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Two showed up at Ponky the next morning in an immaculate 1995 baby blue Bentley with white leather interior. This was just slightly different from the puppy-shit-colored Pinto we’d all seen him driving since forever. The Chops just about spit out their morning Sanka.
“Well,” I said. “Good morning, Mr. Rockefeller. Will you be having boiled children for breakfast?”
Two looked at the gamblers, who were unloading their bags, and talked out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t make a big deal. I borrowed it from the garage.”
“The assisted-living garage?”
“Stick, these old coots never drive their cars! They must have seventy-five gorgeous cars in that thing! And they leave the keys in them! It’s my duty to drive them just to blow the carbons out!”
“Naturally!”
“Telling you, if Dannie throws you out permanent, you gotta come get a place there with me. Nobody’s ever in the pool!”
“And if I got lucky, I could drown in the deep end!”
Dom approached, with Cementhead in tow.
“You know we ain’t gonna covah your slappy little dick in this,” Dom said. “Our money backs Ray, not you. Yah on your own.”
Two was defiant. “Who needs you slobs? I got this guy cold. I will flatten him like a tortilla. I’ll send him home in a fucking box by 14.”
We looked over at Yoshi, his opponent for the day. He was pulling out a huge bag of clubs, was dressed like Freddy Couples, and was already warming up with a swing that looked suspiciously buttery.
“I’d back out now, Two,” I offered.
Cementhead spoke up. “Two Down Petrovitz? Back out? Don’t do it, Two! What if America had backed out of Vietnam?”
“We did back out of Vietnam,” I said.
“You sure?”
The gamblers seemed slightly less talkative than they had been the day before, which meant they were about as chatty as three anvils.
“Mornin’ boys,” said Two. “Ready for some action?”
As usual, Big Al did the negotiating.
“We are fine. Here iz how we dezire to be,” he said. “Your zcratch perzon here will play my friend Dewey again, eighteen holes, gamblerz’ rules, for $24,000 American moniez. Your little fellow here, Too Zad, will—”
“Two Down,” corrected Two Down. “As in the bets don’t start until I’m two down. Got it?”
“—will engage in action with my poor friend Yoshi here. They can have the game az dezirous of themzelez.”
The more I heard about this thing, the more I hated it.
We hit some eggs off the paper-thin mats of our range. They enjoyed the sight of Nuke out there, absorbing many direct hits. I noticed Dewey didn’t have nearly as many clubs in his bag this time.
For some reason, even though I whipped Dewey the day before, they didn’t want any spots this time; didn’t want me to take any clubs out of my bag or let Dewey play from the 150 markers or anything. I think their strategy was to play for so damn much money that I’d choke, but I was swingin’ “smoother ’n a gravy sandwich,” as Dannie used to tell me.
Back when she was talking to me.
I flat crushed my Vaselined-up driver on 1, blowing it a good forty yards by Dewey. Then Big Al said to Two, “My poor friend Yoshi requirez to know if you will play ze game of dollarz?”
Two had kind of a disappointed look on his face, but the rest of us Chops were greatly relieved. How much could he lose playing dollar nassaus?
“Ah, let’s at least play fives,” Two said.
Yoshi nodded to Big Al. “Yes, this is fine with Yoshi,” said Big Al.
We all four made the turn two hours later and I was already up two holes. But Big Al turned to Two and said, “Fine, Mr. Too Zad, I calculate that you are down $10,415.”
The Chops all looked at him like he’d just said, “Okay, Two Down, I have your mother buried in my basement.”
“What!!?” Two screamed.
“No pun intended, but it waz clear that my poor friend Yoshi outplayed you most as he won 1, 3, 5, 6, and 9. You tied rest. Those five holez I dezipher to total 2,083 yards. At five dollarz a yard, thiz iz, according to calculation, $10,415.”
“Five dollars a yard?” Two Down gulped.
“Yeah, you bumped it up to five,” Dewey said. “Yoshi just wanted to play dollars.”
“Man, we thought you meant ‘dollahs’ as in ‘dollah nassahs,’ ” Dom objected. “Who’s evah heahd of a dollah a yahd? Two can’t covah that!”
Big Al wheeled on him, all bulled up. “Underztand pleaze, theze are ze well-known gamblerz’ rulez. All gamblerz are in knowing what ‘play for dollarz’ meanz. And all gamblerz are in knowing that if a gambler can’t cover debt, then ze frienz are required the covering of debt for him. And if friendz cannot cover debt for him, then thiz gambler zometimez getz covered with dirt. You copy?”
Dom turtled. Two Down looked sick. Cement was scratching his head.
“Yeah, we fuckin’ copy,” Dom said.
Two looked at Dom with eyebrows dancing and said, “Screw it, Dom. You don’t need to be out here.”
“Why?” said Dom.
“You got things to do, I’m sure?” Two Down said. More eyebrows.
“No. Oh! Yeah, yeah I do! You got no chance anyways, Two. Good luck, Stick.” Then he left.
Very strange.
We had a Blu Chao corn dog at the turn, but, sadly, Yoshi did not die of it. So off we marched to No. 10, where, just as Yoshi was at the top of his backswing and about to unload, the Bentley’s alarm horn went off. Somebody had pulled it right up next to the clubhouse and the 10th tee, like it was some kind of museum piece, and now it was blaring. Yoshi flinched at impact and gave it the full Ann Coulter—way right and nasty—all the way across 18 and up against the Geneva Avenue fence. He turned to Two like he wanted to take out his spleen with his driver.
“Oops,” Two said. “Must’ve accidentally hit it in my pocket.”
“Yez,” said Big Al, hot. “Aczidental.”
Big Al made him hand the key fob to him, then he threw it in the cart.
Me, I had to hand it to Two. He’s the only guy that would steal a car based on how loud the alarm horn was.
“Let’s see,” Two said on 10 green after winning the hole. “That’s 401 yards and that’s, um, $2,005.”
But on 11, Two double-crossed one way left into what is known as Hangman’s Field because any ball in there usually results in a hangman on your scorecard, also known as a 7. But when we got there, Two’s ball was in a painted white circle, ground under repair, which meant he got to drop it. It was a huge, stupidly happy break. With a much better lie, he hit a nice shot out of there and actually next to the green, where he beat Yoshi again out of 393 yards.
No. 12 is the dogleg left and Two Down was in awful shape. Looked like he was going to lose the hole, until he went to his signature move. “I haven’t had my throw yet, right?”
Even pitching Yoshi’s ball into the nuclear-waste lake next to the green only got him a tie, since Two managed to four-putt. But it was hilarious to see Big Al nearly fry his cerebellum. “Mr. Zad, you are a man who iz eazy not to like,” he grumbled.
“And you’re just getting to know him,” I added.
On 13, Two flash-fried one toward the fence that separates Ponky from the Roosevelt Housing Project—a very good place to get rolled by some of the young Eagle Scouts who reside therein. But he got another amazing break when we got there and found his ball settled right next to a French drain. He got a free drop out of that, as the rules state, hit a decent shot onto the green, and managed to two-putt to beat Yoshi. That was another 389 yards.
But then it all started to turn Janet Reno–ugly for your heroes.
On the par-3 14, with me up in my bet by three holes, a terrible thing happened. Big Al was driving along when Dewey’s bag fell off. Big Al put it in reverse to try to go back and get it and backed right over the entire bag. Dewey was in the fairway, walking along with his 6-iron, when it happened. You could hear the sickly sound of graphite snapping one hundred yards away.
“Borscht!” Big Al moaned.
“What the fuck, Al?” Dewey said, devastated.
“Dewey, I . . . Thiz was very aczidental. I do not know which I waz thinking.”
“You fucking cabbage-eater!” Dewey said, yanking out his now-junior-sized set. “Your only job is to drive the fucking cart and you can’t even do that!”
Two Down and Cementhead laughed.
“Hey, Al,” said Two Down, “you might want to go forward and back up again. I think you missed a couple clubs.”
“Fuck you guys!” Dewey hollered at them.
“Hey, Dewey,” said Cement, “what’s that club in your hand?”
“Six-iron,” Dewey harrumphed.
“Hope you’re good with it!”
They laughed some more.
Dewey was pissed. “I guarantee I can kick both of your asses with just this.”
“Suuurree,” said Two.
“Hmmmm,” Big Al said, looking at me. “What about the words which were mozt rezently zaid? Because of my oafishnez, my good friend Dewey iz not going to win thiz bet. But, as a gesture of friendship, what if we made a new bet? We owe you $36,000 in moniez now, but what if you and Dewey play for an additional $36,000, American moniez, him and only 6-iron againzt you and your whole zet of clubz, with my friend Dewey getting—what?—a shot and a half a hole?”
I thought it out a little. I figured Dewey could hit that 6-iron about 180 yards. That meant he’d need three shots to reach three of the four par-4s left. He could probably hit the 364-yard 17th in two. But the greens at Ponky are so hard, you have to come into them high and he couldn’t hit that thing high. He’d be terrible chipping with it, too. Putting wouldn’t be bad. Hell, I’ve practiced putting with a 6-iron to work on my stroke. But he’d probably three-putt a bunch.
I looked at Two, who nodded and smiled greedily.
“I’ll give him a shot a hole,” I said.
“Then you muzt require to make it worth our while,” he said. “For we would then dezire to double thiz bet. Let uz play for $72,000.”
I looked at Two and Cementhead. They were like puppies who hadn’t been fed in days. They were practically drooling. I was just swinging it so good, I didn’t think I could lose. I felt two exits past bulletproof.
“We’ll start on 15?” I asked. “Four-hole bet?”
Big Al looked at Dewey. Dewey nodded.
“What iz the word here? Ah, yez—bank!” he said, with a grin like he’d just passed his citizenship test.
“Wait!” said Two Down. “I gotta see the ‘moniez,’ Igor.”
Begrudgingly, Al reached into his golf bag, some inner pouch, and produced eight of his tight little rolls of $10,000.
“Bank,” I said.
The Chops whooped. They were already counting their $72,000.
Two and Yoshi tied 14, so we came to 15. Dewey had that 6-iron and nothing else. But then he did a strange thing. He put a clump of grass behind his ball on the tee box.
Uh-oh.
The grass did the same thing as the Vaseline. The grass kept the grooves from imparting spin. He was making himself a flyer lie on the tee box is what he was doing. I’d never seen or heard of it before, but it made perfect sense. He put a hook Harley-Davidson grip on it and he must’ve slapped that thing 240 yards. I was out there 300, but in the right rough. I was a little rattled by what was going on. Dewey had only 160 yards into the 400-yard hole and that was just a three-quarter 6-iron for him. No problem. He two-putted for his par and suddenly I was one down.
“Shit,” whispered Cement. “He sure is hanging in there for having only one club.”
“Uh, I think he’s done this before,” I said morosely.
“He has? Well, why does he keep hanging out with this guy if he keeps running over his clubs?”
I was too depressed to explain it to him.
Luckily, Two was still getting every break imaginable. On 15, he hit it into some trees right and again was in the white ground-under-repair markings near some trees. When Yoshi saw the lucky break, he looked like he wanted to take out a sushi knife and fillet him. I personally couldn’t see any reason the ground was marked under repair, but I’m no stoned greenskeeper. Two took his drop and hit a nice 8-iron short of the green.
Suddenly we heard some yelling in the trees, some branches cracking, and a “Lay off!” Then we saw the sickly sight of Big Al dragging Dom back into the fairway by his shirt collar.
“What the fuck, Al?” I said. “Why you manhandling my guys?”
“Why?” he said, ripping a backpack off Dom’s shoulder. “Here iz why my friend.” He unzipped it and threw out two cans of white paint and a portable fake French drain.
Everybody looked at Two.
“What are you doing with that stuff, Dom?” said Two unconvincingly. “Are you part of that new volunteer course workers’ program the greenskeeper has started? I’ll bet you are. That’s great!”
Dom looked so guilty he should’ve said, right then and there, “I did not have sex with that woman.”
Okay, so Two planted him. It worked for a while. But Yoshi dragged Two back with what looked like a very painful grip on his neck to the last shot and made him hit from that lie, paint or no paint. He topped two out of there, chunked a third, hit a fourth into the bunker, left two in there, and conceded the hole.
Forced to play Yoshi straight up, he managed to also lose 16, 17, and 18.
Come to think of it, so did I. That bastard and his trained 6-iron was the biggest hustle in the history of Ponky. He was a warlock with it. He could hit it high. He could hit it low. He could hit a soft cut with it. He could hit a Chi-Chi chase hook with it. He could putt beautifully with it. Sonofabitch looked like he slept with it.
As I was getting my brains beat in, I realized I’d been conned. I thought about all the signs I should’ve seen. He showed up with maybe twenty fewer clubs than before. He knew his clubs were going to get broken, so he’d taken all his favorites out. Hell, except for the 6-iron, he was probably playing straight out of the Kmart barrel. And then there was the fact that he was walking down 14 fairway with his 6-iron in his hand, even though he was already on the green on a par-3. He should’ve had his putter in his hand. He had no good reason to have the 6-iron, only a bad one. They’d practically set the wolf trap right in front of my eyes and I didn’t even see it. I’d bet they’d run this scam hundreds of times. And all that bullshit about Dewey yelling so ferociously at Big Al. They sold that pretty well, I thought. Bravo, boys. Oscars all around. I decided if you shook Big Al by his heels, a Brooklyn accent would fall out. Smartest of all, they did it on 14, knowing that the final four holes were longish par-4s, where he could hit two full 6-irons to the greens. He wouldn’t have to hit any half 6-irons, or hundred-yard 6-irons, or try to kill one. They played me like a dreidel.
“Gee, that worked out pretty well,” I said, leaking sarcasm. “You played those last four holes one-under with just your 6-iron. It’s almost like you’d done that before.”
“Ah, not really,” Dewey said. “Just monkeyed around with it a little.”
“Is there any way you’d allow me to wrap it around your neck?”
Big Al stepped in.
“My friend, upon the time that it iz that you pay uz our $36,000 moniez, you can attempt anything for your dezire.”
A lump the size of a Maxfli became lodged in my throat. The Chops looked white with fear. Then Big Al said, “Oh, and Mr. Zad. Az to my calculation, you won the holez 10, 11, and 12 and my poor friend Yoshi won 15 through 18. And we are ignoring the cheating that your friend have done. So that worked out to 402 yards for Mr. Yoshi. Thiz iz another $2,010. And then it is required that you owe my poor friend Yoshi a total of $12,425.”
There was a horrible long pause.
Finally I said, “Let’s go inside and have a beer and settle up.”
Two and Cement and Dom looked at me like I had rabies. “Settle up with what?” Dom whispered as we walked. “We got $12,000. That’s it. We need $24,000 mah. And Two doesn’t have anything. Where’s he gonna get twelve lahge?”
“No idea,” I whispered. “Except, listen. You got a gun?”
Dom gulped. “Yeah, I think I could get my hands on one.”
“I’m kidding, Tupac! We’ll think of something.”
But I had no idea what.
Then The Voice chimed in: “Uh, the large gentleman walking off 18? I’m afraid you can’t enter the men’s grill. We require necks.”
Perhaps the only thing worse than owing somebody $36,000 you don’t have is to come back into your clubhouse and have Dalton, the Human Stain, yapping away while you’re trying to think of how to get it.
“I repeat again, it was Walter Cronkite!” the Stain was saying. “In the men’s room, right next to me, at the Marriott. I urinated next to the great journalist Walter Cronkite!”
That’s about when Hoover lost it. He’d shot 128 that day with the Stain following him, and breaking 100 must’ve seemed at least two galaxies away.
“See, nobody gives a damn who you peed next to!” Hoover was saying sharply. “They don’t care if you peed next to Abe Lincoln, okay? They don’t!”
Already, there was not a lot of love for the Human Stain among the Chops, on account of he was annoying as gout. Bob charged that he was so fat, he stepped on one of those talking weight scales and it said, “Come back when you’re not in your car.” He never played golf, but apparently had no problem three-wheeling around in his stupid one-person cart telling Hoover why he should hit 2-iron more often. Hoover can barely hit his pillow at night, let alone his 2-iron.
“Yes, Mr. Cronkite himself,” said the Stain. “Sir Walter. And that makes thirty-one celebrities or famous politicos I’ve peed next to. I dare anyone to match that!”
Dom offered his hand in congratulations. “Congrats, man. You’re the most accomplished peckah-checkah in America.”
“That’s a lie!” the Stain said. “Celebrities are notoriously open about their pubic regions.”
“That’s very well known,” I said to Big Al.
“And now we are requiring of the moniez,” Big Al said, looking me menacingly in the eye.
“Yeah, well, about that,” I said. “We weren’t expecting to play for that kind of money today, so we don’t have it on us, except the $12,000, of course. But we can get our hands on it, posthaste.”
“Yeah, well that ain’t gonna fly,” Dewey said. “We beat you fair and square. We want our money.”
“Yeah, I remember you beating me,” I said. “The fair and square part I’m a little fuzzy on.”
Dewey wandered over to the puke orange La-Z-Boy, where Blind Bob was “watching” the Sox.
“Losin’ again, huh?” Dewey said to him.
“Yeah, we miss Pedro,” said Blind Bob.
Big Al was yelling at me and Two Down was yelling at him and I was watching Blind Bob and Dewey and that’s when it hit me like a bowl of warm goulash.
A plan.
I cleared my throat. My mind was racing.
“You know, the truth is, Big Al, you and your two stooges really can’t play for shit,” I said, getting louder. “Dewey is supposedly one of the best players at that candy-ass manicured course you guys play, but he never came close to whipping me, not without pulling that lame-ass one-club setup today. Play me real, no grease, no con jobs, USGA rules, I’d kick his ass by five shots here and I bet I’d kick his ass by ten shots at your place!”
Big Al took a step toward me. “I am now wondering why your courage have juzt now arrived, my friend? For you cannot mean thiz?”
“I’m serious as the gulag, Ivan!” I said, moving right into him. “And do you know why? Because guys who play at precious places like yours don’t play true golf. Goddamn, my mother could putt on greens like yours. And anybody can play out of perfectly mown rough, never get a bad lie, imported Italian sand, all that happy horseshit. I’ve played there, I know. Play here. Punch 8-irons off old Folgers cans because you can’t get down through them. Hit putts that weave like a barrio drunk. Then you’ll learn to play golf. I’ll tell you something. I’d bet my life that anybody in this room could beat any of your guys—with real handicaps, not like that bullshit sandbagger Yoshi’s handicap. Anybody.”
“Borscht!” Big Al said, starting to get madder. “It requirez not what kind of courze you play. The golf zwing doez not care what kind of courz under it. You either have ze good zwing or you have not ze good zwing. And you obviouzly have not. We want our moniez.”
“It doesn’t matter? You care to wager on that?”
“How?”
“You say the kind of course doesn’t matter. I say it does. Let’s test it. You pick one of your guys and blindfold him. I’ll pick a guy and blindfold him. We’ll put them in the car and take them to a course they’ve never played before, neither of them, and we’ll just see who’s better. Total score.”
“You are crazy like lobzter whizling on hill.”
“I’m what?”
“Lobster whistling on the hill,” Dewey said.
“You’re chicken like Colonel Sanders,” I said.
Al considered for a moment.
“Anyone?” Big Al said.
“With about the same handicap.”
He had to think. I couldn’t let him.
“What’s wrong, piano-mover? You’re worried that I’m right, huh? That the sweet course you play is what makes your guys good, not their swings, huh?”
“Again, I say borscht. I will do it myself.”
“Fine. What’s your handicap?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“We’ll check it. In the meantime, we can find a twenty-eight around here.”
I pretended to look around and think. Finally I said, “Hey, Bob, aren’t you about a twenty-eight?”
Blind Bob froze for a second, never looking away from the TV. The rest of the Chops stood still as statues. Ice hung in the air. I think my heart stopped for fourteen seconds.
“I’m twenty-nine,” Blind Bob finally said.
Thank you, Lord, thank you, Jesus.
“You are on, Mr., Mr. whatever you are named,” Big Al said. “You will be defeated the zame as your buddiez.”
Then the worst possible thing happened.
Cementhead spoke.
“But Bob,” he said. “You’re—”
“Cement!” I screamed. “Don’t start on Bob. He is too a twenty-nine. Check the board. It’s right there in black-and-white.”
By then Dom had jogged over and slapped Cement hard with a Ping-Pong paddle square in the back.
“Owwwww!” Cement said.
“C’mon, you pussy! When you gonna play me Ping-Pong?” He was dragging Cement out of the room while Cement was rubbing his back. “Damn, Dom! Why’d you do that?”
“Hey, I’m tryin’ to watch the Sox here,” Bob said, never moving his head. “Do ya mind?”
Bless that man.
“Okay, then, tomorrow morning,” I said. “Let’s meet here in the parking lot? Say, 8:00 A.M. Double or nothing on the whole thirty-six large?”
“What’s wrong?” Dewey said. “Yesterday you wanted to double everything. You don’t wanna double this time? Not feeling confident?”
“Fine. Double it—$72,000. Bank.”
“You have bank,” said Big Al. “But when you are defeated thiz time, you better have moniez or we will dezipher ze exact amount your life azzurance is worth. You copy?”
He and Yoshi and Dewey strutted out. We watched them climb into their Lincoln and drive away before we erupted into the loudest, slammingest, whoopingest Chop-pile since we found out Blu Chao was taking a two-week vacation.
That night, in my suddenly noncontact bed, I was freaking out. My sleep number was zero. What the hell was I doing here? Sure, Bob playing blindfolded was a can’t-miss. It was genius—desperation, last-second, buzzer-beater genius. You ever try playing blindfolded? I tried three holes once with Bob. The first couple swings you make decent contact, but the longer you’re blindfolded the worse it gets. It’s exponential. After a few holes you don’t even know which way the ground is. But Blind Bob, he lived this. The worst he’d shoot on a new course was 120, tops. A guy blindfolded all day? He could shoot 150, 200 maybe!
But what if it backfired? We’d be into these bent-noses for $108,000. We had $12,000, but then what? What are we going to do—iron their pants for the next thirty years? All three of ’em looked like they had no problem giving your kneecap the full Tonya Harding. Yoshi looked like he’d snap your arm off and eat it like a Butterfinger, for free. And if any of them couldn’t do it, I’ll bet they had dyspeptic friends who could. Maybe bust your arm, burn your house, make you wish you had died as a small boy.
What could go wrong? We went over it with Bob a dozen times. He’d be waiting in the parking lot with his blindfold already on. That way they couldn’t get a look at his messed-up eyes. Just to make them believe us, we got the blackest, thickest blindfold we could find. And we got one for Al, too. No way he could see through it.
They could be moosing us, but I couldn’t see how. There are ways to see if a guy is seeing through the blindfold, but even if they got away with it, no way Big Al could shoot better than 120 seeing just bits and pieces. It seemed foolproof.
And (gulp) what if we won? We’d be up $36,000, everybody would get their money back and then some. I could sneak the $5,000 of Charlie’s college money back into the bank and have some money to buy Dannie some decent furniture. We’d have to find some safer way to try getting the $225,000 to buy Ponky that didn’t involve guys who looked like they could turn you into complicated lumps. After all, I had a kid now.
There was only one person I could talk this through with—except that person was the curvy mute next to me, pretending to be asleep.
“Baby?” I finally said. “Let’s talk this out.”
At last she turned toward me.
“I’m still so mad at you I could eat bees,” she whispered.
“I know, Baby.”
“You’re so selfish. Christ, you’re selfish enough for twins.”
“I know, Baby.”
“You won’t go out get a real job. All you want to do is play golf. And then when you get a good chance to play golf and earn some real bucks, you get all caught up in your stubborn mule pride.”
“I know, Baby.”
“And you don’t tell me you love me enough.”
“I love you, Baby.”
“More than Kelly?”
“I don’t love Kelly.”
“Good job. Trick question. More than you did Maddy?”
Okay, she broke the rule and used the M-word, but what was I going to do, sue? Maddy was the girl I’d dated before Dannie, when Dannie and I were just FBs. She was the cart girl at the Mayflower when I was a caddy there and we did scandalous things in the fog that not only would’ve gotten us both fired but been a big-seller DVD in the back of Golf Digest. I was in love with her, but her dad died and left her rich and she left me for a life in archaeology, digging up kings in East Egypt or somewhere. Kind of a sore subject for my wife. And for me, actually.
“Ten times more,” I said.
“Whose condom was that?”
“Two Down’s.”
“Two Down’s. Right. I’m supposed to believe that.”
“Yes.”
“And you refuse to play for the $250,000. You can’t even try.”
“No, I can’t. But I may not need to.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I knew she’d figure out that I’d borrow the $5,000 if I did.
“Can’t tell me that neither?”
“No, sorry.”
“All-righttee then. You know what I can tell you, Sugar?”
“What, Baby?”
“Go screw yourself.”
Sadly, already tried that.