Bin Laden's Bald Spot: & Other Stories

Stay Flush

51 stay fLush In December of 1961 I was a bartender at a golf club in Palm Beach. One day a guy comes in and orders a whiskey. This was at noon. He was an older guy, maybe seventy. His tee time was at four but he said he was having a bad day and wanted to settle his nerves before he went out on the course. Don’t feel well, sir? I ask. Afflicted by memory, he says, sipping. Yes, sir. Burdened is perhaps the better word, he says. Can I be of assistance, sir? No, thank you, he says. Another whiskey, please. I get another whiskey for him and he stares out at the course for a while and then says, You know what, son, maybe you can help me. This will sound odd but it would help me a great deal if you would accompany me outside and just sit on the veranda and listen to me for a while. I have something to say. A cathartic impulse, as it were. A peculiar urge of the aged. A shriving, one might say. Do I need to talk to your manager or something? I am the guest of a member here and I might characterize this as an unusual guest service. I would be happy to make it worth your while and recompense the club suitably also. I am a man of some means. I know this 52 | Bin Laden’s Bald Spot sounds odd but I would be very grateful for a willing ear. What’s your name? Jack, sir. Jack, he says, blinking. Jack. Well, Jack, to whom do I speak in order to request the pleasure of your company on the veranda? My manager is Mr. Dineen, sir. In the restaurant. The guy goes to the restaurant and I top off the rest of the drinkers at the bar. He and Mr. Dineen come back in a minute and Mr. Dineen says it’s okay with him if I accompany our guest to the veranda for a conversation on cabbages and kings, whereas our policy here at the club is that the guest of a member is essentially himself a member in good standing for the duration of his visit, and he, Mr. Dineen, cannot imagine that I will not welcome a brief respite from my labors as a purveyor of spirits, and he, Mr. Dineen, sees no clear reason why I cannot spend time in our guest’s company up to and until such time as our guest’s foursome is ready to commence defeating the course, which is playing beautifully today, sir, very little wind, the greens a touch fast, and I remind you that the tees on eleven have been moved back a tad as a sign of respect for the increasing musculature of American manhood, long may we wave. The guy thanks Mr. Dineen and they have a cash handshake and he and I step out on the veranda. Let us savor the brilliant and miraculous light, such a gift in winter, he says, and we take a table in the sun and he stretches out his legs and starts talking. I am seventy-three years old, Jack, he says. I am a man of some means. I have been blessed by nine children and have suffered the loss of three, leaving me six, many of whom have risen to prominence in the affairs of state and nation. I have committed sins, several of which I regret. I have served my nation and my family with all the energy and diligence I could muster. I feel that my time is coming to a close and I wish to be clear about some things before I go. I am choosing you as witness, Jack. Finné, in the Irish, he who hears what is spoken from the heart. An old Irish custom, to choose a stranger and to him issue a final testament. Honesty being easier to inflict on a stranger. With those we love we must be Brian Doyle | 53 more circumspect, eh? In the old days this would be done on a holy mountain. But here we are on the veranda of a golf course. How very American. Are you Irish? My grandparents were from Mayo, sir. Mayo God help us, he says. My people were from Wexford. They fled the famine. As did my wife’s people. They...