in Camarillo Springs. After my pizza therapy session with Macaroni, I had decided to see what I could do to end Mom’s reign of terror.

  All summer she had been telling us Mr. Smith was out of town, and thus unavailable to monitor our visits with Dad. I had found it odd, since the summer is usually a busy time for realtors. Finally, realizing I had Mr. Smith’s phone number on my cell, I just called him myself.

  There was dead silence on the phone when I explained this to Mr. Smith. He cleared his throat and said quietly, “Moon, I have been here all summer. What’s more, I’m sorry to say that I’ve run into your mother at two events, and she’s not mentioned a word of this to me.”

  Now it was my turn to search for words. I decided to avoid the subject of my mother’s bald-faced lies and work towards my actual goal of seeing my father. “So you don’t know the situation with my parents?”

  “Apparently not. You say your mother is preventing you from spending time with your father?”

  I briefly explained. “Well,” said Mr. Smith, “I’m terribly sorry that you and your brother are the victims of forces beyond your control. Though I have always appreciated the wisdom of Falstaff’s admonition that discretion is the better part of valor, I personally find it hard to live up to.”

  “Uh, Mr. Smith, you lost me there.”

  He chuckled. “What I mean to say is, I’d be glad to help. Did you have a particular get together in mind?”

  “Kind of. Do you play golf?”

  “Love the game! Though my affection is not always requited.”

  “Whose is?”

  “Just so! It’s an inspired idea, Moon. A foursome might be the least unnatural way to do this peculiar thing.”

  As we took practice swings, I became wrapped in a daydream about what would have happened if Job had been a golfer and the devil had gone after his game. Naturally, with all his good fortune, Job would have been a scratch player; that would give him a long way to fall.

  Probably the first thing the devil would do is give him a wicked slice. I’ve got one myself, so I could imagine Job’s sick feeling as he watched a promising tee shot execute a large, inexorable turn to the right and sail out of bounds. That’d have Job playing his second shot—if he could find his ball—from behind trees on another fairway. Limbs and leaves have a way of finding your ball no matter what you do. More wasted strokes, more frustration.

  Then Job’d top his fairway wood, shank his long irons, and finally catch a wedge and send the ball over the green, maybe into a bunker. Once in the sand, I could imagine him hacking away in a perpetual cloud of dust, with the promised land of the g
reen just a few impossible yards away.

  Job might not curse God, but he’d curse his clubs. I’ve seen plenty of guys throw their sticks, and a few break them. One guy actually tried to strangle his driver. Apparently it was fighting for its life, since he tussled with it on the ground, panting and gasping—him, not the driver—as the rest of us looked on in amazement, trying not to laugh. Finally the guy declared, “There!” with some satisfaction, and stuffed the club’s corpse back in his bag.

  On another round I saw a guy come unhinged much more quietly. His putting had been rotten all day, but he’d suffered in silence, never letting on how much it was torturing him. Out in the parking lot, though, he pulled the putter out of his bag, threw the rest of the clubs in the trunk, then methodically tied the bad club to a length of rope he attached to his bumper. Then he tossed the tethered putter on the ground. He saw me watching and stated matter-of-factly, “No way that son-of-a-bitch is riding in the car.”

  He jumped into the driver’s seat, ran over the club as he backed out, then gunned the car forward. The putter followed with an abrupt jerk, hopping over the parking lot pavement. The man took the exit to the street very fast, the putter swinging wide on its rope, like a wild water skier whipped hard by a turning speedboat. It smashed into the stop sign the golfer had just ignored; but the rope was stout, the knot held, and the club went airborne. The golfer pulled up short in traffic. Flying high, the club descended blade-first in an elegant parabola and smashed through his rear windshield. Evidently that putter had more than one way of inflicting pain on its owner.

  I was thinking about what the devil might do to the rest of Job’s psyche, when I realized I was up. Since the others had all hit good drives, the pressure was on me to hold my own. After waggling my way through what felt like several self-conscious minutes, I finally gave up any hope of feeling comfortable, and just swung the club. My initial relief that I had outwitted my habitual slice and hit the ball straight was replaced by chagrin that I was at least thirty yards shy of the shortest ball, which was Mr. Smith’s. There were murmurs of “That’ll play,” and we were off to the carts.

  We’d decided that Moss would ride with Dad on the front nine, and I’d ride with him on the back nine, so I jumped in with Mr. Smith. He quickly drove to my ball, which was the farthest from the green. I got off the cart and considered my choice for a moment. The distance from the green warranted a fairway wood, but I grabbed my hybrid four. A hybrid has a shorter shaft than a wood, which makes it easier to swing; but it has a fatter head than an iron, which makes it easier to get solid contact. All things considered, it’s my favorite club, and I reach for it most of the time.

  The hybrid didn’t let me down. I hit it good, about forty yards short of the green.

  Mr. Smith grinned at me when I jumped back in the cart. “Like that hybrid, do you?”

  “It likes me.”

  He nodded understandingly. “I’m terribly fond of my seven iron. Nevertheless, I seldom use it more than twice a hole.” I laughed, since hitting a seven iron twice on a hole would mean you pretty much screwed everything up.

  We pulled up at Mr. Smith’s ball. “Unfortunately, this calls for a bit more clout than the seven. You’re good with maths…what’s seven minus two?”

  “Five?”

  “Sounds about right,” said Mr. Smith, smiling, as he pulled out his five iron. A quick practice swing, and he put his shot on the green about thirty yards from the pin. He gave the head of his club a quick kiss. “Keep that up, and we’ll make the old seven jealous, won’t we?”

  Mr. Smith kept things light like this for several holes, and I began to relax and enjoy myself. Truth is, I hadn’t known exactly how this plan was going to work, and I felt responsible for facilitating everything, since it was my idea. But Mr. Smith was a lot better at social lubrication, and I was glad to let him take over.

  Dad rolled in a long, breaking putt on the fourth. Moss and I cheered and Mr. Smith whistled. “Nice read, I’d say!”

  Dad shrugged, smiling. “Better with greens than books.”

  “Wish I could say the same,” said Mr. Smith.

  Dad hit a monster drive off the next tee. Moss and I grinned at each other. “He’s warming up,” said Moss.

  “Little bit.”

  Dad and Moss pulled out first in their cart. Mr. Smith started up, then abruptly stopped and stared at me. “Your father is quite a golfer.”

  “Wait’ll the back nine,” I said. “He always plays the second half four or five strokes better.”

  Mr. Smith lifted his eyebrows. “Does he have a handicap?”

  “I guess that’d be drinking.”

  “I mean—”

  “Just kidding,” I said. “I don’t really know. I don’t think he takes it that seriously, though.”

  “Amazing,” murmured Mr. Smith, stepping on the gas. “If I could hit a ball like that, you’d have to pry me off the course.”

  “Yeah, me too. Moss is like Dad. They take their athletic ability for granted.”

  “Must be nice.”

  As we played the hole I filled Mr. Smith in on Moss’s skateboarding triumph and his upcoming competition. “You mean to say that if your brother wins this tournament he will become a professional skateboarder? At his age?”

  “Well, he wouldn’t have to, but that’s usually how it goes.”

  “What do you think his chances are?”

  “Pretty fair,” I said, and explained my thinking. There were nine regional qualifying events, which meant a total of twenty-seven contestants in the finals. The results of each qualifying tournament had been posted at the Free Flow website, so it wasn’t hard for me to get the names of the other finals competitors and actually do a little online research. There was YouTube footage of most of them, in addition to the video coverage of the qualifying competition, so I was able to watch almost all of them skate.

  They were certainly a lot better than Boosh and Wee Wee, and Moss’s other skating companions. But I didn’t see them do anything Moss couldn’t do. Of course, anything could happen in a competition, but I figured there were only a few skaters who were really going to be in the same league as my brother.

  “What does he think about it?” asked Mr. Smith.

  “We don’t talk about it.”

  “Superstitious or nervous?”

  “He’s neither, but I’m both.”

  “What’s your mother think?”

  “Uh…”

  Mr. Smith looked at me. “She doesn’t know.” I shook my head. “How can that be?”

  “She’s been preoccupied.”

  “Nevertheless, this is her son. Don’t you think you should tell her?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say how she’ll react. I don’t want to screw up anything for Moss.”

  After the ninth hole, Moss and I switched our bags and I rode with Dad. At first I felt a little awkward; I hadn’t seen him for a couple of months, and I was worried about him. I kind of didn’t know what to say. But then my dreaded slice reappeared, and that gave us something to talk about.

  I was pretty dejected after playing through a couple of miserable holes. Fortunately, my awful play didn’t seem to be dragging Dad down: he birdied one hole, and parred the other.

  Golfers are circumspect about offering advice, even to their own sons. Dad volunteered nothing, so it was up to me to make the first move. As we rode to the next hole, I asked, “What do you think, Dad?”

  He shrugged. “Figure it out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Everybody’s game goes south. Good golfer’s gotta be his own swing doctor.”

  “How, Dad?”

  “Same way you figure out a math problem. If you can teach Jasmine algebra, you can fix your slice.”

  “Did you read that in Golf Digest?”

  Dad ignored my sarcasm and laughed. “I’ll get you started. What causes a slice?”

  “Club face not square at impact,” I said mechanically. “Or cutting across the
ball from right to left.”

  “Good. What can cause that?”

  “About a million things.”

  “Too many to consider. Simplify.”

  “Setup. Backswing. Downswing.”

  “Okay. What do you think?”

  “I think—” I started, ready to express my frustration. But somehow Dad’s coaching had started me thinking. “I think my setup is okay,” I said more calmly. “But I think I’m stiffening-up and not releasing my wrists through the shot. I’m blocking through the ball, instead of swinging, and the face isn’t closing.”

  Dad nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. Make an adjustment.”

  I set up carefully on the next tee, taking pains to square my feet and shoulders to the target. I started the club back, turning my hips and shoulders and allowing them to pull my arms and hands through the backswing. At the top, I felt my wrists cock in response to the weight of the dangling club head—my favorite part of the backswing, since it feels powerful and fully charged. As I began my downswing I concentrated on keeping my head still and my left shoulder and chest square to the ball, and my hands somewhat relaxed. And as the club passed my right leg, I felt my wrists begin to snap just before the club face contacted the ball.

  I raised my head hopefully. Even the worst slice starts out looking good, so the verdict wasn’t in for a few seconds. But the shot stayed dead straight, and I couldn’t help grinning. I looked at Dad, who gave me a wink and tapped his head, as if to say, “File for future reference.”

  As we rode to the next shot, I said, “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You figured it out yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m thanking you for.”

  Dad laughed, and threw his free arm around my shoulders. “I’ve missed you boys.”

  “We’ve missed you, too.”

  I guess we both choked-up, since neither of us said anything for a while. Then Dad turned the conversation to other things and we just enjoyed the morning, hitting balls, riding around, and being together.

  It should have been no big deal, but thanks to Mom’s meddling, it was. Then again, I realized I had taken something for granted that really was pretty special. If we could ever get this mess straightened-out, I’d have to try not to do that.