Chapter 18

AT THE FAR-LEFT END of the Planation Estates driving range, David jerry-rigged an instrument of torture. Along the ground, he set pair of clubs, pointed in parallel to the Phase Three clubhouse in the distance. About a yard in front of the clubs, he twisted an upright broken shaft into the ground. For the pièce de résistance, he clipped a five-iron to a nylon strap that attached to a blue Kevlar vest. David gestured for Billy to duck his head so that he could place this macabre “training aid” around Billy’s neck.

The range was deserted. Seniors didn’t care much for practice. Nevertheless, he looked up and down the practice area self-consciously. The boy was understandably reluctant to don a device that could only have been designed by a sadist.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“What does it do?”

“It connects the club to your chest so that you’re forced to hit the ball with your body instead of your hands.”

“How can I hit a ball without my hands?”

“You promised to trust me completely. That was the deal.”

Billy sighed in surrender. It was true. That was the deal he’d made

a couple of weeks earlier, but David hadn’t put him through anything like this. Billy bent down and reluctantly allowed David to slide the vest over his head. Armored knights had greater freedom of movement. He walked Frankenstein-style to the spot where David had teed up a ball, checked out the set-up, shook his head and asked, “Okay, what now?”

“Try and hit the shaft with your shot.”

“I can barely move my hands. How am I going to hit the ball?”

“Use your body.”

Billy shook his head incredulously and gamely gave it a try. He waggled, generating the force from his chest and made a comically awkward movement that vaguely resembled a swing. His club hit the ground approximately six inches behind the tee, bounced upwards and grazed the top of the ball. It landed approximately two feet to the right of where he stood. Billy looked at the ball and said, “Sweet.”

David replaced it on the tee. “Again,” he said.

Billy kept at it. After a few repetitions, he managed to hit a low, liner 75 yards or so down the middle.

“Pured it.”

“Okay,” David said. “Now I want you to start the ball to the right of the shaft and hit a draw.”

“I just hit my five-iron seventy-five yards. How can I hit a draw when I can’t use my hands and I have an iron maiden around me?”

“You’ll figure it out.” Billy rehearsed for a while, taking practice swings in which he bumped his hips forward and dropped his right shoulder to the ground so that he would hit the inside part of the ball. When he was satisfied that he could make a decent go of it, he addressed the ball and swung. Though he propelled it only forty yards or so, the ball started to the right of the shaft and turned ever so slightly to the left of its initial target line.

“Excellent,” David said.

“I just hit it forty yards.”

“When you practice with me, I define success. Now hit another draw.”

Billy sighed. Again, he went through the elaborate preparations. Again, he produced a shot that looked one hit by a five-year-old. This constituted progress only based on David’s long-term understanding of the process required to produce repeatable golf shots.

“Again,” David said.

“How many do I have to hit of these?”

“One hundred.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“One hundred. Then one hundred fades. After you get better at this, we’ll make you hit high and low shots until you can work it around the clock hitting it with your body. It’ll be six hundred shots in total.”

“Six hundred…” Billy cried in protest.

“Unless you think you’re not up to it.”

The challenge silenced Billy. He redoubled his efforts. He desperately wanted to please Billy, but he never had the concentration to stay with a drill for very long. After a few shots, he stepped back, drifted in David’s direction, and asked, “How many majors do you think Tiger would have won if he hadn’t driven his Cadillac into the fire hydrant?”

“I know how many you’ll win if you don’t practice.”

Billy hit a few more, then wandered back again and asked, “Who do you think lost the most sleep—Van de Velde thinking about Carnoustie, Arnie thinking about Olympic or Mickelson over Winged Foot?”

“Van de Velde, but Watson has them all beat.”

This time he only hit two more practice shots before returning.

“If Tom Watson had held on at Turnberry, where would that have ranked in all-time greatest golf achievements?”

“It would have been the greatest with nothing a close second.” He put an arm around Billy’s shoulder and added, “But professionals generally don’t talk during practice. It’s considered a distraction.”

Billy looked at him quizzically. “So you never spoke with your teacher during lessons?”

“He was a man of very few words.”

“How did you learn?”

“I think the question is how one can learn without silence.”

Billy took the hint and yet again returned to the routine with a new resolve. This lasted approximately ten shots. David could see that Billy was fighting to keep himself from bursting. Several times he almost spoke, but caught himself and kept himself in check by contorting his body into the rehearsal position, and taking a practice swing or two, which required great concentration and precluded conversation, but after a particularly feeble shot, which traveled approximately twelve feet, instinct took over, and he wandered back to David and blurted, “You know what this reminds me of? Did you ever read The Da Vinci Code?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like those Catholic priests who hit themselves. They had a funny word for it.”

“Flagellation.”

“That’s right. Self-flagellation. The only other time I’ve ever heard that word was to describe something a bacterium uses for locomotion. You know, like a spirochete.” He emphasized this word for comic effect. “Somehow, this Christian sect has adapted the bacterial motor to sadomasochism. What were they called again?”

“Opus Dei.”

“Right, Opus Dei. They would whip themselves until they bled. Was that a real thing or made up?”

“Real.”

“Did they ever explain in the book why the priests did it?”

“I think it’s supposed to be a way of showing remorse for sin.”

“Don’t the priests take a vow of poverty and abstinence?”

“Yes.”

“So what was their sin?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, anyway, it kind of feels like that.”

Billy smiled, tottered back to the tee and, mustering up his remaining determination, resumed practice. He became increasingly frustrated. Soon, he began to regress. He whiffed a couple of times and then, improbably, hit a ball backwards as he recoiled in frustration.

David put an arm around on the boy’s shoulder and said, “Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”

Billy said, “Great,” even though it was barely half past eleven o’clock. David had the sense that he could have gotten the same reaction by suggesting that they go to the dentist together. Billy removed the vest and threw it to the ground as if it were a slain boa constrictor.

*** In the clubhouse, David and Billy ordered a couple of Arnold Palmers.

“Two half and half’s coming up,” the waitress replied.

“It’s not the same thing,” David muttered, after she left. “Arnie would always get upset. It’s supposed to be mostly iced tea with a splash of lemonade. If the tea didn’t dominate, he didn’t think it tasted right.”

“Do you think it was weird for Arnold Palmer to order an Arnold Palmer?”

“He didn’t like it at first, but he got used to it.”

“It’s like how Achilles’s Achilles heel was his Achilles heel. I mean,

what are the chances of that?”

David smiled as the waitress returned with the drinks. “Here you go boys—two Arnold Palmers.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

They took long sips.

“Too much lemonade,” David groused, but Billy didn’t seem to mind, and he gulped his down. When he finished, he pulled an envelope from his pocket, handed it to David across the table and said, “I got you something.”

David looked at the envelope and Billy with confusion and asked, “Why?”

“To thank you for what you’ve done for me these couple of weeks and for what you’re going to do for me this summer. Besides, today’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

David frowned. “How do you know that?”

“Mrs. Friedlander told me. It’s the big six-five, right?”

“Remind me to have a chat with Millie about privacy.”

Billy smiled and nodded at the envelope. “Go ahead, open it.”

David didn’t want a gift for what he’d done for Billy and he definitely didn’t want to acknowledge his birthday. Furthermore, he had a foreboding sense that he didn’t want the contents of the envelope even before he tore it open and found a ticket to that evening’s Spitfire concert.

“How do you know about this?”

“You told me that was the name of Scott’s band.”

“How do you know my son’s name is Scott?”

“You told me.”

“You really need to stop listening so carefully to what I say.”

“I don’t think so,” Billy said, smiling.

David felt a flood of emotion. Some related to the idea of Scott’s

presence in southern Florida. More stemmed from the fact that Billy had put so much thought into the gift. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched David in this way. He held up the ticket and said, “Well, rock concerts aren’t really my thing, but thank you very much.”

The waitress arrived with the food: a tuna sandwich for David, fries and a grilled cheese for Billy. “How about a refill on those half and halfs?” she asked.

“No thanks,” David replied.

“Sure,” said Billy.

“I’ll be right back with that.”

When she left, Billy said, “Can I ask you something?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t, but that hasn’t stopped you before.”

Billy smiled again and asked, “Why don’t you speak with your kids?”

David wouldn’t have tolerated the question from anyone else. Somehow he didn’t mind it coming from Billy. “How do you know that I never speak with my kids?”

“Um, we discussed it during one of our practice sessions?”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Billy sheepishly stared into his grilled cheese and admitted, “Mrs. Friedlander told me.”

“Is there anything she doesn’t tell you?”

“Nope,” he replied, and flashed his winning smile.

“Well, I’m really going to have a chat with her.”

“Did you say rock concerts aren’t your thing because you don’t want to see your son?”

“Geez, where does this directness come from? In my family, we learned to conceal our feelings. Haven’t your grandparents taught you anything?” David hoped the joke would deflect the question, but he could see that Billy still expected an answer. “It’s not that I don’t want to see my son,”

David said. “It’s more that I think he wouldn’t want to see me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Billy said. “I’m sure he’d want to see you very much.”

“How can you be so certain?”

Billy looked down at this plate and for a moment his persistently optimistic countenance faded. “I know I’d like to see my dad.”

The wave of sympathy rushed through David’s head, lodged briefly in his throat and settled finally in the pit of his stomach. He felt things for this boy that he hadn’t felt for anyone in years. Softly, David said, “This is different, son.”

“I don’t think so. I can’t think of any circumstance under which I wouldn’t want to see my father.”

“Imagine that he abandoned you or that he abused you.”

“Is that what you did?”

“No.”

“So why should I imagine it then?”

“Okay, suppose that he let you down in some way?”

“Doesn’t everyone let someone down in some way?”

“But your father? Wouldn’t you be angry?”

“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so. If I were, I wouldn’t stay mad forever.”

David nodded and said, “You’re a better man than I am.” Even though David had only known Billy for a few weeks, he genuinely believed this to be true. After the waitress collected the empty plates, David paid the check and said, “Let’s go putt.”

As they walked from the clubhouse, Billy shifted the conversation to lighter matters. “Best golf swing you ever saw?”

“Ben Hogan,” David answered without hesitation. I got to play nine holes with him once. He was in his early seventies and had lost his dis-

tance, but it was still the best swing I ever saw. If you’re asking about golfers I saw in their prime, the answer is Trevino. I never saw anyone hit it like him. And, by the way, Watson winning the Open at Turnberry would have been the greatest sports victory of all time, not just the greatest golf victory.”

“What are we going to do now?” Billy asked as they arrived at the putting green. “Maybe you’ll glue my hands together, cover my eyes and make me hit putts until I can channel the Force.”

“I was thinking we’d start with left-handed ten-footers, then right-handed ten-footers and then—yeah—this drill where you putt three-footers with your eyes closed.”

“Maybe about two, three hundred of each?”

“I was thinking I’d take it easy on you—how about only fifty of each?”

Billy dropped a ball at the edge of the putting green and said, “Tell you what: if I miss this putt, I’ll do as many drills as you like, today and for the rest of the summer. But if I make it, we end practice early this afternoon, you get cleaned up and go to the Spitfire concert tonight.”

David checked out the putt Billy had selected, a double-breaker of more than sixty feet. David doubted Billy could three-putt it, let alone hole it. “So you’re saying if you miss this putt, you’ll follow whatever practice routine I lay out for the rest of the summer?”

“For the rest of forever.”

“And if you make it, you’ll still practice, just not today.”

“I’ll even practice today—we just cut off early.”

David would have agreed even if Billy’s condition had been that he’d never practice again; he couldn’t make this putt one time in a thousand tries, but it was a nice sweetener. “All right, deal.”

If it’d been David attempting this putt in any type of competitive situation, he’d have surveyed it from every angle, checked the grain of the

green, plumb-bobbed, taken three rehearsal strokes behind the ball and two more standing beside the ball before he took his try. Billy dropped a ball on the green, checked the hole once and whacked it. He hit it so hard that it should have landed in the rough by the first tee box. Instead it hit the hole, bounced straight up and back down into the cup.

Billy grinned, walked off the putting green and said, “Enjoy the concert.”