Tournament

The road was two-lane concrete through scrub country, and his headlights picked up sparse rough grass on the shoulders, stunted trees farther back. It was a secondary road and Flagg had taken it because the map showed that it would cut an hour off his time. An hour less of driving time meant an hour more of sleep. An hour of sleep meant a bit more repair to muscles wearied by the brute fairways of that last tournament, to nerves stretched and tortured and made brittle by the last three dismal showings that were turning this tour from farce into heartbreak.

He drove the big convertible mercilessly, leaning a bit forward, holding the wheel firmly, feeling the momentary weightlessness when the car went over the rises in the road. There was little traffic and the towns were far apart. He sensed that he was pushing the car too fast for safety, yet it was not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough to leave behind him the memories of the past few weeks.

That 11th at Millbourne, lining up that eight footer, knowing he was only two strokes off the pace. And knowing how important it was to come in with some money. Then the tightness, locking his elbows, putting a sour taste in his mouth. Hands greasy on the grip of the putter. Hearing the gallery silence, knowing that he had to move, that he could not stand forever looking down at the oddly shrunken ball, looking from it to the impossibly small hole that receded each time he glanced at it. With locked and creaking muscles he made a spasmed chop at the ball. It passed the hole a foot to the left, caught a dip and curved and stopped six feet away. The gallery sighed. He was still away. The uphill putt stopped inches short and he holed out for a bogey instead of a birdie, lost most of the rest of the gallery on the catastrophic fourteenth, and finished way back in the ruck, way out of the money.

“Glenn Flagg, pro from Indiana, after a sparkling 34 that put him within two strokes of Worsham, faded on the last nine. A, disastrous seven on the dogleg 14th brought him home with a 44, out of the money.”

Faded at Millbourne. Eliminated at Crest Ridge. Blew up in the second round at Pinelands. Fine tour. A triumph.

The motor drone of the big car faltered for a moment, then smoothed out. Flagg glanced quickly at the dials. He listened. It sounded fine. Maybe an impurity in the gas. Something like that. Something unimportant.

He returned to barren speculation, driving automatically. It had seemed such a logical thing to do. The Crooked Branch Club had been growing. The club members had been pleased when he had placed well in the two tournaments played there. He was their pro. He had done well in nearby tournaments, too. Then recently his game had gotten better than it had ever been. Walter Hagen had set the course record back in 1926-31-34 for a 68. It had been tied four times, twice by pros and twice by amateurs, but never bettered. Until Flagg had shot the 66.

Halverson had come to him, representing a group of the members. They wanted to chip in on the expenses, wanted him to make a big swing, hit the tournament circuit. Halverson said they believed in him, said it would help the club, said that Dernard, the assistant pro, could hold things down until he got back.

“We don’t expect you to go out there and beat Hogan, Glenn. But we think you can put the Crooked Branch Club on the map.”

“I’ll have to talk it over with Kate, Mr. Halverson.”

There was Kate and the kids to think about. With what the club paid him, plus his cut from the pro shop and the income from the lessons, and the job downtown in the sporting-goods store during the Indiana winter, they had the house half paid for. That was on one side of the ledger. When you’re winning, they say, don’t change the dice.

But he was 29 and his game was as good as it had ever been, and maybe better than it would ever be again. He could keep all winnings. And there might be additional income. Besides, he wanted to play against the big names. There were the years in back of him. All the caddy years, and the public-school tournaments, and grubbing lost balls out of forgotten ponds, and the team at state college. All the years of the swing and clack and the white dot rising to fall back to the greenness, bounding, rolling. You raised your head then, Mrs. Barlow. Let me watch the ball this time. You keep your eye right on the place where the ball was, even after it’s gone. Break your wrists at the top of the back-swing. Now, wasn’t that better, Mrs...

The car slowed and the motor ran raggedly, popping, faltering. He tightened his grip on the wheel. He pumped the gas pedal. Smoothness of power came back and the car surged ahead again. This time it was longer before he relaxed his attention.

Damn fool to have tried it. Too much at stake. Go sidling back with apologetic smile. That’s okay, Glenn, old boy. They were just too rough. Kroll and Mangrum and Oliver. Middlecoff and Hogan and Snead and Locke. You did fine, boy.

They’d say that, but they’d know. Faded, chickened out, weakened when it got rough. Smiles and pats on the back, but they had the tournament bug now. The big name bug. And the money to buy that kind of name. To buy, maybe, that special breed of nerve.

He knew he’d always been a cool player, always competitive. But there was too much pressure. And he knew he was too afraid of losing. Too afraid of the consequences of losing. Kate’s voice on the phone the other night had been too filled with cheer — with a thin edge of nervousness behind the cheer.

He was speeding down a long hill when the motor quit entirely. He rushed down the night slope with only the sound of the wind and the sound of the tires on the seams between the concrete slabs. He had a helpless vision of what this night could be, stranded here in strange country, losing time, losing sleep — perhaps losing the practice round before the qualifying round. And Belle Arbor was rugged. Prizes were fat and it would be fast company.

Flagg shifted to neutral, pulled out the lever that took him out of overdrive, shifted back to high and let out the clutch cautiously as he reached the bottom of the hill. Tires gave a quick yelp and the motor was turned over at high speed. He pumped the gas pedal. Just as he was about to shift down into second for a last try the motor caught raggedly. It ran roughly and uncertainly but it got him up the next hill and the next. It quit with finality as he topped the third hill crest and he saw lights down in the valley.

He coasted down and found a brightly lighted gas station and garage on the right, 100 yards beyond the bottom of the hill. He coasted up to the open doors and stopped. A man walked out. He wore a soiled and faded pair of coveralls, and carried himself with that indefinable look of competence of the good mechanic.

He listened to the description of the trouble, opened the hood, brought out a small wrench, performed some mysterious act and asked Flagg to try to start it. The grinding of the starter was a hopeless sound. He motioned Flagg to stop.

“Fuel pump,” he said. “There wouldn’t be a replacement in town. I can phone in the morning and get one in on the noon bus from Brayburg tomorrow.”

“I’m in a rush. Can you fix this one?”

“I can take a look at it.”

Flagg waited. The man took it in to a bench and dismantled it. He fingered the parts, held it up to the light. “I can fool with it. Might get it working.”

“Will it take long?”

“Half hour. Maybe a little more. If I don’t get much gas trade.”

Flagg wandered around the front of the station. He saw green neon down the road on the far side. Beer. He told the man he was going down and get a beer. The man nodded, didn’t answer.

It seemed oddly quiet on the edge of the small town in the warm night. He could hear a thick beat of music from the distance. He crossed the highway. A truck droned down the hill behind him, slowing as it thundered into town. It swirled dust up from the shoulder behind it, and he tasted the dust against his teeth.

The music became louder as he approached the place. It was a small white frame building with three cars parked in front of it. He went up three wooden steps and pulled the screen open and went in. The music stopped as the door slammed behind him. Four men in work clothes sat at a table near the back of the room. It was a barren room, too brightly lighted, decorated with the signs and symbols of the brewers. The bar was on the left. The bartender and the four men looked at Flagg as he walked in. It made him feel conspicuous, and his footsteps were loud on the worn wooden floor as he walked directly to the bar, hitched himself onto a stool of murky chrome and cracked red plastic. The big-lunged juke, flamboyant with tubes and rising bubbles and a dozen pastel colors, squatted against the rear wall and made thin metallic sounds, then blasted out in a startling way that drowned his voice as he gave his order to the bartender, so that he had to speak again, almost shout.

He sat there, running his thumb up and down the chill glass, wiping away the mist, staring at the three coins the bartender had slapped down, drenched by the juke noise. He felt unreal to be in this place so far from home. Unreal, and yet safe. Nothing was asked of him here. Enough to pay for his beer. No problem of whether to play it safe or try the long carry over the trees. He half smiled when he realized that he didn’t even know the name of the town.

When the music stopped again he heard the men wrangling. “Damn it, Willy, why you got to make Ed keep that box turned up so loud? I swear I’m getting all hoarsed up yelling this here conversation.”

A deep soft voice said, “It botherin’ you, Andy? It botherin’ you bad?”

“Now don’t get sore, Willy! Don’t you get yourself all...”

And the nervous words were interrupted by a thick sound and a splintering crash. Flagg turned quickly. One of the four men was on his feet. He was a husky animal, heavy in the shoulders, black hair tangled and worn long, eyes bright and blue and vivid in a lean brown face. A man sat on the floor beside the broken chair. It was evident that he had no urge to get up. The other two men looked humbly down into their beers.

The baldheaded bartender said, “Willy, you got no call to go breaking this place up. I tole you last time if you go bustin’ my place up again you...” He stopped as Willy came toward him, taking long quick strides, and put big hands flat on the bar.

“You like the music nice and loud, don’t you,

Ed?” Willy asked in that soft voice. “Don’t just bob your head at me. Tell it to me nice, Ed.”

“I... I like it loud good enough, Willy. But please...”

Willy swung back to the table. “How ’bout you, Andy?”

The man he had hit was standing up, feeling his jaw. “I think maybe you bust something the way you busted old...”

“We talking about the music, Andy.”

“Oh, sure. I like it real loud. I like it fine.” Andy swung another chair over from a nearby table and sat down hastily. Willy stood over the table, thumbs tucked under the waistband of his jeans, rocking from heel to toe.

One of the other men glanced up at him and looked down hastily and said firmly, “Louder it is the better I like it.”

“Me, too,” the other one said quickly. “Me too, Willy.”

Flagg turned quickly back to his beer. He heard Willy laugh. It was a soft fluid sound of delight. Flagg sensed what would happen. He felt incredulous about it, but knew there was nothing he could do. The slow steps came toward him, stopped in back of him.

“You got anything to say, mister?”

Flagg turned slowly, half smiling, though the smile made his lips feel stiff. “About what?”

“Maybe you don’t hear good. We talking about loud music. You got ideas on that?”

Flagg looked at the man. They were about the same height. Willy had 30, perhaps 40, pounds advantage. His forearms were thick, with heavy muscles that rolled under the skin. There was a crazy wildness in the blue eyes. They shifted constantly, rapidly, the black pupils, made small by the bright lights, shifting back and forth, back and forth across Flagg’s eyes. There was a sweat of tension on Willy’s face, and a thick smell of violence seemed to emanate from him.

“I never thought about it much,” Flagg said, keeping his voice mild, flushing as he heard the unexpected tremor.

“Leave him be, Willy,” the bartender said.

“Shut up, Ed,” Willy said, his eyes continuing that odd motion. “I talking to this here boy. Start thinking now about how you like your music.”

“I like it loud sometimes,” Flagg said. He saw the shift of weight and knew he had made a mistake. He tried to get his arm up but he wasn’t quick enough. A fist like a stone caught him over the ear and swept him from the stool so that he fell among the other stools, knocking them over, falling with them, landing sprawled and dazed on the floor. The lights seemed brighter than before, and Willy, high above him, said in an echoing faraway voice, “We like it plain loud all the time.”

Flagg wanted to tell him this was childishness. People didn’t do this sort of tiling. He shook his head to clear it.

“How you like your music?” Willy asked, sitting lithely on his heels, staring at Flagg, thick thighs straining the faded fabric of the jeans.

“Loud,” Flagg whispered.

“All the time, mister?”

“All the time,” Flagg said.

Willy smiled at him almost fondly and got up and strolled back to the juke box. He stood and began to study the selections. Flagg got quietly to his feet and went to the door. Just as he reached it he heard a running sound and he instinctively lunged out through the door into the night. When he heard the laughter from all of them he knew that Willy had turned and stamped his feet to make a running sound, the way you frighten children. When he was 100 feet from the place he heard the music start again.

Flagg went back to the station. The car was nearly ready. He waited. It caught at the first try, ran smoothly when the mechanic raced the motor. The mechanic got out, left it idling. Flagg paid him. He got into the car. He drove out and by the green neon.

It was childishness, he thought. It was something you could laugh about. I was down in this little town. My fuel pump quit and while it was being fixed I...

It would take some doctoring to make it a good story, an amusing story to tell in the locker room. This was a small town. He didn’t even know the name of it. Nobody knew his name in this town. Nobody had ever seen him before and he would never see any one of them again. There was no need to ever mention it to anyone. To Kate or anyone else.

Sure, you could get up and get your head knocked off. Or if you did hit that hard head of his, how were you going to hold onto a club at Belle Arbor? What does a brawl with a small-town punk prove? There’s nothing adult about getting up to be knocked down again. The prudent man stays down.

He drove through the town and out the far side. He got the car quickly up to cruising speed and then let it slow down again. He pulled over on the shoulder, off the concrete. He crossed his arms on the steering wheel and leaned his head against them. Nobody had to know. There was everything in the world to lose.

Just like at Melbourne. And Crest Ridge. And Pinelands. Each one making a tiny hole in the bottom of the place that held all your pride and your courage and that indefinable thing that made you a man. A gradual weakening of the structure so that when you met Willy the whole bottom fell out and everything ran out. And there was nothing at all left for Belle Arbor or any other tournament on the schedule, or for Kate when he got back.

He made a noise like a sob and he clenched the strong sensitive clever hands. Then it was over. He straightened up in the seat. He felt oddly calm. The shoulder was wide enough for a U-turn. He went back, parked under the neon and got out. The warm night was cool against his face. He walked through the door, down the length of the room, through the pound and drench of the music. He kicked the plug out of the wall socket and turned, in the silence of the bright room, turned grinning toward the man who moved toward him, feeling both a desperate fear and a high bold pride.