Slim and None Read online

  Jerry said, “I didn’t Know you were in my gallery—I would have dressed better.”

  Gwen laughed.

  “Any of that hurt?” Grady Don asked her.

  “I’m sorry—?” she said.

  “Looks like them togs might be putting a strain on some of your exquisites.”

  I explained to Gwen that Grady Don couldn’t very well help it, he was a born sophisticate.

  Jerry said, “Gwen, I played a practice round with Scott at Bay Hill. Damn, he’s long. Rock bands don’t ride in limos that long.”

  Gwen smiled.

  Grady Don said, “Shit, NBA players don’t have dicks that long.”

  Gwendolyn glanced around with alarm. She was wondering if anyone at the nearby tables might have been listening in. I looked around, too, and concluded that the people at the other tables were preoccupied with talk about the new tee on 17 and the current health of the dogwood and azaleas.

  Grady Don nudged Jerry. “Let’s bolt, pard. As Winston Churchill used to say, I have to go point old Percy at the porcelain.”

  Gwen looked around again to check for overheards.

  Grady Don and Jerry sauntered off, but Jerry looked back. “We gonna eat dinner later, B.J.?”

  I said, “I’ll have my people talk to your people.”

  After a moment, Gwen said, “Tell me something—and be honest. Are you embarrassed at the way I’m dressed?”

  “Do I act embarrassed?”

  “You are, aren’t you? For me, I mean.”

  “I’d say your outfit is a little advanced for the Confederacy.”

  “Great. Now I want to dig a hole and hide. I didn’t think anything about it until Grady Don said that.”

  “OK, I admit it got my attention,” I said. “But now that we’ve chatted I understand it’s a basic California thing. Hot day, dress cool. Nothing else to it. No hard-ons intended.”

  “I wish I had a blanket,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.

  We talked about golf a while longer—mostly about her son’s golf. She spoke of how disappointed they both were when Scotty had been forced to decline his first invitation to the Masters when he reigned as the U.S. Amateur champion. They’d been packed and ready to go two days ahead of time when he’d developed a terrible ear infection.

  We discussed having a drink later in the hotel bar.

  I said I’d meet her for a drink in the Magnolia Inn but only if she promised to wear clothes.

  “I brought clothes,” she said, smiling.

  I said, “The reason I suggest clothes, if you drop too much skin on the local bubbas, they might not understand it, having not gone to the University of Southern California, and I’d be forced to defend your honor, and this would result in me getting my ass whipped.”

  She said she’d be the lady in the chic black pantsuit tonight.

  Right then you could say I was feeling plenty OK about the week, but that’s when I got a jolt I didn’t see coming.

  The jolt came when Gwendolyn Pritchard said she wasn’t only excited about her son playing in the Masters this week, she was excited about Saturday, when she planned to join the other feminists who were coming to town for the big protest against the Augusta National Golf Club’s all-male membership policy.

  Whoo, boy.

  I didn’t say whoo, boy, but that cheery bit of news caused me to utter a sound that’s generally Known around my neighborhood as a Killer sigh.

  6

  I called in sick for dinner with Grady Don and Jerry—they never wanted to go anywhere but Hooters anyhow. I also called in sick for drinks with Gwendolyn Pritchard, seeing as how she’d dropped that feminist protest shit on me.

  It was a lie that I wasn’t feeling like I’d be good company. Blamed it on a sinus deal. I couldn’t think of anything better. A stomach type of situation might have scared her off for good—it would me—and I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to lose sight of her.

  I said I’d sentence myself to room-service soup tonight and watch a little cable. Catch up on the shows where people talk like people talk in real life. Say “fuck” and stuff.

  She took the wave-off nicely, or pretended to, saying she was a little bushed herself. She suggested we reschedule for tomorrow night. She offered to make a dinner reservation for us on the hotel’s outside terrace.

  I said fine.

  “I’ll put the pantsuit on hold for another evening,” she said.

  With that, she wished me luck in the Masters Par-3 Tournament, which she was looking forward to watching, and hung up.

  What I needed in the Par-3 Tournament was a new short game.

  The next morning Grady Don and I played together and neither of us ever hit a shot within five feet of wonderful. Missed out on a chunk of crystal again.

  It always amazed me that 4 million people swoop down from somewhere to watch the Par-3 Tournament. It couldn’t be less important, in the big scheme of things. But then I always have to remind myself that it’s the one event where the fans can inch up close to their heroes.

  The fans jam up around every green and tee and get to overhear the Tigers and Phils and the basic legends, the Jacks and Arnolds, say things like “I thought you had that one, pard,” and they’re thrilled to hear these real-life voices—they can almost reach out and touch the heroes. And they can’t wait to go home with these tales and recite them to their golf-nut friends and their golf-nut family members.

  “Hey, Aubrey. I heard Tiger say things last week. He said words. Like we do. Mickelson said words, too. I heard him!”

  But thank the Lord these people exist or I’d have had to find a new line of work a long time ago.

  I nearly backed out of dinner with Gwendolyn again on Wednesday night, but after letting it sit on a window sill a while I decided, oh, OK, maybe I could turn her around on the protest-feminist deal.

  Failing that, I figured the time with Gwendolyn would be educational. She could catch me up on all the urgent social issues of the day. It was a cinch I’d be behind on all the urgent social issues of the day because I’d quit watching the news on network TV, not being a big fan of socialism, and I wasn’t walking around with a pile of degrees in Communism from Berkeley and Harvard. I was just a simple patriot. And unlike your silly lefties, I wanted to see my country protected from the swarms of raving, subhuman assholes who want to Kill us because they hate cheeseburgers, golf, football, soap and water, toilets that flush, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, clothing stores, and women who don’t smell like donkeys.

  It would also be helpful, I’d mention, if we could delaminate all the dunce-cap university professors who want to “diversify” this and “globalize” that, provide air-conditioned condos and SUVs for illegal aliens, healthcare and satellite dishes for armed robbers and serial Killers, and can’t wait to blame the United States for all the bad shit that happens in the world. They could globalize this. That was my basic message.

  I planned to get all that up front with Gwendolyn when she met me in the bar at the Magnolia Inn. If she wanted to Know if all golf pros were as conservative as I was, I’d tell her most of them were, except more so, and if she wanted to Know why, I’d tell her one reason was because we researched it a few years back and found out they didn’t pay squat for prize money in the Che Guevara Invitational and the Beijing Classic.

  7

  he Magnolia Inn is in an old part of the city, not far from down-town, and not far from the Augusta National in another direction. It’s in a sprawling neighborhood of southern mansions, many of them tucked away on side streets. Most towns have a similar neighborhood—an area of palaces built by cotton, cattle, oil, Coca-Cola. Huge old three- and four-story houses that have more lawns, trees, gardens, charm, and memories than closet space and bathrooms.

  The five-floor hotel was a relic, like the homes around it, but it had been remodeled and modernized in terms of plumbing and electrical conveniences. The restaurant and bar on the second floor were cozy and there was an ou
tside roofed-over terrace adjoining.

  I made a point of going to the bar ahead of Gwendolyn to have a quiet drink and brood about my pairing. The pairings had been posted earlier on Wednesday. I was early Thursday, late Friday.

  I didn’t expect to find myself in a feature group with Tiger or Cheetah Farmer or any of the headliners, but neither did I expect to go off so early on Thursday, at 9:04 A.M., with a Belgian whose name I couldn’t pronounce—Blisters, or something—and a rookie I’d never heard of.

  Ace Haskell was the rookie. Guy named Ace. Guy calling himself Ace. Guy answering to Ace. In my humble opinion, the name didn’t have a very substantial ring to it.

  The idea of having a quiet drink was a pipedream, this being Masters week. I was immediately recognized and introduced to two fans of golf and Budweiser.

  “Hey, it’s Bobby Joe Grooves,” one of them said.

  “Hey, you’re right,” I said.

  “I’m Blubber Doss. This is Hubbard Gilliam.”

  “How you guys doing?” I said nicely. Practice for outings.

  Hubbard Gilliam said, “Aw, good as can be expected, I guess, considering there ain’t near enough cunt on the perimeter.”

  He yelled at the bartender to bring me a drink and put it on his tab. I ordered a Beefeater martini on the rocks with four olives.

  “Hell, I didn’t Know I was buyin’ you dinner,” Hubbard said.

  I said I’d read where Ben Hogan enjoyed a cocktail or two every evening at a tournament. It helped him relax, pursue a good night’s sleep.

  Blubber Doss and Hubbard Gilliam were well-built guys and dressed neater than I would have expected most Blubbers and Hubbards to be dressed. They wore button-down short-sleeve dress shirts, nice slacks that fit, and polished loafers. Blubber must have been named for his gizzard lips rather than his waistline. Hubbard’s thick brown hair, parted in the middle, was sprayed into place perfectly. He’d do as a poster boy for Frat Row.

  Blubber said, “We’re honored to be in your presence, Bobby Joe. I’m a four, Hubbard’s a two. We’re from Atlanta.”

  “Great city,” I said, lying through my veins. Atlanta used to be a great city, but that was before it turned into the South’s largest parking lot. It was only great now if you fancied traffic and concrete. But history had taught me that my health was best served if I humored strangers in bars.

  “We played Palmetto today,” Hubbard said. “Over in Aiken?”

  “Fun course,” I said. “Old-fashioned.”

  Hubbard said, “I’d have beat up on it pretty good, but I couldn’t buy a putt, could I, Blubber?”

  Blubber said, “You sure couldn’t. But you didn’t play bad for a guy with bad breath and a trick Knee.”

  “He thinks he’s a funny cocksucker sometimes,” Hubbard said.

  “We play at Rebel Creek in Atlanta,” Blubber said.

  “I don’t believe I Know Rebel Creek,” I said.

  “My daddy built it,” Hubbard said. “All golf, no real estate. Great course, great club. No fags, no Jews, no nee-grows. We confine the membership to people who went to southern Ivy League schools.”

  “What might those be?” I said, trembling with curiosity.

  “Aw, you Know,” Hubbard said. “W and L . . . UVA . . . Duke . . . Chapel Hill . . . Sewanee . . . Me and Blubber went to W and L.”

  As I dwelled on that information, thinking how fortunate Washington and Lee had been, Hubbard said, “Rebel Creek’s good enough to hold the National Amateur, except they’d never let us have it since we don’t have any fags, or Jews, or nee-grows in the club.”

  I said, “Why don’t you invite some to join?”

  Hubbard looked bewildered. “Who would they eat with?”

  I chuckled, mainly because I was stuck for a response.

  “Hey!” Blubber said. “You ought to Know this, Bobby Joe, being a pro and all. Hubbard says Pine Valley is in Michigan. I say it’s up east in one of them New Hampshirts. Me and him never played it but we’re fixin’ to. I say you need to play all the famous courses to complete your golf education, so to speak.”

  “Pine Valley’s a great course,” I said.

  Blubber said, “That’s what the bow-tie fucker said. Bow-tie fucker was in here a while ago drinkin’ white wine, actin’ like he was sorry for anybody who wasn’t a member of Pine Valley, like he was.”

  Hubbard wasn’t sure he wanted to believe it when I informed him that Pine Valley was in New Jersey.

  “That’s bullshit,” Hubbard said. “I been to New Jersey on bidness with my daddy. There ain’t nothin’ up there but smokestacks and wops.”

  “It’s Kind of hidden,” I said. “It’s in the town of Clementon, but it’s tucked away in a forest. I’ve played it a few times. I hate to tell you guys this, but the bow-tie fucker Knew what he was talking about. Pine Valley is the best golf course in America.”

  “Man, you don’t mean that,” Hubbard said. “Better’n the Augusta National? That’s more bullshit, is all that is.”

  Blubber said, “You can’t call it bullshit, Hubbard. The man Knows golf. Man plays the Tour!”

  “Man can play with your mama’s clump for all I care,” Hubbard said. “It’s still bullshit.”

  I said, “Augusta’s great, don’t get me wrong. Augusta has the greatest seven holes in golf, ten through sixteen. It has the greatest three holes in golf, eleven, twelve, and thirteen . . . although you have to consider eight, nine, and ten at Pebble. But Pine Valley has the greatest eighteen holes in golf. Every hole is distinctive, you remember it. Pine Valley is totally unique.”

  Hubbard elbowed Blubber. “Guess we better go play that sucker.”

  “It’s not easy to get on,” I said. “You have to Know a member.”

  “Fuck,” Hubbard said in a tone to indicate I’d made the idiotic statement of the decade. “We’ll get on. My daddy’ll money-whip their ass.”

  Blubber said, “Bobby Joe, what you think about that bitch gonna lead the protest this week?”

  He was talking about Anne Marie Sprinkle, the rabble-rousing activist, always popping up on TV. Anne Marie Sprinkle was chairwoman of something called the National Assembly of Women Commandos.

  I said the media had given Anne Marie Sprinkle far more publicity than she deserved. But all you had to do to get on TV or the front page today was holler real loud about one thing or another.

  Hubbard Gilliam said, “I hear she’s a academic doctor of something don’t make a shit. She says she’s bringing a thousand protestors. Somebody needs to butt-fuck Anne Marie Sprinkle.”

  I said, “Second chapter in the Hootie-Martha War.”

  Hubbard said, “Except we ain’t got Hootie and Martha anymore. I figure Kisser can handle Anne Marie, though.”

  K. S. “Kisser” McConnell was the new Augusta National chairman, replacing the retired Hootie Johnson, and the busybody Martha Burk had found other causes to jack with.

  “I’ve seen Anne Marie Sprinkle on TV,” Blubber said. “She ain’t no movie star.”

  Hubbard said, “Naw, she’s about eighty pounds beyond movie star.”

  That made Blubber laugh.

  “Aw, goddamn,” Hubbard said, looking past me, slumping onto the bar rail, acting injured.

  “Holy shit,” Blubber said, gaping in the same direction, looking as injured as Hubbard from an invisible attack.

  I turned to see Gwen Pritchard coming toward us.

  She did look stunning enough to cripple somebody. Her long black hair falling softly around her shoulders. Her tan face and lavender eyes set off by her white blouse. She was wearing the black pantsuit, all right, but I’d forgotten to suggest that she might want to avoid the criminal cleavage.

  “I see my business associate is here,” I said to the guys, and quickly took Gwendolyn’s arm to escort her to the outside terrace.

  “Aw, help me, Jesus, help me.”

  I believe that’s what I heard Hubbard Gilliam mumble painfully as I led the chick-babe-mom away. />
  8

  he need for a second martini became pressing the moment we were seated at our table. That’s because Gwendolyn said my killer sigh on Tuesday afternoon hadn’t gone unnoticed, she fully understood the meaning behind it, and wanted to make something crystal clear to me about how she stood on the issue of the Augusta National’s all-male membership.

  “Discrimination is not a game,” she said, her tone aimed at carving the words into the Sarazen Bridge on the 15th hole.

  I was smiling before she said it, Kept smiling as I flagged a waitress and ordered cocktails for us, and smiled on through my reply, which was:

  “Brave men fought and died on Iwo Jima for your right to demonstrate against golf.”

  She said, “I would like to have a serious discussion about this, if that’s possible, but—oh, here’s Scotty. He wanted to stop by and meet you.”

  He stopped. I stood. We shook. The well-built Scotty made me feel in need of vitamins and a personal trainer. He was scrubbed up, Nike swooshed in his maroon form-fitting crewneck, diamond earring glistening, and his hair was scruff-styled like a young actor whose name I vowed not to remember in a movie I walked out of because nobody talked.

  Scotty said he was off to meet two “bros” for a beer and pizza.

  I asked what he thought of the course.

  “No rough,” he said. “I can’t believe it. You hear about a place all your life but you get here and there’s no rough. Geeaaah.”

  All his life. He was fucking nineteen.

  “It has other difficulties,” I said.

  “That’s what they say. So far, though, it looks like a putting track to me. Geeaaah, no rough at all.”

  “I find a good many sidehill lies myself,” I said.

  He looked confused.

  “Uneven lies,” I said. “Nothing level? Funny stances?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you don’t drive it far enough. You’re on the senior tour now, huh?”

  Mom laughed.

  I said, “I’ll have to wait a while longer for that mulligan.”

  He said, “Gotta roll. Good luck this week. Later, Mom.”