Free Fast Greens by Turk Pipkin Page A

whatever the hell it is?”
    â€œPro, my ass!” scoffed Roscoe as he signed the deed. “I don’t see no pro! Nobody around here but sharks and duffers and mama’s boys. And I don’t even know which one you are. So don’t get greedy, boy—we ain’t won yet.”

11
    March was one of those guys who even in a gusher year could never stroll past a golf ball in the water without trying to fish it out. With Roscoe’s tee shot sitting pretty and Beast’s almost on the green, you’d have thought his main concern was to take the penalty, get a good drop, and pray to Jesus H. Christ His Own Self for some wild hare of a hope at tying the hole.
    But as the rest of us headed toward the pond, we were treated to the sight of March leaning out over the water, a wedge in his right hand, his left entrusted to Sandy who anchored him to terra firma.
    â€œHah!” snorted Beast, who didn’t like golf balls and did his best to hurt them bad. “Gonna be two down for twenty thou and he’s sweating over a used Titleist. What a rube!”
    Of course, I could have gone in after the ball, but I had already learned that a kid carrying a bag doesn’t become a caddie until he assumes the decorum of the game. I would no sooner have waded in than I’d have told Beast I thought he was an a-hole. Golf is not a game about succumbing to temptation.
    So, with Sandy proving himself at least some sort of capable partner, March successfully snared the ball and dragged it to shore through the goop on the bottom of the pond. Muck and all, he tossed it to me for a quick cleaning.
    â€œHey kid,” he called. “What’s your name again?”
    I answered even though he knew it. “Billy.”
    March chewed my name the way Roscoe chewed his tobacco.
    â€œBilly. I like that. Just like when I was a boy. Billy, you know why the pond holds water?”
    â€œNo Sir. No Sir, I don’t.”
    â€œDuck shit! It coats the bottom.”
    I frowned at the slimy goop that the ball had left on Beast’s towel and toyed with the idea of wiping some of it on his grips. Then I saw Beast fixing me with his evil eye as if he’d read my mind. The thought of him biting off my ear replaced the idea of doctoring the grips, and I turned to toss the clean ball back to March.
    But then I noticed that something about March had changed. Both his cavalier attitude and his concentration on the game had suddenly vanished. He wasn’t even considering the shot he was supposed to make. Instead he was staring toward the third green, almost in a trance. I looked to Sandy to see if something was wrong. Maybe March needed his medicine again. But Sandy’s attention was focused on the green as well. The same with Fromholz, Roscoe, and even Beast.
    And then I knew.
    Standing next to the third green, silhouetted against the blue sky and motionless except for her cotton dress billowing in the gathering wind, was a very lovely woman. Even with my young eyes I could see that she was an exceptional vision of beauty. She was shaded against the hot sun by a slender parasol and her long fair hair was gathered loosely in a bun except for a few wild strands that played about her face.
    For a long silent moment, the six of us stood sweating through the goose bumps on our arms, waiting for the mirage to disappear.
    A low whistle issued from Roscoe’s pursed lips, but it was March, speaking in reverential awe, who gave a name to the vision.
    â€œMiss Jewel Anne Hemphill.”
    I could tell by the tone in March’s voice, and by the look in both men’s eyes, that to the two of them she looked exactly like the budding beauty of seventeen they first remembered from thirty years before. And the true wonder was that to me, too, this timeless woman looked just as she did in my earliest memories. I can see her still, leaning over my crib, her sweet smile stifling my infant sobs, her hair, long then as