Buster comes back. He looks angry. I wipe my eyes with my baggy shirt and square up, fists clenched at the hip. He sees them and stops two strides away. His face relaxes, then reforms into the expression he wore in the car this morning; he knows me.
“Here.” He holds out a candy bar. I stare at it. “Allergic to nuts?”
“No.” I keep staring at his hand.
“Sorry, it’s all I had in the bag.” He looks closer, into my face, like it’s some curious symbol he doesn’t understand.
“Your eyes are on fire, man.” I cover them with my hands, absent-mindedly rub at them.
“You’re making it worse.” He pushes the candy at me. “Here.”
I have to take it. I open it and offer him some. He refuses. “I just had one.” He nods for me to eat. I do. It’s not candy. It tastes like dried mud. I try to swallow, but I’m spitless. He keeps watching me, some bizarre nursemaid with me in the forest primeval.
“That’ll take care of one problem,” he says. “Come on, everyone thinks you’re lost.”
I pick up the ball and pocket it. Buster waves me out of the woods. Marco looks both worried and embarrassed when he sees me. They’re gathered around my ball, and they look to Buster to explain it all with his face. He doesn’t. He looks up the fairway at the flag.
“You got lucky,” says Marco nervously. “You must have hit a tree or something.” I can’t tell if he’s nervous for me or himself.
Houston hands me a club. I don’t check it. I can’t feel the grip anyway because my hands have gone numb. The sport bar residue hangs in my throat. He whispers to me.
“Just straight.”
I walk up to the ball and swing. It starts out straight but begins hooking — short and left.
“That’ll play,” mumbles Houston. He’s regained his stance, uncaring about allegiance to me, but I can hear the disappointment in his voice. “You can still make birdie from there and take this hole.” And his saying this, based on what he’s seen so far, is a lie. He knows I can’t chip or putt, and he knows Dan can. What he doesn’t know is that nothing has changed since the woods. I still can hear the grunts and curses echoing off the bathroom tiles. I can still see the sign of blood. It’s right there, on the wall, the smear and drip marks. Houston is further disappointed by my errant chip shot, my eyeless putt. And I would like to tell him that it’s a difficult thing to do — concentrate on your short game while wondering when, if ever, you’re finally going to bleed to death.
Marco blows his chance to halve the hole. Buster stands over his putt while I tally my losses — my possessions: the money in my pocket, guitar, books. I can work out a payment plan or I can plead ignorance—“Thousand? I thought you meant hundred. I don’t have that kind of money.” We didn’t shake. Or just No. Fuck you. Foul. Just no. Setup. No. Try and take it. No.
Buster sinks his putt and clenches his fist. He starts to pump it and then looks at Dan, who’s staring at the hole in quiet disbelief, and stops. Dan turns to the eighteenth. Houston sighs, and the white kid loses his smirk and shakes his head ever so slightly. Marco looks lost. Houston sighs again and waves to me to follow him. I do. Buster comes up from behind and slaps my back.
“Pulled that one out of my ass.” He leaves his hand there. “Trying to keep you going.” He moves his hand to my shoulder and squeezes. “Next hole — what do you say? Beat that guy.”
I try to regain my hands — bending at the elbow and shaking them down. Wringing my forearms, massaging my wrists — covertly. But Dan is watching. He strides over — too cocky for such a shrimp. He reaches me just as the pulse returns to my fingers. I feel strong again, as though the instant nutrition has kicked in.
“You’re not getting nervous now?”
He smiles wickedly. Houston shakes his head. The others pretend not to hear. Marco shuffles through his clubs, and Buster looks back down into the void. Houston gives me a club and stands behind me.
“Two hundred to the front. Two thirty-seven to the flag.” He looks at me sharply and mumbles, “Stay out of the woods.”
I look at the club — a four iron.
“Can you hit a draw?”
“No.”
“Take extra club. Put your left foot a little closer to the ball.”
I do it.
“Okay, closed stance. Swing straight ahead. Just let the club head fly straight.”
“Little late for a lesson?”
“It’s cool. You can do it.”
“No.” I step back and give him the club. “Give me the six.”
He doesn’t. He gives me an exasperated look, instead.
“What are you doing?”
“I need more loft.” I point at the woods. “I’m going over the top.”
I know it’s a good one as soon as I hit it. It gets high in a hurry and disappears over the trees.
“That’s the shot,” says Buster calmly.
“Nice one,” says Dan coolly. Houston claps his hands together sharply and gives a little low whistle.
I get to the green well ahead of everyone, and I don’t see my ball. My stomach drops and I feel the bloody leaking in my pants again. “Stay out of the woods,” the boy said. I look up and try to recreate my ball’s flight. It must be in the woods. I sway back and forth about four feet from the hole. I hear them now — just off the fringe.
“Hey, look at that.” It’s Dan. I can feel his spectacles on me. I go down on one knee, back still to them, and let the ball drop out of my hand. I stand up, revealing it to them.
“Quite a shot,” says Dan. “You land there?” He squints through his glasses, scanning the green for something. “It didn’t bounce at all?”
I raise my arm robotically, extend a finger, and trace the ground. The green is immaculate, but I point to a spot anyway. Dan cranes his neck. I walk quickly to the imaginary point and start to work on it with Marco’s green saver as though there’s a divot that needs repairing. I’m tapping on it as Dan walks up to inspect.
“Quite a shot.” Everyone nods solemnly in approval, then slowly moves to his ball, lines up his shot. They miss their long putts. I sink my short one. Birdie. I win.
I tip the white kid fifty, and he introduces himself—Chip. He smiles, tips his cap, and shakes my hand. I give Houston a hundred. He won’t take it. Now it’s my turn to look at him quizzically.
“Nah, it was a pleasure.” He extends a hand. We shake. He looks like a boy now. He is — with his fuzzy mustache and delicate chin. No fat, but little muscle. Too much wonder in his deep brown eyes. I don’t know what to say to this boy, so he repeats, “A pleasure,” not letting go my hand.
After lunch at the club has been ruled out, we leave. Everyone in the car is silent. We turn the wrong way out of the drive, but I swallow the urge to ask where we’re going. Dan turns on the radio — so low — AM murmur through the speakers.
We pass more broken estates, and then the lots begin shrinking. Finally, the road expands to a two-lane secondary highway. We turn into an office park. Dan pulls into a spot.
“Be out in a second,” he says, which, when they all open their doors, I realize was directed at me. He leaves the car running. I sink back in the leather, exhale, and close my eyes. I feel the first few tingles of fatigue-induced nausea in the back of my throat spread to my cheeks. I exhale again. If they’re going to shoot me, now is the time — a bogus carjacking. If I want to live, I should steal the Benz myself. But I’m stuck in the comfort of my seat. The tingles move to my extremities. I’m hungry, too. I see the green. “I cheated.” I almost mouth the words, but I don’t, as though that would make the words real, what I did real, judgeable. I open my eyes, but the image of the trimmed Bermuda grass and its odor linger. I open the window. The preautumn air drifts inside and is corrupted.