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BACK NINE
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HAIL FELLOW
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Paul B hated
enthusiasm. He hated
people who were loud about orchids, crime, sex, art, shopping,
religion,
themselves. He even—perhaps most especially—hated enthusiastic golfers.
Most would
call Paul B a golf enthusiast, but he would counter that there’s a
crucial
difference in acting enthusiastic.
Thus
there was immediate aversion when Conrad “Connie” Polk joined the
Austin Golf
Club and started playing every day, talking loudly throughout, and
sitting with
the senior members on the verandah overlooking the ninth green, Paul
B’s
harbor.
Polk
had a bottomless supply of jokes at which he hawhawed like a mechanical
mule.
(“Hey, guys, wanna hear a Polk joke?”) He wore clichéd loud golf
outfits and in
any given round he would have four or five types of bets going. Paul B
cracked
a crown grinding his teeth during one round he was roped into with
Polk. He was
to golf what cell phones are to golf.
Just
to gild the lily of his obviousness, Polk had been a former traveling
salesman
for everything from, as he put it, “Kraft cheese to Craftsman tools.”
While
a few of the other club members shared some degree of Paul B’s enmity,
the
club’s need for money tipped the membership committee to accepting him.
And,
indeed, there were, to Paul B’s shame and horror, a significant number
who
found Polk a “breath of fresh air, a real card.” * *
* Paul B sat
alone on the verandah
after a Tuesday morning solo round in fine fettle. He had just shot 3
over par,
his best in months. He quaffed a Falstaff, stroking Geronimo’s belly
with his
golf cleats (her favorite), idly skimming the day’s issue of The Austin Clamor. The city was selling off
its last remaining public library, and naming rights for city hall had
just
gone to Mr. Hardon’s XXX Megaplex for $8000. Garbage was going to be
picked up
bimonthly. The ruins of the semiconductor factories on the edges of
town were
now guarded by armed EPA troops to prevent the wandering packs of the
newly
homeless from trying to squat in them and suffer the ravages to the
mind the
former workers had endured.
All
in all a pleasantly apocalyptic set of stories for Paul B. But as he
settled in
to get annoyed at the idiotic letters to the editor, the calm was
splintered by
Connie Polk tapping him on the shoulder from the wrong side, causing
Paul B to
turn and see no one. “Gee, Polk, I haven’t had that done since third
grade.”
“Hawhaw.
Good one, B. You’re a real card…a joker!” The Austin Clamor
burst into
flames in Paul B’s fists.
Polk
sat in the chair next to Paul B. “So, I pulled my tee shot on number 3
this
mornin’ and was in the deep stuff by the crick. I took my 8-iron and
climbed
down the embankment to look for my ball. After a few minutes of hackin’
at the
jungle, I saw something glistenin’ down in the weeds. Know what it
was?”
Polk
actually paused for an answer. Paul B didn’t oblige. “It was an 8-iron
in the
hands of a skeleton! So I called out to the guy I was playin’ with,
‘I've got
trouble down here!’
The
Polk braying started Geronimo baying. Paul B nodded. “I was wrong
earlier.
Second grade.” * *
* At the
general membership meeting
Polk, naturally, spoke often and, to Paul B’s gut twisting torment,
persuasively. The current topic was the usual, the woeful state of the
club’s
finances.
“Now
I see here,” Polk foghorned, “that there’s over $2500 set aside for
‘ongoing
efforts to reacquire the back nine.’ Now folks, let’s stop livin’ in
some dream
from the past. The back nine is gone.
Paul
B rose. “Am I hearing this? Getting back the back nine has been goal
number one
of this club for years. I know it’s frustrating, but we’re making
progress. The
Hyde Park Neighborhood Association is considering a motion to support
us.” Even
Paul B’s supporters winced at that one.
Polk,
for once, was smart enough to not speak and just let that line hang in
the air. * *
* Paul B was
in the leading edge of
those who don’t know how to use the Internet. He did however still have
contacts at the university library from which he had retired. He sought
out
Mona Trieste, the head reference librarian, for whom Paul B had
Platonically
panged while they were coworkers. She had set aside part of her lunch
hour to
help him. She pounded keys, moused with catlike grace, input arcane
search
terms in esoteric databases, consulted a wall of print directories,
made calls,
all practically simultaneously. Paul B thought to himself, Is there
anything
more majestic than a reference librarian in full display?
She
finally stopped, smiling like she had cracked a Nazi code. “Here you
go, Paul.
I believe you have what you need,” she said as a printer next to her
desk came
to life.
“I
owe you dinner,” Paul B hoped out loud.
“No,
no. Just doing my job,” she deflated. * *
* Paul B sat
on the verandah, feet
propped on the railing, watching an iridescent grackle, puffed out and
strutting, court a homely, uninterested female. He consulted a nearby
sundial.
Almost time for the general membership meeting to vote on the budget.
Connie
Polk bounded onto the verandah. “Well, how-de-do, Mr. B. How’re they
hangin’?”
“By
a thread.”
“Gettin’
ready for the big business meetin’, I reckon.”
“I’m
glad you mentioned that, Polk. Or should I call you Under Assistant
Manager
Polk? I believe that’s the correct terminology Sears Roebuck uses. You
shouldn’t have mentioned Craftsman tools. I feel sure the membership
will be
interested in your pedigree.” © Red Wassenich
November 2008 Back Nine
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