SOFT SONG OF THE SOMETIMES SANE

Mr. Normality am I. Play a pretty fair game of golf. My drives are long and straight, my putting sound. I can’t hit a nine iron worth a crap though. From about a hundred yards in, my game stinks.

The real problem is that I lack a clear sense of purpose. Along about the eighth hole, I wonder what on earth I am doing out here on this long, hilly, windswept, sand trap-strewn course. On these cool, dying autumn evenings, as the light pales and fades to a heartbreak whitish-gray, I am filled with despair. Who are these other golfers I am partnered with? I am never paired with wise, grizzled old-timers who reveal great secrets of life and love. I am partnered with farters, manic-depressives, and unemployed tax accountants. By the time I sink my last putt on the ninth hole, I loathe them and they loathe me.

Family Background

For years I’ve been trying to prove that I can safely drink again. Even after they sent me to the hospital ten years ago, I still wasn’t convinced. I come from a drinking family. We had beer for breakfast. My father was a lawyer, but he’s retired now. He whistles when he drinks. He gets red in the face and increasingly friendly. People find my mother charming, and justifiably so. When my parents visited me at rehab, the social worker was disgusted with me. “Such nice parents,” he said. “What the hell happened to you?” It was just my luck to get a cranky social worker. Social workers are not all the nice guys they’re made out to be.

Up to Old Tricks

Lately when I speak to strangers, I fake a British accent. I don’t know why. Maybe I think it will protect me somehow. When I was a teenager I would go to parties, and after several beers I would speak with a British accent. I thought it would make me appear unique, but after a while some of the bigger guys would hold me under the beer keg and put the spigot in my mouth until I bloated. I was known as a character. I’d memorized a few lines of Shakespeare, and most of my friends, who couldn’t read or write very well, thought I was a mad genius. But this still did not prevent them from holding me under the keg and forcing beer down my throat. But they could not really harm me because I was not one of them. I was British. I was a British spy. I had cyanide in my shoes.

Evasive Tactics

Walking through downtown Berkeley, I’m afraid that I may be mugged. There’s a lot of lunatics on the street, and they all want my money. Lunatics aren’t all the nice guys they’re sometimes made out to be. So I go down the street, whirling, changing direction, crossing to the other side, dodging cars, praising the Lord. Keeping the lunatics confused, you see. Listen. Downtown Berkeley is full of lunatics. Go to Boise.

Teeth

My teeth are going bad. Even after I’ve brushed them, they’ve got a sticky, gummy feeling. I was in New Orleans once, sitting on a bus. Across the aisle sat a lunatic. They come at me like flies. He was a great conversationalist. Told me this: “I put four holes in Jesus. Downtown Waco. I shot Jesus. Put four holes in him. He got back up. He was the real Jesus.”

And you, sir, are a real, true, certified loon.

My friend, the lunatic, sneered out the bus window at some loitering vagrant types. “Trash,” he said. “Just trash. I, for one, have never neglected to brush my teeth.”

Not only was he a lunatic, but like many lunatics, he was an intolerant son-of-a-bitch.

I, too, have never neglected to brush my teeth. But will that save them? Will it save me?

Professional Life

I am the Director of Humanities at a small college. It is a good title and the pay is not bad. I don’t actually do much of anything. We are a bottom-of-the-barrel school. We are on probation. Our students are almost all foreigners, and those who aren’t are Americans who couldn’t get into a decent school. I’m a crappy teacher and an even crappier administrator. I tell jokes to my English class for half an hour every day and let them out early. I give them all A’s. They love me.

As a director, I don’t know who or what I am supposed to direct. I lack a clear sense of purpose. I sit in my office and drink coffee and read the newspaper. Sometimes I bang on the typewriter, really get the keys clacking so that people will hear the machine and think I am busy. I take three-hour lunches, telling the Dean I am out recruiting new students. As far as I can tell, everyone is very happy with the way I am doing my job.

Home Life

My wife is a beautiful, kind woman who watched me go mad once before, ten years ago. They called it alcoholism, but after they dried me out, they discovered I was still crazy. This was in the waning days of electro-shock, but they gave me a few jolts anyway. I was one of their last customers. It didn’t help my mind much, but for some reason it increased my sex drive. I left the hospital a better lover, for which my wife, at any rate, was grateful.

I am not happy. I’ve been telling my wife this lately. What she wants to know is why. I find this astonishingly simple of her and yet astonishingly difficult to answer. Why? Why? Why? I groan at the question as if it is incredibly stupid, which, of course, hurts her feelings. But the truth is I can’t answer.

I have no right to be unhappy. Why am I going mad again? In my case, it is only a lack of character. That is all. I am the fellow on the bus who plugged Jesus. I am willful. I am the worst lunatic of all. I deserve no sympathy. You should kick me in the ass.

***

Why?

Because I lack a clear sense of purpose. I feel apart from God. I feel apart from my fellow man. I feel apart from my wife. I feel apart from myself. I intensely dislike our cat.

Retracing My Steps

I’m going home. Back home. Down south. Kiss the wife. Honey, I’ve got to go visit the folks, see what’s up.

I take a few days off from work and fly home. Momma’s drinking. Daddy’s drinking. Brothers are drinking. We barbecue a bunch of beef and drink. Daddy whistles. Momma keeps hugging me, glad I’m home. Brothers and I practice chip shots in the back yard. The old castrated beagle retrieves the balls, carries a ball around in his mouth, showing off—look, I still got balls. You a good ole hound dog, you is. I shank a nine iron and break the kitchen window. Daddy yells. But we’re all happy as hell.

So happy I can’t figure it. Can’t walk, can’t talk, start to cry, vomit all over myself.

Check-in Time

Dry me out time. Hello, Mr. Psychiatrist.

Nothing? Nothing ever troubled you? Nothing bad ever happened to you?

Well, I was fondled.

He is delighted to hear this.

But frankly it wasn’t all that bad. Was twelve. Spent the night at a friend’s. We slept in the living room on the floor. Woke up and his old man was lying next to me. Had his arm around me. I thought he’d made a mistake, was walking in his sleep or something and just happened to lie down next to me. Just happened to have his hand on my little, twelve-year-old pencil. I was embarrassed for him. I knew he’d be embarrassed when he woke up. His face was scratchy against mine. His hand felt kind of gnarly. I moved a little, pretended I was just waking. His hand tightened a little. My fellow was trapped. His breathing was hot in my ear. Didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Thought he’d be mad at me if he woke up. He had his nose in my ear. In the morning I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t think he remembered. I wasn’t sure it had happened. I started taking a lot of showers. I could feel that hand there. Made me wince. That feeling like when chalk screeks across the blackboard. Hey, let go of that! I’d practice shouting. Hey you, let go there, hands off! Next time I came over, Leroy saying, hey Dad, can he stay over? Can Jimmy stay over? Why sure, Jimmy can stay over. Oh no, no sir, I gotta go. Oh no, sure, we’d be happy to have Jimmy, I’ll call his mom. Oh, she won’t let me; I just know she won’t let me. Oh, I’m sure she will; I’ll just give her a call. And I’m dying, I’m shaking, but I’m trapped, I’m on the floor, up all night, watching, waiting, and he doesn’t come and I think, I did, I did, I imagined it all. And it all fades away and I forget and like his old man again, he’s always taking us out for hamburgers and he lets us have a beer sometimes, so when he asks me to go fishing with them I say sure, cause I really do want to go fishing. And we’re in the camper getting undressed for bed, and there’s two beds and Leroy says, I want my own bed, you can sleep with my old man. Now, wait a minute here, thinks I, and his old man’s drooping his arm around me and leading me to bed.

It happened again?

I had a fever in the morning. I hardly remembered.

So you felt powerless?

Powerless. Sure. I felt powerless.

Well, I don’t know how much all this has to do with my problems, but it makes my shrink happy anyway.

Release

Checkout time. Kiss the wife. I was fondled as a child, I tell her. I’m recovering. Slowly. Be kind.

Bundle of energy. Sober. Wide-awake. Dynamic lectures at school. Foreign students impressed. Throw roses at me every class. Wave flags. God bless America.

Oh, and I am so very tolerant to the man who asks for money. I am open. I do not try to protect myself. Here, sir, is a quarter. Here, sir, is a dollar. Here, sir, is my billfold. I, too, was once a lunatic. I was fondled, you see. What’s that? You put four holes in Jesus? Well, I’m sure He won’t hold it against you, but for heaven’s sake, don’t let it happen again.

Purpose

Getting cool, that old sun going down earlier and earlier. They’re going to shut down the course tomorrow. Last day of the season, I shoot a forty-three. Great score for me. Jazzed up now. Decide to play the back nine. All by myself. Partner slumps away to the parking lot, had enough. Thank goodness. Was playing with a troubled taxidermist. Worried, you know. “Taxidermy business is going to the dogs. It’s those goddamn vegetarians.” Kept scratching at the crotch of his polyester pants, lime-green, just before each shot. Disturbed me somehow.

I lose four balls on the thirteenth. One after another, chip them into the water hazard. Wide, wide, wide water hazard, stinky, muddy, a bog, foul bog, devourer of balls and men; hopes perish here. Step up to the brink and heave my clubs in after the balls. There they go, down, down, into the bog, beneath the muddy water.

I turn to leave. A sudden pain in the chest. A heart attack. No, a sudden realization. I love golf. I love the great game of golf. I want to come back next season. And the season after that, as I grow wobbly, led about, half-blind, I’ll totter to my ball, take aim, ah, I must look upon those red flags that flutter in the wind, take aim, take aim again.

I suddenly have a clear sense of purpose. I must save my clubs! I will regain my clubs. I will practice my chip shots. I will improve my game. I will not despair. I will be back next season!

I wade in after my clubs. Water’s deeper than I think. I’m up to my chest. Water rat dives out of the bushes. My shoes squish around in the mud. I kick around through the weeds, trying to feel the clubs.

The groundsman drives up on a cart and looks at me. Not quite a frown. There is a touch of stern kindness on his leathery face. He is dressed all in khaki and wears a pith helmet, to protect his noggin from errant balls. Sitting in his cart, he looks like a general. Or he is a sad old psychiatrist of the fairways. He knows what strange torments we suffer as we batter our way from tee to hole. He has witnessed it all. He has seen the farters play, the manic-depressives, the unemployed tax accountants, the troubled taxidermists, has seen us all pass, all blow our shots, hit into traps, lose our balls in the hazard, bounce off trees, throw our clubs, break our clubs, swear, shout, dance, holler, and all, all out of love.

“I’ve lost my clubs,” I tell him. “I hit four balls into the water and then I lost my temper and I threw my bag in after the balls. Now I want my clubs back.”

He only stares at me.

I try a different approach. I laugh. I say, “I’m sure I’ve got a shot if I can find my ball.”

He nods his head, ever so slightly, and climbs out of his cart. He steps to the bank and, with a sigh, rolls up the bottoms of his trousers.