Man Gone Down (49 page)

“Play here?”

“Never.”

“Gonna like it.”

“Looking forward to it.”

They've all managed to shave—nickless. They're all wearing polo shirts—different colors, but the same nonetheless. Their assemblage—haircuts, smooth cheeks, collars, carriage—adds up to some sort of badge, a pinky ring for some sort of blue-blood mafia. I stop there because of Marco. I think he's my friend, but the evidence points away from that. Dan stops the car. And even though the analogy is offensive—makes no sense—I wait for Marco to put a bullet in my head.

Nobody shoots. They open their doors, and I follow suit. Someone has snuck around back and opened the hatch. Two teens, one black
and one white, take our clubs out and stand them beside the walk. Dan whispers something to the white kid. The black kid does his best not to look at any of us. He fusses with the bags, tries to make them all stand up in the rack.

“Let's go,” says Dan. Buster and Marco follow him up the path to what I assume to be the clubhouse—obscured by more enormous oaks. I'm left in the netherworld between the house and the ride. I want to say something to the black kid, as though I possessed wisdom, some armored words for him for now and for later. But all I have in my head is the beginning of a disjointed autobiography. Now he looks up at me, queerly. He's a handsome kid—dark skinned and dark eyed: a question in them, asking me, perhaps, what I'm doing still standing there. He shoulders two bags and turns away.

My companions are gone, into the clubhouse. I walk up the cedar-chip path beyond the trees and up to a grand old Victorian. I stop at the door. An older couple walks up the path toward me—the man from the green, and another man, whom I thought to be a woman, I'm not sure why. They don't seem to notice me until, a pace away, they both look up. Not surprised. Almost calculated. The man from the green gives me an unreadable nod. The other ignores me and opens the door. He stops, says hello to someone coming out. It's Marco. He greets both men; neither cracks a smile and they go in.

Marco turns to me with a puzzled look.

“What happened?”

“I was talking to those kids,” I point back down the path, at the trees. “I lost you.” He looks down, then at the big door, then sideways at me. “Sorry. I thought I'd find you again if I stayed put.”

“We were in the pro shop,” he points at the wall as though it was cut away. “You could've just come in. You're my guest.”

“It's all right.”

“However you want it, man.”

He seems hurt again but not like the night before—it's a hurt that, away from booze and maître d's and young women, has room to grow, on his face, in his stance. Marco is my friend, and it becomes apparent
that he needs me, and needs me to need him. I smack him on the arm, the best I can do right now.

He shows me the shirt.

“I hope it fits.”

“Thanks.”

“Use the locker room—it's at the end of the hall to the right.” He looks up almost cross-eyed, reassuring, “It's cool—all right.”

“All right.”

“You need anything else?” He looks happy again—that innocent look he has—eager, can-do, optimistic.

“Yeah.” He perks up even more. “I need balls. Pro shop?”

“No, not there,” he waves a finger at the house. “They're criminals.” He points at his chest. “I've got balls. I've got plenty of balls.” He gestures to the door with his head. “Go get changed. Our tee time's soon.”

Marco is a good man. He's my friend, so I smile and give him another slap on the arm, which he seems to like. He opens the door for me, and I turn to go in. The clubhouse is like the inside of a hollowed-out oak tree—oak floors, walls, and long benches along them in the great room. The tarnished frames of the oil paintings have lost their luster, and they, too, seem to have been carved into their places. The charter members, like so many smears of berry juice on the wood cave walls.

“All the way across to that hallway,” says Marco, “then the first door on the left.” He hands me the shirt.

There are people inside. Some sit and some move, but all are like bees in a torpor because of the early morning cool—safe for now. I'm backlit by the sun, still low over the first fairway. My shadow is long on the floor.

“Hurry up, man.”

Marco is my friend. He's given me food and shelter all summer. He thinks I'm like him, and that because of this, he knows what I need. I can't tell him that he's trying to kill me.

I cross the great room without much ado—no one seems to look. The locker room is empty. The transom is open above the door that leads outside to the back, and I can smell the pool, hear the scrape of
the pool man's pole along the concrete edge. I hate the smell of chlorine. It reminds me of day camp and shouting sadistic counselors—their barks echoing off the tile. Mildew in the showers. Naked boys in rows. Pot-bellied, squishy adolescents. The nastiness of their sharp laughs. The slap of their feet, running on those slippery floors, always made me think of gushing head wounds and broken teeth. After the afternoon free swim I'd watch the older boys play pool for quarters until it was time to go. I'm alone and this room is wood paneled, carpeted, and quiet. I check my roll in my pocket. I put it away and take a practice swing, then another, trying to check myself in the mirror. I take off my shirt, catch the reflection of my torso. I'm thinner than I thought I would be. I swing again—things seem to be moving in tandem.

There's a splash in the pool, but it doesn't sound heavy enough to be a body. I sit down on the padded bench and exhale. I could lie down here on the carpet, in a corner, and just close my eyes for a moment. There's another splash, and then someone curses sharply. This is the camp where Marco's kid goes, the one C has come home talking about—
“They have things to do there . . . ,”
he chided his mother once, not being able to appreciate the time and space he had at the beach. We played bombardment in our camp—prison ball, some called it. The rules were simple: Whip a rough maroon rubber ball at someone else's bare arms and legs. Catch the ones thrown at you.

I stand and take out my new shirt. It's an extra large. It seems enormous, and when I put it on, it is huge—all except the arms, which are too tight. I check my proportions in the mirror, but I can't tell if it's me or the shirt that's wrong. It hangs off me like a dress, so I tuck it in, a good eight inches of shirt, uncomfortably into my shorts. I hope Marco knows what he's doing.
I need to hit the ball right.
A poor mantra, but one that will have to do, and it's done well already—gotten me to focus on the job at hand.

The door opens and a man with the same shirt walks in. He's whistling something—
“Ain't She Sweet,”
I think. He stops when he sees me or, rather, quietly holds the note until he passes. I cinch up my belt, bag my old shirt, and start out.

“You hit a long way?”

I mumble-grunt something at him. He straightens—somewhat surprised by my incoherence. I try to redeem myself.

“Going out or coming in?”

“Coming in. Played nine,” he says, not looking up. Comforted or offended, I don't know. “It's a bear. Really playing hard today.”

“It's always hard, for me.”

He doesn't laugh. He pulls off his polo, then straightens his undershirt.

“Best of luck.”

“Good day.”

Our clubs are waiting for us at the first tee. They've been scrubbed shiny—even mine. The boys are there, too, chatting with Dan and Buster, who gesture out toward the flag. They both have clubs and swing them slowly. They look like they know what they're doing. I can tell that they've had lessons—perhaps from the same pro. Marco stands on the path by the sign for the hole, a good five feet lower than the tee box—
345 yard par four,
it reads in script. Marco examines the sign closely, checks his scorecard, and then joins in the ritual of stretching, flexing, posing, and swinging. I'm still somewhat awed by how clean my clubs are and I don't know whether I should show my wonder or act like I've been to a place like this before, which, I'm sure, everyone knows I haven't. I pull out a club, a no-name five iron, and I think I hear the white kid snicker, but when I look up, he's looking down the fairway with Buster. They look almost like family in profile—perhaps involved in strategy or discussing club lore.

Marco calls out to me, “How's the short game?”

I shake my head and they laugh, except for the black kid, who looks as though he's checked into an alternate reality in his head.

“Gentlemen, 7:18 on the tee, please.”

I'm the farthest away, but they all turn to me. I shake my head and extend my hand back.

“Well,” says Dan. “I'm here.” He places his ball and steps back. He has the same club as Marco. The shaft is too long for him, though. He takes two slow practice swings. His face goes blank—all that boyish goodwill erased. He takes a wide path around and behind the ball. He looks at it, then the flag, then back to the ball. He takes another slow swing and then one sharp step to address. One more look, then into his stance. He seems ready to swing, but inexplicably he opens up his stance to the point where he seems to be aiming at the row of oaks that line the fairway. His swing is quick and short—pinched. The ball heads straight for the trees, then slices back to the fairway, just short of the one-hundred-and-fifty-yard marker.

“Nice ball, Dan,” says Buster as Dan, still surveying his work, picks up his tee.

“Well,” he replies, “it's in the fairway.” He walks off the mound. Both caddies nod their approval. He ignores them. “I didn't get all of it,” he says back to Buster. He stops and fusses with a contact lens.

“No,” Marco calls out. “It's fine, Dan. Nice one.”

I'm not sure if I envy Marco's ability to lie straight-faced like that, or disdain it. I do, however, want him to turn to me and wink—give me some sign that he is in fact, lying.

Buster is already over his ball. He's a large man—much taller than I'd thought earlier—like a pro-sized tight end. But he, unlike Tom Buchanan, isn't very athletic. He looks awkward in his stance, like he isn't quite sure what to do with all his height. His legs and arms are splayed horridly, like he's some arachnid partial amputee, his spider eyes looking in too many directions, seeing too many things for the humanoid brain to process. He swings jerkily. The ball goes up, disappears into the cloud bank above the fairway, then drops out of the sky about twenty yards ahead of Dan's, just to the right.

Dan claps. “If you could just translate some of that height into length—man!”

“It'll do,” says Buster quietly and holds his club out for the black kid.

Marco looks at me, and I point to the tee. He pulls an iron out of his bag, then shoves it back and gets out his enormous driver.

“Oh, the big dog,” coos Dan.

Marco walks up the mound, places his ball, and stands behind it. I wonder what his fingerless father thinks of his son—if he would come to such a place. He must be proud of his boy. Marco looks the part in his beige pleatless slacks and his navy polo. He stretches his hamstrings and I think, while watching his head down there, that if Marco was the least bit vulnerable to perceiving the absurd, it would explode. He straightens, and at address, he looks tense. Perhaps I'm projecting, but I'm right. He rushes what would otherwise have been a good swing and hits a duck hook—two hundred yards straight and sixty yards left.

“Fuck!” he growls, and almost throws his club down, but he checks himself—keeps his back to us, cools off, and bends to pick up his tee, which, when he finds it split to pieces, he throws away into the thick grass in front of him. “Quack,” he mutters, coming down the mound. No one laughs.

“You're up.”

I take the five iron I've been fondling and climb up to the tee. They try not to stare, but they do. It must look ridiculous—at least unusual. I place my ball—Marco's reject ball—and I know I can't hit it. I wonder if I'm the youngest or the first, the largest, Black Irish Indian to play at The Country Club. I wonder if they're considering it, as well—perhaps not. Perhaps they only see me in my wrinkled shorts, my hairless legs, and my shirt, identical to Marco's, only two sizes larger—sleeves like a muscle shirt, body like a muumuu. The shiny no-name club with the cracked vinyl grip.

“Playing it safe?” calls Buster, with just enough humor and politeness so as not to be considered an egregious breech of etiquette by anyone but me. And although Marco is my friend, I still haven't dismissed the notion that this is all a setup. And I haven't really swung a club in a year. And I wonder if they can see my legs shaking. Even the black kid is watching, and I can't help but think that he has something invested in
this moment, too—from a perverse claim to caddy shack bragging rights to the complete emancipation of himself and his people. And I know, as I look down the fairway one last time, that to them, if it is bad, my first swing will be my last—
the one
—no matter how well I play after. There can be no redemption, not for him, not for me, nor for those to whom—because of some treacherous failure or triumph of synapse or courage (whichever you believe in) the many thousands gone, here and yet to be—we are linked. And I hear them, be it by spirit, madness, or some ventriloquist's trick. I hear them pleading, exhorting me to hit the ball straight and long, just as I hear the founder rasping from his canvas on the great oak wall—
“Swing, nigger, swing!”
—and his brothers hissing in unison,
“Amen.”
It's too much. It's always been too much, even divested of all I love. I can't take it anymore. I just can't take it. I try my mantra—
I need to hit the ball right.
Head down. Go slow. I swing. Up then down. I hear nothing, but I'm standing erect at follow-through and the ball is like a supersonic missile, ripping the air. Silent, then the sounds: the whoosh of the club past my ear, the sharp click of metal on hard plastic, then the ball flying with a high turbine wail in its wake. It carries the ridge and drops out of sight.