Brief Encounters With Che Guevara_ Stories - Ben Fountain [46]
Two weeks later the Myanmar New Light announced the deal in a front-page story, Tesco’s acquisition of the drilling rights to Block Number 8. “A glorious transaction in which all patriots rejoice,” reported the New Light in its usual court-eunuch prose style. “In their wisdom the cherished leaders of our guardian Council have ensured the fulfillment of the People’s Desire.”
The monsoon season had begun, bringing deluges the likes of which Sonny had seen only in Biblical-epic movies. Banded kraits and pit vipers sought out the high ground of the greens; frogs choired outside Sonny’s window at night, serenading him like Mormons on a rapturous drunk. He passed the days hanging around the clubhouse, doing card tricks for the caddies, staring at the rain, and helping Tommy Ng with the pro-shop inventory, tallying up their stock of overpriced golf clubs and polo shirts. The opposition continued to ambush the clubhouse fax machine, their broadsides appearing at all hours of the day. SLAVE LABOR ON UNOCAL PIPELINE read the headline on one; someone had scrawled MURDERERS across the top.
“Is it true?” Sonny asked.
“Is what true.”
“Murderers. Slave labor.”
Tommy considered this as he shredded the fax into pencil-thin strips. “You know, Sonny, this is what I think. I think most days the truth is just another possibility.”
“Dear Girls,” Sonny wrote in his third postcard to Carla and Christie, “it is the monsoon season and it rains all the time, my dandruff is starting to turn green and yesterday I saw a guy with a bunch of animals, two of every kind ha-ha. I miss you miss you miss you and I love you this much, how far it is from here to Texas, that’s how much. Send towels, love Dad.”
Sonny supposed that he was depressed, or terrorized, or post-traumatically stressed, some condition of a dire psychological nature that was supposed to happen only to other people. He’d felt like this ever since his day at the war; that adventure was never totally out of his mind, and he found himself replaying it at various speeds and angles, trying to get at the slippery essence of it. Which was, he began to guess, a transaction of sorts, a meeting of the minds. The joke he’d failed to get. Once the shooting stopped they’d choppered over to the next hill and joined the generals for a tour of the battlefield. The rebel bodies had been placed at the edge of a clearing, eleven or twelve in all as best Sonny could tell, although “bodies” seemed much too civil a word to describe the things he’d seen up there.
Ground beef was more like it. Human roadkill. Blood sausage. What he dreaded more than anything was being dragged out there again, which was why, the few times he’d seen Hayden since, he hadn’t mentioned the resort. Several days after the Tesco announcement Hayden showed up again, late on a Tuesday afternoon when the rain had slowed to a stupefying drizzle. The course was too wet to play, but the range was open, and as Sonny filled a bucket of balls, he offered his congratulations on the Tesco deal. Hayden smiled and nodded, graciously modest, then took his bucket and headed for the practice tee. Twenty minutes later McClure walked into the pro shop.
“Yo Sonny.”
“Hey, Kel.” McClure was wearing a coat and tie. He had the keening, bright-eyed quality of a dog about to be unleashed.
“Is Merrill still around?”
Within a moment, more or less, Sonny had organized his thoughts, figuring people like Kel just knew these things.
“Ought to be. He went up to the range a few minutes ago.”
McClure nodded. “Come on, Sonny. I want you to see this.”
They followed the stone path out to the practice tee. A couple of maintenance men were squeegeeing water off the putting green, the mist swirling around them like shower steam. Farther along they could see Hayden alone on the tee, methodically hitting balls. He stepped out of his hitting stance when he saw them coming.
“Kel.