In this thoughtful post, Kevin Egan reflects on the professors and the summers working on a golf course that helped inspire his story “Albatross”
My three creative writing professors in college espoused three different theories about fiction writing. The first believed that fiction writing could not be taught but could be learned. The second believed that with enough imagination a writer could write any story and create any character no matter how far removed from the writer’s direct experience. The third believed that every writer had only one story to tell and that a good writer could adorn the variations so skillfully that readers would not notice.
Having taught creative writing in an adult-ed program, I agree with the first theory. Eight novels and more than 50 short stories removed from those college creative writing classes, I rarely stray from stories, settings, and characters with at least some direct connection to my own experiences. But the third theory – the one story per writer concept – struck me as absurd. As an English major, I could have named many writers of infinite variety.
Now, however, I think the third theory is at least debatable.
During my formative writing years, I had a steady summer job at a golf course. On weekends, I worked as a starter, which meant I stood on the first tee to make sure that the foursomes began play at their assigned starting time. Sounds easy, but over the course of a weekend morning tensions would rise. Late-arriving foursomes would cause the tee to fall behind schedule. Foursomes would suspect that other foursomes had been “slipped in” without a valid starting time. I usually mediated these disputes, but one day there was a particularly heated argument that almost ended in physical blows. I sorted things out, and twenty minutes later the last of these foursomes was strolling down the first fairway.
An older couple I’ll call Mr. and Mrs. K. remained on the tee. Mr. K seemed permanently sad. His facial expressions, his posture, even his golf swing spoke of a man carrying a heavy burden. His burden was no mystery, even to a knuckle-headed teenager like me. Something had happened to Mrs. K. She walked stiffly, spoke haltingly, and barely could swing a golf club. One shoe was built up because one leg was shorter than the other. Gobs of make-up couldn’t hide the fact that her forehead had been reconstructed.
Mr. K, who had witnessed the argument over the starting times, sat slumped on a bench.
“Those fools,” he said. “Do you know what happened to my wife? I ran a red light because I was late for a tee time. We got broadsided. And to hear these fools fighting over seven minutes.”
He shook his head and said nothing else. The seven minutes he mentioned was the interval between starting times.
I never saw Mr. and Mrs. K through the same eyes. I never forgot that conversation. Years later, I published my first short story. The genesis of the story was a golf joke filtered through Mr. K’s anguish.
In the story, an elderly caddie named Pepper relates a strange incident from his days as a young caddie. (Remember, I rarely stray from stories, characters, and settings without some connection to my own experience.) The adolescent Pepper is assigned to a wealthy eccentric named Murtaugh, who is somewhat of a sorry legend at the country club. Throughout the golf season, Murtaugh plays alone, late in the day, just himself and his (unlucky) caddie trudging through the lengthening shadows. The only time he plays golf with anyone is during the annual club championship, which he seems determined to win. But his performance in the championship has become fodder for caddie yard jokes because he always makes it to the finals but then loses the match on the 18th hole. “Like a newsreel run for the hundredth time,” Pepper observes. Still, Pepper is determined to help Murtaugh win, not because he is a loyal caddie, not because he feels badly for Murtaugh, but because he wants to elevate his own status among the caddies by helping this perennial loser win the championship.
It won’t be easy. During those solitary rounds, Pepper sees that Murtaugh always hooks his tee shot deep into the trees along the 18th hole. In fact, his golf ball always comes to rest among three small ornamental evergreens dwarfed by towering oaks. To make matters worse, Murtaugh always loses his concentration and tries to extricate himself with wild, low-percentage shots rather than conservative, safe shots.
Pepper guides Murtaugh through the early matches of the championship. Murtaugh wins each match handily, so his inability to play the 18th hole does not matter. But in the finals, Murtaugh and his opponent are tied when they reach the 18th hole. Again, and as always, Murtaugh hits his tee shot into the trees. But now, and for the first time, Pepper suggests that Murtaugh change his strategy. The suggestion leads to an argument, and Pepper slowly comes to understand that Murtaugh does not want to win, that this yearly championship is Murtaugh’s personal Greek Underworld. Despite this realization, Pepper does not give up. He convinces Murtaugh to hit the safe shot that finally wins the championship.
But the story isn’t over. That night, after the championship dinner, Pepper follows Murtaugh onto the darkened golf course. At first, he hears Murtaugh sobbing, then finds him kneeling with his trophy among the three small evergreens. The sobs gradually resolve into words of apology. It turns out that Murtaugh’s lot is much worse than Mr. K’s. Murtaugh also ran a red light on his way to the golf course and crashed into another car. His wife was killed, and his life had been a fever dream ever since. Pepper, unwittingly, helped him break the fever.
The story, “Pulling the Hagen,” appeared in the October 1983 issue of Whispers, a horror/fantasy magazine. After 40 years and thousands of pages of published fiction, the two ideas that combined to become “Pulling the Hagen” have never been far from my mind. I wrote a much shorter and much more blatantly supernatural version called “Penance.” It was accepted once but never actually published; many near misses followed. The latest iteration of the idea is “Albatross” in the March-April issue of AHMM. “Albatross” is the second of a series of stories that resurrect the characters and setting from a series of golf mystery novels I wrote in the 1990s. Like “Hagen,” it involves a patch of ground in the rough alongside the 18th hole on a golf course.
I suppose the question remains: If “Albatross” is a version of the “one story” that has followed me for more than 40 years, will I write yet another?
Trace Evidence 