Local Souls

by Allan Gurganus

  Red was running out of even unpopular partners. The oldest had found his game too slow, ragged, yet peppery. City veneer fell away as he cursed the pro’s poor preparation of Red himself. By now Dad played through mostly alone. At golf, Red’s usual workmanlike focus got outfoxed only by his comic lack of talent. “Address the ball,” he’d say aloud, stepping toward it, as if trying to make a small if obstinate new friend.

  This was a few years before our club required carts. They meant to keep foursomes moving at a new industrial pace. (Here lately, the Broken Heart Admissions Committee’s been throwing open the gates to more and more retired New Jerseyites. Remaining dot-com money, certain loudish Johnny-come-latelies. A shame, really.)

  Red had taken our doctor’s advice years back. He now worked around the schedule of that revered senior caddy, Maitland “Mait” Miller. A skinny handsome blue-black man, Mait had very white hair. It grew in pleasing mossy coins set around his skull like some type of crown or cap. Red once joked: Mait had been “thinking the game” so long his hair had become all cotton golf balls.

  As Doc promised, Mait’s caddying gave the suave impression of someone never hurried. “Ball went in the drink? That do happen. Nothing worry ’bout. I got us another two dozen, dry, right here. Which one these looks luckiest?”

  Maitland Miller served as deacon in his church, had a daughter at Reed. As old as he was, lank and nonchalant, he might’ve caddied for each justice who’d sat on the Supreme Court since William Howard Taft. Nowadays he might be a college president. Back then he helped white fellows whittle points off their “mental game” for life. Though they’d never seen him play, never once invited that, they trusted his every grunted hint and nod.

  Doc Roper turned up at Broken Heart this same sunny day midweek. From my backboard, I could see him yonder on our putting green, perfecting shot after shot with his usual directed patience. Roper’s hair stood out up spiky white against clubhouse bricks. Like me and many players here today, Doc seemed constantly scolding himself with how-to’s. “There you go at the elbow again, you.” Had to laugh, imagining Doc making any public goof-up he couldn’t at once correct.

  I wondered if he’d glimpsed me over here punishing the backboard. (I always seemed more aware of where he stood than he of me.) Hoped Roper’d spy me exercising; that way I’d get points in his office early Monday. Always did try preparing some starter topic as I am told folks do for their weekly head-shrinkers.

  It being a Wednesday noon, few other members were around; mainly waitresses in white watering petunias on our terrace, gossiping about some big upcoming Moose Lodge dance. You had a sort of peaceful backstage feeling. Nothing counted today. No one was looking. My vital signs felt vital and I was just twenty-two. How glad I was for my skinny candid Janet and our beautiful house full of her family antiques.

  My essential players were all nearby: Doc, alone with his putting, giving at the knees as charts all show. Pop out somewhere, getting shaken-head sympathy from Mait at each bad shot. And here I was, pounding lethal serves against defenseless green plywood. I pictured Red chopping away but due back at one for our lunch buffet. He still swore by Broken Heart’s oily fried chicken but seemed proud he’d cut down thanks to medical advice: just two drumsticks, one breast. “That’s it,” a Christian martyr, Red would shove back from the table. I stood wondering if I might ask Doc to join us (hating to impose). I had turned his way when seeing something living rush across the greens.

  What I first took for a deer turned into a man, a black man, then someone familiar. Mait Miller, minus any golf bag, advanced at whatever speed you could make in such long limps. He held something up above his head. A red bandanna. Spying him from this distance, knowing him to be over seventy-five, I wondered at his hurry, worried for his heart. Then I noticed he kept waving his hankie as some signal, running, stopping, waving, running, bending, winded. I noted Mait aim his flag always at Doc.

  I screamed Roper’s name while pointing. He scanned, saw, dropped his putter, took a running leap onto the club manager’s cart, key in its ignition. I piled on behind. We were soon to Maitland at a sand trap’s edge. He’d bent, hands to knees. The old guy stood huffing toward the grass.

  “Is Mr. Red. He down on sixteen. He out. Made him one giant swing. I heard something turn. Break aloose. Not soft, wet. More like the handle popping off a china cup. Swear I heard something inside he chest just go.”

  We were there in two minutes. Red lay on his back staring up into a yellowed maple. He still clutched the aluminum club. His fists stayed fused around his iron’s leather grip, pinkies linked as friends’d all tried teaching him.

  Dirt on his forehead showed he’d first pitched facedown; Maitland had likely rolled him into a more restful position half against some maple roots. I squatted and touched Red’s cheek. The day’s temperature was right at fifty-five, and so was his. Eyes open wide, such a look lay starched across my father’s face. Determination mixed with some incoming glory expected any minute. (“How was that?”) I tried pressing shut his eyes but lids stayed fixed, amazed—from the inside out.

  Doc, unceremonious, shoved me aside, checked Dad’s airways, tore open his shirt. The butt of Roper’s right hand went slamming to work on him. Blows sounded harder than I liked but Doc knew best. I remembered Red’s saying that here, in town, he did not always know how to behave, to “do.” Me too, me now. Something would soon be called for, some emotion or efficiency. I studied how Doc pounded a human torso, punishing one organ to recall its duty and main habit. I, Bill, watched as if I were some camp kid in first-aid class, doubting I could ever do all that. (What real use was I to others?)

  Maitland Miller wandered off, he acted the most upset. Kept mumbling, not quite to me, “Didn’t mean nothing by it. Hates this part the job. Lost Mr. Alston, Judge Draper, then Mr. Blanchard Sharp went. They quit they jobs. Got plenty money left. But be out here every morning, still hurrying. I told Mr. Red, say, ‘Go easy.’ Then I run. But Mait ain’t fast as Mait been being.”

  I broke the spell. Dared touch his arm. Promised Maitland he was the hero of the hour. Told him Dad had already outlived his own pop’s span by twenty-odd years. I said that Mom and I would want Mait at Dad’s funeral, please. I would talk to the manager. Maitland Miller had caddied for Red all these good last years. Dad gave famous tips because he finally could. That at least seemed fair.

  Mait, shaking his head, walked off mumbling, red hankie to mop his brow. He settled on the far side of that maple, one live man and one dead. I saw cars start slowing out at the corner of Club and River. Given Red’s hair color and bantam size, from there they’d know the fallen.

  Somebody had phoned the rescue squad but our groundskeeper wouldn’t let their ambulance ruin his greens. So here medics came, running their gurney around a sand trap, guys all in white showed up stark against this bright green world. I must’ve been stunned. Everything looked painted. Everything visible played a part in making this be one huge September show-day. No hiding place in it. Straight sunlight came at you, yellow as yolk, and warmed you; but blue shade on the back of your head pulled you off toward coolness. Left split, I turned around.

  Our afternoon had just enough wind in it to make these old trees sound huge. Overhead sweeps and creakings of high limbs left me feeling boy-sized stuck down here among adults’ odd chest-pounding ritual. Everything grand and serious. Me, extra, misplaced, in town.

  I squatted nearer Doc still pumping. Beside my father’s head I noted what first appeared a single mushroom growing in the grass. Bright and red and white, it rested amid fresh-chopped divots. Thing proved to be Pop’s wooden tee and, atop it, the new white ball right where it’d started.

  Doc Roper kept hunched over Red, delivering well-paced blows to a chest narrow and yielding. Dad’s face, neck, hands had been forever sun-baked. Brown-red, they seemed carved from a mineral different than his body’s. This chest looked decades younger, flour-white as any child’s. Face-up he appeared trusting, awaiting some ve
rdict, frail past even being dead. I noticed odd red patches crossing him—collarbones to ribs, a raw mass, overlapping starfished shapes. Some old scars? bad new tattooing? Slow, I understood these hundred savage tender marks were Roper’s handprints.

  Astride Red, Doc still slammed so. I can yet hear that sound, ribs’ giving like nautical rope under stress. Bent now beside our doctor, I warned myself not to betray one childish emotion here, much less girlish ones. Hated disappointing Roper. We had dreaded this so long, and here, as he predicted, it was happening. Had happened.

  I could see Doc’s jaw set, profile neutral if distorted asymmetrical from his fighting back tears. The EMS boys had long ago strapped an oxygen mask onto Red. Now they stood back and aside. They’d recognized Roper at a hundred yards. Their waiting acknowledged he outranked them. But, twenty minutes in, they started giving each other looks, phoning bulletins to one irked supervisor. Someone else, alive, needed help now. It was clear my dad was dead. Seeing Doc’s pace slow some, one young medic finally helped Roper rise. He’d worked with such force he appeared briefly weak, even tipsy, arms flung out for balance. Doc lurched off to one side, his back turned, avoiding a short form being lifted to its stretcher.

  Doc leaned against one tree as I moved to comfort or thank him or maybe report how this shock was registering with my ticker! But Roper turned on me as if outraged. Under damp white hair I saw those strange blue eyes fried open.

  “Nothing. Could do nothing. And Red, he’d just asked me to play-through with him. Maybe I could’ve slowed him some, Bill? But, no, I had to be working on my stupid putting which will never be worth shit anyway. Bill? how hard would it’ve been? My tagging along no matter how much time it took? —Well, we’re not going to let this happen to you. Advances made every day. You’re twenty-two. I swear I’ll keep right up. And you there with me, son. I hate this for you. Everybody despised Paxton. He snitched on every woman he ever had. Man robbed anybody ever tried fixing up that barn of his. But, you know? his choosing Red to make an heir? that was the coolest thing he ever did. Red! Pleasure just being around somebody finally wringing the real fun out of stuff, you know? Sure you do. But, know this, you’re my guy now. Umkay? I hate his going. But, swear to God, I’ve got you now.”

  Doc gripped my right hand; I returned his exact caliber of male force till we sort of stood here Indian-wrestling. Soon we actually on-purpose hurt each other, part of our pact to make this stick. Being Red’s two all-time favorite young men, being out here under the maples on sixteen, we finally seemed more than brothers. The man swore he’d keep me going years longer than he’d managed with our Red. And, till today at least, my partner Roper, he’s honored his promise, hasn’t he?

  BEFORE I EVEN phoned my bride at our new home, I drove straight to Mom’s. I later realized, by the time she heard my car out front, not his, she knew. No, earlier. See, somehow she’d already changed into her best black Sunday dress. Matching black shoes. Hair pulled back then pinned. No brooch. Nothing but a wedding ring. In town, she knew to keep it simple, solid colors. Otherwise they might know. So, always understate. Today especially.

  As I lunged in, she rose. Just the sight of me still in sweaty tennis whites made her lean against the doorjamb and ask it: “Where?”

  “On sixteen.”

  “Ooh and after he promised me he’d quit at nine. But you’re not with him. You let him go. Son, where have they got Red?”

  “Downtown, wherever ambulances wind up. We’ll find him, I’ll take you there. But, look, sweetheart, Doc was right with him. Tried heart-massage, just tried and tried. So Dad had the best last chance.”

  “Well, there it is.” She sat again then turned away from me. I felt she was cross that he had died with me, not her.

  “First, Bill, you’ll run home. Change out of those shorts. Tell Janet and don’t even say you came told me first. She’s your wife now. Go to her. And, son, I reckon we’d best start. Been so long coming, hasn’t it? There’s certain things’ll now need doing.”

  I stepped closer to stop her, to explain how all this other could wait. But she held up one palm. I saw she needed to say out her little speech. Let her, I told myself but the sound of the voice in me saying that seemed exactly Red’s.

  Her fine white skin showed against everything black. Right then she was such a beautiful woman, my mother. I stood here appreciating her with a licensed force that shocked me. I felt my strength had somehow doubled. Inheritance. With Red and his dear noise stopped, she came across as someone so poised and clear, kind. At seventeen, she’d married him knowing exactly what waited. Today I finally saw her just as he did and it offered such a wild pure charge.

  “I’ll want this place sold, Bill. My sister she’s been after me to move back out to her farm in and with her, time comes. Time’s here, I reckon. Yeah, be moving in with Ida. She’s always had that spare room, ground floor, two nice windows. So I’ll be there mainly. Look, from here on out, son, you might find me less in a town mood. Never really took to Falls. Except for Third Baptist, can’t seem to feel relaxed here. It was Red’s little side-trip, with us all trying and fit in and act like the Fallen. But it sure did suit my men. With me? Didn’t like to say a word again’ it, not back then. Not after he kind of won Falls like a prize. But I never left off being ‘country.’ And it’s not one thing wrong with that. Look what I’ve got myself wearing here! They choose clothes like they upholster their couches. Black. Got me where I’m looking like a nun. But once I’m out with Ida, hiding with just us, why, I’ll want to wear any ole floral-print housedress. Bagged-out, missing buttons? Should I care? Shoes run-down in back. That used to be luxury for me and m’ folks. So, you go get your wife and carry her back over here once you’ve changed. White shirt’d be nice, jacket, no tie. See? here I am . . . him dead, worried how we’ll look downtown at their offices.”

  She rose again and called me over, nearer her face, as if to whisper some new secret. I leaned in, finally put one arm around her. Against my cheek she whispered, “Oh, Bill, what are we going to do without our wonderful friend?!”

  I shook my head. No answer.

  But a new thought of hers now seemed to cheer Mom. “Well, there’s one thing’s sure. You and me we’ll go right-today, we’ll find him a mighty nice plot. —A ‘town’ grave. Right, son?”

  I HOPED TO wangle for Red a spot in All Saints Episcopal’s moss-green churchyard. One ancient magnolia canopies its marbled lambs and man-sized angels. Buried there are presidential candidates and Secretaries of the Navy. Of course, this being Falls, oldest families monopolize its real estate, too.

  Red, he’d never dared set foot into this famous church itself; it meant too much to him. I knew as how graveyard slots here ran real scarce and pricey. You could not just be One Who Stayed, however noble your local existence. But, since Janet’s family had belonged to All Saints since Millard Fillmore’s day, I thought Red might get grandfathered in yet again. I hated the beggar’s role but sat down, took deep breaths, forced myself to phone.

  Rector Tim’s secretary was an English war bride with one posh and pearly accent. “Yes, All Saints. How might I help you?” Her formal voice slowed me some. The words “All Saints” seemed kind of exclusive, in fact, pure dare. I hate name-droppers. And here I was about to beg for something impossible, just to say I’d tried. “No, you can’t,” I answered, hanging up.

  I’d lacked the brass to become a diplomatic climber even in my grief. Still too pending a person, I couldn’t even fake Dad’s natural push. Even to get him safely under hallowed ground.

  So Mom and I, grave-wise, we just went with First Presbyterian. True, their flat memorial park allows “no aboveground flowers.” Yeah, it’s located more out toward the Dairy Queen. It lacks antique magnolia cover and is too new but still, pretty enough, maintained. Besides, Red had tithed Presbyterian, so they were fine having us.

  I SAT UP that night of the day he died. Sat trying to write a gravestone-text sufficiently poetic. Funny, Jan had wanted to s
tay up with me and I appreciated that, her level head for confronting trouble straight-on. But I told my wife I had to do this part alone.

  A beautiful antique writing desk overlooks the river in our great room, a bird’s-eye maple thing with carved feet and from Jan’s family plantation. But it seemed too fancy for my chore. Describing other people is a big responsibility, especially at the end. I moved around our place, holding open the blank back pages of my insurance premium book. The pad that usually only notes others’ car wrecks, trees fallen into friends’ homes. I wandered my own house, some overawed visitor among my wife’s grand things. And the one workspace that felt easiest proved Lottie Clemens’s cubbyhole off our utility room.

  My task needed a place carved out for taking work-hour breaks. When Lottie Clemens cleaned for us and looked after things, she had her own backstage changing room between the washer-dryer and the pantry. Lottie daily arrived in civvies and shifted in and out of her uniform here before we drove her home. I noted her headquarters had a narrow daybed, an armoire, one massive iron hat rack that she’d hung with folding umbrellas and clear rain bonnets to protect her expensive braided hairdos. Thumbtacked before the card table, school photos of her four sons, the eldest grinning under high-school mortarboards. Lottie called it her office and it was a simple functional room and the only place in our fine split-level river-view house I felt somehow close to Red. Tonight it looked like a room at a farm.

  Here I’d face the simplifying work of trying to see him whole. Here, for the first time, I felt like an only child. He had always seemed, in his forward-leaning belief, someone roughly my age. First I made a sort of poem filling two pages of insurance premium ledger; it went long and stayed bad. Bad country Baptist sentiment. I knew that, but still settled right into it, rolled around there, like a dog in the carcass of dead wildlife. Then I tore all that up and hid it in one sweater pocket.