“You’ll learn to love it,” Whitey says, and while I’m not a gambling man, I feel certain this is a bet he would lose.
I drink too much and exercise too little, and—based on what I see all around me—I can’t figure out if I should feel grateful or dejected.
Grateful because half of the people I see are disgraceful: tomato-jowled fatsos huffing and puffing their way to a first heart attack. They are dressed identically: khaki slacks and double extra-large polo shirts that are still three sizes too small, tucked in so that their guts—marvels of sheer mass, spherical monsters poised to attack, or at least make a break for it, restrained only by those tireless belts, heroically strapped in their holding patterns—can do everything in their power to hold gravity hostage.
The other half are the opposite extreme, and cause me to question why I can’t summon the desire to stop treating my body like a temple of doom: these carb-counting, cardio-conversant, protein shake pounding members of the bionic boys club. These are the men who have nursed crushes all their lives, but are only now ready to commit and confess to the world how much they truly love themselves. The kind of men who had sex with their wives and felt like it was an act of betrayal. Men supremely confident to grow mustaches without irony, men who washed their cars more often than most people wash their sheets, men who never heard a compliment they could not improve upon.
Only in one place could one find so seamless a pairing of extremes: the golf course. Obviously.
“Wow,” I say. “This is even worse than I imagined.”
“You better get used to it,” Whitey says.
“How do you figure?”
“You better learn to love it if you want to get anywhere in this business.”
“In this business? What business do you mean, the asshole business?”
“Hey man, I’m just telling you like it is.”
“So what’s next, you’re going to tell me that I’ll need to fuck my boss to get promoted?”
“You should be so lucky,” he says, jokingly. I think. “If only it were that easy,” he adds, jokingly. I hope.
“Whitey, please do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Say something that doesn’t make me want to beat the crap out of you.”
“I’m serious dude, this is how business gets done!”
“Business?”
“Doctors, lawyers, businessmen. Deals get closed on golf courses more often than offices.”
As is too often the case with Whitey, I can’t help but wonder if there is a book people have to read in order to spout this sort of shit, or if it’s simply a result of assiduously avoiding reading in the first place.
“Whitey, have you ever heard of H.L. Mencken?”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
“Did he win the Masters or something?”
“Not exactly.”
“Look, if you want to get your colleagues to trust you, do it out here, on the links. This is how you bond with the big boys.”
“Why the fuck would I want to bond with any of those imbeciles?” I don’t ask. “I only need them to trust me as far as they can throw me,” I think. “If you say so,” I say.
“I know so,” says Whitey.
He is right about one thing: everyone plays golf. I was almost surprised when I discovered that The Don and the rest of the honchos couldn’t be bothered to blow off six or twelve hours every week. Then again, they are probably too busy playing with money to goof around with golf; they are too busy buying golf courses to play golf. Myself, I usually sleep on Sunday mornings. Everyone else, it seems, is either on the golf course or in church. As far as I can tell, I haven’t been missing much. As far as I can tell, golf affords grown men the opportunity to accomplish two things: get out of work (or, if they are married, out of the house on weekends) and drink beer. Not that I’m necessarily opposed to either activity, but I usually don’t have to dress up like a frat boy from the early ‘80s to make it happen. And I certainly don’t have to shell out sixty bucks to ride around in a cart and occasionally jump out to whack my ball into the woods or in the water.
“Couldn’t we at least have brought some good beer?” I ask.
“You have to bring cans,” he explains. “That way you can cram them into your golf bag.”
“We could always not drink,” I don’t say.
“You learned to love it,” I offer.
“Eh…”
“You don’t love it?”
“I used to love it, then I got better…”
“So?”
“Now I’m just good enough that I hate it.”
“Oh, so it only gets better from here,” I sigh.
“You’ll see,” he smiles.
Here is the real kicker: a lot of these dudes will get up while it’s still dark outside so they can squeeze in a semi-quick eighteen holes before heading into the office. I can’t fathom it. And yet, I have no option but to admire that level of lunacy, disguised as dedication. Myself, I feel pretty confident that if someone offered to shovel free money into my car, but I had to show up before six A.M., I’d happily hit my snooze button a few more times instead. It’s already getting chilly in the mornings and early evenings, so I wonder what these sportsmen do with themselves during the winter months. Sleep? Watch TV? Get to know their children again? Anything, I reckon, rather than spending more time at work. And on that score, finally we find some common ground.
“Lookit,” Whitey says, iron in one hand, can of (awful) beer in the other, unlit cigarette dangling. “This is America!”
Reluctantly, I have no real choice but to agree with him.
*Excerpted from my novel Not To Mention a Nice Life, available June 17.
