Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (14 page)

At seven-thirty the phone rang and Billy’s unstable ticker gave an anxious lurch. It couldn’t be Jenkins, not at this hour. Had the boys flipped the powerboat? Wrapped Marva’s Volvo around a power pole? To his relief it was Herb Froese calling. Herb apologized for the early morning call, explaining he had a tee time for eleven-thirty, but one of the original foursome had ducked out. Did Billy want to play? As his guest, he added tactfully. At first Billy was inclined to refuse outright, feeling this invitation to his old haunt was a humiliation, but as he listened to Froese ramble on, he relaxed. Herb was a hacker so apologetic about his game that playing with anyone he didn’t know well gave him fits. On a busy Sunday, there was a chance some hopeful single might attach to the threesome and Froese would run the risk of an afternoon spoiled by some stranger’s scarcely veiled condescension about his laughable play. Once Billy understood
he
was being asked to do Herb a favour, he graciously accepted. At least now he had something to occupy his mind until five o’clock, something to help turn the dial down on his fretting. Maybe his luck was turning.

Billy arrived at Fairview early. So far this year he had only squeezed in three rounds on public courses: his game was rusty, and hitting a bucket of balls might work the kinks out. As he lugged his bag towards the driving range, he felt his heart soar. It was a beautiful, warm, brilliant day. Fairview looked in great shape: add a flock of woolly lambs to all that rich green pasture and it would be a shepherd’s wet dream. Then something halted Billy dead in his tracks. He spotted Malcolm Forsythe, the King of the Car Dealers, on the driving range, “working on his game.” The evil little turd was always spouting hackneyed golfing clichés that sent Billy around the bend. “Keep it in the short grass,” “It’s not how you drive, it’s how you arrive,” “I don’t have my A-game today.” Everything about the man irked him. That abbreviated, granny backswing mechanically dinking out ball after ball as straight as a plumb line, that stupid tweed cap Forsythe had brought back from a trip to St. Andrews sitting on his head like a dried-out, weathered cow pie.

Billy had a bigger grievance against him. He couldn’t forget how Forsythe’s deliberately implying that he couldn’t afford to buy a luxury car had driven him to lose his head, to throw caution to the wind, to make the big, extravagant gesture and impulsively order a Lexus LS460. He could see now that Forsythe had been egging him on, seeing just how far he could push him. “If a fellow has to tighten his belt, he has to tighten his belt. No shame in that. A Corolla is great value. Very economical. You can’t imagine how many of them I sell to female schoolteachers,” is what Forsythe had said to him and Billy hadn’t been able to swallow that. And then, once he had taken the plunge, he had had to liquidate
his measly fund of
RRSPS
so he could pay cash and avoid the credit check Forsythe would have to run to see if he qualified for dealer financing.

The very sight of the man sent Billy fleeing to the clubhouse. There he received the awful news from Herb Froese and his buddy Skip Jacobs that Forsythe would be part of their foursome.

As usual, Forsythe rudely kept them all waiting until seconds before their start time. On the first tee, the car peddler said, “So, boys, who wants to lay some loose change on the game and make this interesting?” Forsythe, a seven-handicapper, was always trying to milk somebody who was half the player he was. Herb Froese had paid for Forsythe’s after-round drinks so many times that he flatly refused, and Skip frugally followed suit. Forsythe turned to Billy. “It’s just you and me, sport. How’s about it? What do you say? Stroke or match play?”

Billy took his time lighting a cigarette. “How about we play skins. Carry the money forward when we tie a hole. Forget the chickenshit stuff.”

“How much a hole?”

“Hundred. That’s a nice round number.” The look on Forsythe’s face, the awed silence that overwhelmed Skip and Herb delighted Billy.

“Jesus,” said Forsythe. “So much for a friendly outing.”

“Money talks, bullshit walks,” said Billy, flamboyantly yanking his driver from the bag. He could sense the shrewd
cogs turning in his opponent’s mind. After a bit, Forsythe nodded. Apparently, the calculations had been weighed and been judged favourable. Forsythe had green-lit the project. Billy was gleeful. Now he had returned the favour, backed Forsythe into a corner.

Billy, a big hitter, always found the first hole, a 545-yard par five, extremely tasty. As he addressed the ball with his Big Bertha, he heard Forsythe snidely remark, “That driver looks like a toaster on a stick.”

Billy lifted his head. “It’s legal.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

The exchange gave Billy pause. “Course management” was one of Forsythe’s mantras. Play it safe, weigh risk and reward like a bean counter. If Billy pulled the ball left, he was out of bounds. The story of his life. Five hours ago, he had been telling himself to correct his mistakes. It was time to listen to his own advice. Trading the driver for a three iron, he split the fairway. Forsythe went with a driver, but as their carts rolled down the fairway Billy noted with satisfaction that Forsythe had gained fewer than ten yards on him. This old dog can learn new things, he told himself. Sure he can.

His cautious attitude paid dividends for two holes; he stayed even with Forsythe. But on the third, he shamefully four-putted. For Billy, putting was like a visit to the dentist; he just wanted to get the pain over with as quickly as possible. The double bogey cost him three hundred bucks.

With all the Sunday traffic the next hole, a par three, had backed up. There were two foursomes ahead of them on the tee, giving Billy time to regroup and calm down. Also, sexy Joanne arrived on her refreshment cart. Nobody else wanted
anything, they were keeping a Presbyterian Sunday, but Billy sauntered over to her.

“Where you been, Mr. C.? Haven’t seen you in ages.” Joanne was always glad to see him. Knowing that she was a single mother he always tipped her outlandishly and made a point of asking after her little boy.

“I guess you didn’t hear. I quit the club. Too much business on the go. No time for golf …” He faltered. “Except now and then.”

“That’s a crime. Otherwise, how are things?”

“They could be better. I’m down three hundred to Forsythe.”

“He’s so tight he squeaks when he walks. Put a little pressure on him and he’ll choke.” She seized her throat, crossed her eyes, and stuck her tongue out. Billy laughed like a madman. Joanne was a great girl, even if she was what Marva called a “trailer tramp.” Billy happened to like saucy trailer tramps. They were the reason he had always volunteered to take the boys to the Exhibition when they were little. Marva had accused him of lusting after corn dogs, but it was the young women in high heels and ankle bracelets, little crescents of jiggly white bum peeking out from under their cut-off blue jeans, that attracted him to the midway.

“How can I do you?” asked Joanne.

“I’ll take two beers. Any brand, whatever’s coldest.”

During the time he stood chatting with Joanne, Billy drained one beer and got another underway. When she hinted it was time for her to go, he fumbled out his wallet and pressed a twenty on her.

“Hey, Mr. C., that’s mighty big of you.”

“Self-interest. So you don’t forget me,” Billy said. “Keep them coming.”

“I’ll catch you at the turn.” With a cheeky wink she sped off, the contents of her cart merrily rattling.

Billy hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch; his guts had been too twisted up anticipating Jenkins’s phone call for him to contemplate eating. He checked his watch quickly, but reminding himself how many hours were left before his future was decided was not a good idea. The beer on an empty stomach had started to give him a nice mild buzz. The last thing he needed was to spoil that feeling, get all jangled, get his nerves stretched banjo-tight.

By the time their foursome were ready to hit to the fourth, a green surrounded with water blinking hot sunlight, Billy’s arms felt relaxed, loopy, boneless. Normally, fear of sending his ball into the drink tensed him up, but the beer had eased the wrinkles out of his swing, allowing him to follow-through with an easy, relaxed finish. Textbook. Landing with a feathery hop, his ball settled four feet from the pin. Miraculously, he overcame his yips, sank the birdie putt, and won a hundred back from Forsythe.

This easy, contented feeling carried over to the next hole and he won it too. Joanne was right, seeing Billy creeping back on him, Forsythe started to feel fingers tightening around his throat, began to piss and moan about bad breaks and bounces; his forearms had bunched up into knots he was gripping the club so hard. By the time they made the turn to the tenth, Mr. Big Shot Car Salesman was two hundred down.

When Billy glanced at his watch again, he was shocked to
see it was already two-thirty. Where the hell had the time gone? The course was congested, but he hadn’t realized they were moving so slow. Three hours to play nine holes. Could he make it home in time to catch Jenkins’s phone call? He would be cutting it close. Maybe he should pack it in, hike back to his car right now. Forsythe would certainly be happy to see him go and save two hundred smackers.

That thought was enough to make Billy decide to stick in there. After all, who did Jenkins think he was, expecting him to sit around all day like some girl hoping that her big crush would ring her up for a date? And scheduling a phone call on a Sunday. Who the fuck did business that way? Better to forget about it and swear off the clock-watching. Besides, here was Joanne waiting for him just as promised, parked in the shade of a stand of poplar, flashing him a lovely, toothy grin.

“Well?” she said. “How goes the wars?”

“You were right, sweetheart. Apply a little pressure to Forsythe and he wilts. I’ve got him pretty much where I want him – by the short and curlies.”

“Good for you. Two more?”

As Joanne dug down to the bottom of the cooler to find him the frostiest brews, Billy studied the crowns of the poplars. They ran with a liquid ripple in the faint breeze, streamed like a green brook. All at once he was filled with the loveliness of it. He thought of his father, his grey, harassed face. A journeyman plumber, Richard Constable had made the daring leap to go it on his own, to run his own business. A mom-and-pop affair where he was the only worker and his wife kept accounts on the kitchen table. Slowly, conscientiously, Billy’s father had nurtured the company, step by
careful step, until forty years later it had become a prosperous, moderately sized concern. As long as the old man was alive he’d kept a sharp eye on the workers, on the bottom line, and above all, on his son. But when his father died seven years ago, Billy seized the chance to turn Constable Plumbing into something truly impressive. He had believed that in ten years he could get himself and his family where they deserved to be, on easy street, enjoying the good life his pop had been too timid to seize. What had the old man ever done but work? He had died in the same boxy bungalow Billy had been raised in and his mother had chased her husband’s heels to the grave only one year after his demise. When had his pop ever savoured a day like this, had a pretty young woman like Joanne wait on him hand and foot? Flirt with him? Billy’s bet was never. Live large or don’t live at all, he thought.

His reverie was interrupted. “You okay, Mr. C.?” Joanne was holding out his beers to him, a look of concern on her face.

Billy wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Goddamn allergies,” he said. “June is always bad.” To cover his embarrassment, he took a slug of his beer.

“Whip Forsythe’s ass, Mr. C.”

“Consider it whipped,” said Billy.

But Forsythe was far from whipped. He kept grinding away, relying on his short game to save him. Every time Billy was sure he had him on the ropes, Forsythe scrambled off them with a crisp wedge, a deadly chip, a seeing-eye putt. Neither of them managed to win a hole outright; the pot steadily
increased and, as it did, Forsythe’s play grew more and more maddeningly deliberate. He pondered each shot endlessly, excruciatingly studied his putts, stalked the green back and forth, back and forth. For Billy, who liked quick, brisk play, it was torture. Agonizingly the minutes ticked by, marching towards five o’clock. Despite his promise to himself, Billy found himself checking and rechecking his watch, fuming. His thoughts wandered and circled. Maybe he should ring Jenkins up and leave his cell number with him. But wouldn’t that look weak, candy ass? Like he was begging?

On the fifteenth green, he leaned over and muttered to Herb Froese, “Hello? What the hell’s he up to? Christ, the weekend is officially over in another eight hours.”

“Why,” said Herb with that sweet innocence Billy found so endearing, “he needs that putt to halve the hole. He misses, it costs him six hundred bucks. Don’t tell me you lost track?”

As a matter of fact, Billy had. He knew there was substantial loot at stake but hadn’t figured it to the precise dollar. It was how he had always operated, guesstimates, ballpark figures, even when it came to placing tenders. Gritting his teeth, he said, “No way he’ll make that. No way.”