“Hay-zoos, lemme tell you something,” Wilson said, taking his time. “If your little box of Tinker Toys goes off before we get there, just ‘member the last thing you’re gonna see on this earth is my black face—and I’ll be chewing on your fuckin’ guts all the way to hell.”
15
They teed off at 7:08 A.M. The foursome included one of his patients—a vastly improved schizophrenic named Mario Groppo—and two total strangers from Seattle. The strangers were engineers for Boeing, the aerospace company, and they tended to shank the ball off the tee. Predictably, Mario Groppo would hook the ball on one hole and slice the ball on the next. Nobody in the foursome could putt worth a damn.
As for Dr. Remond Courtney, his golf swing was so unusual that from a distance he appeared to be beating a snake to death. It was a very violent golf swing for a psychiatrist. He managed an eight on the first hole and still won it by two strokes. It looked like it was going to be a long morning.
By the fifth tee, Dr. Courtney had become confident enough in his partners’ ineptitude that he’d started betting on every hole. Poor Mario Groppo promptly dropped thirty dollars and appeared headed for a major anxiety attack; the Seattle tourists went to the bourbon flask early and lost their amiable out-of-towner dispositions. Every time Dr. Courtney would bend over a putt, one of them would fart or sneeze in flagrant violation of golf etiquette. The psychiatrist haughtily ignored this rudeness, no matter how many strokes it cost.
The foursome made the turn with Dr. Courtney leading the Seattle engineers by four and seven strokes respectively, while Mario Groppo sweated bullets somewhere around twenty over par.
Weatherwise it was a fine Florida day. The sky was china blue and a light breeze fought off the lethal humidity. As they strolled down the twelfth fairway, the psychiatrist sidled up to Mario and said, “So how are we feeling today, Mr. Groppo?”
“Just fine,” replied Mario, fishing in his golf bag for a five iron.
“Come now,” Dr. Courtney said. “Something’s troubling you, isn’t it?”
“I’m lying three in the rough. That’s all that’s troubling me.”
“Are you sure? I’ve got some Thorazine in my golf bag.”
“I’m fine,” Mario said impatiently. “Thanks anyway.”
Dr. Courtney patted him on the back and gave a doctorly wink. “When you want to talk, just let me know. I’ll set aside some time.”
Dr. Courtney and the Boeing engineers put their shots smack on the green, while Mario Groppo dumped his five-iron in the back bunker.
“Too much club,” the psychiatrist remarked.
“Too much mouth,” sniped one of the guys from Boeing.
Dr. Courtney snorted contemptuously and marched toward the green, his putter propped like a musket on his shoulder.
While the other golfers lined up their putts, poor Mario Groppo waded into the sand trap, a canyon from which he could barely see daylight.
“I’ll hold the stick,” Dr. Courtney called.
Over the lip of the bunker Mario could make out the tip of the flagstick, Dr. Courtney’s pink face and, beyond that, the visors of the two Seattle tourists, waiting their turns.
The psychiatrist kept shouting advice. “Bend the left knee! Keep the club face open! Hit behind the ball!”
“Oh shut up,” Mario Groppo said. He grimaced at the idea of surrendering another ten bucks to Remond Courtney.
Mario glared down at the half-buried Titleist and grimly dug his spikes into the sand. He took one last look at the flag, then swung the wedge with a mighty grunt.
To everyone’s surprise, Mario’s golf ball leapt merrily from the sand trap, kissed the green, and rolled sweetly, inexorably toward the hole.
“All right!” exclaimed one of the Seattle tourists.
“I don’t believe it,” sniffed Dr. Courtney as Mario’s ball dropped with a plunk.
At that instant the twelfth green of the Palmetto Country Club exploded in a hellish thunderclap. The bomb, hidden deep in the cup, launched the flagstick like a flaming javelin. The air crackled as a brilliant orange plume unfurled over the gentle fairways.
There was no time to run, no time to scream.