Looper

by Michael Conlon

  Because it’s Monday, I decide to sneak on the north course with Pimples in the afternoon (if you don’t caddy over the weekend, you’re forbidden to play). I continue to play my A-game that day until my thirty-seventh hole of the day. My tee shot flies straight, and I drag my suddenly tired limbs toward my ball, imagining myself wearing a Tiger’s varsity letter jacket. Pop’ll be on cloud nine if I make varsity. I waggle in front of the ball and swing my 3-iron from the fairway. The ball flies quail right.

  “Nice shank.” Pimples knows better. It’s taboo to utter that word on a golf course. Shanks are balls that barely get off the ground, like a firework dud, skidding dead right. Golf’s version of a mosquito bite: The more you scratch the bite, the worse it itches. I shank my way all the way down the rough on Number 10 … shank, shank, shank … until God dims the lights.

  The next morning, Dial-A-Ride picks me up along with my bike and drives me to Willow Hills to play the last nine holes of the tournament. The scoreboard is set up on an easel in front of the tiny clubhouse, which sits on a hill overlooking the course. My name is first on the board for my age group: Ford Quinn 36. My nearest competitor lags eight shots behind. With only nine holes left to play, the tournament is all but over, and I’ll be hoisting the championship trophy (now sitting on the scorer’s table) above my head in two hours’ time. Sir Winston Somerset’d be proud as pee.

  The first hole at Willow Hills is a par four with a watery grave you have to clear with your tee shot. A small gallery has formed to watch the leaders tee off. I’m last to hit because I had the top score the day before. I overhear someone in the crowd say, “That young kid shot one over par yesterday, can you believe that?”

  I wallop my tee shot over the pond and out of sight toward the distant fairway. Perfecto. With my first-tee jitters behind me, I strut down the steep hill in cocky Arnie Palmer-style while applause from the gallery fades behind me.

  My second shot flies straight as an arrow, landing softly on the middle of the dance floor. After a poor lag putt, I roll in a gnarly ten-foot tester for par, then slip my putter into a fake holster, draw it out, aim, and fire at an imaginary villain à la Chi-Chi Rodriguez. Eight simple holes to a fresh start in life. I’ll take high school by storm. How silly was I giving two hoots about getting into the stupid Lund Gang?

  I have my game now. I have my life.

  The second hole is a short par-three, which can be easily reached with an 8-iron. I swing the club, figuring for a nice draw on the ball because the pin’s on the left side of the carpet. The ball skids right instead, rattling through a few tree limbs before dropping straight down.

  A shank.

  I receive odd looks from my fellow players, but I shake it off. It’s only one lousy shot, and besides, I have an enormous lead. I still have a chance to get up and down for par if I cozy my next shot close to the pin. The next shot shanks, too. I skull the following shot onto the dance floor after it rolls through a lipless trap. Two putts for a double bogey.

  The shanks continue to plague me on the next hole.

  Shank, shank, shank.

  I can’t shake the shanks. Three holes later, I’ve lost the lead. It’s now a matter of survival. My legs go limp; my nerves turn to jelly. I choke down on the club, aim way left of the target. Nothing works. I should just quit and never look back. I wonder how I’ve gotten myself into this mess and why I had to shoot the round of my life the day before. If my score had been in the middle of the pack, no one would have noticed or cared about this dreadful round except Pop. I deduce the shanks are from muscle fatigue, due to having played a thousand holes the day before at the country club. Pimples always has to play till dark so he can bring out his stupid puke-green glow-in-the-dark golf balls he’d won at the member-caddy tournament raffle this summer. I’ve been bitten by a shank-bite, and there is no anti-venom in the pockets of my miserable golf bag.

  The end of my misery is in sight—Number 9—a par-three straight uphill toward the clubhouse. I round the pond I triumphantly strode past two hours earlier on the first hole and see that a large throng has populated the back of the green to presumably see me win the tournament by a wide margin. In the crowd, I notice Pop wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, proudly watching me. There’s no escape route at this point unless I jump into the pond and swim underwater to the other side, which is tempting.

  I place my ball on a peg, aim at the flag on top of the hill, and swing wildly at the ball. Predictably, it skids right, splashing down into the pond. I fish another ball out of my bag, reload, sending the ball into the sea cemetery again. My next shot flutters harmlessly straight and low, about halfway up the hill. I nurse the ball onto the green using a Texas wedge. Three putts later, the sad torture ends. As I creep toward the scorer’s table, someone snickers in the crowd.

  A boy in my foursome tallies up my nine-hole score and announces, “Sixty-three, Quinn.”

  Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? A mixture of murmurs and laughter follow me as I head toward my bike just as the official starts to write my score on the large board. I’ll be lucky to make the girls’ freshman team with that score.

  Pop’s vanished. Thank God.

  I ride my bike out of the parking lot and down a long and winding road toward Dot Ave. The bag makes me tilt to the right, just like my golf shots that day, so I have to jerk my handlebars to the left every few yards. A car breathes down my back tire. It’s him. Pop rolls the window down. I sprint away as fast as I can, but he keeps pace. I know what’s coming.

  “What the hell happened to you out there today, mister?” The car pulls even with my handlebars. “A sixty something? You can forget making the golf team.”

  “Go to hell,” I say, fighting back tears.

  “Why didn’t you just quit after a couple of holes and tell them your hand hurt or something?”

  “What?” I heard him.

  “Forget it.” He roars off in his old Impala. I throw my clubs on the ground and ride off to the waterfall at Stoner’s Lake to drown my sorry sorrows.

  The sound of rushing water sooths my anger and keeps me company. Maybe I’ll show Pop and not return home, ever. I get now how Cleo felt the night she ran away from home because of the spat with her mom, and I wish Rocket was still home so we could camp out in his tent together. Yeah, I like to play golf for fun into the twilight hour when the blades of grass turn purple-black and the curtain rises for the cricket choir. But it’s Pop’s dream that I play on the high school golf team or become the next Winston Somerset, not mine. I’d sooner read a Steven King novel or write poetry or listen to music or skateboard or play video games or gaze at the night sky or Cleo’s navel. At least, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.

  I once watched a black-and-white documentary about Robert Frost in Mr. Garoppolo’s English class. Mr. Frost grew up in the city but loved spending time with nature because it propelled his poetry writing. I know how Mr. Frost must have felt, and I’m missing the country club course. There’s something peaceful about just walking around a beautiful golf course like Kensington Hills. Closest man-made thing to Heaven. You soak up the sights and sounds (if you don’t count golfers cursing), and poetic lines just spontaneously erupt in your head. (I sometimes jot them down in my caddy yardage book with my miniature golf pencil.)

  On the other hand, playing golf is a whole different feeling. If you attack the golf course by playing risky shots over water or sand traps, you’re just fighting an uphill battle, and a nice walk soon becomes a battlefield full of mines. A lovely oak or bubbling creek turns into a hazard rather than God’s creation. But still, there’s nothing like draining a lengthy birdie putt from across the green to send a shot of adrenaline through your veins.

  Besides failing to make the cut, my second-biggest disappointment from bombing at the tournament comes two days later from the Kensington Hills Observer. The front page of the sports section has an article abou
t the tournament, listing the winners and showing a photograph of a smiling Dennis “Freaky” Fredrickson, standing with my trophy in his hands. The article states “Fredrickson was twelve shots down at the start of the day before rallying for victory.”

  Rally, my ass. How about a total collapse on my part?

  I mope around the next few days, repeating in my head why I had to play all those holes at the country club that day. What really bugs me is knowing that Cleo should have seen me holding that trophy in the newspaper, not Freaky Fredrickson.

  On Friday, Gene and I bump into Gigi and Owen inside the arcade at the Thunder Bowl. Owen has just finished a record-breaking game of Asteroids. He’s an ace video player on account of the endless free games he gets at the Palms Motel.

  “Quinn, heard ya scored the first Harvey Wallbanger in Michigan golf tourn’ment history.” He’s wearing an old leather mod jacket with the collar turned up. A Harvey Wallbanger—or Flaming Dr. Pepper or Irish Car Bomb—is not only a cocktail but caddy slang for when scores on the front and back nine are reversed. 36 and 63. 35 and 53. 37 and 73.

  Gigi doesn’t give a whit about my golf score, but she laughs right along with Owen, too. I’ve had it with Owen and Gigi. From the concessions, I turn my head toward my old friends, who are at the exit, their arms locked around each other’s waists and each hand in each other’s back pocket. A quick glance outside the storefront window, and I see them zoom off on Owen’s new Vespa scooter—and out of my life.

  At home, I find a lumpy, sealed letter on my bed and notice the handwriting on the envelope. I feel a small, hard rectangular object in the envelope, hoping the chemical-potion songs I’ve sent to Cleo worked a spell on her. Of course, those songs were made for my ears only.

  Kate pops her head into my bedroom. “Who’s the looovve letter from, Ford?”

  I frantically check to see if the seal has been broken by my nosy sister and can tell it’s been tampered with. Jesus, Kate, ever heard of a little privacy? She probably read my poetry verses, too. “How’s Theo?” My best counterattack to shut her mouth up.

  “None of your business!” My door bangs shut.

  I pull out the letter along with the cassette tape.

  Dear Giff: Thank you for another mixtape. Most of those songs are pretty dark and out there.  Pink Floyd? Even Pippa agrees. But I guess you would know that bx you made it. Duh! Anyway, we made a new tape for you with some more uplifting songs.  Pippa picked most of these. Cleo P.S. We just taped over your songs & figured you wouldn’t mind. Sorry!

  What the hell did she mean “we”? I thought the mixtape thing is an “our” thing, not a “we” thing. I figure Pippa Farnsworth is still into the Carpenters or Barry Manilow or Seals & Croft. I stick the tape into my Sony Walkman, slide on Billy’s Technics linear drive headphones, rest my head on my pillow, and press play. “Misunderstanding” begins. “Miss You” would have been perfect from her right about here, but what comes next is “All Out of Love.” Then “I Can’t Tell You Why” … “Hurt So Bad” … “Slip Slidin’ Away” …

  The man in the three-piece suit puts an offer in on our house. Pop accepts on the spot. Two days later, he tells the guy he’ll renege on the deal unless he pays a couple of grand more. That is just like Pop, and my last glimmer of hope that my childhood home will be saved. The man not only agrees but throws in an extra thousand dollars to cover our moving expenses.

  Our new home will be a red-brick apartment building close to uptown. There will only be the four of us, plus Chimney and Fluffy, because Billy is relocating to K-Zoo with Jenny Clark.

  n the morning before Virginia starts her first day at her new job in Detroit, she can tell I’m down in the dumps, so she gives me a self-help lesson from her Mensa-Netics brainwashing manual. She tells me to stand in front of the mirror and imagine myself standing in the Evans scholarship house on the University of Michigan campus, about to head out the door to an astrophysics class. Oddly, Mom’s self-image drivel casts a positive spell on me like it did for Cleo.

  “It’s time for you to join the living, Ford.” She grabs my cheek and stretches it across the room. “You’re still so cute.”

  “Stop it, Virginia.”

  With my inflated self-image, I muster up some Quinn courage and ride my bike to the country club, determined more than ever now to get the Evans scholarship. I can go from the Regrets to Redemption—a true Holy Redeemer. Chip shouldered 306 loops last year. Next year, I’ll shoot for some new Guinness Book of World Records for loops—140 golf days times 2.5 loops = 350. Maybe Mom can quit working, start a fresh business scheme with Pop, and not worry so much anymore.

  I pump my pedals faster and faster, past the beautiful rows of colonials, and forget how the Quinns have been a bunch of fakes living in a neighborhood we can barely afford. Maybe I should turn back and cut all ties with the country club. But I’m a Quinn, and there’s no quit in Quinn men. I refuse to give up on life just because I got busted for stealing some beer. I pedal on toward the club.

  At the foot of the bridge, I eye the turf, turned black-green by the shade from the clubhouse. The beauty of the golf course hits me: the sloping lush fairways, the finely cut blades of dew-soaked grass sticking to my high-tops, the morning fog huddling in the hollow bunkers. Now I understand how the Apollo 8 astronauts felt when they orbited the moon for the first time, transfixed by the bright, luminous sphere rising above the moon. They could almost touch the lunar craters, but what really struck them was the beautiful blue living Earth, rising above the gray, dull surface of the moon. Earthrise. The Earth was alive and breathing above the desolate shores of dry lake craters. The Kensington Hills course is alive and breathing for me, too.

  My own green Sea of Tranquility.

  That afternoon, I cross the bridge to the caddy shack and feel at home amid the pinball noise, the snapping croc towels, and the monument of King’s big blond head behind the counter. At that moment I know I’ve found my true calling in life. While Father Steve has found it in grace and salvation, I’ve found it in straight tee shots and eagle putts. Perhaps caddying at Kensington Hills will become a permanent occupation for me like it is for Rat and the priesthood is for Father Steve. I picture future loopers lounging around the caddy shack, waiting for a call across the bridge from an 85-year-old Bogart, saying, “That’s Quinn. He’s a lifer.” With my confidence restored, I’m ready to caddy again. My resurrection is here.

  The ink’s barely dry on the caddy list when Commandant King tells me Bogart wants to see me. I grab my towel and run across the bridge ready to do the work of the golfing gods. I’ll see some fine golf, stop after the front nine to receive communion from Myrtle (chocolate milk and fried dog), and then finish my first round by 3:30. Then I’ll be glad to start my service again.

  Before I even see him, I hear Bogart bark my name from his office. I enter his palace, and he sits as usual on his swivel-chair throne with his feet up on the counter, chewing his soggy cigar. “Quinn, I ain’t got good news for you.” I figure he’s sticking it to me for being out for so long, a well-deserved punishment I’ll take in stride to reclaim my caddy pride. “You won’t be loopin’ anytime soon.”

  No problem. “I can wait for a loop.” A picture on the wall shows golf legend Ben Hogan smiling with his U.S. Open trophy in hand next to what looks like a young Bogart.

  Did Bogart caddy for Hogan in a major? That’d make’im a looper legend.

  “You’ll be waiting a long time, ’cause you’re relieved of your duties at the club.”

  My heart plummets thirty thousand leagues under the Sea of Tranquility. “I don’t quite catch your drift.”

  He removes his soggy cigar from his mouth and leans forward, elbows resting on his desk. He smells of smoked Vick’s Vapor Rub and day-old whiskey. “Catch this. You are FIRED. Canned. Finished.”

  “I’m fired?” I shake my head. “Nooo.”

 
“The country club’s got a code-of-conduct policy that applies to employees.” He raises two fat fingers in the air. “And you broke two of ’em. No employees can drink booze on club property, and no employee can have a criminal record.”

  “But Farmer Jack’s dropped the charges. You can’t do this.” I stumble backward against the wall.

  “Did ya forget I’m the caddy master?” he snarls. “I can do what the hell I please, and what I want is never to see your butt here again.”

  “You don’t understand … I have to caddy.”

  Fruit flies disguised as caddies stick to the window.

  “Then go caddy somewhere else, or wash dishes down at the Fox and Hounds, where all you fancy folks hang out.”

  “Fancy?” You don’t know me from Farmer Jack, Bogart. “I need this job to get the Evans scholarship.”

  “What world are you living in, Quinn?” Bogart snaps. “A kid from the Hills thinks he’s earnin’ a caddy scholarship? That’s for poor kids who can’t afford to go to college.”

  “But you don’t understand—”

  “I understand plenty. You think with the size of that house you live in you’re going to be an Evans scholar? I’d sooner be the King of England.” How’s Bogart know the size of my house? Then I say it to myself for the first time: My old house. “You can’t even be nominated for an Evans scholarship unless I give the okay, and right now you’re finished. I don’t want to see your sad ass anywhere near this club.” Bogart rises. “Now beat it, kid.”

  “Who told you about my house? About the beer?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Tweety Bird.”

  I scramble out of his hut, rip off my badge, stuff it into a trash can, and make my last trip across the bridge. Who ratted me out? Pippa Farnsworth? Gigi? I don’t think she gives two hoots about me and just wanted to crash at my Hills pad or make Owen jealous. Did you ever call her back, Casanova?