Horse's Ass

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Mary pulled into her driveway a little after seven pm, and broke to a hard stop before she ran into the garage door. She left the car parked haphazardly across the drive and walked up the short path to her front door. She whistled as she went, and when she opened the front door she was greeted by the smell of a home cooked meal.

  Adonus had spent the day cooking pot roast, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots. For dessert, he’d cooked an apple pie, and then rallied the energy for homemade vanilla ice cream. He loved to cook, and had enjoyed the day spent in the kitchen with the windows open and a slight breeze. In the kitchen he was able to keep Romulus both entertained and contained. This was important since Romulus had been suspended the previous day. As Adonus cooked, Romulus sat on the floor, chef’s knife in hand, and carved his initials in the wooden floor.

  Romulus was suspended when he delivered a swift, bone jarring kick to the ass of the redheaded principal when she bent down to tie a child’s shoe in the middle of the hall. It wasn’t National Kick a Ginger Day, but Romulus knew these opportunities didn’t present themselves very often, and an eighth grader had bet him $5 he didn’t have balls. Not only did he have the balls he now had Abe Lincoln. As soon as she righted herself, bruised coccyx to be sure, Romulus was paraded down to the office, and Adonus promptly notified to come and pick up the nefarious Romulus.

  For Romulus this was business as usual, and Adonus arrived to find him bored to tears and complaining there was nothing fun to do at school. As he signed Romulus out, Adonus handed the principal a form letter he always kept on his person. The letter explained Romulus’ impulse control disorder, and, in scientific jargon explained why Romulus really couldn’t be held accountable for whatever transgression had transpired. The letter also served as a court ordered injunction prohibiting the school from suspending, or expelling, the gifted and spirited child. The principal sighed in resignation, and placed the letter into Romulus’ permanent file wherein it joined the previous eleven letters, thereby rounding to an even, and easily quoted, dozen letters. As they readied to go, the principal grabbed hold of Adonus’ sleeve and begged, “Please, just one day, keep him home one day. Don’t bring him here tomorrow, anywhere but here. Maybe you could turn him loose in Alaska, or a national park?” Adonus agreed to keep him home for one day.

  An hour after Mary walked through the front door, and well into the second bottle of wine, the meal was finished. The number of times the family dined together could be counted on two hands. With the meal completed, the three stared silently at the dirty dishes. Conversation wasn’t the family’s strong suit, but Mary was unable to contain her joy and in an effort to engage spoke, “How are your parents Adonus? Are they well?” Mary lit a post-meal cigarette and leaned far back into her chair waiting for an answer.

  Adonus didn’t respond immediately, even after all this time he still struggled to remember he wasn’t Philbert. When he finally realized it was his question to field he hurried to answer before Mary turned violent, “Yes, they are quite well.”

  Normally news of his parent’s well-being sent Mary into a depressive funk, but tonight was different, and she smiled, “That’s nice.”

  The room stood silent until Mary spoke again, “Romulus did you enjoy your special vacation day?”

  Uncomfortable at being restricted in his chair, Romulus’ body shook with nervous energy. His foot rocked back and forth, and his head bobbed up and down.

  Mary took Romulus’ restlessness for a yes, “That’s nice. You’re a precious angel sent from heaven, and precious angels need days off, every now and again.”

  Mary took a final and heavy drag on her cigarette and exhaled through her nose. Smoke pooled on the table in curlicues as she stabbed the butt into a small pile of mashed potatoes she’d left on her plate for this express purpose. She then cheerily announced, “Time for bed Romulus. Tomorrow you can return to school!”

  Romulus scampered down the hall with Adonus close behind. From the hall Adonus gently locked Romulus inside his room. For several years the doorknobs to Romulus’ door had been reversed, and now locked from the hallway. The impetus for flipping the doorknobs, and containing Romulus in his room, was the night they found Romulus chasing their wedding present, an exotic bengal cat, with a samurai sword. Awakened in the middle of the night from their Ambien induced sleep by the clamor, Adonus and Mary found Romulus standing on a kitchen chair, sword in hand, and the terrified animal cornered on the top of the refrigerator. Based on the overturned furniture, and chandelier that had been torn from the ceiling, it appeared the fracas had been going on for several hours. When they realized that with a little more time Romulus would have figured out how to open the lock that kept the sword in the scabbard, and the cat alive, they called the handyman.

  While Adonus cleared the dishes, Mary stood and walked down the hall to Romulus’ room. Marking a rare event, a one hundred year storm, Mary twisted the doorknob to Romulus’ room and entered to tuck him into bed. Inside, and from the corner of the room farthest the bed, Romulus stared nervously at Mary. Unaccustomed to parental attention, he panted anxiously, his tongue visible as it rested on the teeth of his lower jaw.

  As she entered Romulus’ lair, Mary found feathers spilled about. It was as if a pillow had been sent through a wood chipper. The feathers covered the ground to ankle height and floated freely in the air, swirling with the air currents as she moved. Mary had no idea where Romulus’ slept. His mattress had fallen partially off the bed and now lay half on the floor. In its plunge, it appeared to have taken the night table with it, which lay tipped over at the side of his bed.

  It wasn’t clear what reparations Adonus had left unfinished in Romulus’ room, nearly eight months ago, and what damage was recent. The evidence at hand all pointed to Romulus’ having attempted another escape: the carpet was torn back in three of the room’s four corners, fist size holes were punched in the plaster board; and, bite marks circled the edges of the larger holes. Without explanation a set of lawn jarts stuck in the ceiling.

  Good mood buoyed by the liquor, Mary decided to read her son a story before tucking him in for the night. “Come on Romulus jump up on your bed, and I’ll read you your favorite night time story.” Mary trued the mattress to the bed, and righted the night stand. Her tidying complete, Romulus leapt from a farther distance than Mary would have thought him capable.

  Mary sat down on the bed next to him, and began reading him his favorite story: Green Peace, Big Fat Liars. As Mary moved to finish, with the penultimate line, “And that’s why the world doesn’t need whales,” Romulus joined her for the closing sentence, “They dirty the oceans.”

  Romulus commented on how happy his Mommy looked. In response, Mary pinched his nose playfully and asked, “Do you know why I’m so very happy?”

  “No Mommy. Tell me.”

  Mary sat her tumbler of scotch on the small night table, rested her forearms on her knees, and blew her bangs from her face. She turned to look Romulus directly in the eyes, and, with a smile she couldn’t contain on her lips, told him why. “Mommy is so happy because tomorrow she is going to kill that fat fucker that Mommy hates more than anything in the world. I’m going mono-y-mono with the pig man.”

  “Awesome. For five dollars I could kill him for you.”

  “Ooh, aren’t you precious. That’s sweet, but Mommy’s going to spend her money on cocktails.” She patted his leg to show him Mommy’s plan was going to make everything okay. “This is Mommy’s special present to herself.” When she reconsidered the merits of what she had set out to do she corrected herself, “To all of mankind, really.”

  The next morning Mary woke, excited the day she would kill Cuddy had finally arrived. Today was G.O.D.’s golf outing. Mary’s original plan was to kill Cuddy sometime back in the fall. Twice she had planned his death. Initially, after he cut the thumbs from her gloves, and, subsequently, when he towed her car
. Upon further consideration, she figured Cuddy would pack on an extra thirty pounds over the winter, and that weight would be the difference between life and death. She hung a large calendar in her office, circled the magical day as if Advent approached, and marked time’s passage with a big X.

  Mary had planned the golf event solely to facilitate Cuddy’s demise. To that end she had selected the day with the statistical probability of having the highest heat index in the summer, and she had made certain the resort offered neither carts nor caddies. After the ridiculous money spent on the holiday party it was easy to convince The Board that no carts or caddies be allowed in an effort to contain costs. She’d persuasively argued to run the outing with a regular start, not the more traditional shotgun start. Her rationale to The Board for the regular start was they would have more time, with fewer employees, at the clubhouse bar post play. She’d researched and secured the C.I.A. issued golf balls that would make cheating impossible. The exact whereabouts and movement of the golf balls was automatically plotted on GPS software. It was impossible to cheat and not get caught. Lastly, she made certain Cuddy’s foursome played last, with her foursome teeing off immediately beforehand.

  She dressed quickly, and stuffed three bags of jumbo marshmallows into her golf bag. As she readied herself for the day she thought how apropos Cuddy’s death by means of sweetened paste confection would be. She knew with certainty you couldn’t fight bacon boy head on, and instead elected to employ a judo-like approach and use his size against him. As a backup plan she shoved her pink handled, Jesus approved, pistol into her purse.

  In a strange paradox G.O.D. tolerated no cheating during its annual golf outing. A guaranteed terminable offense if you were caught misrepresenting your score. The draconian rule stemmed from Doug’s loss a couple years ago to a low level service rep. Unknown to Doug the rep had played on the pro-am circuit for a season and hadn’t cheated. Doug was certain he lost by the even dozen strokes due to the reps dishonest count and vowed to never let that happen again.

  As Mary hoped, it was the first dangerously hot day of the year, a combination of sweltering, desert like heat and rain forest level humidity. News stations interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to warn of the heat index and high ozone levels. It was the weather Enron longed for in the good old days; the old and infirm dependent on air conditioners to stay alive, and the energy to run those life saving devices sold at a premium over the suggested retail price.

  Cuddy pulled into the large gravel lot of the country club, a little after nine in the morning, parked, and dropped from the Escalade onto the gravel below. In the spirit of the game he wore pink plaid knickers, knee socks, saddle golf shoes, and a straw fedora. It wasn’t even late morning and he was sweating profusely. Beneath the silk, white short sleeve polo, he wore a graphic tee shirt whose advertisement bled thru. In bold brown letters the ambiguous marketing slogan of a virtually unknown gambling site, whose double entendre stymied its growth, shown clearly on Cuddy’s chest: The King of the Double Flush.

  While Cuddy practiced on the putting green, Mary arrived and parked. Exiting her vehicle she sought to tie up the final details in her plan. Mary approached a random manager who was giving the day’s work instructions to the groundskeeper staff. Walking between the manager and his staff, Mary pointed excitedly at Cuddy as she addressed the group. She let them know, in no uncertain terms, exactly what was expected, “You see that fat fucking pork sausage with the High School Musical IV hat? Cuddy Chorizo. He has a do not resuscitate order. I want to be fucking clear. The Boston Butt drops to the ground, you stand and watch. Take a picture if you want, but no extraordinary measures.”

  Confused, and non English speaking, the manager answered, “Si mucho.” The manager nodded his head slowly for emphasis. From her frantic tone, he assumed she was asking if the very fat man looked like a sausage with Zac Efron’s hat. Mary walked away thinking she’d done what she could do, now let the cards play out. After all, she had a backup plan in her purse.

  The twenty board members and sixty employees in attendance gathered at a large bell well behind the first tee. The rules of golf were summarily reviewed, and each employee was given their tee times and a handful of CIA golf balls. Doug spoke to the group before the match started, “This fabulous game is not to be sullied with the indignation of false scores. If you’re caught lying, you’ll be fired!”

  Being of Scottish descent, Cuddy cheered wildly. To Cuddy it was unthinkable anyone would cheat at golf, or not complete a round regardless of conditions. Better to die, club in hand, than quit mid-round.

  The game would be played with a regular start. Groups of four would begin as soon as the group in front of them was out of striking distance. Behind Mary’s back, Cuddy had argued for and won the right to fire a shotgun to commence play. His weapon of choice was a double barreled ten gauge goose gun, whose firing was completely unnecessary given all employees started at the first tee. Cuddy scanned the crowd. He planned to fire from his hip, and if the opportunity presented itself Mary’s untimely demise would come off as an accident. Any jury would have a reasonable doubt.

  As Cuddy raised the shotgun and prepared to fire, Mary squatted, pistol in hand, and hid behind her golf bag. Mary knew to be nowhere in sight if Cuddy was armed, but was prepared to return fire if need be. Rumors abounded on Cuddy’s family’s affinity for explosives, and when she put herself in his shoes, as gross as she thought that idea was, she knew she’d fire the gun at him. Smiling wildly, Cuddy fired both barrels. Boom!! Car alarms rang. Employees screamed, “Holy shit!” and covered their ears a moment too late. A sole goose, the mate of the goose Rico had bludgeoned, fell from the sky. The Chairman nodded in appreciation of Cuddy’s marksmanship, “That’s some cold shit.”

  The Chairman played first, and as he stepped to the tee all talk stopped. As he stood and stared out at the verdant fairway, in his beltless trousers and matching sport coat, both in a blue and white, diamond checkered pattern, all eyes fell on him. Beneath the jacket, his silk white shirt played the perfect complement to his white, patent leather golf shoes. Impervious to the sun’s heat and gravity’s reign The Chairman teed off. He didn’t require practice swings, and his shot was crushing and effortless. He drove the ball hundreds of yards down the fairway to lie perfectly near the green.

  As the ball disappeared Sue cheered. Animated, with her hands over her head, she jumped up and down. As she jumped, her halter top struggled to contain its contents and the globes of her ass slipped seductively from the bottom of her too short shorts. Seeing Sue, Mary smiled approvingly. This was exactly the standard she wanted for Sales.

  With the ball no longer visible, The Chairman turned to face Sue and smacked the outside of his leg with his driver, as if it were a riding crop. “Giddy up.”

  Sue bent at the waist, slapped her ass with her hand, and answered him, “Ride em, cowboy.” Together, they walked down the fairway. As they went, The Chairman spun his pocket watch from its fob and looked a Crumb cartoon come to life: ‘Keep on Truckin’.

  With The Chairman and Sue long gone the The Board organized into five foursomes and teed off. Their play was hurried and without discipline as they sought to get to the bar as quickly as possible. After The Board, the employees played by seniority and department.

  A little before eleven in the morning, Mary’s group teed off. She’d paired herself with the aforementioned former pro, and two other golfers she knew to be the best in the company. Either of whom could easily win today’s play if they didn’t hold back to avoid embarrassing upper management. All three had long drives that ended within yards of each other in the middle of the fairway. Mary drove last. Her much shorter shot fell in play but far to the right. Mary urged the group to play on, and she would catch up. By design, as they left the tee, this was the last Mary would see of her golf mates.

  Finally, Cuddy’s group, the last group of the day, teed o
ff. With Cuddy, Mary paired the three employees that she knew hated Cuddy nearly as much as she did: Nels, Shap and Wilma. Wilma hit first, a crisp drive down the middle of the fairway leaving her well positioned for the second shot. Shap played next. He’d worked at the local university’s golf course growing up and hit a shot nearly identical to Wilma’s, but ten yards further up the fairway. Nels played last. He’d spent his formative years at his family’s country club in Glencoe and spanked the ball equidistant to Shap. All three complimented each other on the start of what they hoped to be a fabulous round.

  Cuddy went last. He played golf as a poor substitute for shinty and favored a running approach to his tee shots; a spastic, pigeon toed affair absent any athleticism. Surprisingly, Cuddy made contact with the ball more often than not and was prone to hitting the ball long distances. With no control, he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find his ball. After placing the ball on the tee he walked a few yards back, cried out in Dougish, and charged. Nels, Shap, and Wilma, stood in shock, mouths open. None of them had any idea what he was screaming about, where the ball went, or that you could do that in golf.

  Nels, Shap and Wilma left the tee, and conspired to leave Cuddy behind. That was the last Cuddy saw of his golf mates on the course. Mary deliberately played slowly, and waved Nels, Shap and Wilma through. The three-some acquiesced, and quickly caught up to Mary’s tee mates on the second hole wherein the two groups of three decided to play together. Neither group wanted the day ruined by playing with Cuddy or Mary. The six-some decided they’d play competitively through the 17th hole, and then screw their scores so as not to embarrass their bosses.

  The series of events perfectly orchestrated and in place, Mary was the sole golfer ahead of Cuddy. For Mary’s plan to work it was important that Cuddy be the last player on the course. Mary, golf bag in tow and three bags of jumbo marshmallows stuffed in her pockets, walked to the second tee. At each tee the course had provided a large cooler of water and iced tea. Mary pulled the drain plugs on each after taking a long drink.

  Mary drove her ball from the second tee. As she walked to the ball she discretely flicked marshmallows, hand low and to the side, to both sides of the fairway. Her exceptional ability to flick, honed with her cigarette habit and unnatural hand strength, sent the marshmallows thirty or forty yards. Mary’s plan was working perfectly. The temperature had rocketed into the red zone, with nearly one hundred percent humidity. The weatherman now advised against any outdoor activity.

  Nearly a half hour after he’d set out, and drenched in sweat, Cuddy reached the second tee. The heat was stifling, and the sun had yet to show its true power. From the tops of trees, cicadas sang their droning chorus. Cuddy labored to set his golf bag down, breathing heavily and nearly tripping over as he did so. He was dizzy from the heat. Stumbling, he walked to get a glass of water, only to find the coolers bone dry.

  Alone, he teed his ball up, walked several yards back, charged, and hit his second drive of the day. At the end of his swing he faced the opposite direction the ball travelled. Cuddy turned around and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light of the sun. As he squinted, he looked down the fairway and wondered where the hell his ball went. White balls littered the fairway. “Horse’s ass!” he mumbled, as the severity of the situation dawned on him; he’d have to check each one to figure out which was his ball.

  Mary continued to scatter marshmallows, and drain the refreshment coolers, through all eighteen holes. On the final green she hid behind a small bush and glassed the fairway with a pair of traveler’s binoculars. As she spied, Cuddy labored up and down the seventeenth fairway, to and fro, to find his ball. He looked to be in a bad state; the armpits of his shirts were soaked in sweat to the point that the stains met in the middle of his belly; his pants were wet from crotch to knees; his shoes sloshed in sweat as he stumbled forward; and, his face was covered in a gritty white residue. As he approached the eighteenth hole he had walked almost 40 miles. On the last hole Cuddy teed his ball up and prepared to charge, but before he drove the ball he felt a strange arrhythmia in his chest. His heart skipped beats like crazy. Mary watched him utter a final squeal, clutch his chest, and fall face first to the ground. His hands did not rise to break his fall, and the earth shook when the five hundred pound Cuddy landed. She swore she could hear the death rattle in his breath. Mary putted out, and ran to the clubhouse to celebrate.

  In the clubhouse, Mary lit into her first cocktail, certain her plan had worked and that Cuddy lay dead on the course. A rare smile graced her lips. She generously extended her glass to clink cheers with her co-workers, “Bottoms up motherfuckers!” She knocked glasses with the women who stood to her right, and liquor splashed everywhere.

  “Bottoms up,” her co-workers echoed, anxiously looking for an excuse to escape Mary’s presence.

  Mary finished her cocktail in a hurried gulp, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She abruptly left her co-workers and walked to the bar for another cocktail. Fresh drink in hand, Mary stood and downed her second drink at the bar. She drank with her head as far back as her neck allowed, and the glass nearly vertical. Mid-way through her drink, as the liquor disappeared down her gullet, Mary made eye contact with the bartender, pointed emphatically at the glass from which she drank, and ordered her next round. When she emptied her second drink, she threw her arm down to her side and splashed the squeezed lime and ice cubes violently off the carpet. She voiced an enthusiastic, “Fuck yeah!” and took her third cocktail from the bartender without as much as thanks.

  Fresh drink in hand, Mary walked from the bar to rub shoulders with several members of The Board, who spoke in low voices by the large window that overlooked the eighteenth hole. Unfortunately, The Chairman and Sue were gone long before Mary entered the clubhouse. All that testified to their having been at today’s event were a lipstick stained martini glass and half a dozen empty high ball glasses. Doug too was nowhere to be seen. He stormed off in a huff after The Chairman handily beat him. Mary wanted to make it clear to whichever board members she could corner that she was the ideal candidate to succeed Doug. As she walked up, hoping to gain favor by offering a stellar down shirting, several of the men pointed out the window at the small hill that split the final fairway a quarter mile from where they stood.

  Straining to see what they were all looking at, Mary’s brow furrowed and a frown stained her lips. She spoke a barely audible, “No fucking way,” and unconsciously shattered the glass in her hand. Liquor, citrus, and ice, splashed everywhere.

  From the farthest reaches of the final fairway, and barely visible from the window, a vision in pink crawled over the hill. Sunburned as a lobster, and with his head appearing strangely shrunken was Cuddy. As he crawled on his belly, dragging his golf bag behind, he continued to play. In his left hand he held a golf club with which he smacked a golf ball a few yards at a time. His score would break four hundred.

  At nearly ten in the evening, with the sun set and the staff waiting anxiously for the party to end, Cuddy stumbled into the clubhouse. His breathing was shallow, his pulse was rapid, and grass stains ran from the top of his shirt through his knees. He smelled like a potato fresh from the field. In his right hand he held a decimated score card upon which a score of 432 was recorded. In the air conditioned club house Cuddy fell into the first chair he found and immediately began to drink pitchers of water. After several gallons of water his head returned to its normal size. While he rehydrated the consultants checked his score against that recorded on the computer. The numbers agreed and provided no argument for Cuddy’s immediate termination.

  As he composed himself, Cuddy sat surrounded by employees and board members anxious to hear his tale of extreme golf, and the life skills that kept him alive. As Cuddy prattled on about the importance his fitness program played in his survival, Mary stood silent and in despair. Crestfallen, she stoically walked to retrieve t
he purse she’d left at the table and resigned herself to Plan B. Purse in hand she returned to the back of the crowd that had gathered around Cuddy. Holding the purse in front of her with her left hand, Mary slipped her right hand into the purse and nosed around until she found the handle of the revolver. She squared the pistol in her hand and removed the safety. Loaded gun in hand, and hidden within the purse, she then moved slightly to her left wherein she held a direct line of fire. Even dehydrated he would be hard to miss.

  As she began to pull the pistol from the purse the groundskeeper she had explicitly instructed to avoid any and all resuscitative efforts quickly stepped to her right and gently circled her wrist with his hand, thereby keeping the pistol hidden in the purse. In a hushed voice he whispered in Mary’s ear, “El hombre de cerdo no se puede matar la mano de mi hombre.” Mary did not speak Spanish, but instinctively knew he was right: The pig man cannot be killed by man’s hand.

  Mary released her grip on the pistol and looked the grounds keeper in the eyes. She nodded knowingly as tears streamed down her face and she turned and slowly walked to the door. Fat and ugly had won, once again, in America.