The Tragic Flaw (15 page)

I
t's a Monday morning, and the infamous Kameron Brown is on a mission. The spokes on his old school rotate beyond the inner city to the outskirts south of town. The long winter has subsided, so dew-covered saplings see new growth and varying shades of green begin to sprout from miscellaneous earth tones. The windows are halfway down as his braided head bobs to the low tones of reggae coming through his elaborate sound system.

Thick purple smoke flees his lungs as he exhales out the window, then coughs ferociously, pounding his chest like a gorilla in the mist. The platinum-framed Cartier sunglasses he wears seem to give him X-ray vision, allowing him to see through the bullshit of half-steppers and to immediately differentiate between a quarter-pound and a quarter-key.

After several years of constantly smoking bomb weed in his six-four, a thin tan film of soot and residue covers the inside of his windows. The detail shop could do nothing for him.

The area is rural, few cars are on the road, and his sneaker-clad foot goes heavy on the accelerator. The four fifty-four howls.

Kameron's black sweatsuit is comfortably unzipped and baggy, revealing the white wife beater underneath. Ashes evacuate out the window as he flicks his blunt in the wind. A platinum-encased second hand sweeps on his left wrist. It's 8:46 a.m., a perfect time to hit the links.

Baby-blue rock candy cuts through the morning suburban air crossing defunct railroad tracks as if launched from a cannon.

The empty road allows Kam to ponder his usual thoughts: “I hope the dry cleaners can get that fucking Hennessy stain out my cream Gucci sweater; man, Larry Johnson is a cold piece of work, but the wide receivers are garbage; Kansas City needs a basketball team, bad; I bet there would be some bitches at those games; man, that bitch Shameeka had some good pussy, she needs to call me back.”

He glances down at his silent cell phone, resting noiseless on his hip, and frowns. The weed calms him, so he takes another prolonged hit. It doesn't help him forget his worries, it just helps him not care about them. And even after smoking blunt after blunt, he has no problems driving nor operating heavy machinery, such as AR-15s and Israeli-made submachine guns.

He exhales like the exhaust from his Chevy.

Suddenly, his cell phone begins to vibrate like a metallic bumblebee. He grabs it and checks the caller ID, then answers it.

“Yea?”

A woman's voice mumbles a few words.

“Yea,” he responds calmly, before taking another long toke and holding it.

“Yea, well, just meet me and drop it off,” he says, then exhales.

“Loch Lloyd. Yea. Out on Holmes.” He hits the weed again.

“Alright,” he tells the woman on the phone, then hangs up, returning the small cube back to his hip.

Kam's lungs then release the THC into the atmosphere, and his capillaries are grateful.

His load climbs a steep hill and upon reaching the top, a row of tall sycamore trees appears along the horizon. They enclose something.

The steering wheel revolves to the right and that rough grumbling sound peaks as Kam pulls over onto the gravelly shoulder. He sees the sign for his destination—Loch Lloyd Country Club—and he slows a bit and stares at the enclave.

A ten-foot-high black iron barrier, as well as surveillance cameras, surrounds the gated country club. Kameron knows they would never let him or his old school in without a hassle. So he removes his sunglasses and waits.

At that moment, a new Lincoln Town Car arrives from the other direction and pulls to the gate and a small black box on the left. The driver, in his short-sleeve taupe polo and light green sweater vest, looks ready to tee off.

White hair styled to perfection, the sixty-year-old small business owner inserts his navy-blue key card into the black box and the gates smoothly swing inward. Seeing this, Kameron quickly reaches over and grabs another blunt from the glove compartment, then coolly exits his vehicle and jogs in behind the Town Car.

The gates gently close behind him as Kameron places the blunt behind his right ear and leisurely strolls up the gray gravel drive. Pine trees line the path as Kam puts one foot in front of the other, covering his snow-white sneakers in dust.

After walking over five minutes, and having yet to see anything but shrubbery, Kameron thinks about how he should have just put a slug in the Town Car's driver and taken his damn key card.

“Fuck. This is some bullshit,” he says to himself. Pebbles crunch under his shoes with every step.

Just as he's pondering turning around and leaving, a steep rooftop appears, followed by an archway, and then glass. The teepee-shaped clubhouse is impressively designed. Its façade features triangular-shaped sunlight panels. To the north of the clubhouse is a vast one hundred-acre lake. Mallards soak up the morning sun.

He stands out. Not like a beautiful blonde in a red dress. No, he stands out more like a curly-mustached rapscallion in a nineteen-ten silent movie, wearing a black trench coat and an elevated top hat.

Once inside the twenty thousand-square-foot clubhouse, Kameron walks over to the front desk and enlists the assistance of the blazer-clad concierge. Oak paneling covers the walls, and the odor of fine cigars adulterates the available oxygen.

“Yea, I'm looking for a Bradley Micheaux,” Kameron states with his deep voice. His blinding platinum teeth stun the concierge, who's instantly impressed and repulsed at the same time.

Assuming correctly, the young brown-haired front-desk manager frowns with disdain, then replies, “I'm sorry, but if you're not a member of this club, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

Upset, but undaunted, Kam replies professionally, “Look, I know I'm not a member. I'm a mechanic, and I was told to meet Mr. Micheaux here with his antique Chevy.”

The concierge thinks about it for a second, and it makes sense to him.

The clean-shaven thirty-year-old picks up the house phone and while looking down, asks, “Yes, where is a Mr. Micheaux scheduled to be at this time? Yes. Okay. Thank you.”

He gazes back up at Kam, who is impatiently waiting with his back to the front desk. The concierge purposely coughs, and Kameron turns around.

“Yes. Mr. Micheaux is said to be on the driving range,” the man tells Kam. He then reaches under the counter and retrieves a laminated map of the grounds and points at it.

“Please feel free to go through these double doors, they'll be on your right, behind me,” he tells Kam, who looks uninterested.

“Yea, okay,” Kam says before snatching the map from the concierge.

“Sir, excuse me,” the startled concierge says. “That's the only map at the front desk.”

Kameron looks at it and begins to walk off.

“Thanks, sunshine,” he tells the front-desk manager, who looks appalled.

The inner-city native makes his way around the corner and collects stares from the club's pale-faced old money. The city's wealthiest residents lounge on velvety thrones upholstered in dyed camel hair. Stogies defile the premises. Brandies, straight, abound.

Kam passes through dark, limousine-tinted double doors and emerges outside to the rear deck of the clubhouse, facing eighteen holes of manicured excellence.

The day's warm weather permits the town's privileged few to hit the green, and young Bradley Micheaux is among them.

After weeks of schmoozing the old money, he's becoming an expert handicapper, particularly on the less difficult front nine.

Brad's efforts to attain legal funding for his illicit endeavor so far have been unsuccessful. But this round of golf may prove lucrative. Quiet as it's kept, the potential investor has bankrolled some Sicilian and Mexican projects in the past, but they had reputations. Clout.

Bradley, on the other hand, is a nobody, with a mediocre set of hand-me-down clubs, and his golf game needs some work. But to his credit, Brad does have a good understanding of the streets and the street mentality, which will be his only chance of securing some funds and not waking up one day with some burly Italian pouring gasoline on his flannel pajamas.

Kameron's eyes search the expansive greenery. He doesn't know where to begin, so he removes the brown marijuana-stuffed blunt from his ear and sparks it.

Golf carts cruise by carrying fat millionaires and third-generation defense attorneys. They don't hide their arrogance, and they stare at Kam with contemptuous glances.

Kam takes a deep puff from his blunt and intentionally blows smoke toward the carted golfers, then grins widely. Sunlight bounces off his baguettes.

Soon thereafter, the intense purple smoke from Kam's blunt attracts unneeded attention. Over saunters a short, studious-looking man in glasses. He's borderline nerd material.

“Uh, excuse me, sir,” he addresses Kam.

Kam turns and looks at him, remains silent, then turns back around.

The vertically challenged guy continues.

“Uh, yea. Is that marijuana?”

Bothered, Kam softly responds, “Yes, it is. Why, are you security or somethin'?”

The man blushes.

“Oh, heavens no.” He chuckles, and his potbelly jiggles.

Kameron returns to searching the fairways with his eyes and continues to smoke.

“Uh, well, I was just wondering, if you were willing to share,” the short golfer inquires. “Or if you had any extra.”

“Sorry, dog, all I got is my personal. And I smoke solo, cousin.”

Eager to relive his college days, the short man sweetens the deal. “I'll pay you.”

Kam is bored, so he decides to entertain himself, as he takes another lengthy puff from his imported herbs.

“Oh, yea? How much you got?”

The man pulls a thick wallet from his back pocket and leafs through the bills.

“All I have is a hundred and twenty dollars.”

“Cool,” Kam says, then swipes the money from the man's stubby hands. Kameron turns around and continues to smoke his weed, when his would be customer becomes tired of waiting.

“Uh, where's the pot?”

“What pot?” Kam replies, laughing to himself.

The man catches Kameron's drift, and saunters away brokenhearted.

Still smoking, Kam returns to watching the linksmen, many of whom struggled to make par. Despite the occasional ace, slices and mulligans were the norm.

Kam eyes a new group set to tee off. Clad in green, red, and yellow plaid pants, the man with the honor is also the man with the old black caddy. He's hunched over and obedient. His dark skin is sunbeaten.

Kameron takes a long pull from his marijuana, and even though he's high as hell, he knows he never wants to be that old black man, lugging some white man's shit around.

“Man, fuck that,” he mumbles out loud.

The golfer's driver goes back and he swings at the one hundred compression Titleist on the dog-legged course. The tiny white ball soars high near the tree line, peaking over a near water hazard, then descending to land just to the right of a sand trap. The caddy bends over, placing further stress on his aged back, and replaces the huge divot left by his employer's mighty stroke.

“This shit is funny,” Kameron says, staring at the golfers' outfits. He pictures himself out there and laughs. “That would be some
real
funny shit.”

Kameron would be the one talking while others were taking their practice swings. Even if he were lagging, he would never let anyone play through.

On hole eighteen, out of Kameron's view, Bradley Micheaux was attempting to close a deal that could possibly give him a new lease on life.

“Come on, Bradley, sink this and you've got a deal,” the tycoon tells him. Bradley looks to the flag, then back down at his ball on the green. It's only a fifteen-foot putt. His bronze linen trousers and airy cream-colored cotton Polo shirt flutter in the light breeze.

Brad grips his club and focuses on the ball.

“Remember, Bradley, we didn't count that whiff from earlier,” the entrepreneur tells him. “That should have been a penalty.”

“I know, Mr. Pendergast. You're too kind,” Bradley responds sarcastically, trying to suppress his accent. He's nervous on the dance floor, his short game could be better. He swings.

The club connects with the ball and it rolls straight ahead with the grain, before hooking toward the cup. The ball rolls in slow motion before dropping in.

Pendergast frowns, and Bradley smiles.

“Looks like we have a deal, Mr. Pendergast,” Bradley says with confidence.

“I guess we do. Congratulations, Mr. Micheaux, you'll soon be a rich man,” Pendergast says while firmly shaking Brad's hand. “You'll make me a richer man too, right?”

“That's what I'm here for,” Bradley cheerfully replies.

 

Back at the clubhouse's deck, Kam is still choking on his purple broccoli when the short nerdy man returns with a fairly large twenty-eight-year-old Caucasian man.