Now August, muggy1 and oppressive in its middle weeks, is bringing summer to a sparkling distillation3, a final clarity. The fairways at the Flying Eagle, usually burnt?out and as hard as the cartpaths this time of year, with all the rain they've had are still green, but for the rough of reddish?brown buckgrass, and an occasional spindly maple5 sapling beginning to show yellow. It's the young trees that turn first ? more tender, more attuned6. More fearful.
Ronnie Harrison still swings like a blacksmith: short backswing, ugly truncated7 follow?through, sometimes a grunt8 in the middle. No longer needed at the lot, needing a partner if he was going to take up golf again, Rabbit remembered Thelma's saying how they had had to resign from the club because of her medical bills. Over the phone, Ronnie had seemed surprised ? Harry9 had surprised himself, dialling the familiar digits10 trained into his fingers by the dead affair ? but had accepted, surprisingly. They were making peace, perhaps, over Thelma's body. Or reviving a friendship ? not a friendship, an involvement ? that had existed since they were little boys in knickers and hightop sneakers scampering11 through the pebbly12 alleys13 of Mt. Judge. When Harry thinks back through all those years, to Ronnie's pugnacious14 thick?upped dulleyed face as it loomed15 on the elementary?school playground, to Ronnie crowingly playing with his big pale cucumber of a prick16 (circumcised, and sort of flat on its upper side) in the locker17 room, and then to Ronnie on the rise and on the make in his bachelor years around Brewer18, one of the guys it turned out who had gone with Ruth before Rabbit did, Ronnie in those years full of smartass talk and dirty stories, a slimy operator, and then to Ronnie married to Thelma and working for Schuylkill Mutual19, a kind of a sad sack really, plugging along doggedly20, delivering his pitch, talking about "your loved ones" and when you're "out of the picture," slowly becoming the wanly21 smiling bald man in the photo on Thelma's dresser whom Harry could feel looking up his ass4, so once to Thelma's amusement he got out of bed and put the photo flat on the bureau top, so afterwards she always turned it away before he arrived of an afternoon, and then to Ronnie as a widower22, with the face of a bleached23 prune24, pulled?looking wrinkles down from his eyes, an old guy's thin skin showing pink at the cheekbones, Harry feels that Ronnie has always been with him, a presence he couldn't avoid, an aspect of himself he didn't want to face but now does. That clublike cock, those slimy jokes, the blue eyes looking up his ass, what the hell, we're all just human, bodies with brains at one end and the rest just plumbing25.
Their first round, playing as a twosome, they have a good enough time that they schedule another, and then a third. Ronnie has his old clients but he's no longer out there generating new business among the young husbands, he can take an afternoon off with a little notice. Their games are rusty26 and erratic27, and the match usually comes down to the last hole or two. Will Harry's fine big free swing deliver the ball into the fairway or into the woods? Will Ronnie look up and skull28 an easy chip across the green into the sand trap, or will he keep his head down, his hands ahead, and get the ball close, to save a par2? The two men don't talk much, lest the bad blood between them surface; the sight of the other messing up is so hilariously29 welcome as to suggest affection. They never mention Thelma.
On the seventeenth, a long par?four with a creek30 about one hundred ninety yards out, Ronnie plays up short with a four?iron. "That's a chickenshit way to play it," Harry tells him, and goes with a driver. Concentrating on keeping his flying right elbow close to his body, he catches the ball sweet, clearing the creek by thirty yards. Ronnie, compensating31, tries too hard on his next shot: needing to take a three?wood, he roundhouses a big banana ball into the pine woods on the Mt. Pemaquid side of the fairway. Thus relieved of pressure, Rabbit thinks Easy does it on his six?iron and clicks off a beauty that falls into the heart of the green as if straight down a drainpipe. His par leaves him one up, so he can't lose, and only has to tie to win. Expansively he says to Ronnie as they ride the cart to the eighteenth tee, "How about that Voyager Two? To my mind that's more of an achievement than putting a man on the moon. In the Standard yesterday I was reading where some scientist says it's like sinking a putt from New York to Los Angeles."
Ronnie grunts32, sunk in a losing golfer's self?loathing33.
"Clouds on Neptune34," Rabbit says, "and volcanos on Triton. What do you think it means?"
One of his Jewish partners down in Florida might have come up with some angle on the facts, but up here in Dutch country Ronnie gives him a dull suspicious look. "Why would it mean anything? Your honor."
Rabbit feels rubbed the wrong way. You try to be nice to this guy and he snubs you. He is an ugly prick and always was. You offer him the outer solar system to think about and he brushes it aside. He crushes it in his coarse brain. Harry feels a fine excessiveness in that spindly machine's feeble but true transmissions across billions of miles, a grace of sorts that chimes with the excessive beauty of this crystalline late?summer day. He needs to praise. Ronnie must know some such need, or he and Thelma wouldn't have attended that warehouse35 of a no?name church. "Those three rings nobody ever saw before," Harry insists, "just like drawn36 with a pencil," echoing Bernie Drechsel's awe37 at the thinness of flamingo38 legs.
But Ronnie has moved off, over by the ball washer, pretending not to hear. He has a bum39 knee from an old football injury and begins to limp toward the end of a round. He takes a series of vicious practice swings, anxious to begin the hole and avenge40 his previous poor showing. Disappointed, distracted by thoughts of brave Voyager, Rabbit lets his right elbow float at the top of the backswing and cuts weakly across the ball, slicing it, on a curve as uncanny as if plotted by computer, into the bunker in the buckgrass to the right of the fairway. The eighteenth is a par?five that flirts41 with the creek coming back but should be an easy par; in his golfing prime he more than once birdied it. Yet he has to come out of the bunker sideways with a wedge and then hits his three?iron not his best club but he needs the distance ? fat, trying too hard just like Ronnie on the last hole, and winds up in the creek, his yellow Pinnacle42 finally found under a patch of watercress. The drop consumes another stroke and he's so anxious to nail his nine?iron right to the pin he pulls it, so he lies five on the deep fringe to the left of the green. Ronnie has been poking43 along, hitting ugly low shots with his blacksmith swing but staying out of trouble, on in four; so Rabbit's only hope is to chip in. It's a grassy44 lie and he fluffs it, like the worst kind of moronic45 golfing coward he forgets to hit down and through, and the ball moves maybe two feet, onto the froghair short of the green in six, and Ronnie has a sure two putts for a six and a crappy, crappy win. If there's one thing Harry hates, it's losing to a bogey46. He picks up his Pinnacle and with a sweeping47 heave throws the ball into the pine woods. Something in his chest didn't like the big motion but it is bliss48 of sorts to see the tormenting49 orb50 disappear in a distant swish and thud. The match ends tied.
"So, no blood," Ronnie says, having rolled his twelve?footer to within a gimme.
"Good match," Harry grunts, deciding against shaking hands. The shame of his collapse51 clings to him. Who says the universe isn't soaked in disgrace?
As they transfer balls and tees and sweaty gloves to the pocket of their bags, Ronnie, now that it's his turn to feel expansive, volunteers, "Didja see last night on Peter Jennings, the last thing, they showed the photographs of the rings and the moon moving away and then a composite they had made of the various shots of Neptune projected onto a ball and twirled, so the whole planet was there, like a toy? Incredible," Ronnie admits, "what they can do with computer graphics53."
The image faintly sickens Harry, of Voyager taking those last shots of Neptune and then sailing off into the void, forever. How can you believe how much void there is?
The golf bags in the rack here by the pro52 shop throw long shafts54 of shadow. These days are drawing in. Harry is thirsty, and looks forward to a beer on the club patio55, at one ofthe outdoor tables, under a big green?and?white umbrella, beside the swimming pool with its cannonballing kids and budding bimbos, while the red sun sinks behind the high horizon of Mt. Pemaquid. Before they head up for the beets56, the two men look directly at each other, by mistake. On an unfortunate impulse, Rabbit asks, "Do you miss her?"
Ronnie gives him an angled squint57. His eyelids58 look sore under his white eyelashes. "Do you?"
Ambushed59, Rabbit can barely pretend he does. He used Thelma, and then she was used up. "Sure," he says.
Ronnie clears his ropy throat and checks that the zipper60 on his bag is up and then shoulders the bag to take to his car. "Sure you do," he says. "Try to sound sincere. You never gave a fuck. No. Excuse me. A fuck is exactly what you gave."
Harry hangs between impossible alternatives ? to tell him how much he enjoyed going to bed with Thelma (Ronnie's smiling photo watching) or to claim that he didn't. He answers merely, "Thelma was a lovely woman."
"For me," Ronnie tells him, dropping his pugnacious manner and putting on his long widower's face, "it's like the bottom of the world has dropped out. Without Thel, I'm just going through the motions." His voice gets all froggy, disgustingly. When Harry invites him up on the patio for the beers, he says, "No, I better be getting back. Ron junior and his newest significant other are having me over for dinner." When Harry tries to set a date for the next game, he says, "Thanks, old bunny, but you're the member here. You're the one with the rich wife. You know the Flying Eagle rules ? you can't keep having the same guest. Anyway, Labor61 Day's coming. I better start getting back on the ball, or Schuylkill'll think I'm the one who died."
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1
muggy
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| adj.闷热的；adv.（天气）闷热而潮湿地；n.（天气）闷热而潮湿 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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distillation
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| n.蒸馏，蒸馏法 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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attuned
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| v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 )；调音 | |
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truncated
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| adj.切去顶端的，缩短了的，被删节的v.截面的( truncate的过去式和过去分词 )；截头的；缩短了的；截去顶端或末端 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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digits
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| n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾 | |
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scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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pebbly
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| 多卵石的，有卵石花纹的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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pugnacious
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| adj.好斗的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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wanly
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| adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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prune
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| n.酶干；vt.修剪，砍掉，削减；vi.删除 | |
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plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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hilariously
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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flamingo
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| n.红鹳，火烈鸟 | |
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bum
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| n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨 | |
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avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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flirts
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的第三人称单数 ) | |
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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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moronic
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| a.低能的 | |
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bogey
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| n.令人谈之变色之物；妖怪，幽灵 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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53
graphics
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| n.制图法，制图学；图形显示 | |
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54
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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beets
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| 甜菜( beet的名词复数 )； 甜菜根； （因愤怒、难堪或觉得热而）脸红 | |
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57
squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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ambushed
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| v.埋伏( ambush的过去式和过去分词 )；埋伏着 | |
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zipper
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| n.拉链；v.拉上拉链 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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