out.”
“Frank?” he said. “I didn’t shoot his eye out; the guy was born that way.”
My father visits me now in New York. We’ll walk through Washington Square, where he’ll yell, “Get a look at the ugly mug on
that one!” referring to a three-hundred-pound biker with grinning skulls tattooed like a choker around his neck. A young man
in Central Park is photographing his girl-friend, and my father races to throw himself into the picture. “All right, sweetheart,”
he says, placing his arm around the startled victim, “it’s time to get comfortable.” I cower as he marches into posh grocery
stores, demanding to speak to the manager. “Back home I can get this exact same cantaloupe for less than half this price,”
he says. The managers invariably suggest that he do just that. He screams at waiters and cuts in line at tony restaurants.
“I have a friend,” I tell him, “who lost his right arm snapping his fingers at a waiter.”
“Oh, you kids,” he says. “Not a one of you has got so much as a teaspoon of gumption. I don’t know where you got it from,
but in the end, it’s going to kill you.”
the women’s open
My sister Lisa became a woman on the fourteenth hole of the Pinehurst golf course. That’s what she was told by the stranger
who led her to the women’s lounge. “Relax, sugar, you’re a woman now.”
We had gone unwittingly, shanghaied by our father, who had offered to take Lisa and me for a ride in the secondhand Porsche
he’d recently bought. His sherbet-colored pants should have tipped us off, but seeing as there were no clubs in the backseat,
we thought we were safe.
“Just a short little jaunt,” my father said. He folded back the car’s canvas roof and crouched into the driver’s seat. “Hell,
maybe we’ll just tool up to the fairground and back, drive by the correctional center and watch the guys in the exercise yard
— you both seem to enjoy that. Maybe we’ll go out to the highway and get ourselves some soft ice cream, who knows! Live a
little, why don’t you? You’re not going to experience a thing sitting in the house with your nose pressed up against the TV.
It’s a beautiful day, let’s smell the goddamned flowers.”
We shot past the prison so fast, I could barely make out the guards in their gun towers. Both the fairground and the ice cream
stand faded in the distance as my father regarded his watch and nervously tapped his fingers against the leather-jacketed
steering wheel. He knew exactly where we were headed and had it timed so that we’d arrive just in time for the tee off. “Well,
what do you know,” he said, pulling off the road and into the crowded golf-course parking lot. “I wonder if there’s some kind
of a tournament taking place? What do you say we take a quick peek? Gosh, this is a beautiful place. Wait’ll you get a look
at these fairways.
Lisa and I groaned, cursing our stupidity. Once again we’d been duped. There was nothing worse than spending an afternoon
on a golf course. We knew what was in store for us and understood that the next few hours would pass like days or maybe even
weeks. Our watches would yawn, the minute and hour hands joining each other in a series of periodic naps. First, our father
would push us to the front of a large, gaily dressed crowd. Robbed of their choice spots, these spectators would huff and
grumble, whispering insults we would pretend not to hear.
“They’re kids,” our father would say. “What do you want them to do, stand on my shoulders for Christ’s sake? Come on, pal,
have a heart.”
The big boys were playing that day, men whose names we recognized from the tedious magazines my father kept stacked beside
the toilet and heaped in the backseat of his Mustang. We’d seen these players on television and heard their strengths and
weaknesses debated by the bronzed maniacs who frequented the pro shop of our country club. These people
“Frank?” he said. “I didn’t shoot his eye out; the guy was born that way.”
My father visits me now in New York. We’ll walk through Washington Square, where he’ll yell, “Get a look at the ugly mug on
that one!” referring to a three-hundred-pound biker with grinning skulls tattooed like a choker around his neck. A young man
in Central Park is photographing his girl-friend, and my father races to throw himself into the picture. “All right, sweetheart,”
he says, placing his arm around the startled victim, “it’s time to get comfortable.” I cower as he marches into posh grocery
stores, demanding to speak to the manager. “Back home I can get this exact same cantaloupe for less than half this price,”
he says. The managers invariably suggest that he do just that. He screams at waiters and cuts in line at tony restaurants.
“I have a friend,” I tell him, “who lost his right arm snapping his fingers at a waiter.”
“Oh, you kids,” he says. “Not a one of you has got so much as a teaspoon of gumption. I don’t know where you got it from,
but in the end, it’s going to kill you.”
the women’s open
My sister Lisa became a woman on the fourteenth hole of the Pinehurst golf course. That’s what she was told by the stranger
who led her to the women’s lounge. “Relax, sugar, you’re a woman now.”
We had gone unwittingly, shanghaied by our father, who had offered to take Lisa and me for a ride in the secondhand Porsche
he’d recently bought. His sherbet-colored pants should have tipped us off, but seeing as there were no clubs in the backseat,
we thought we were safe.
“Just a short little jaunt,” my father said. He folded back the car’s canvas roof and crouched into the driver’s seat. “Hell,
maybe we’ll just tool up to the fairground and back, drive by the correctional center and watch the guys in the exercise yard
— you both seem to enjoy that. Maybe we’ll go out to the highway and get ourselves some soft ice cream, who knows! Live a
little, why don’t you? You’re not going to experience a thing sitting in the house with your nose pressed up against the TV.
It’s a beautiful day, let’s smell the goddamned flowers.”
We shot past the prison so fast, I could barely make out the guards in their gun towers. Both the fairground and the ice cream
stand faded in the distance as my father regarded his watch and nervously tapped his fingers against the leather-jacketed
steering wheel. He knew exactly where we were headed and had it timed so that we’d arrive just in time for the tee off. “Well,
what do you know,” he said, pulling off the road and into the crowded golf-course parking lot. “I wonder if there’s some kind
of a tournament taking place? What do you say we take a quick peek? Gosh, this is a beautiful place. Wait’ll you get a look
at these fairways.
Lisa and I groaned, cursing our stupidity. Once again we’d been duped. There was nothing worse than spending an afternoon
on a golf course. We knew what was in store for us and understood that the next few hours would pass like days or maybe even
weeks. Our watches would yawn, the minute and hour hands joining each other in a series of periodic naps. First, our father
would push us to the front of a large, gaily dressed crowd. Robbed of their choice spots, these spectators would huff and
grumble, whispering insults we would pretend not to hear.
“They’re kids,” our father would say. “What do you want them to do, stand on my shoulders for Christ’s sake? Come on, pal,
have a heart.”
The big boys were playing that day, men whose names we recognized from the tedious magazines my father kept stacked beside
the toilet and heaped in the backseat of his Mustang. We’d seen these players on television and heard their strengths and
weaknesses debated by the bronzed maniacs who frequented the pro shop of our country club. These people
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