The Nine Lessons (6 page)
Golf puts man’s character to the anvil and his richest qualities—patience, poise, and restraint—to the flame.
—Billy Casper
O
ne week after
my first golf lesson with London I awoke to an awful sound coming from the bathroom.
Bloouurrghp!
When I saw that Erin was not in bed with me I hopped up as quickly as I could and ran to the bathroom door. It was locked. “Are you okay, Schatzi?”
There was no verbal reply. Instead, another of the strange sounds that had yanked me from my peaceful slumber rang out from inside the bathroom.
Bloouurrghp! Bloouurrghp!
Whatever it was, it sounded like it hurt. I shook on the doorknob to try to jimmy it open, but it didn’t budge. “Erin, what’s wrong?” I said, feeling a sudden rush of panic. “Are you hurt? What’s going on?”
Blooooouuuurrrggghhppp!
It was almost more than I could take. I shook violently on the doorknob again. “Erin! Open up!” Based on the ferocity of the noise reverberating through the door, I could only guess that something was horribly wrong. Was she sick? Was she injured? Was she dying? Without the benefit of a response I could only guess, and my imagination was running rampant.
Just as I was preparing to kick the door in and rescue her from an awful fate, the sound abruptly ended. Then the toilet flushed, and out walked Erin just as happy as can be. “Good morning, August,” she said cheerfully, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
I stared at her in disbelief. “Good morning? For crying out loud, I thought you were at death’s door. What in the Sam Hill was going on in there?”
“Oh, just a little morning sickness. I feel much better now, though.”
And thus began the second month of my wife’s pregnancy. It was an awful month. Erin lost her appetite, the smell of certain foods made her gag, sometimes the smell of
me
made her gag, and every time she had to vomit she would lock herself behind closed doors and begin barking like an injured seal until it was all over. But worse than all of that, the nausea was keeping her up at night, so she was getting very little sleep, which ultimately developed into a very foul temper. I usually took the brunt of her wild emotional flaps. Part way through the month, for example, she spent thirty full minutes lecturing me on the proper way to replace a roll of toilet paper.
“Were you raised in a barn?” she mocked. “Everyone knows that it’s supposed to roll over the front, not from behind!” And I won’t even mention the depth of her fury when I inadvertently left the toilet seat up before one of her vomiting spells. Misery loves company, and Erin seemed determined to make me join her in her suffering.
Erin was in a particularly wretched mood on the day of my second golf lesson with London. Truth be told, even though I wasn’t looking forward to golfing, it at least served as a good excuse to get out of the house. I showed up just a few minutes after ten o’clock in the morning. London was already there, waiting with a fresh stack of his scorecard journal entries.
I looked briefly at the tiny words that filled the topmost card. The name “Augusta” caught my eye, and I wished that I could just sit down and start reading through the deck instead of playing golf.
“So, what’re we learning today?” I muttered, still scanning the words on the scorecard.
London ran a hand through his thick hair as we started off toward the clubhouse to check in. “I’m afraid I haven’t decided yet. But I’ll think of something before we tee off.”
I shook my head in dismay. For a guy who had been so adamant about my playing golf again that he was willing to barter memories of my mother to get me to do it, he sure seemed uninterested now. “I’m glad this is so important to you that you’ve done some planning.”
London wasn’t fazed. “No worries. I’ll come up with something. But before we get too focused on golf, I was wondering how things are going with the pregnancy. Is Erin doing all right these days? Is there anything she needs?”
“An attitude adjustment would do her some good,” I quipped sarcastically. “But other than that, everything is fine.”
My father stopped walking. “How do you mean?”
“Oh, you don’t want to get me started on that topic, or we may never get to play golf.”
“Well, is there anything I can do to help?”
I chuckled. “Maybe one of these nights when she’s in a really bad mood you could lend me your spare bed, but other than that, nothing comes to mind.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Well let’s just say, I’m seeing a whole new side of Erin, and it isn’t pretty. If I so much as look at her wrong it sets her off these days. I know it’s just the pregnancy hormones and lack of sleep, but still, it’s tough. I’d bet good money that if I looked up the word cranky in a dictionary it would say something like, ‘see Pregnant Woman.’ And then there’s the morning sickness. When she’s vomiting she complains that she’s vomiting, and when she’s not vomiting she complains about being nauseated and she wishes she could throw up again so she can feel better. It boggles my mind. I just keep wondering when it’s all going to end.”
My father studied me, methodically tapping his forefinger on his upper lip while looking me up and down. I felt like I was being judged. “Well,” he remarked, suddenly acting completely indifferent. “I’m sure you’ll both get through it.” He started walking again. “Hey, do you mind if I run ahead? I wanted to say hello to Delores before we start. She should be down on the driving range right about now.”
“Go right ahead. I’ll check us in and meet you at the first tee.”
Ten minutes later, while I was practicing my swing beneath the shade of a tall maple whose leaves were not fully unfurled, a familiar voice shouted cheerfully behind me.
“Augusta! Augusta!” I turned to find Delores shuffling up the path toward me. Her bright orange golf bag hung precariously from her shoulder.
I waved hello and asked how she was doing.
“Fine as wine!” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “That wonderful father of yours—” She turned her head slightly and looked back. “Oh, here he comes now. I’ll let him tell you.”
London was walking quickly up the path. He stopped directly beside the tee box and waved us over as he yanked a large driver from his bag. “Has she told you, Augusta?” he asked once we joined him. His demeanor with Delores around was noticeably different. More nervous. I shook my head. “I’ve asked Delores to join us today. It’s time for her to leave the comfort of the driving range and take a crack at the links. So we’re playing as a threesome,” he concluded. “I hope you’re okay with that.”
Delores didn’t give me a chance to respond. “I’ve so been hoping for a golf date with London. But two handsome Wittes are better than one, as far as I’m concerned!” She tipped her wire-rim glasses lower on her nose and winked at my father unabashedly. He didn’t even seem to notice. London was either completely uninterested in the woman and was consciously dodging her advances, or he was too dull to recognize that she fancied him. Either way, I wasn’t surprised. Although he never bothered to talk about her, I knew that my father had somehow never really gotten over the loss of my mother. The pictures of her that dotted the walls of his house were a testament to the fact that even after all these years, he still hadn’t let go.
I sighed inwardly, knowing that this was going to be a very long day. “Great,” I lied. “Sounds fun.”
My father was the first to tee off, taking extra time during his warm-up swings to give Delores some pointers. He finished the instruction by hitting a beautiful three-hundred-yard drive straight down the fairway. On a hotter day with harder ground it might have rolled all the way up onto the green.
I was nominated to go second, since the ladies’ tee was quite a ways farther up the fairway, and it didn’t make sense to double back on the very first hole. As usual I shanked mine horribly, sending the ball squirreling off toward the trees 150 yards away.
While I was putting my driver away, the ring of a cell phone interrupted my mental self-loathing. “Dad?” I gasped, surprised that he, of all people, would carry a phone around on a golf course.
He pulled the gadget from his pocket and read the number on the front screen. “Sorry,” he said, “I have to take this. It’s the restaurant.” He spoke quietly into the receiver for a few seconds, and then nodded several times as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “No problem,” he said finally, “I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Delores and me. “Delores, would you mind if Augusta helps you out for a while? I’ve got a small emergency to go take care of, then I’ll be back to join you for the back nine holes.”
Delores winked again, this time at me. “Fine as wine,” she quipped.
“Thank you. Why don’t you make your way on up to the ladies’ tee while I have a word with Augusta.” Delores waved good-bye to my father, then heaved her bag to her shoulder and started up the path. “I’m sorry about this, Augusta,” he said once she was out of earshot. “Do you mind terribly?”
“No,” I lied again, “it’s
fine as wine.
A little bit like the blind leading the blind, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”
“Wonderful. Thank you. Listen, Delores has been going through a bit of a rough spell since losing her husband to a heart attack a couple years back, so try to be gentle with her.”
“No problem,” I said honestly. “I’ll take good care of her.”
When I joined Delores at the ladies’ tee she had all of her clubs laid out on the ground, trying to divine which one was the right one to use. I recommended she start with a three-iron, because it would be more forgiving than a driver, though with somewhat less potential for distance. She stepped up and swung as hard as she could… over and over again. Delores missed seven times in a row before finally connecting. I was beginning to wonder what she’d been doing all those weeks at the driving range if she was still unable to make any contact whatsoever with the ball. On her eighth swing the toe of the club barely nicked its target, sending the sphere petering off the tee box about fifteen feet away, and quickly coming to a stop not far from where I’d set down my clubs. Her second shot wasn’t much better, nor were her third or her fourth, or any of her thirtyish shots on that first hole. I cringed to think that it was probably a lot like watching myself playing the game as a kid.
Golf was definitely not Delores’s cup of tea (cup of tee?), at least not yet. She struggled with each and every shot. But each time she swung I dutifully gave her words of encouragement, helping her along as best as I knew how. To my surprise, by the fifth or sixth hole she did begin to show signs of improvement. Not only could she carry her bag properly, but she was also hitting the ball with more consistency.
London was waiting for us at the clubhouse as promised when we came in after the first nine holes. Delores excused herself to the ladies’ room as soon as we walked in the door, which afforded me a few minutes alone with my father.
“How did it go?”
“Better than I thought,” I said with a chuckle as I sat down across from him at a table. “It was fun playing with someone who is worse than me.”
“But how did Delores do?” he questioned.
“Oh, she was a trouper. She struggled at first, but she really hung in there. I could tell she appreciated having someone there with her, even if all I did was offer a little encouragement and support. You can ask her yourself, but I think she genuinely had a good time. By the last hole she actually looked like she was getting the hang of it.”
London smirked knowingly. “Good. Then this month’s lesson is over,” he stated casually, turning his attention to a large television hanging on the wall.
“But you’ve been gone this whole time. You haven’t taught me a single thing.”
He grabbed some peanuts from a tray on the table and popped them in his mouth, still watching the TV. “Delores was your instructor today.”
“What do you mean? She knows less about golf than I do.”
London pulled his stare from whatever he was watching and gazed at me, blinking twice. “Fine then. She wasn’t your instructor. But she was your partner today, and just the sort of partner you needed. What did I tell you before I left you two alone?”