Free Knuckleheads by Jeff Kass

opposite. If Newfeld or Bloch hit into the woods and the ball was all right, like it was playable, I kicked it so it wasn’t. I pushed it behind a tree or into a bush. The way I figured was if they were gonna be pissed off at the universe anyway, no matter how many breaks they got, why give them any breaks at all? Why not let every piece of evidence confirm their belief that every molecule in the world was out to get them? Fuckers.”
    This I know: I’m no hero. Not even a hero’s sidekick. I’m a family lawyer specializing in amicable divorces. I get them done too fast and my firm leaks income. My teeth are straight now and my limbs are more proportional to my body, but I’m flabby and my nose is overlarge. I look exactly like no one worth trusting. Couples finalize their deals quickly because no one wants to spend time with me. Nancy, at least for now, claims she’s willing to. She’ll sit next to me and watch television. She’ll say, “You’re good at what you do, Bruce. Be proud.”
    When Nancy takes her clothes off, her skin is pale and, often, a bit cold to the touch. I’m obviously nothing special either. When our bodies move against each other, there are no fireworks. Still, we are kind to each other. I stroke the hair on the back of her neck and sometimes she cries. She tells me she’s never let herself be vulnerable with anyone else. She trusts me because she knows I need someone to be vulnerable with too. We could be stuffed animals for each other, objects we’d like to grow out of but which, for now, we clutch onto with all we’ve got.
     
    Inexplicably, it happens again on the sixteenth hole.
    It’s a short par four and after Lisa’s rocket of a drive we are poised splendidly in the fairway, about eighty yards out. I go last this time. Gordon lobs a wedge to about ten feet. Good enough to let Lisa and Natalie fire dead at the flag. Natalie hits her worst shot of the day, a cut that lands in a flowerbed right of the green. “Sorry,” she says. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”
    I’m thinking maybe the beers are getting to her.
    Lisa plays a bump-and-run that for a moment looks perfect, but it slows in a clump of grass and winds up about a foot outside of Gordon. “All right,” Gordon says, as if there’s no chance I’ll hit anything closer. “Ten feet. One of us will knock it in.”
    I line my shot up and this time I do hit it just like I visualize. My backswing is smooth, the blade of my wedge digs a soft divot from the turf and the ball ascends in a gorgeous soaring arc. “That looks good,” Lisa says and we all watch it, a minuscule dot against a sky that’s swimming-lips blue. In our quiet, we can hear a cheer from a nearby hole. Some other group has made a birdie. Pathetic. Birdies are nothing to us. We are entitled to them. My ball lands half-a-foot from the cup, bounces once and drops into the hole. Another eagle. Lisa jumps high in the air with a shout and Gordon flips his wedge with an oh-my-fucking-god toss. Natalie scurries toward me on her toes and kisses my cheek, her mouth moist.
     
    One day that caddying summer it was about ninety thousand degrees. The air was broth. I got sent out in a threesome with Gordon, all ladies who couldn’t play to save their lives. They’d hit the ball twenty feet on the ground and then spend two minutes setting up and waggling and addressing the ball, and then hit it twenty feet again. The bag I was carrying was enormous and filled with golf balls and two umbrellas and even a sweater and an extra pair of shoes. The round was hot and endless and with three women and all that waggling, my boner was continuous and painful. In the middle of the fourteenth fairway, I was done. I couldn’t carry that condominium of a bag one more foot and I dropped it a hundred-and-fifty yards from the green and sat down and hung my head. I couldn’t have cared less if my bank account never grew another penny, I’d had it.
    Gordon didn’t hesitate. He