Free Mad Professor by Rudy Rucker

cleaned shoes and piles of fresh white towels sat on the white-painted shelves around him. Although the bare-skulled Ragland’s eyes were half-closed, it was likely that he was listening.
    â€œIt was the five mibracc,” said Tonel. “Doin’ Ragland’s yard work. Isn’t that right, Ragland? What’s the dealio? How you getto slave-driving them Republicans? I need to know.” Tonel lived right next door to Ragland. The two weren’t particularly fond of each other.
    â€œDon’t be mouthin’ on my business, yellow dog,” said Ragland. Though he cleaned the shoes of popinjays, he insisted on his dignity.
    A burst of talk echoed from the little back room beyond Ragland’s station. Just like every other morning or afternoon, the mibracc—he caddies’ nickname for “men in the back room at the country club”—were in there, safe from women, out of the daylight, playing cards and drinking the bourbon they stored in their lockers.
    â€œThose bagworts do chores?” said Jack. “No way, Tonel.”
    â€œI seen it,” insisted Tonel. “Mr. Atlee was draggin’ a plow with Mr. Early steerin’ it. Mr. Gupta was down on his knees pullin’ up weeds, and Mr. Inkle and Mr. Cuthbert was carryin’ trash out to the alley. Ole Ragland sittin’ on the back porch with his shotgun across his knees. Did your Meemaw put conjure on them, Ragland?”
    â€œYou want me to snapify your ass?” said Ragland. Though gray and worn, Ragland was, in his own way, an imposing man.
    Tonel made a series of mystic passes, hoodoo signs, and rap gestures in Ragland’s direction.
    â€œI’ll ask the men myself,” said Jack, caught up by Tonel’s rebellious spirit.
    The two boys stepped into the back room, a plain space with a tile floor and shiny green paint on the windowless concrete walls. The five old men sat in battered wooden captain’s chairs around a table from the club’s lounge. Oily Mr. Atlee was dealing out cards to spindly white-haired Mr. Early, to bald-as-a-doorknob Mr. Inkle, to Mr. Cuthbert with his alarming falseteeth, and to Mr. Gupta, the only nonwhite member of the Killeville Country Club.
    â€œHi, guys,” said Jack.
    There was no response. The mibracc studied their cards, sipping at their glasses of bourbon and water, their every little gesture saying, “Leave us alone.” Mr. Inkle stubbed out a cigarette and lit a fresh one.
    â€œListen up,” said Tonel in a louder tone. “I gotta axe you gentlemen somethin’. Was you bustin’ sod for Ragland today? My friend here don’t believe me.”
    Still no answer. The mibracc were so fully withdrawn into their clubby little thing that you could just as well try talking to your TV. Or to five spiteful children.
    â€œScoop,” grunted Mr. Cuthbert, standing up with his glass in hand. Mr. Gupta handed him his empty glass as well. With the slightest grunt of nonrecognition, Mr. Cuthbert sidled past Tonel and Jack, moving a little oddly, as if his knees were double-jointed. His oversized plastic teeth glinted in the fluorescent light. Mr. Cuthbert pressed his thumb to his locker’s pad, opened the door, and dipped the two glasses down into his golf bag. Jack could smell the bourbon, a holiday smell.
    The mibracc’s golf bags held no clubs. They were lined with glass, with tall golf bag—sized glass beakers, or carboys. Big glass jars holding gallons of premium bourbon. It was a new gimmick, strictly hush-hush; nobody but Ragland and the caddies knew. Mr. Atlee, a former druggist, had obtained the carboys, and Mr. Early, a former distiller’s rep, had arranged for a man to come one night with an oak cask on a dolly to replenish the bags. The mibracc were loving it.
    Mr. Cuthbert shuffled back past Tonel toward the card table, the liquid swirling in his two glasses. The boy fell into stepbehind the old man, draping