golf-oscar-lamda-foxtrot

July 22, 2014

On Language, Pt. 2 

Il est . . . facile de se tromper sui-même sans s’en appercevoir  -  It is easy to deceive yourself without noticing - La Rochefoucauld (v:115)

For now we see through a glasse, darkely - I Corinthians 13:12

I ran into Hamlin Moody this morning. We play golf sometimes. He was on his way to the course; I was walking to work. He pulled over to “rub it in,” he said, though he didn’t look as glad to be off on a weekday as he said he was. He’s a bright enough guy, really good, so I hear, at what he does — real estate closings, I think. Because we only play golf together, we don’t talk about work. In fact, all he ever talks about, as far as I know, is golf . . . and sex.

     He’s thinking about some way to spice up his marriage, and he read somewhere or saw on the internet that . . . . What do I think? Have what’s-her-name and I . . . ? And it’s not nudge, nudge, wink, wink. He’s serious. At least, I always think so. And I shake my head — because I can’t quite believe the question? because I have nothing to say? because I want to change the subject? because no, we never have? I shake my head.

     And then he’s talking about golf — the state of his game — as if the previous exchange had never taken place. Shut the door: He knows he can play better than he has been if he can just stay back and let go through impact.

     I nod now. And I think: for all his duo-mania, his sad song on two notes, he is a likable guy. There’s something in and behind that self-effacing misery he tries to mock. He has two passions he really thinks about, broods about, wonders about, studies . . . and he can understand neither, why they have hold of him, how they work, what they mean. He reads what people that allegedly do understand write about them; he watches videos; he thinks he gets it, and he knows he doesn’t.

But, he doesn’t give up. After a round, he’ll head out to the range and pound ball after ball in 90+ heat trying to figure it out. He takes lessons. He won’t believe he can’t get better: it’s not that he’s a complete klutz — he played soccer in college, he’s a better-than-average pick-up basketball and slow-pitch softball player; he’s not an athletic embarrassment at anything except, sometimes-not-always golf. Which he loves. Which has him completely flummoxed. But he’s not giving up.

He calls me at work after his round, wants to know if I want to go out to get a beer later. I’m not sure I do, because we never have and do I want to start this?, but I end up saying, “Sure,” because I can’t think how to say, “No.” He says the golf went a little better today, at least than last time he and I played. If he could just be putting the way he should be putting!

     So tonight, after our beers, he’ll go out and roll putts. He’ll ask me if I want to go, and I’ll say, “Sure.” And we’ll roll putts — hundreds of them in dozens of directions — until we can’t see. Until, as the Poet says, we cannot see to see.