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BACK NINE
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SMOKEY ENLISTS
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Paul B came into the clubhouse after the day’s round, feeling beaten, as usual, and bedraggled. Betwixt bothered and bewildered. He slumped in front of his locker in the weatherbeaten clubhouse and stared at his shoes. How, he asked himself for the millionth time, can he possibly be this bad? He was athletic, and strong, and coordinated, and liked to hit things. He was not retreating before his advancing years. How was it that he was not a better player? Smokey the clubhouse attendant wandered past, looking for a clean towel, but doubting that he would find one, thinking, It must be time to clean all the towels. “Hey Smokes,” Paul B waved a hand in Smokey’s direction. “Something I been meaning to talk to you about for a lo-o-ong time.” “Whoa, sounds, uh, sounds omnipotent, Paul B.” “It is, it’s very omnipotent.” Smokey followed Paul B through the swinging doors that led into the combination grill room, bar, TV-watching lounge, and group therapy couch. Three fellows sat at a table, murmuring absently to one another. A fourth chair was empty, vacated by the member of their foursome who had claimed the day’s winnings; he was off partying with the classy ladies of East 6th Street, while the three losers replayed the day’s round, mildly stunned in disbelief by the enormity of their own errors. “Hey where’s Janine?” Paul B called out. “Out on break,” one of the losers called back. “She’ll be back in a minute. Help yourself to a beer, Paul B. You always do.” Paul B sauntered around behind the bar, grabbed what he hoped was a relatively clean glass, and pulled himself a long draft Falstaff. Falstaff had become a cult brew, sold only to cognoscenti and members of Dizzy Dean’s extended family. The Austin Golf Club was one of its most profligate customers. Invitations to AGC were prized around town by non-members, just to get a taste of that rare draft. “I’m back!” Janine’s voice chimed as she came in through the back door. Paul B turned around and regarded her. “And your front!” he grinned. This was an old joke. To be blunt about it, Janine was buxom. Bechested. Breast-bedecked. Boob-blessed. Born in 1982, tall, gregarious, and Scottish, she could more than hold her own with the denizens of AGC without blushing and without making them feel foolish for their sophomoric japes. She was working her way through graduate school in Education, and she supplemented her part-time teaching with a few hours a week at AGC. It gave her the chance to play the course whenever she had the time. “Well don’t be shy, Paul B!” Janine gave him a slap on the shoulder as she glided past. “You never are!” “Janine let’s have dinner tonight.” “Great idea. Just not together.” “Are you seeing someone?” “Sure, I see Smokey, I see you, and I see the three sadsacks over there.” “Ah, you’re impossible.” “I do my best.” “C’mon Smokey, let’s grab a chat. Janine, pull us a Falstaff for Smokey here.” “No way! Smokey’s working!” Smokey looked up from the chair he’d taken. “Clubhouse just closed. Clubhouse no longer attended. You want a towel, you can use a dirty one. They some dry ones at the bottom of the pile,” Smokey intoned. “Now we’re talking. Good man, Smokes. Janine, we will entertain no visitors. The Smokes and me are In Conference. Someone tries to disturb us, I cannot promise what I will not do.” Paul B lowered his voice and leaned his head across the table towards Smokey. “Alright Smokin’ Smoker my good man, the time has come to let it all hang out.” “That sounds kinda messy, Paul B.” “Right you are Smokey. It IS messy. It’s a mess of messiness is what it is. You ready for this now?” “Probbly not.” “Alright Smokes, you and me got some business to discuss.” Smokey Countryman had been working at the Austin Golf Club since 1938, when, at the age of eight, he began his apprenticeship cleaning shoes and mopping floors for 10 cents an hour, working under the tutelage of his Uncle Eephus who had been the inaugural clubhouse attendant, back in 1899 when the Club was founded. Smokey had taken a short break from the
Austin Golf Club in
1943 when he lied about his age and enlisted in the army, where he saw
battle
in A veteran, rewarded with the GI bill, Smokey did not take advantage of that opportunity. He had begun as clubhouse boy, but by the age of 10 had been promoted to Clubhouse Assistant. When he got back from the war at the age of 16, to acknowledge his life experience, he was promoted yet again, to Clubhouse Associate. Clubhouse Associate Smokey stayed until 1957, when he at last had earned the right to be appointed Clubhouse Attendant. This position was memorialized with a little sign, “Smokey Countryman, Clubhouse Attendant”, which he hung just outside his cubicle behind the supply closet off the men’s shower. It was the first time that most members learned his last name, or even considered the possibility that he had a last name. In fact his last name was a “last name” only in an approximate sense. He came from a family of woodsmen (known locally as “cedar choppers”) who lived in the then-untamed scrub country north of town (now the site of vast acres of industrial park housing the tax-free HQs of Halliburton, Blackwater, Kellogg Brown and Root, Fluor, Dyncorp, and other subsidiaries of the conglomerate charitable foundation Dell Ryan Thinktank Services). Years earlier, when one of his many uncles had tried to enroll in the nearest school, in Leander, and was asked for his last name, he said, “We countrymen”. Countryman was thus committed to the Leander Public School system’s official records, and Smokey’s extended family had itself a last name; it had never occurred to them before then to have one, or even to wonder if they had one, and if not, why not. They all knew each other as relations, as in “He’s Junior’s second cousin out to Vera”, or “Her ma’s Sis’s aunt back from Roy Lou.” In 1974, after 17 years as Clubhouse Attendant, Smokey was honored yet again, and was promoted to Senior Clubhouse Attendant. Twenty-five years later, in 1999, on the dawn of the millennium, Smokey was promoted to the newly created position of Master Clubhouse Attendant, in recognition of his unquestioned mastery in the dark arts of clubhouse attendancy, especially including changing spikes on shoes that had withstood blowtorches and tractor pulls, and massaging the egos of many a duffer whose 2-foot putt on the last hole had been blown off course by freak gales and somehow failed to find the cup. When Smokey attended the annual conferences of the Clubhouse Attendants Society of America, he found that he could count on the fingers of one hand (if he had been able to count the fingers on his hand) the number of Master Clubhouse Attendants in attendance. He and they shared many a pleasant evening out back behind the hotel in the alley, smoking their pipes and comparing stories about the inanity of golfers. It was assumed that there was no higher office that Smokey or any clubhouse attendant could hold. And yet, in the year 2005, on the occasion of Smokey’s 75th birthday, the Club honored him for his 67 years of almost unbroken service to its members, by naming him Clubhouse Wizard, which he remained until his dying day, decades into the 21st century, when he was anointed Clubhouse Wizard Emeritus. From such humble beginnings, Smokey was a testament to the truism that you can get promoted just by hanging around long enough. Smokey lived in the VFW hall a dozen blocks north from the Club. It wasn’t clear whether he was a rent-paying tenant, a live-in custodian, or a vagrant, but it was home. “Alright Smokey now let’s get serious.” “I am serious.” “No, I mean, REALLY serious..” “Alright Paul B, whatever you say.” “Alright, now. You know what I mean?” “Paul B will you get to the point? I got a horseshoes tourniquet starts next week.” “Alright Mr. Smokin’ Aces, hold your
horses. You know “You mean that place across the street with all them stores?” “Yeah that’s what I mean. All them
stores, all them useless
stores, I mean who needs to rent a casket anyway? You ever been over to
“Welllll, maybe I walked through there once or twice,” Smokey said carefully. “Yeah I bet you did. You ever buy anything there?” “Paul B, if I had, I wouldn’t tell you.” “Smart man, Smokey. OK I’ll let you off the hook on that one, for now. Now let’s get down to it.” “I am down to it, Paul B.” “Alright now, listen up.” Paul B’s voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. “Talking about finding a way to make that shopping center…go away. Y’know what I mean? go away?” “Ye…eahhh, I guess I kinda have an idea…” “Yeah I’ll bet you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about Smokey.” “Paul B, have you talked to anybody else about this?” Smokey asked in a tone that clearly indicated he hoped Paul B hadn’t.
“OK I get it, let’s just hold on right there then.” “You and me, we’re gonna get this deal DONE, y’know what I mean?” “Wellll, not really.” “Hasn’t anyone ever come up to you and said, c’mon, we’re gonna get this deal done?” “Welll, yeahhh. About every day.” “Whaddya mean? Now who else ever comes up to you and says let’s get this deal done?” Paul B had lapsed into his deepest “Just about everyone in the Club,” Smokey replied with a little smirk. “Really? They’re not talking about “Naw. Nothing like that.” “What DO they ask you about?” “Paul B, I think that’s Clubhouse Attendant / Client persiflage. Anyway, can we just cut to the chase? I’ll help you with your submergive plot against the shopping center, because I’m afraid you might do yourself some damage. And I might just have an idea or two myself...” “You are on, Mr. Smokes. I hereby
appoint you the first
General in the Paul B Army, in command of the eastern theatre,
everything east
of “I don’t know what you’re talking
about, but I accept the commissary,
and if the turfitory east of Red River is anything like “Deal. I think we’re both good to go for another Falstaff.” © Craig Van Dyck June 2008 Back Nine
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