The Legend of Bagger Vance (5 page)

Then there was his handsomeness. You’ve no doubt seen numerous photos of the man, Michael, perhaps even some of this very day at Krewe Island. But none do justice to the man that stood before the multitude in his youth and prime. My God, he was handsome! His skin, like Hagen’s, seemed to glow with an inner fire that the rest of us had been denied. His eyes were bright with power and intelligence and his whole modest understated demeanor only added to what I must call, for no other word will accurately describe it, his beauty. Almost unaware of it,
vaguely embarrassed by it, never dreaming of capitalizing on it. If it makes sense, I may say his good looks were “amateur.” Do you know what I mean?

The terrifying thought occurred to me, as perhaps it did simultaneously to the whole crowd, or at least our local Georgia half of it, that these two titans would utterly trample and annihilate our homegrown knight. A chill coursed through me. I knew I must turn next to Junah, but I was afraid to. Afraid that after the glow and power of Hagen and Jones, that my eyes would settle on our local champion and find him a mere mortal. I had to force myself, force my eyes to swing and focus on Junah, whom I could sense now moving to the microphones. I heard his voice before I could make myself actually look.

“Now I know what a sacrificial lamb feels like.”

I opened my eyes…and Junah held up! Thank God! A wave of relief flooded through me at the same time the crowd’s enthusiastic laughter swept upward to the podium. Junah too had that look. That look of power and athleticism, the capability, one sensed, of rising to levels beyond the mortal. He too seemed cut from that same transcendent cloth.

The whole crowd must have been silently thinking the same thing, for at that moment an audible “Ahhh” seemed to expel from a thousand throats. In that instant, the people of Savannah took Junah to their hearts. He became in that instant their champion, and all their hopes attached themselves with joy to his fate.

“So be it”—Junah gestured toward Hagen and Jones—“lead me on to the slaughter,” and the crowd inundated him and the platform with their heartfelt cheers.

Right behind Garland and me stood Judge Anderson, the man whose prideful insistence had forced Junah into this match and onto this stage. “Was I wrong?” his voice boomed triumphantly to several of the elders who had at first opposed him. “No,” admitted his foes, vanquished.

Junah melted back, away from the microphone, as the cheers redoubled in anticipation of the upcoming practice round. I had one brief moment to glimpse his face, before dozens of swarming bodies intervened, and what I saw confused and chilled me.

Not warmed whatever by the applause, Junah’s expression seemed more than ever to be one of distance and despair. Dark clouds lowered upon him. I glanced into the crowd and saw Bagger Vance, watching just as he had that first night, with utter detached objectivity. Then he too was swallowed by the throng.

T
HAT AFTERNOON PASSED
as the most excruciating hell I had ever experienced in my young boy’s life. It was torment at its purest, for I was dispatched onto the course, supposedly in a position of responsibility and honor, yet that very position kept me just out of range of seeing the players and the round. I missed everything.

Do you know what a forecaddie is, Michael? I didn’t, until I found myself in the tumult following the welcoming ceremonies being swept up by two of Dougal McDermott’s assistant professionals and whisked with seven other boys, amid much urgency and excitement, into Krewe Island’s staff locker area. There tailors were waiting to fit us (and scores of other marshals, officials and gallery guards) with navy-blue plus fours, white linen shirts with the Krewe Island monogram, and matching navy neckties. It was clear this was a great honor; my inclusion was apparently in deference to my father’s position in the community, and also a
reward for my own work of the night before. It meant nothing to me; all I wanted was to be with Junah and Bagger Vance.

How could I get out of this and back to them?

I caught McDermott by the jacket sleeve and blurted some incoherent barrage of excuses: I had schoolwork, a sudden fever, dizzy spells. But he took it all as boyish nervousness and, loudly for the other forecaddies as well, refused to hear of it. “Ye’ll all remimber this day as long as ye live!” He clapped my back, and steered me back among my fellows. We were each given two flags, one white and one red, four feet high with a sharpened steel point at the bottom. Our job was to make sure no ball got lost.

McDermott issued us our marching orders. In teams of four, we were to leapfrog one hole ahead of the match. A pair of us would be stationed in the landing area on each driving hole, one to the right of the fairway, one to the left. We were to follow each ball in flight and, should it land in any place where it wasn’t immediately visible, in the heathery rough or beyond among the duneland, plant our flag right beside it—white if the ball was in bounds, red if out. Another pair of boys were stationed around the green to mark any wayward approaches, while the second quartet, to avoid getting gummed up in the galleries, moved on ahead and took up positions at the next hole.

The result was the most exquisite torture a golf-mad boy could be forced to endure. I could see Hagen, see Jones, see Junah, but only as miniature figures 275 yards distant, indistinguishable one from another until they swung, and most of the time virtually invisible in their white shirts and light-colored plus
fours against the background of the gallery in identical attire. You could see a player swing, recognize Hagen by his lurching motion or Jones by his slow, stately tempo; then all your focus had to switch to the ball, which you were obliged to scamper under, tracking it like some relentless outfielder till it hit and rolled safely to rest in the officials’ view. That was all you could see or were allowed to see. You couldn’t see the players’ faces, couldn’t see their swings nor their grips, their footwork, their rhythm. You couldn’t hear the jokes they cracked or watch the emotions play across their faces. As soon as you staked your flag and made certain that the marshals had the balls’ positions clearly in view, you were obliged to scoot away, not even to the green where you might still catch a glimpse of the excitement, but an entire hole ahead.

To make the ordeal even more painful, it was clear that players and gallery were having great fun. The competitors all hit more than one ball, sometimes two and three off each tee, drawing and fading. We forecaddies could look back from a hole ahead and see Jones dropping a ball in the rough for practice to get the feel of the grass, drop another fifty yards behind his drive to rip a long iron into a green and see how it held, or drop two or three close in for niblick pitches and run-ups. They all hit practice shots from fairway bunkers and around the greens chipped from two or three angles. From the deep distance I could see them putting, three or four balls from various levels on the greens, at all probable pin positions. For one stretch of three holes, the eighth through the tenth, Hagen played on ahead, alone, taking just Spec Hammond his caddie and his gallery. He
had us running crazy with our flags because he, apparently deliberately, was hitting his drives into trouble, left and right, just to practice playing out. I lost track of Junah and Jones entirely, and when Hagen rejoined the group at the eleventh, Junah was gone.

What catastrophe had struck now?

I peered back down the fairways to see if Junah had dropped a hole or two behind to practice alone. Had he pulled a muscle? Cut his hand? Where was he? Had he dropped out completely?

When we got in, near sunset, I found Garland and learned that Junah had returned to the practice area after the turn, hit a handful of desultory pitches and sand shots, then departed without explanation, with Bagger Vance driving the Chalmers, for home.

I was getting frantic. I had no idea what private darkness Junah was struggling with, but the image of his face two nights ago in the slave kitchen, that bright desperate smile over his whiskey, and then the blank despair on his features this afternoon made my blood run cold. In some unspoken way, I had identified my own fate with Junah’s. He was my champion as well as Savannah’s. The thought of some desperate debacle, some ghastly mind-driven collapse before the world’s eyes, was so awful I couldn’t bear even to contemplate it. And yet I felt it coming. Sensed it in my bones, even if I had no idea why or from where.

It was evening now; the banquets had begun in the east and west ballrooms. We boys could hear the orchestra music coming from across the broad lawn, see the gay formal lanterns lining the drive and the queues of automobiles delivering their cargo of ladies and gentlemen at the brilliantly lit entrance of Krewe Is
land’s grand hotel. We ourselves were feted to a fried chicken, brunswick stew and peach cobbler supper in the employees’ dining room. A dormitory had been set up in a carriage house for the forecaddies and the cooks and others, so we wouldn’t have to fight traffic tomorrow.

I had to get out of there. Had to get to Junah’s and beg him to include me somehow in his outfit tomorrow; I’d carry ice or sandwiches, anything to get close and be able to see. The thought of passing that day, potentially the most memorable of my life, exiled into the blue distance, an entire hole ahead of my idols, was more than I could bear. I got to a phone and called my brother Garland, who was already fevered with envy over the forecaddie uniforms with the Krewe Island monograms and the fitted plus fours. Would he take my place tomorrow? Hell yeah! I told him where I’d stash the stuff once I snuck away and he promised to collect it; he’d sneak out tonight and creep in with the forecaddies before dawn. Krewe Island had even fitted us for a brand-new pair of shoes, real spiked spectators that we’d be given at breakfast. Garland could have those too.

Back in bed I feigned sleep for what seemed like hours. My bunkmates chattered and giggled, wide awake with excitement for the morning, while out in the hall the chaperone and dorm master drank coffee and flirted with various chambermaids passing. Midnight came and went; no one had corked off or looked likely to. I gave up and crept to the lavatory, shinned down out the window and beat it away across the lawn. The banquets were starting to wind down, you could see tuxedoed men and bejeweled women stealing kisses out by the cars and in the little al
coves with the statues along the covered walks. Some fool was splashing around in the main fountain, singing a song with dirty words while a flock of Marcel-waved girls cheered him on, giggling. I ducked back through a service entrance and into the pastry kitchen. A couple of cooks were smoking by the big scullery sink, talking about how Jones had gone to bed at the stroke of ten, while Hagen supposedly had no plans to sleep at all. The cooks seemed in that good-natured state of work exhaustion so I let them see me. What about Junah? I asked. Did they know if he’d come in for the banquets? They started laughing like I’d said the funniest thing in the world.

“Come in? Hell, he’s drunk half the liquor from the second and third services!”

I don’t know what inspired me to ask this next, but from my mouth came “What about his caddie? Was he with him?”

“If you mean that strange-ass dark sumbitch, he was in here not twenty minutes ago, getting ice.” They pointed out the hallway where Bagger Vance had gone.

I took off in pursuit. Down one carpeted corridor that yielded nothing, then following my instincts down another and another. Loud music was coming from several rooms up ahead, doors were open, I felt like I was getting warmer. I turned into a fourth corridor; a crowd of plastered party-goers pushed past, hooting and grabbing at each other. The hall was a mess. There were half-empty wine goblets and ice pitchers set on hors d’oeuvre trays that had been pillaged down to the platters. A lit cigarette was burning on the carpet. A woman ran out of one room and into another without a top, laughing, cupping her hands over her
breasts, and then two men came after her, not laughing, huffing and puffing in dead earnest. I turned a corner and glimpsed a dark form way down the hall. Bagger Vance? I raced off down the carpet, a good forty yards, and when I tore around the corner, something slick took my feet wildly from under me; I flew sideways slam-bam into a wall and crashed like a load onto the floor. Golf balls! Half a dozen were scattered across the carpet, with a whiskey glass set on its side like a target.

Someone had been putting. My eyes just had time to spot the blade setting against the wall, a Victor East putter exactly like Junah’s “Safecracker,” and then a sound like a cry came from the room straight across. I peered in and there in the darkness was Junah, half naked on the bed, with two women pawing and grinding all over him.

I don’t believe I had ever beheld a grown woman’s buttocks before. Certainly I had never witnessed that peculiar swiveling, gyrating motion or heard those urgent, throat-catching gasps. Junah was half out of his tux, with the one girl on top of him and the other kissing him from the side, while his hands switched back and forth between both of them. He didn’t see me, none of them did, their eyeballs were rolled back so far into the sockets. There were empty whiskey bottles on the carpet; the whole room stunk of alcohol and cigarettes. I had never witnessed a scene so degrading or so utterly devoid of dignity. Part of me wanted to throw up; another wanted to charge in and give all three of them the thrashing they so richly deserved. I stood there, dumbstruck and paralyzed, when a quiet voice spoke from behind me.

“Don’t think too unkindly of him for this.”

I spun. Bagger Vance stood there. Taller even than I remembered and cold solid sober, with that same poise and gravity radiating from him so powerfully. He put a hand on my shoulder and gave an odd smile. “Think you can handle that big persimmon in there?” His gesture indicated Junah’s oversized deep-faced driver, leaning against a chair just inside the room. “Grab it and the putter, we’ve got work to do.”

Vance said nothing more, simply turned, scooped the balls from the carpet and strode toward the service exit. I grabbed the driver and sprung after him, out the door and across a rear grass parking area. Bagger Vance strode powerfully ahead, past the last parked car and buggy and on out into the dark dripping duneland. I looked back; the lights and music from the ballrooms were dropping farther and farther into the distance, we were out there in the night with nothing but the dunes and the raw black sky. “Where in the world are we going?” I gasped, breathless, when I finally caught up.

Vance turned off the sand, onto a narrow track that led to an open fairway. “To walk the course,” he said.