Fast Greens (17 page)

“And all your other shitty ones too,” added Beast.

Sandy was next. He'd flown in a long, high four-wood that just caught the top edge of a trap at the front of the green. The ball was buried so completely in the sand that we'd first thought it lost.

“You might be able to chip it out sideways,” suggested March when he discovered the ball, which showed itself only as a nickel-size circle of white peeking out from the sand.

“No time to play it safe,” answered Sandy.

Wedge in hand, his right foot down in the trap and left foot up on the lip, Sandy cocked the clubhead and lifted it straight up to ear level. Then, without uncocking his wrists, he moved the club, his arms and his shoulders as one powerful unit into the ball. As the clubhead came up, it was accompanied by a giant gouge, not just of sand, but of the entire lip of the trap: grass, dirt, beach and all. The ball lofted to about ten feet from the pin and stuck like a lawn dart. After a beat, the giant divot landed next to the ball.

“Aye, laddie! Be ye digging for pirate treasure?” asked the one-eyed Fromholz.

“You bet he is,” said March.

Beast's birdie attempt was from fifteen feet. He must've been losing confidence because he threw his cigarette away before he putted. Then he licked his lips and lipped the putt out as well.

“Son,” says Roscoe, “you been gettin' lots of nibbles but not many fish!”

I don't think March even lined his up. A lot of golfers swear by the plumb-bob method: holding the putter loosely below the grip with thumb and middle finger, then extending the arm so that the lower part of the dangling putter is in line with the ball and the hole. All you have to do then is close one eye, look through the other, and see whether the upper part of the putter shaft indicates to the right or left of the hole. Take into consideration the grain of the grass, the lawnmower cut, and maybe even the wind, and then you know
exactly
where to putt the ball—about a third of the time. March had his own method: aim right at the hole and hope for the best.

This putt must've been a straight one because it looked perfect all the way to the hole and even more so after it dropped. Perhaps not trusting his own eyes, March glanced around in surprise. When it dawned on him that he'd actually made a birdie, he tossed his putter aside, knelt down, and did a little frogstyle headstand on the green, singing another of his twisted songs.

“Grab your goat and get your cat. Get the puppies off your doorstep—”

“With three holes to go,” interrupted Fromholz.

“Let them do their deeds—”

“The match is even.”

Before March could finish his song, he lost his balance and fell over on his ass.

“You okay?” asked Sandy, leaning over him.

March opened his eyes and picked up the beat:
“On the other side of the street.”

I thought his act was even better than Ronny and Donny, the Siamese twins I'd seen at the rodeo sideshow in San Angelo. “They were born to die, but God let them live!” trumpeted the banner. It cost me fifty cents to get in and all they did was eat donuts, watch
Gunsmoke
on TV, and make fun of my big ears. Truly I didn't mind being awkwardly skinny and tall, but I loathed my gigantic ears and dreaded being called Dumbo, which was, of course, the name that either Ronny or Donny hit upon for me.

Beast could have hit me two-for-flinching when he stomped up to me with his putter, but for once he was mad at someone else. Easing the putter into the bag, he strolled over to Roscoe's cart and violently wrenched the almost empty whiskey bottle out of his partner's hand.

“Are you nuts?” screamed Beast. “Twenty grand on the line and you're blotto!”

I figured Roscoe was fixing to go for the little pistol I'd seen peeking out of his bag, but being a drilling boss, he must've handled guys like Beast before.

“How dare you yell at me, you fat ape!” he hollered in the big man's face. “You're my trained monkey, remember? My dumbass jerk of a hit man. And why is that? Because I put up the cash! So when I want to have a drink, I have a drink. And when I say ‘Hit it at the pin,' you hit it at the pin! Otherwise keep your ugly mouth shut!”

Beast stared coldly at his partner. There weren't many possible responses to a lecture like that. It looked to me as if Beast was deciding between keeping his mouth shut or killing Roscoe right then and there.

But before Beast could do anything, Roscoe turned his back as if to say “dismissed,” then sat heavily in his cart.

“Come on, Jewel, hop in.”

Jewel looked somewhat disinterested.

“You go ahead,” she told him.

“Then hop in with me,” said March. “I got a spot on my dance card.”

“Gentlemen,” she said. “Just now, nobody seems to be winning. I think I'll walk a spell.”

Then she latched her hand onto the crook of Fromholz's arm and the two of them strolled on beneath the shade of her parasol, while Roscoe and March fumed in the hot Texas sun.

28

Now that March and Sandy were bound to win (I could
smell
it), they no longer even needed my help. Shouldering Beast's bag, I dropped two dutiful paces behind him, glad that I could quit worrying and just enjoy the day. The seventh tee had been built atop the highest hill on the course, and the view that was afforded us there was thirty miles in all directions.

On two quarters, east and south, was the winding body of Lake Travis, named for Colonel William B. Travis, defender of the Alamo. You remember the Alamo, don't you? Well, it is Lake Travis's job to make sure we remember the colonel. And that day he was pretty unforgettable. Several miles across and too far away to reveal the shimmering of the waves or the wakes of the few sailors and bass fisherman, the lake instead showed us a deep indigo blue, motionless, as if it had been painted there.

To the north and west were the river basins themselves, the Colorado (the
Texas
Colorado) and its tributary, the Pedernales: immense valleys spotted to their horizons in the various greens of oaks, cedar, and grasses that would within a month be burned to a crisp by the summer sun.

From our distant vantage you'd never have known that the entire vista was populated not just by the normal array of ranch animals—cattle, sheep, and goats—but also by millions of wild animals: white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, javelinas (a south Texas peccary with big teeth and a nasty disposition), beavers, bobcats, badgers, porcupines, possums, raccoons, and prehistoric armadillos. The four hundred species of birds varied from majestic bald eagles and great blue herons to the tiny black-capped vireos and colorful painted buntings. And of all these animals, only a small minority would ever be seen by a human.

Yet we call that land our land. We issue covenants that bestow and convey the right to occupy and utilize it according to our need, to subjugate and cultivate according to our want, and to obliterate or ameliorate according to our whim. Then we convey that right according to our lineage, our greed, or to the roll of the dice or the drop of a curling putt.

A man dreams of owning such land because the use or abuse of it is one of the truest tests of his character and disposition. That, coupled with how he treats his family, friends, partners and enemies, in the same manner that the ball indicates the measure of the golf swing, indicates the measure of the man.

March, having missed nearly a lifetime with what should have been his family and his land (far across those hills to the northwest), had apparently one day taken his measure and come up sorely lacking. Although somewhat late, he was now on the verge of changing all that, reclaiming what was his no matter what the cost. Deep inside me I could feel my breath swelling up and lifting my heart to him. Somehow I just couldn't help but love him.

Roscoe obviously didn't share my emotion. As March drove his cart leisurely toward the seventh tee, Roscoe pulled his own buggy up tightly against March's back bumper and stepped on the gas. Hoping to outrun him, March also stepped on the gas, but Roscoe's cart was faster and both carts raced forward in tandem.

“I'm on your butt, cowboy,” Roscoe screamed like a madman. “Now git outta my way!”

We all jumped back as the two carts sped by, hooked together like two dragonflies in passionate copulation. Rounding a curve in the path, first March's cart, then Roscoe's, leaned out on two wheels. Just as I thought they were goners, both carts straightened up and slammed back down on all fours.

“Yeee-high!!!” screamed Roscoe.

Coming to the elevated tee, Roscoe stomped on the brakes of his cart and screeched sideways to a halt. March's cart rocketed forward over the ridge and launched into the air.

We were running toward him when the cart bounced twice and March wrestled it to a halt at the edge of a precipitous drop-off. He looked over the edge at his near fate, then drove the near-crippled cart back up the hill to the tee where Roscoe was roaring with laughter.

“Whoooeee! March, you flew further than your average drive!” laughed Roscoe. “I was watching you like you wuz a hawk!”

March laughed along with Roscoe for a moment, then both slowed their laughter till nothing was left but their heavy breathing and a mutual stare. Roscoe wasn't sure what March was going to do.

March smiled broadly. Relieved, Roscoe smiled too.

Then without warning, March coldcocked Roscoe with a gigantic sucker punch to the nose. Roscoe went down as if a pickpocket had lifted his spinal cord. March just stood there over him, breathing hard, exhausted, unnerved, and wrenched by tiny spasms as his hand reached slowly to his chest.

“I owed you that, Roscoe,” he said through the pain. “I owed you that for thirty years.”

*   *   *

I never knew exactly what March owed Roscoe for thirty years. Was he literally talking about a punch in the nose? Or was he figuratively talking about the fact that Roscoe had so brazenly screwed March out of their company and his own land? Neither of them denied that March had shot Roscoe in the leg, near crippling him for life, and you'd think that an additional punch in the nose after all that time would have had little effect on the score they seemed to be keeping.

But when Roscoe came groggily to his senses on that lofty seventh tee, the two of them began a deadly downhill momentum that would finally bring them head-to-head over the bitterness they'd harbored through the years. Empty insults and verbal back-stabbing would no longer suffice. Nor would settling their case through a couple of golfing surrogates like Beast and Sandy. This time it was for real. And even though I didn't understand all of what transpired—not just then anyway—it wouldn't take long for me to get a grasp on the big picture, to finally realize why Jewel cried out for them to just
stop!
Stop the fighting, the arguing, the animosity. And stop the eternal quest for revenge and one-upmanship that had come to define a once-great friendship that had simply turned to shit.

The problem was—those thirty years ago in West Texas—that Jewel fancied herself such an independent young woman, that March was downright stubborn, and of course that Roscoe was such a prick.

The problem was that Jewel didn't want to have the baby she was carrying, despite the fact that March professed to be tickled pink about the situation. So Jewel lied; telling March that to avoid any chance of gossip getting back to her father, they should cross the border and visit a Mexican doctor for a check on the health of their unborn. March must have been naive to drive her to Mexico and wait patiently in the dirty reception room while Jewel's so-called examination began. I can imagine him there, blissful in ignorance, musing on being a father—things he'd do with his child; things to teach; things to learn.

And I can also see his eyes opening wide for a real look at the squalid clinic, the realization of what the place was and what they were doing there. A locked door wouldn't stop March, not to save his child, and perhaps to save Jewel as well. Apparently he barged in with only moments to spare, and over Jewel's protests, March carried her and the tiny life inside her to safety.

But a flimsy door was less of an obstacle than Jewel's determination, which remained unswayed. Was it that she felt too young to have a baby? Did she fear the wrathful judgment and accusing finger of her father? Or did she just not want to be tied down?

No, the problem was that Jewel wasn't sure whose baby it was. Perhaps she told that to March as he carried her from the clinic; I don't really know. It would have been like him to say he didn't care—but it would have also been like him to have cared very much.

Not a single word passed between the two during the three-hour drive back to Sonora. And during that long and oppressive silence, both knew that something between them had changed. So when March and Jewel arrived back at the well, with the procedure aborted instead of the baby, Jewel did the only thing her white hot rage at March would allow: she asked Roscoe if he was sick of that smelly dry hole they'd been pumping. When he said “Hell, yes!” the two of them—Jewel and Roscoe—climbed into the same dusty pickup in which the trouble had all begun and drove away. I don't know if Roscoe punched March before they left; maybe that was what March owed him. All I know is, Roscoe took Jewel away, and March didn't see her again for thirty years.

That was the problem.

29

Whether Roscoe deserved it or not, March had given him one heck of a bloody nose, and it just wouldn't stop running red. He sat there between the blue markers of the seventh tee, soaking his handkerchief in blood, and sputtering how he hadn't asked for any of this. The only thing he did wrong, he mumbled, was to cheat at the cut of the cards so he could go to the Wing Ding instead of March.

This didn't even get a raised eyebrow from March, who had sagged down next to Roscoe. They looked like a pitiful pair of aging boxers, too weak to punch or even to get back to their corners. The one thing they had in common was that they both looked worn-out to the point of extinction.