Sticks - A Golfer's Tale by W. Sautter (whitelam books .TXT) 📖

know this isn’t right. I tried to stop myself but I can’t and - I don’t want to stop,” she confessed breathlessly.
He paused. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. He struggled to speak. He knew what he wanted to do but a voice deep inside his head screamed loudly for him to stop.
Then, as if he was watching a movie, he saw his hand move, out of his conscious control, to her breasts. He saw himself unbutton her blouse and draw it open.
She responsively reached back and unhooked her bra, allowing her soft, warm breasts to fall from it into the blouse opening, exposing her large, rose-colored nipples.
The voice in his head cried even louder and his heart pumped even faster. He felt himself beginning to drawback a bit as the voice continued its deafening reproach. Conflict raged within him. His conscience wrestled back and forth in a titanic struggle.
Suddenly, hammering into his consciousness came the startling sound of a knock at the door. Shocked by the intrusion, Bob instantly sprang into a seated position.
He remembered, room service!
Upon recollection, his anxiety waned and he arose and went to the door. He unlocked and opened it. As the door swung open, it revealed not room service but instead Maryanne standing in the doorway. Behind her was the bellman with suitcases in hand.
Bob stood stunned before her with his wrinkled shirt, partly pulled from his pants and his mouth dropped open. He was struck mute by her unexpected appearance.
“Barbara had her baby just an hour after you the left. A boy, six pounds, 10 ounces and perfectly healthy. John Luke they named him.
I stayed for a couple of hours and wished them well and then after I knew everything was all right, I jumped on the next plane,” she explained with a playful grin.
Bob just stood there still dumbfounded.
“Well, aren’t you going to let me in? This man is getting tired of holding the bags,” she added motioning towards the porter behind her.
Bob reflectively stepped back, but ever so slowly.
“Sure,” he choked out.
Then, from within the room came Joey’s voice.
“What’s taking so long?” she yelled and with that she poked her head around the corner of the door meeting Maryanne face to face.
Both of them instantly recoiled in shock at the unexpected sight of the other. Bob’s heart stopped and his stomach wrenched like never before. His brow took on an immediate glistening luster as huge droplets of sweat poured forth.
Maryanne pushed her way forward into the room. Joey stepped back in response. There she stood, frozen still, in the middle of the room, clothed only in her unbuttoned shirt with her discarded bra lying in full view on the bed.
Maryanne stopped, took a long, disdainful look at Joey, and then turned and without another word, pushed her way past Bob. She rushed straight through the door, slamming it with all her might as she left. Bob raced to the door and opened it to see her disappearing down the corridor.
“Maryanne! Maryanne! You don’t understand. Nothing happened!” he yelled vainly down the hall.
She didn’t even turnaround but simply exited into the stairway at the end of the hallway, while the porter slowly followed, still carrying her bags. Bob remained in the doorway with a vacant stare, then closed the door and returned to the room.
“Bob – I’m sorry – I didn’t know she was there – I didn’t mean -”
“Its not your fault,” he interrupted with a sigh. He sat down in the chair by the bed.
“You’d better go back to your room. I’ll take care of this – somehow,” he said unconvincingly. Joey quietly dressed and left for her room.
What the hell am I going to do now? He couldn’t even talk to Maryanne. He didn’t know where she would stay or even if she would stay. She might even go back home.
One thing he did know however, there would be a long, sleepless night ahead of him.
He arose the next morning, still groggy from the tortured night. He stumbled out of bed and reached for the phone. If Maryanne had gone home, she would certainly be there by now. He dialed the number and the phone rang and rang and rang some more.
“Hello, this is Bob Andrews. Maryanne and I can’t come to the - ”
Bang! He slammed the phone into his cradle. She wasn’t home or she wasn’t answering.
He called the front desk. No Maryanne Andrews was registered. Now what? He sat for a moment with his head pounding and his palms sweating.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Not now. Just be calm and think this out logically,” he thought to himself.
He could straighten this whole thing out. After all nothing did happen! He’d just continue along as best he could and worry about it after the tournament was over.
There, it was settled, he told himself. He felt some relief then, having if nothing else, at least postponed the inevitable consequences that lay before him.
“An innocent man should have nothing to fear,” he consoled himself and with that solace, he called Joey to begin his first practice round.
They met in the lobby and went to the course. Bob walked to the practice tee to wait for Joey and his clubs.
“Bob! Bob!” he heard her yell.
He turned to see her running towards him at full speed.
“Bob – Your bag and clubs are gone!” she shouted breathlessly.
“Maryanne came down here last night, just before the course closed and took your clubs!” she yelled, still in a struggle to catch her breath.
“How could she? How could they let her take them?” he shouted.
“The man in the locker room said he sure knew what
Bob Andrews’ wife looked like, with all times he’d seen you with her on TV over the last couple weeks. She said you wanted your clubs in your hotel room for safekeeping, so he gave them to her,” answered Joey.
Bob was frantic. Certainly, he could not play without them. Not just any clubs would do, that he well knew.
Maybe she was home now after all? He’d call again. What else could he do? Maybe he could convince her to bring them back for Thursday or he could even go back home and get them. He had plenty of time, two days to do it.
He went to the phone and called. The phone rang. Once, twice, three times. Then, he heard her voice. He was relieved. Now, all he had to do was convince her of his innocence or at least shake her belief his guilt.
“Maryanne, this is Bob.”
“I know who it is!” came the frigid replied.
“I want to explain everything” he began humbly.
“Explain it in a letter so my lawyer can read it,” she interrupted.
Now, he realized that any explanation that he might be able to offer would be unacceptable. That was obvious by the tone of her voice and her sharp, callous response.
“Where are my clubs?” he asked, realizing that apologies and deliberation were going nowhere.
She said nothing. The silence came from the telephone.
“Where my clubs?” he asked again more forcefully. Again, silence prevailed. Then she answered.
“In the garbage. I threw them in the garbage, and if I could I’d put you in there too,” she replied angrily. “I stopped the cab on the way to the airport and threw them in the first dumpster that I saw,” she continued.
“No! No! How could you do that? I didn’t even do anything -”
A resounding crash of the telephone receiver slamming into its cradle at the other end reverberated his ear. He slowly laid down the receiver, with his heart pounding. He sat with a vacant stare, as confused thoughts of disbelief raced through his head.


Chapter 8
Weeks had passed. The anguish lingered. The whipsaw of his unprecedented success and the abrupt, dizzying plummet into the depths of failure had left him stunned. He lost twenty pounds. Maryanne had left him.
In the beginning, he called almost hourly, but she never replied. Even now, he called at least once a day, but still no response, just the same answering machine voice every time.
He was living alone, a third-floor walk up at the YMCA and hadn’t even touched a golf club since that fateful day over two months ago.
He sat quietly and motionless.
“Want another one?” asked a familiar voice.
“Sure – why not?” Bob answered.
The bartender took his glass and slowly walked towards the taps.
Bob sat, hands folded, still staring. He reached mechanically, into his shirt pocket, as he had done dozens of times before and withdrew a tattered scrap of newspaper. He carefully unfolded its wrinkled edges and perused it again for the hundredth time.
“Young Golfer in California is Up to Par ” it was entitled.
“A California teenager has become the world’s latest golf sensation. Roy Jackson was, until recently, an unknown ghetto youth and now he stands at the pinnacle of golfing success, having won two major tournaments in the past month. Both times Roy shot scores rivaling even those of the legendary Bob Andrews.
Roy’s father, a Los Angeles sanitation worker, found the boys first set of clubs in a dumpster and the boy still uses them today with the utmost of skill.
‘It’s something about the feel of these clubs that makes me play my very best. They’re like no others’, commented Roy with a grin after just completing an eight under qualifying round at Sea Crest Country Club.
Interviews with several noted golf authorities suggested Roy is destined for big things, possibly even wearing the green at Augusta the next year.”
Bob sighed deeply, folded the article and slid it back into his pocket.
The bartender returned with a beer and placed it front of him.
“Bob – how are you doing?” came voice from behind him.
He felt a hand on the shoulder and turned slightly to see Fred.
“Get me a beer too, Mickey,” he shouted to the bartender as he slid onto the stool next to Bob.
“I’ve got something for you,” Fred announced proudly.
“And a story that might give you a chuckle too,” he added.
He reached down and picked up the brown, paper bag he brought with him and placed on the bar.
“About two years ago, Marge was over on the other side of town, over by Washington Street – Monroe Street I think! She was looking for a set of andirons for the fireplace. She wanted those big brass kind and they were sky high in the stores, about two hundred and fifty bucks.
She saw a house sale ad in the paper and they had the andirons listed, so she went. They were exactly what she wanted, in perfect shape, like new and only fifty bucks.
An old guy was moving out, lock, stock and barrel, selling everything. The price was great, so great that she kinda felt guilty about it, you know what I mean? Fifty bucks was almost like stealin’ them.
Then, when she was paying him, the old man asked her if her husband played golf. She told him that I was thinking about starting and I was talking about it