Fast Greens (10 page)

And the prohibition did not and does not apply to the county in general, although there are plenty of dry counties in the Baptist areas of Texas. In San Angelo all you have to do is drive twenty feet outside the city limits and you'll find a whole slew of liquor emporiums, “package stores” as they're known, because they wrap your bottle tightly in a brown paper sack. It was much easier to make such a purchase in Austin, unless of course you were thirsty on Sunday, God forbid. Suffering and misery awaited the Texas heathen with a faulty Saturday memory, and since it was now Monday morning, Jewel had remembered to make her purchase at least two days earlier. I disliked her planning such a show of affection.

The bag Jewel handed to Roscoe, by the way, was pint-size, and so was the bottle of Jack Daniel's inside.

“Whoo-eeee!” said Roscoe, taking a peak at the label. “Jewel, you beauty, you sure know how to get a man's attention!”

Roscoe unscrewed the cap and held the bottle almost to his lips.

“Hooch for a smooch,” he said, lowering the bottle for a moment.

Jewel gave him a wet one and as I walked away Roscoe must've taken a big swig because I could almost hear his eyes swell up with the first taste.

“Goddamn! That curls my shorthairs,” he said. “I'm about as happy as a dog with two dicks.”

The rest of the group had waited patiently while Jewel talked with me, but this was carrying things too far.

“Roscoe!” hollered March. “Quit screwing around and have a shot!”

“Hell,” said Roscoe, ambling over to his cart for a club. “I never seen a man in such a hurry to get his butt waxed.”

I handed Beast his big black-headed driver and was chugging down the rest of my soda, when—whoosh!—I felt the wind from a mighty practice swing as it passed within an inch of my ear.

Spitting out a fountain of Dr Pepper and a trail of peanuts, I saw the club coming back for me again.

Whoosh!

Still mad at being superfluous, Beast was taking it out on the air and anything else that got in his way. If I hadn't ducked, he'd have thumped my head like a pumpkin.

Whoosh!

The club swung forward and—whoosh!—it went back again. I jumped back two giant steps and took refuge in the company of March and Sandy.

“Sandy, it's time to pull out all the stops,” March was telling him in measured confidence.

“What!” Sandy hissed. “You think I been holding something back? I'm playing as hard as I know how.”

March looked at him with a stone face. “I ain't talking about
play
!”

“Nice shot, Roscoe!” March added a little louder. Roscoe had whapped it out about two hundred yards right down the middle. “One more of those and you'll have it out to where Slammin' Sammy hit his tee shot in 'forty-eight.”

Beast, stepping into the batter's box, perked up his ears at that.

“Where'd Snead hit it to?” he asked.

Having hooked his fish, March had only to reel him in.

Number four was a long dogleg par five with some sizable oak trees protecting the corner about two hundred and sixty yards away. March told us that Snead had cut the corner by going over the trees, leaving himself a mere middle-iron to the green while the other players had to feather in a three-wood or a fairway driver.

“Course Slammin' Sammy was a
long
hitter,” concluded March, implying that Beast was not.

It was a valiant effort, perhaps the best of the three incredible drives Beast had hit thus far. Still, my heart cheered as his tee shot came up short of his goal, slammed into the ten percent of tree that wasn't air, and fell down beneath the overhanging branches.

“Son of a bitch!” yelled Beast. “Snead never hit it over those trees!”

“Sure he did!” boasted March. “Of course, those trees were just saplings in 'forty-eight, probably a lot shorter then.”

Beast's face began to rage into shades of scarlet. We all stepped back, except Fromholz—Dr. Cool—who stepped toward Beast, but not before slipping one hand into the bulging pocket of his jacket. It was not the pocket he'd stuffed the wads of cash into and it was not too hard to guess what he had in there. This guy took the referee job very seriously, carrying it so far as to provide protection for the participants. But March didn't really need protection. He wasn't even done yet.

“Oh, hell!” March said. “What a stoop I am. My memory's all screwed up. I don't think it was this course at all. Come to think of it, I can't even remember if this course was here in 'forty-eight. I must be goin' crazy—crazy like a bat.”

“The expression is crazy like a fox,” said Roscoe.

“Whatever.”

If the first confession had served to pump Beast up, the second had taken all the wind out of his sails, and then some. He exhaled a mighty blast of disgust and even I could see that the physical danger was past. Beast simmered back a few steps, Fromholz withdrew his hand from his pocket, and March stepped up to hit his own shot.

The trick had been a marvel, but despite his tactical triumph, March hit his ball deep into the right woods. A minute later, the most unimaginable event of the day happened: Sandy hit his shot and I didn't see where it went. I was too busy watching Roscoe slip a hundred-dollar bill into Fromholz's hand.

“Ride over there and keep March honest, ref,” said Roscoe in a pseudo-whisper, which wasn't much under a low roar.

Roscoe knew full well that March was little or no threat on this long par five, so I figured his main intention was to distract Sandy during his swing. But if Sandy had been bothered, he certainly didn't let on. Instead he picked up his bag and started down the fairway without complaint.

Guys whose concentration can't be broken never cease to amaze me. I carried once for Don Cherry, a famous Texas singing golfer who hit the ball sweet despite a lot of attractive requests for autographs and an occasional jealous husband. When I asked him how he avoided distractions, Cherry told me he used to hit practice balls with a lady friend sunning nearby in her birthday suit. Once he got used to that, the rest was easy.

“Jewel darling!” drawled Roscoe as they sat in his cart in the middle of the fairway. “Ol' March there is knee-deep in shit and coffee break's about over. And we know what that means. Back on his head! He ain't never gonna find that ball. Maybe you and I should run off to
Foat
Worth to celebrate.”

Tilting his bottle, Roscoe toasted March's lost balls and then waited for March to give up the search. That Dr Pepper had run through me pretty quick, and with Jewel ten feet away I had to excuse myself for the woods. By the time I reached the nearest bushes, March had found his ball. From my new position I had a good view as he studied his dismal prospects, blocked from the others' view by the same cover I was using, blocked from the green by a row of trees and blocked from a rat's-ass chance of reaching the fairway by all of it.

Since neither March nor Fromholz saw me standing there conducting my business, it was almost like being the proverbial fly on the wall.

“How much did Roscoe give you, Ace?” March asked Fromholz.

“A hundred.”

March took out his wallet. “Here's
five
hundred.”

“You want me to move it?” asked Fromholz.

“Move it?” says March. “Hell, I want you to hit it!”

March handed Fromholz what looked to be a four-wood.

Alarmed, I turned back to the fairway to see if the others were watching, but they couldn't see a thing; I was the only witness. I didn't even know if Fromholz knew how to play golf. Even for a pro, getting the ball over those trees would have been tough with a wood. Fromholz took a couple of powerful practice swings, free and loose, then stepped up to the ball.

“Fore!” yelled March.

The group in the fairway jerked their heads up in unison, kind of like cows in a field. Jewel had taught me to think in such pictures, but I don't think she'd have been humored to be a part of that one.

Fromholz made a move at the ball exactly like each of his perfect practice swings, and the ball jumped off his open clubface and soared out of sight. I couldn't tell where it went, but when it cleared the trees Sandy started hollering and screaming from the fairway.

“Yeah! Yeah! Great shot, March! Go! Go! Yeah!” Sandy was only about four words away from being speechless.

When you see a golfer with a great swing, it sticks with you forever. To this day I've only seen about a dozen truly great swings, and they belonged to Sandy, maybe to Beast, to a handful of guys out on the Tour (not all of whom have been successful), and to Fromholz. Later on I learned that our ref had shown a lot of golfing promise until he'd been hit square in the eye by a golf ball. I'd hate to be the idiot who hit a ball that destroyed something so fine in a man as tough as Fromholz.

Zipping up my fly, I ran back to the fairway as fast as I could. By the remarks I surmised that March's ball was either on or very near the green; in two shots, putting for eagle. And Roscoe just couldn't imagine how that duffer March could have managed such an incredible shot.

 

 

15

I was by nature neither a fighter nor a fink, falling somewhere in the middle ground of these dubious childhood achievements. I'd always made too good of grades to be hip, and I teetered precariously on the line of being a Goody Two-shoes, but I could usually be counted on to participate in a little group mayhem as long as it didn't cause me any physical pain. Most notable among these escalating instances of delinquency in San Angelo was a boredom-induced rock fight among a group of my sixth-grade classmates. I hadn't really wanted to take part, primarily because in the prebattle negotiations I was appointed captain of the geek team, which consisted of myself, fat Donny Ratley, and Clyde Eckhardt, the stutter king.

The three of us were sure to get pulverized, tenderized like a bad cut of meat. My ego was already injured by not being included on the team of the genetically cool, but when somebody screams “Go!” and the rocks start flying, there's not much you can do but dive for cover, gather an armful of ammunition, and start lobbing a few long, deadly bombs between the incoming salvos.

One of the reasons I liked golf so much was because the rules were so specific. There ain't no rules in a rock fight. Hopelessly outgunned, my army bruised and battered, and one of my troops crying shamelessly, a ray of hope broke through the clouds. A seventh kid walked up in a lull between volleys, and, unable to comprehend the murderous sincerity of the game, he wanted to play. Even though Larry Seebers wore thick glasses and threw like a girl, an extra body on my side gave us a remote chance of not dying a horrible death before the end of recess. But it was not to be. As I jumped from cover to claim him as ours, I was immediately buried by a barrage of rockwork.

“Larry's on our side!” the other team yelled. “You guys outweigh us!”

It was true. Weight was our only advantage. And never having been on any sporting team with the cool guys, Larry fairly beamed with complicity. My protests were answered with another volley of rocks and I was driven back into my hole. The only thing that kept the game going was that, mad as I was, no one in their right mind was gonna get within thirty feet of my long slingshot arm. Nobody, that is, except a geek in glasses who didn't know the game. Nobody but Larry.

“Here's what you do,” his new teammates explained as they handed him his first rock. “Run straight at Billy, screaming as loud as you can. We'll do the rest!”

What a rube this kid was. Not questioning this idiotic directive, Private Larry ran at me, screaming for all he was worth. Just like his throw, he also ran like a girl and screamed like a girl. When he was twenty feet from me, I hopped out of the hole, took aim and hurled a ragged stone straight at his head. Thank God for safety glasses. I cracked the left lens into a dozen sections and he went down as if I'd shot him with a howitzer.

That's about it. When Larry regained consciousness, he staggered to the school nurse, crying all the way. Only one question was asked: “Who threw the rock?”

For me there followed long hours in the principal's office awaiting the eye doctor's verdict on permanent blindness.

“As far as blindness goes,” I contemplated telling the principal, “I'm against it.”

No, that would never do. Maybe I could raise the money to buy Larry a seeing-eye dog like old man Parker's fat Lab that peed on everyone's leg. Maybe I could donate one of my own eyes. I finally settled on trying to pass for seventeen, joining the Marines, and shipping off to Vietnam as an adviser. Anything, just as long as they didn't make me stay after school for the rest of my life.

In the third grade I'd been unjustly accused of scratching a dirty word onto the wall of the cafeteria. In fact, I'd been playing a childish game of make-believe with a toy car, but the principal didn't fall for the truth and sentenced me to a week of staying after school. I was like a wild animal chained, serving time without end, each tick of the clock like Chinese water torture on my brain.

My transgression was more severe this time and I was now old enough for corporal punishment. For throwing rocks, I got five golf-swing swats from the principal's maple paddle (we called them “licks”). For being a smart-ass (“As far as blindness goes,” I told him), I got five more. This from a man who really enjoyed his work. He busted my butt; worse yet, he broke Jewel's heart. She was just down the hall listening to each echoing blow while pretending to teach second graders how to read. Looking back on it, I realize that this was the event that started our move away from San Angelo the following year. Jewel didn't believe in beating children, especially her baby.

I cried softly on five of the swats and howled like a dog on the rest. During the week's enforced vacation that was added on for not telling who else was involved, I played a lot of golf and found that much more enjoyable than sitting on my sore ass.