Free The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield Page B

handwritten cards, all neat and perfect, saying ‘Mr. Jones,’ ‘Mr. Hagen’ and ‘Mr. Junah.’ I thought about swiping them little cards, they must be worth jillions, but just then I heard that attendant or something coming, so I snookered into the back and there I was, in the shiniest damn shithouse you ever saw. You could eat your supper right off the floor, I swear, that’show clean she was. There was Kreml hair tonic and Vitalis up there on the shelf, all free, just help yourself, and witch hazel and rubbing alcohol and cotton balls, and even combs and tooth powder, and each commode had a pure mahogany wood seat. Hell, I figured, I ain’t gon waste this by only pissing, I’m gon drop a full load, just for the glory of it.
    “There I was, a-perched on this brand-new commode that probably nobody’s ass hadn’t never sat down on, when I heard fast footsteps, spikes a-clattering, coming in to the sinks. The stall door banged open two down from me and I heard this godawful retching, puking, disgusting sound. I zipped up and peered under the stalls. There was a man down there on his knees, with his hands on the rim of the bowl; the poor bastard was just heaving his guts up right into the commode! I froze right there on my bowl, with my feet tucked up so he wouldn’t see me. I could hear him finish and flush and then wash his mouth out in the sink and spit and heave some more, splashing Listerine around to kill the smell and even swallowing it. I raised up, tiptoe on the commode seat, so I could just peek over the top rim of the stall. The man’s hair was all hanging down in his face, I couldn’t make out who it was. Then he combed it back and leaned forward into the mirror and you know who it was?” Garland paused dramatically, peering around to make sure no one could overhear. “It was Walter Hagen, bigger’n shit!”
    “You’re a damn liar!” I shot at once.
    “If I’m lying I’m dying!” Garland grabbed me by the shirtfront and pulled me tight to him, shook me hard so I’d know he meant it. “Hagen was so cat-nervous he couldn’t even hold downhis breakfast. I know cause I looked after he left, and there was eggs and toast bits in that stall, sprayed over on the seat and the floor too.”
    This was more than I could endure. “Now I know you’re lying, Garland. The Haig never eats nothing for breakfast but oysters and French champagne!”
    Garland’s lip curled, he released me. “Believe what you want, son, but these eyes know what they seen. It was Walter Hagen and he was puking his damn guts up.”
    I staggered back, reeling. Tawdry Jones, one of the other forecaddies, caught me by the shirtback. “Breathe a word of this ever and your ass is sweet green grass.”
    The sun was full up now; already you could feel the heat steaming from the earth. It was nearly seven. The grounds before the hotel were packed with spectators emerging from the dining room and others arriving from the main drive. I filled my jug with hot tea as Bagger Vance had instructed me, and collected the apples and bananas and nuts.
    Out by the press tent a bunch of reporters and spectators were clustered around a ruggedly handsome older man they called Grant. It was Grantland Rice, I learned later, and he was answering a question, holding forth like royalty.
    “The seduction of golf? I’ll tell you its root. It goes back to the time before we were born, when we orbited in the ether, bodiless and without form. Don’t write this down, boys, I’m using it for my own column, maybe even for a book!”
    The reporters laughed and kept scribbling.
    “In those precarnate days, our consciousness existed much asit does now in dreams. That which we willed or imagined, our minds created instantaneously. A city. A shoe. A solar system. We had only to think and it appeared, complete to the tiniest detail.
    “Then, alas,” Rice continued, “we took upon ourselves the travail and torment of physical existence. We were born. We