Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

THE COUNTRY CLUB says the signpost, EST. 1921. We turn off the tiny road, disappear behind a line of junipers, down a gravel drive. We slow down. To the left is a green. Dan rolls down his window and waves to an elderly man who looks up from examining a putt. He recognizes Dan, waves back, and returns to his study. I’ve never seen a green like this one — two tiered, immaculate, almost artificial. The man addresses his ball, and Dan speeds up. I turn to look out the back to watch him, but he’s not ready. He steps away, reexamines his line, then is obscured by the first in a row of enormous oaks.

“Pretty nice?” asks Marco.

“Lovely,” I answer. Still looking back as though I possessed supernatural vision.

“Played here before?” asks Buster without turning. I’m offended by his lack of effort. I decide I don’t like Buster — that it’s all right for me not to, to make an aesthetics-based decision. Buster is bad: his smug nose and lips; the tiny cleft on his chin; his absurdly blue eyes — the kind that first his mother and later his wife bought shirts and ties to match. He takes care of his skin. It’s well scrubbed, well oiled, but his close-cropped hair was done at a barbershop. He’s not so far gone — maintains just enough old-world masculinity in his grooming ritual. He turns to me to check if I’m really there, not believing that I heard his question. How could he have been ignored? I get a better sense of him when he turns. He’s much larger than Dan — more rectilinear; his shoulders, his head, his jaw — everything really, except for that smug little nose. In another time he’d be sporting a smug little mustache — lip cover. It fits too well here in Gatsby land. He’s Tom, dreaming of future conquest and past athletic glory. But we all know that during Buster’s playing days Ivy League football was already bush league and that the land grab is long over. I wonder what kind of car he has and how many Mexican workers he can hide in his trunk. I dislike Buster more than Tom. At least Tom had Polo as an outlet. This guy’s violence is too contained. He speaks again, even more truncated.

“Play here?”

“Never.”

“Gonna like it.”

“Looking forward to it.”

They’ve all managed to shave — nickless. They’re all wearing polo shirts — different colors, but the same nonetheless. Their assemblage — haircuts, smooth cheeks, collars, carriage — adds up to some sort of badge, a pinky ring for some sort of blue-blood mafia. I stop there because of Marco. I think he’s my friend, but the evidence points away from that. Dan stops the car. And even though the analogy is offensive — makes no sense — I wait for Marco to put a bullet in my head.

Nobody shoots. They open their doors, and I follow suit. Someone has snuck around back and opened the hatch. Two teens, one black and one white, take our clubs out and stand them beside the walk. Dan whispers something to the white kid. The black kid does his best not to look at any of us. He fusses with the bags, tries to make them all stand up in the rack.

“Let’s go,” says Dan. Buster and Marco follow him up the path to what I assume to be the clubhouse — obscured by more enormous oaks. I’m left in the netherworld between the house and the ride. I want to say something to the black kid, as though I possessed wisdom, some armored words for him for now and for later. But all I have in my head is the beginning of a disjointed autobiography. Now he looks up at me, queerly. He’s a handsome kid — dark skinned and dark eyed: a question in them, asking me, perhaps, what I’m doing still standing there. He shoulders two bags and turns away.

My companions are gone, into the clubhouse. I walk up the cedar-chip path beyond the trees and up to a grand old Victorian. I stop at the door. An older couple walks up the path toward me — the man from the green, and another man, whom I thought to be a woman, I’m not sure why. They don’t seem to notice me until, a pace away, they both look up. Not surprised. Almost calculated. The man from the green gives me an unreadable nod. The other ignores me and opens the door. He stops, says hello to someone coming out. It’s Marco. He greets both men; neither cracks a smile and they go in.

Marco turns to me with a puzzled look.

“What happened?”

“I was talking to those kids,” I point back down the path, at the trees. “I lost you.” He looks down, then at the big door, then sideways at me. “Sorry. I thought I’d find you again if I stayed put.”

“We were in the pro shop,” he points at the wall as though it was cut away. “You could’ve just come in. You’re my guest.”

“It’s all right.”

“However you want it, man.”

He seems hurt again but not like the night before — it’s a hurt that, away from booze and maître d’s and young women, has room to grow, on his face, in his stance. Marco is my friend, and it becomes apparent that he needs me, and needs me to need him. I smack him on the arm, the best I can do right now.

He shows me the shirt.

“I hope it fits.”

“Thanks.”

“Use the locker room — it’s at the end of the hall to the right.” He looks up almost cross-eyed, reassuring, “It’s cool — all right.”

“All right.”

“You need anything else?” He looks happy again — that innocent look he has — eager, can-do, optimistic.

“Yeah.” He perks up even more. “I need balls. Pro shop?”

“No, not there,” he waves a finger at the house. “They’re criminals.” He points at his chest. “I’ve got balls. I’ve got plenty of balls.” He gestures to the door with his head. “Go get changed. Our tee time’s soon.”

Marco is a good man. He’s my friend, so I smile and give him another slap on the arm, which he seems to like. He opens the door for me, and I turn to go in. The clubhouse is like the inside of a hollowed-out oak tree — oak floors, walls, and long benches along them in the great room. The tarnished frames of the oil paintings have lost their luster, and they, too, seem to have been carved into their places. The charter members, like so many smears of berry juice on the wood cave walls.

“All the way across to that hallway,” says Marco, “then the first door on the left.” He hands me the shirt.

There are people inside. Some sit and some move, but all are like bees in a torpor because of the early morning cool — safe for now. I’m backlit by the sun, still low over the first fairway. My shadow is long on the floor.

“Hurry up, man.”

Marco is my friend. He’s given me food and shelter all summer. He thinks I’m like him, and that because of this, he knows what I need. I can’t tell him that he’s trying to kill me.

I cross the great room without much ado — no one seems to look. The locker room is empty. The transom is open above the door that leads outside to the back, and I can smell the pool, hear the scrape of the pool man’s pole along the concrete edge. I hate the smell of chlorine. It reminds me of day camp and shouting sadistic counselors — their barks echoing off the tile. Mildew in the showers. Naked boys in rows. Pot-bellied, squishy adolescents. The nastiness of their sharp laughs. The slap of their feet, running on those slippery floors, always made me think of gushing head wounds and broken teeth. After the afternoon free swim I’d watch the older boys play pool for quarters until it was time to go. I’m alone and this room is wood paneled, carpeted, and quiet. I check my roll in my pocket. I put it away and take a practice swing, then another, trying to check myself in the mirror. I take off my shirt, catch the reflection of my torso. I’m thinner than I thought I would be. I swing again — things seem to be moving in tandem.