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BACK NINE
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AT THE RANGE
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Before it was ravaged by Sears Roebuck, the Austin Golf Club had a practice range. Thinking about the loss of the range filled Paul B with rage -- that is, the small part of him that was not already filled with rage over the 1962 appropriation of the land that bore the AGC’s back nine holes. Paul B was an assiduous believer in the efficacy of practice. He strongly felt that if only he practiced more, he would play better. But actually practicing was only rarely not beyond his wherewithal. For one thing, he had no car, so getting to a practice range was an obstacle (and he had no auto-enabled friends who wanted to practice). Other obstacles included: He didn’t like the people you see at driving ranges; it was often too hot; ranges did not sell beer; he did not like to practice. But on this day somehow Paul B had hied
himself to the
Shalom-o-Rama Golf Kibbutz, a wonderland of Catskills-tinged
entertainments run
by Morty Fishman, a retired or disbarred lawyer from the Bronx who had
found
himself pitched up in East Austin, the guest of relatives who forgave
him the
little dust-up with rappers whom he’d unsuccessfully defended against
charges
of illegal possession of firearms, narcotics, child pornography,
defense
secrets, and the Koran. Knowing he needed a low profile for awhile,
Morty
(“Have a 40, you with Morty”) Fishman had turned to his Brooklynite
cousin
Arthur who had been quietly and happily dealing items that had fallen
from the
backs of trucks in the slow and ignored environs of Paul B liked it – to the degree that he liked any practice range – mainly for Arthur’s ongoing critique of The Forces That Ruined Brooklyn, which usually started with Walter O’Malley, worked its way through yuppiefication, and ended somewhere around Russian immigrants. Arthur didn’t mind including Sears Roebuck in his condemnation, whenever Paul B came around; once he’d bought a towel at Sears and the damn thing frayed after only two washings! Also, Paul B liked that he could get to
Shalom-o-Rama via a
combination of his bicycle and the city bus ( When Paul B hit the practice range, his intentions were good. He’d teach himself patience, he’d embed muscle memory of not overswinging, he’d work on all his clubs not just his driver, he’d spend half the time chipping. Paul B stepped onto the mat. It was a sultry summer evening, the sound of crickets louder than the balls being struck by the few other sufferers. He started with the 9-iron, like someone told him once. Ball after ball rose majestically into the night, each landing within only a few yards of the red flag 100 yards away. No longer the long hitter of his youth, he had adjusted, and on the course he stayed in the fairway pretty consistently. Although he was a big man, his golf game was that of a smaller person: controlled, conservative, with only the occasional lapse into the bravado that no linksman can always avoid. But the practice range was another matter. A place to throw caution to the winds, a place to let ‘er rip, a place to be liberated from concentrating. Eschewing the 8, he moved on to the 7-iron next. With the 7, Paul B noted that his ball-flight had a slight but definite rightward lean, and often the contact between clubface and ball felt less than clean. Grip adjustments would do the trick for a few balls, but then right back to the fade. Paul B grabbed his 5-iron, a club he hadn’t hit cleanly since 1983. Swoosh, the balls would veer right like they were bouncing off of a slanted wall. Cursing the 5, Paul B reached for his driver. The king of clubs, the killer, the monster, the whale, the club whose use a few times each round compensated for all those other misbegotten strokes with the lesser clubs (the putter being the least of them all). The driver was like a fast race car whose wheels came off at the slightest bump. While it was running, what a rush. When a wheel came off, straight off the course and into the woods. Paul B envisioned magnificent arcs of balls disappearing into the distant dark. He had no trouble following the wise counsel that a golfer should see the great shot in his mind’s eye when addressing the ball. Maybe that was why disappointment was his predominant sensation on the course. Here at the practice range, he pounded out a few screamers, thinking that now all was well again with his swing, when that telltale movement from left to right began to reassert itself in his ball-flight. Paul B had worked up a good sweat by now. Beads trickled from his brow to his jaw. The normally disheveled hair was wild with his exertion. His eyes had taken on a fixed glare as ball after ball defied his instructions. His swings came faster and faster. Guttural curse words began to emanate from his breast. One extra large bucket came and went, then a second. A pattern emerged: three slices, then a pull. The pulls were great: clean contact, good distance, straight as an arrow, except they went straight about 60 yards left of his aim. The slices were torment. Whether clean contact or not, the balls rose, headed tentatively forward, then with the resolution borne of finding their true nature, they dove right, seeking their fate somewhere deep in the imagined woods. Out of money save for his bus fare home, Paul B repaired to the little hut where Morty tended Arthur’s book and kept an eye out for rap stars. “How ya hittin’ ‘em?” Morty rasped with the staccato delivery that had impressed rappers, befuddled judges, and persuaded about 40% of juries that he knew what he was talking about. Morty had been the master of the reduced sentence. Rappers were pleased to have their hard time lessened, although Morty knew perfectly well that The Government had never expected to get the sentence they’d asked for. But Morty’s real stroke of genius had been his Rapper Protection Program, whereby he hired stand-ins who would change their names to the rapper’s, and then serve the time (being possibly well paid upon their return to society), so the rapper could, with some hope of not getting caught out, brag about his (or her, these were modern times) street cred for having served time, while Morty had arranged for them to spend the months or years holed up with Keith Richards in France. “Crappy,” saith Paul B. “I think all your balls are so screwed up they can’t go straight. Get yourself some new balls Morty.” “Hey hey hey my friend. Careful what we say about the Morty balls. They’ve stood me in good stead for several years now. What am I talking about anyway?” Paul B directed his most bilious gaze at Morty. Not that Morty deserved it. It was just that Morty happened to stand in the way of Paul B’s bilious gaze at this moment. Not a good place to be. “Consciousness is divinity. Isn’t it?” Paul B seemed faraway as the sound of his words lay heavy on the night. Morty felt a little afraid. He started to miss his rappers. Another practice session down the drain. More confused than when he’d started. Absolutely no prospects for an improved game tomorrow. Paul B trudged off into the night. He straddled his bike and slowly pedaled for
a few minutes
until he reached the main road. He got off and stood under a
streetlight. From
the smell in the air, he knew that he had just missed a bus. In the
distance he
could see the glow of lights from a new shopping center that had
invaded the
peace of East Austin (now that His mind turned to incendiary things. He sat on the dirt ground, his back against the streetlight, and reflected upon T. Boone Pickens, who at that time was the largest single shareholder of Sears. Paul B posed himself this question: How could you kidnap someone without kidnapping them? Lure them somewhere. Then help them to see the wisdom of making a large donation to a struggling 501(c)3. Like a large parcel of land. It would be in the interests of the shareholders. Compared to the alternative. It began to rain. Paul B did not notice.
© Craig Van Dyck
May 2008 Back Nine
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