E VA N M A N D E R Y
Chapter 24 ***
F
ROM THE TIME THE Y ME T, Billy persistently pleaded with David to
join him for a real round of golf. David employed every imaginable excuse to avoid the match. They only had a few hours to practice
after school and they needed to make the most of the time, he’d say, or that the course would be too crowded, or that he couldn’t play in the cold. When the Broward County schools let out in June, David couldn’t put Billy off any longer. Summer afternoons were hot, the courses were deserted and they had more time on their hands than any sixteen or 67-year-old could fill. He had no choice but to play. On the morning of the appointed day, David descended to the condominium basement, where he’d stored his clubs on the day he’d moved in nine years earlier, and where they’d remained, untouched, ever since. He found them under a pile of empty boxes, a 400-watt hair dryer and a microwave oven with a dial knob, all of which had been stored because David lacked a compelling reason to throw them away. The clubs had been retained under more or less the same reasoning. As David tossed aside the ancient cartons to liberate the tools of his former trade, he thought how unusual it must be for an abandoned item to be reclaimed. Metaphorically, the basement resembled Florida: a place from which the banished never returned. 253