Toby Olson - Seaview

Alongside the pants on the bed was the Chair’s shirt, a knit pullover, kelly-green in color, with white stitching around the edge of the collar and pocket. A canvas cap and a belt were beside it. The cap was red and had a white-and-green emblem, a golf tee with a ball beside it, and the words Seaview Links stitched in the front of its crown. The belt was white and made of plastic, its edges stitched with black thread. It had a black, plastic-covered buckle. On the floor, below the garments, were the Chair’s socks and shoes, the socks lying neatly over the shoes, not touching the floor. The shoes were two-toned, green-and — white Foot-Joys, with scalloped dust tongues (devices the manufacturer called “shawls”) covering the laces. They had been brightly shined. The socks were new, green-and-black Argyles.

The Chair stood in his boxer shorts and undershirt in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door to the side of the bed. He turned in a slow circle, keeping his eyes on the mirror, checking himself out. He reached up into the legs of the boxer shorts to the tails of his undershirt, pulling it down until there were no wrinkles where the elastic waistband met the shirt. He sucked in his stomach and adjusted the straps at his shoulders. Then he sat down on the bed beside his clothing. He ran a hand along the leg of his pants, and then he reached down and lifted the socks from the shoes, rolled each one down to the toe and adjusted them on his feet, unrolling the tops until they were straight and tight to his lower calves. He twisted the left one to get the ribs and the diamonds in line.

When his socks were in order, he got up and lifted his pants, shook them slightly, lowered them, and stepped in. Pulling them up, he danced a little to get them to fall properly in the leg. He noted the way the little boats fell. He turned and took his putting stance in full view in the mirror. With his left leg extended, the right back and firm, the little whale on the inside of his thigh could be seen. He smiled at himself. Then he picked up the belt and slipped it carefully through the loops. He left it unbuckled and lifted the shirt up and shook it out. He slipped it on, and rather than pull at the fabric, he did another little jig so that it fell down around his body until he could see himself in the mirror again. He adjusted the collar, unzipped the pants, and squatted with legs apart to hold them up while he tucked his shirt over his boxer shorts, smoothing out wrinkles around his body. When the shirt was secure, he gripped the pants, stood up, and pulled them over the shirt. He zipped them and fastened his belt, adjusting the buckle over his fly. He checked the pants fold to make sure the zipper was covered.

He went to the closet and opened the mirrored door and took out a piece of rug, which he brought back to the side of the bed, and placed his shoes on, taking the spikes off the floor. Then he sat down and put the shoes on it, lifted the scalloped shawls and laced them. When this was done, he picked up the cap, smoothed back his hair, and put it on, pulling the peak down firmly. Then he stood up on the piece of carpet and looked at himself in the mirror.

At first he stood straight, then he slouched a little, casually, putting his weight on one leg, the way he would stand while one of his partners was putting or teeing off. Then he took his putting stance again, checking the inseam of his trousers and the placement of the whales, the place where his pants met his socks, the protrusion of his anklebone with a diamond directly over it, and the arc of the side of his shoes and the way the first two scallops of the shawls angled along them. One of the tips of the laces was protruding from under the shawl, and he reached down, lifted the shawl, and opened the bow a bit, and then took his stance again and nodded. He checked his right leg to see that the pants came to the tops of his shoes. Then he took another casual stance, the one with his left hand on his hip, his right arm hanging loosely, bent at the elbow, his hand in his pocket with his thumb protruding along the fabric. This is the way he would stand in the clubhouse before they went out, talking jovially and authoritatively with the men.

Then he took various stances and went through various motions. There was the motion of pulling the peak of his cap down with conviction, snugging it as he prepared to address his ball for a long iron shot only after he had studied the distance and other issues perceptively. There was the motion of picking and throwing bits of grass in the air, watching their speed and direction as they fell, checking the variations in wind conditions before he teed off. There was the stance of disapproval when someone moved while another was putting. There was the stance and look of condescending approval at a shot well made. Once he let his left arm rise up and fall in mild philosophical despair at the behavior of Sammy. Another time there was the look reserved for Frank Bumpus, a look of restrained intensity. Once he put his hand on his head, looking to the heavens in disbelief. Once he smiled warmly, very loose in his body, his clothing showing brilliantly, suggesting obviously desired friendship.

Near the end, he went to a drawer in the dresser at the foot of the bed and from among carefully stacked packages of golf balls, tees, markers, and hats — his winnings over the years in the tournaments — got out a new glove from a pile of them. The glove was dark green with a white flap of Velcro on its underside to secure it, and in the middle of the flap was an emblem, a spherical figure, a transparent matrix of parts, in the middle of which was a small green club head. At the tip of the flap was a pearl button that could be removed and used as a ball marker. He slipped the tight glove over his hand, securing the Velcro. He went back to the mirror and stood before it. He lifted the gloved hand in front of his body at a level with his chest, the back of the glove facing away from him, the sphere and the pearl button clearly visible in the mirror, in a position where all would be able to see it. He formed a loose fist with the hand, his index finger extended and pointing. He was about to speak, and they all were listening attentively and with much anticipation for what he was about to say.

Chip’s Special Seaview Map

THE CHIEF STOOD BESIDE THE SCREEN DOOR OF THE clubhouse, almost as still as a cigar-store Indian or like an official greeter, and nodded to the men he knew by sight and the ones he did not know, as if it were his place to welcome them to the tournament. They had a greeter in the town at the end of the Cape, that historic seaport. He was an old man and once selected he had the job for life. He wore clothes that imitated what the Pilgrims had worn, though his were acetates and vinyls, and he carried a bell that he rang as he walked the streets crowded with tourists, greeting them and crying the news of the town, his town, if he struck one as more than a transformed emblem of the real past. The Chief had this greeter in mind, but since he knew he wore the history of his people in his features and demeanor, he had opted for a more insidious twist, and his costume consisted of no more than a Seaview Links golf cap and an old wooden-shafted niblick that he usually held by its head and used in his brief and economical gestures as a pointer and a kind of walking stick. Otherwise, he was dressed in a pair of khakis and worn tennis shoes and a blue chambray shirt buttoned at the collar of his thin neck. His hair was black and straight, and it hung below the back of his cap, short but touching his lined neck, cut straight across. Though seventy-four-years old, tall and thin, he stood with the grace of one who was no more than fifty.