The Perfectly Good Lie Page 5

  He sent a text to Josh Laird.

  ready 2 talk

  It was late afternoon when Buck drove north of town to Adeline’s, a country-western bar with a lively happy hour. He was a quarter mile away when Art spied a gamer store in the strip mall across the highway.

  “Oh. I want to go in.”

  “You don’t need any more video games,” Buck said.

  “But I need to see what’s new,” Art said.

  “I thought you wanted to meet some real girls? Tuesdays are Ladies Night.”

  Buck turned into the large parking lot at Adeline’s. There were several mud-covered pickup trucks, a few jacked up on oversized tires and most had gun racks in the rear windows. But there were some chick cars—small SUV’s and compact sedans.

  They walked to the red metal building decorated like a barn. Inside it felt more like a cavern with the concrete floors and exposed ductwork. There were picnic tables for the barbecue restaurant, a circular bar near the pool tables, and a dance floor in front of the stage. The night crowd hadn’t arrived yet; pool tables were only half full and the sound system blared out a pop country tune while a few couples two-stepped across the dance floor.

  “It’s loud in here,” Art protested.

  Buck walked to the bar and Art trailed closely behind him.

  “Mr. Buchanan. Haven’t seen you in a while,” the bartender said to Buck.

  “Leslie.” Buck found two open stools together. “We’re having dinner at the bar tonight.”

  “Want a beer?” Leslie eyed Art, and then added, “I’ll have to card him.”

  “Mountain Dew for me, Dr. Pepper for him,” Buck answered.

  “No,” Art said loudly, lifting his chin and waddling his throat. “I want Mountain Dew, too.”

  Buck settled into his seat and then scanned the room. “Uh, is Roxanne working tonight?”

  Leslie bent over and filled two glasses with ice. “She moved back to Denton after you broke her heart.”

  “Hey, not my fault. I didn’t make any promises to her.”

  “You never do, do you?” Leslie set the glasses on the bar.

  Art grimaced when he drank from his glass.

  “Why’d you order it?” Buck asked.

  Art pushed the glass away. “I wanted to be like you.”

  “Give him a Dr. Pepper.”

  “Who’s your friend?” Leslie asked Buck.

  “We’re brothers,” Art told her.

  “Half-brothers,” Buck said.

  “I’m his caddie too. That makes us like full brothers.”

  “So you’re still chasing the little white ball.” Leslie wiped the bar.

  “What else is there?”

  “You haven’t changed a lick.” Leslie placed menus on the bar for them, asking, “What would you two like for dinner?”

  Art lifted his shoulders and shut his eyes, a big grin on his face. “I want a hamburger with cheese, french fries and extra ketchup, please.”

  “What about you? Steak and baked potato?”

  “Yep.”

  After Leslie walked away, Art turned to Buck. “Can I dance with her?”

  “She’s working.” Buck felt angry but he wasn’t sure it was just because Art was being stupid.

  Maybe it was Roxanne. He’d been fair to her, to all the women he’d slept with, Leslie included. Always careful not to lead them on, he went out of his way to make it clear their time together was for fun, not forever.

  A month, maybe three, was usually when the timer went off. Sometimes it was prompted by the “I need to know where this is going” conversation, or the persistent nudging to meet her family or friends. The dead ringer was the command invitation to the younger sister’s wedding. Tick tock, tick tock.

  Their dinners arrived, delivered from the kitchen by a short Hispanic girl. She kept her eyes on Art and he looked down at his lap. Leslie returned with silverware wrapped in paper napkins.

  “When’s the band start tonight?” Buck asked.

  “Eight.”

  Art used his knife to paint ketchup on a french fry while Buck tucked into the overcooked steak.

  So this was Buck’s life now? Tethered to Art day and night? For how long? Years? Til death do us part?

  Everything Buck wanted was coming his way. But it wasn’t how he’d envisioned it when he first dreamt of playing on the PGA. But can the daydreams of a fifteen-year-old-boy ever match real life? Those early visions were no better than peering through a periscope, a pinprick of the future while actual reality hid in the periphery, waiting to trip him up. The hassles and the hard nuisances he’d expected, but the bizarre interaction of Ruthie’s death and the win at the Midvale wasn’t something he could have ever anticipated.

  Would every good thing that happened in his life have a gotcha attached to it?

  “C’mon, we’re leaving.” Buck pulled out his credit card and placed it on the bar.

  Art looked up, surprised. “But I’m supposed to meet girls tonight. You said you’d teach me to line dance.”

  Buck caught Leslie’s attention and she came with the check.

  “It’s not starting for another two hours. I’m not waiting around. Do you want to stop by the gamer store or not?”

  Art stuffed the rest of his burger in his mouth and then jumped off the stool.

  Buck drove to the gamer store and Art raced inside as soon as the van came to a halt.

  Buck stayed behind in the van. He felt off his mark, misplaced between two worlds, deprived of his normal life. Six months ago he’d have been out with buddies having a beer. Instead he watched Art through the storefront window. The kid had on a clunky headset and thick gloves, pretending to shoot with a bow and arrow. A make-believe Robin Hood world flashed across the large screen. A couple of geeks waited on the sidelines.

  Ten minutes went by and the game seemed nowhere close to ending. Buck went inside and tapped Art on the shoulder.

  Art ignored him.

  Buck lifted the headset off Art.

  “Hey! You’re going to break it.”

  “Time to go,” Buck said.

  “I need some money.” Art removed the gloves.

  “What for?”

  Art hurried over to the sales counter. A stack of video games waited by the register.

  Buck picked up the top one and looked at the price. “You can buy one, that’s it.”

  Art bounced up and down on his toes and did an exaggerated version of his baby bird gobble-gobble thing with his throat. “How can I know which one is the best until I play them all?”

  “Not my problem. If you can’t decide, then you get none.”

  “Please let me have three. It’s my money.”

  “Two. That’s it. And be quick about it.”

  A little after seven o’clock they were on the road to the beach house. Behind the wheel, Beck felt relieved to be moving. Art slept in the passenger seat, for once not consumed by a video game.

  When they’d left Surfside this morning, Buck had been certain they were on the right track. But driving in the dark, with Austin behind them and only the span of the headlights to illuminate the road ahead, Buck had a powerful sense of loss—friends, a regular paycheck, a steady stream of women. He’d given up his social life to chase his dreams, but now all he could see in the future was a dull wasteland with Art.

  The rain continued the next day and the temperature dropped below freezing. A burst pipe meant they had no water and it gave Buck an excuse to leave the beach rental a few days ahead of schedule, pushed by the urge to tackle head-on whatever waited for them in Arizona.

  #

  They left the beach house before 4:00 a.m. Buck hoped to drive straight through to Phoenix, saving on a hotel room. As the van approached the outskirts of San Antonio, the slightest hint of dawn appeared. Traffic grew heavier and Buck exited onto the northern loop to avoid the freeway that crisscrossed through downtown. The route took them within a few miles of the Oak Ridge Golf Club.

  He
’d worked there one summer during college to avoid returning home during the break. Any place was better than the broiling summers in Houston, stuffed into a cramped apartment with Ruthie and Art.

  They needed a pit stop, might as well be a familiar place.

  He woke Art and they both cleaned up in the locker room and then sat at a four-top in the grill. Art gobbled up eggs and bacon with his usual relish, oblivious to the surroundings.

  Buck turned sideways in his chair so he could stretch out his legs while Art worked at cutting a waffle into equally divided squares.

  Buck didn’t pay much attention to the old guy with an oxygen caddy. As the man shuffled towards them, Buck lifted his leg off the chair and pulled it aside to make more room for the old man. It was then he noticed the thinning white pompadour, the defining physical characteristic of Johnny Crocker.

  Johnny’s claim to fame was being the oldest living Augusta champion. He was also a founding member of the Oak Ridge Golf Club. By the time Buck had worked here during college, Johnny was more a fixture on the barstool than a force on the course.

  Johnny had an old-man stoop, his shoulders rounded and his head at a permanent downward angle. He stopped for a moment and turned his head slightly to search Buck’s face. There was a glimmer of recognition, then a small smile.

  If Johnny had seemed old before, he was a relic now.

  Buck hadn’t thought about Johnny in years.

  “How are you?” Johnny asked. It was a vague question that made Buck wonder if the old guy really remembered him.

  So he introduced himself. “Buck Buchanan. I worked here several years ago.

  “I remember. You could hit a long ball as I recall.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Buck looked around at the empty tables. “Would you like to join us?” he asked.

  “Yeah, my regular gang isn’t here yet. But they’ll be coming.”

  As Johnny struggled to get into the chair, Buck stood to help him with the oxygen tank.

  “Art, can you stop eating for a second and move that chair?” Buck said.

  Art used one hand to push the chair back from the table. Buck settled Johnny into a seat and then scooted the chair closer to the table, careful of the hose attached to the oxygen tank.

  There was a large, flesh-colored hearing aid in each of Johnny’s ears. His face had deep wrinkles, and his skin was mottled with sunspots.

  “Where you at these days?” Johnny asked.

  “On the tour,” Buck said.

  “Beautiful. How you been playing?”

  “I’m getting there.” No sense going into all the morbid details about Ruthie’s death or training Art to be his caddie. He wasn’t looking for sympathy or advice.

  The waitress came by. She put her hand on Johnny’s shoulder as she placed a cup of coffee in front of him. “How you doing this morning, Mr. Johnny?” Then she looked at Buck. “Y’all need anything else?”

  “No thank you, ma’am.”

  “You playing Augusta?” Johnny asked Buck.

  A conversation with Johnny never failed to include the Masters. To expect the old fart not to bring up his one major win would be like expecting the moon to suddenly fall out of the night sky.

  “Not this year,” Buck answered.

  “Boy, I remember it. That’s how it is these days. You can’t remember dinner last night, but sixty years ago is clear as daylight. They call it the zone now, but for me it was like a race with the devil. Glorious moment. I would have sold my mother downriver for that green jacket.”

  The legend was that Johnny roared through a six-shot deficit, surprising everyone when he captured the trophy.

  Shortly after the Masters win, Johnny’s career fizzled. The dark side of the legend, repeated in whispers behind his back, was that it had been a lucky break, not talent or skill.

  The conversation turned to how Johnny’s wife had died a few years ago. He was living alone now.

  “It’s not too bad,” the old guy said. At night, I just pee in one of them pots instead of getting up twenty times. Never could have done that with Lois. It saves a lot of time and water.”

  The waitress returned with a bill for Buck.

  “We’re fixing to hit the road.” Buck pulled cash from his wallet.

  “Where you headed to?”

  “Phoenix.”

  Johnny looked up at Buck. “Well, if it don’t work out, and you’re looking for a place to settle down, come back and see me. This ain’t a bad life, son. San Antonio’s a nice place to live. We can make room for another pro here.”

  What should have felt like a charitable gesture and proof that Johnny still had pull at the club, Buck took as a slap in the face. All he heard was that Johnny didn’t believe Buck could make it on tour.

  Could Johnny perceive some essential quality lacking in Buck? Was the word “loser” tattooed on his forehead?

  However generous Johnny’s offer was, it felt like a death sentence to Buck. Like sending him an invitation to spend the rest of his life in a coffin with an pitiful obituary for a career.

  Buck said a hasty goodbye, paid the bill, and hustled Art outside to the van.

  Never would he return here, or any other club, with his tail between his legs, begging for a soulless job that would suck the life out of the game he loved. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—fall into that trap.

  Art took over driving. Once they were beyond San Antonio, the sky darkened and soon a cold, heavy rain pounded the windshield.

  Buck adjusted his seat and settled in. He wasn’t gripping the steering wheel any longer, but his body held onto the bump and grind of the road. Johnny had opened a door to a place that could swallow Buck whole, a place where the demons of doubt could multiply like rabbits in the dark and he could get lost forever, if he weren’t careful.

  It wasn’t much later when Buck hit a wall. He couldn’t hold his head up. He crawled into the middle section and stretched out on the mattress. He fell into a fitful sleep, full of visions of trying to climb stone steps leading to a monument or a public building. Other people were there, but he was the only one on his hands and knees, feeling the pressure of gravity pushing him down as he struggled to claw his way to the top, desperate to make it, but feeling the weight of the world on his back.

  #

  Ten days before the start of the Phoenix Open, Buck and Art settled into a Residence Inn on the western outskirts of town. Each day they drove thirty miles to practice on the Tournament Players Course in Scottsdale.

  Besides getting time on the course, it was Buck’s opportunity to acclimate Art to the atmosphere of a PGA event.

  “Stay close to me at all times,” Buck said. “Let me see your game face.”

  Art grimaced and squinted his eyes.

  “Don’t try so hard. Like this.” Buck stared at nothing and took all the expression out of his face.

  “And no trash talk anymore. You can think what you want about golf being stupid, but keep it to yourself.”

  After a few days on the ground, Buck found a golf course about halfway along the route between the TPC and their hotel. He fell into the routine of leaving Art with his video games at the hotel at the end of the day. He’d go hit a bucket at the Glenwood Golf Club to unwind, stay loose, and to get out of the room.

  The club kept the range lights on until nine o’clock, same as the tennis courts. The place was probably once considered high-end, in the seventies maybe, but now it was an aging, middle-income retirement community. Had rinky-dink written all over it.

  On the Wednesday evening before the start of the tournament, Buck showed up near dusk. The parking lot faced the driving range. A line of mature eucalyptus trees littered the sidewalk with their long-fingered leaves. He took Leon’s 1-iron from the rack. He’d never use it in competition, so it freed his mind to slam balls without any expectations or judgment or worries about the quality of his swing. His sole intention was to burn off enough nervous energy for any hope of a good night’s sleep before th
e first round.

  He paid for a large bucket of balls and walked out to the busy range. Markers the size of bocce balls separated the overused tee slots. He claimed the only available space.

  There were a few spare tuffs of grass on the hardpan dirt. He was facing a man in the next slot taking lessons from a woman.

  The man swung with a jerky hip move, a failed attempt to put more power into his stroke.

  As the instructor leaned over and teed up another ball, Buck’s eyes instinctively zeroed in on the V of her shirt gaping open.

  Buck slid the 1-iron across his shoulder blades and hooked his arms around either end, stretching from side to side while he watched her demonstrate the swing. Very slowly, her arms moved back and her body twisted like a corkscrew and then she lowered the club with intention, pausing at the point of impact before completing the rotation.

  The older man took another swing and snap-hooked it. The ball didn’t make the fifty-yard flag. The man groused, “This doesn’t seem to be helping much.”

  His next ball popped up and landed only a few feet forward of Buck.

  The instructor looked over at Buck and apologized. Her eyes were a deep brown and she had long dark hair pulled into a loose knot at the nape of her neck.

  The man grunted. “My swing is getting worse, not better.”

  Buck could see the instructor talking, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. The man took out his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out some cash. As he handed it to the instructor, he asked, “When do you think I’ll be able to break eighty? I’m playing with my brother-in-law next week.”

  Without thinking, Buck answered, “The day after never.”

  Both the man and the instructor turned to him. The man had a scowl on his face. The woman tilted her chin downward and stared at Buck.

  “But don’t listen to me,” Buck said. “I couldn’t teach a baby to drool.” It wasn’t true. He’d taught Art to be a caddie.

  “I’ll see you next week,” the man said to the instructor. He turned and walked away with his golf bag.