Read Online The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison - Free Book Online
Authors: Jon Harrison
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head. “My thing is different. It’s so
different. Mega-Putt is a mission rooted in principle .”
I knew, without needing to ask, that this morning’s trip to the
lumber store would be in material support of Alan’s most recent
obsession: the construction of an eighteen-hole miniature golf course
along his bit of property adjacent to the highway. This is not a
labor sprung from some deep love of golf on Alan’s part; Massie
Mega-Putt is a project rooted almost entirely in spite. At the
beginning of last summer, not long after Leland Dinks established his
heavy equipment storage lot in full view of Alan and Kristin’s
back door, Alan went over to ask if he’d maybe consider
relocating it. Leland repeatedly said no, tough luck, that was the
area most out of sight from the resort and it made no sense to put it
anywhere else. As the story goes (and I’ve heard it more than
once), Alan said something along the lines of: “Christ, Leland,
what if I had a bunch of excavators parked right out there in my yard
for everyone coming by to see? Or what if I had some tacky bullshit
like…like a mini-golf course right there by the
entrance to your development? That’s how much it sucks to have
to look at your stuff. What if all your buyers had to see some
garbage like that before they pulled into your stupid resort?”
To this, Leland simply replied: “Well thank goodness they
don’t.”
Alan had eighteen holes plotted out on graph paper and a backhoe
rented before the week was done.
Thanks (or maybe no thanks) to the lack of zoning or building
regulations beyond town limits, Alan’s creation is over the
top. It’s beyond over the top: it’s a Gaudi-esqe fever
dream of leaning concrete towers, spouting jets of water, sneering
gargoyles and general obnoxiousness. I’d call it brilliant, in
a madman sort of way. I have no idea if it’s fun to play (Alan,
to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t let anyone try it out yet),
but I do know it’s achieved its primary goal: through the small
town gossip telegraph we’ve heard that Leland has approached
out elected officials more than once to see how he might legally
force it to be razed to the ground.
The home improvement store is in a strip mall complex on the east
side of town, and the place is already crowded when we pull into the
lot. There seem to be many retiree-types out at this hour: dogged
faces pushing loads of plumbing supplies, circular saws, and light
fixtures.
“So what are we getting today?” I ask, threading the
truck through carts and shoppers to a near-enough parking space.
“I shorted myself on light posts last week. Why don’t you
ever park any closer to the store?”
“Why don’t you ever get enough supplies to begin with, so
I wouldn’t have to drive you out here every Saturday morning?
Then my proximity to the store wouldn’t be an issue.”
Alan laughs as he climbs down from the truck. “Frugality, Neil.
This period of unemployment has led me to become a frugal man.”
“Right,” I say, and Alan shrugs and tells me he’ll
be right back. Truth is, through cleverness and good luck, Alan and
Kristin are well off enough that neither of them really needs to work
at all. About ten years ago, when I first met him, Alan was
working—during long breaks between flying international
routes—on a tennis-simulating contraption, a clunky device
involving blocky sensors and accelerometers pulled from several cars’
airbag deployment systems that he’d strapped onto a tennis
racquet. With the whole assembly wired up to a pair of computer
servers, Alan claimed it could perfectly detect how the racquet was
being swung through three-dimensional space, and after applying for
patents on the thing he shopped it around to a number of sports
companies as a potential training aid. There were some flickers of
interest, but the contraption was pretty ungainly, heavy as a sack of
bricks and dangling bundles of wires, and after striking out on who
knows how
different. Mega-Putt is a mission rooted in principle .”
I knew, without needing to ask, that this morning’s trip to the
lumber store would be in material support of Alan’s most recent
obsession: the construction of an eighteen-hole miniature golf course
along his bit of property adjacent to the highway. This is not a
labor sprung from some deep love of golf on Alan’s part; Massie
Mega-Putt is a project rooted almost entirely in spite. At the
beginning of last summer, not long after Leland Dinks established his
heavy equipment storage lot in full view of Alan and Kristin’s
back door, Alan went over to ask if he’d maybe consider
relocating it. Leland repeatedly said no, tough luck, that was the
area most out of sight from the resort and it made no sense to put it
anywhere else. As the story goes (and I’ve heard it more than
once), Alan said something along the lines of: “Christ, Leland,
what if I had a bunch of excavators parked right out there in my yard
for everyone coming by to see? Or what if I had some tacky bullshit
like…like a mini-golf course right there by the
entrance to your development? That’s how much it sucks to have
to look at your stuff. What if all your buyers had to see some
garbage like that before they pulled into your stupid resort?”
To this, Leland simply replied: “Well thank goodness they
don’t.”
Alan had eighteen holes plotted out on graph paper and a backhoe
rented before the week was done.
Thanks (or maybe no thanks) to the lack of zoning or building
regulations beyond town limits, Alan’s creation is over the
top. It’s beyond over the top: it’s a Gaudi-esqe fever
dream of leaning concrete towers, spouting jets of water, sneering
gargoyles and general obnoxiousness. I’d call it brilliant, in
a madman sort of way. I have no idea if it’s fun to play (Alan,
to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t let anyone try it out yet),
but I do know it’s achieved its primary goal: through the small
town gossip telegraph we’ve heard that Leland has approached
out elected officials more than once to see how he might legally
force it to be razed to the ground.
The home improvement store is in a strip mall complex on the east
side of town, and the place is already crowded when we pull into the
lot. There seem to be many retiree-types out at this hour: dogged
faces pushing loads of plumbing supplies, circular saws, and light
fixtures.
“So what are we getting today?” I ask, threading the
truck through carts and shoppers to a near-enough parking space.
“I shorted myself on light posts last week. Why don’t you
ever park any closer to the store?”
“Why don’t you ever get enough supplies to begin with, so
I wouldn’t have to drive you out here every Saturday morning?
Then my proximity to the store wouldn’t be an issue.”
Alan laughs as he climbs down from the truck. “Frugality, Neil.
This period of unemployment has led me to become a frugal man.”
“Right,” I say, and Alan shrugs and tells me he’ll
be right back. Truth is, through cleverness and good luck, Alan and
Kristin are well off enough that neither of them really needs to work
at all. About ten years ago, when I first met him, Alan was
working—during long breaks between flying international
routes—on a tennis-simulating contraption, a clunky device
involving blocky sensors and accelerometers pulled from several cars’
airbag deployment systems that he’d strapped onto a tennis
racquet. With the whole assembly wired up to a pair of computer
servers, Alan claimed it could perfectly detect how the racquet was
being swung through three-dimensional space, and after applying for
patents on the thing he shopped it around to a number of sports
companies as a potential training aid. There were some flickers of
interest, but the contraption was pretty ungainly, heavy as a sack of
bricks and dangling bundles of wires, and after striking out on who
knows how
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