Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [27]
“It’s the loneliness, that’s what gets me about looping. All these sad motherfuckers with no families, no responsibility, don’t pay no income tax, nothing to look forward to but the World Series pool at the Tap and Cap, the Christmas party in the caddy shack, the next drunk, or the big horse that never hits. We got this college kid, a real smart kid, who loops weekends, and he says that caddies is ‘the last vestige of the Colonial South. Golf course cotton pickers lapping at the fringes of a strained noblesse oblige.’ He said that we were a holdover from another era, that we were a status symbol, and it was worth it for clubs to keep us around, to uphold their image.
“Caddies on the pro tour is absolutely necessary, of course, but that’s another story. The club caddy is on his way out. Carts is coming in. Riviera went cart three years ago. Caddies is gonna blow it. They’re too unreliable. Never showing up, or showing up drunk. I’m lucky. If worst comes to worst, I can always do reupholstering. That’s my trade, but I hate it. I like looping for the freedom. I’m my own boss, except for the time I’m picking cotton. Besides, it ain’t too late for me to change my life. I’m only thirty-nine, like Jack Benny. My probation officer and my shrink have been helping me out a lot. I ain’t stolen no cars in over a year. Group therapy’s been helping me. My shrink tells me I don’t have to be a caddy if I don’t want to. That I can be what I want.
“It ain’t that way for Fat Dog, though. He’s locked into it. He don’t want to do nothing else. He hates niggers and he hates Jews, and that’s all he’s got. The shrink told me that people who hate other people real bad usually hate themselves. Maybe that’s how it is with Fat Dog. He’s got no friends, except Augie Dou-gall, who’s the only one in the world lame enough to put up with his shit. Fat Dog is always talking about this rich and powerful guy he knows, that he’s gonna team up with someday, but that’s bullshit. Fantasyland. If he wasn’t such a cheap, nasty prick, I’d feel sorry for him.
“Looping wouldn’t be such a bummer if it wasn’t for the guys who loop. Golf’s a great game, and golf courses is beautiful. It’s just the poor sad fuckers who pack the bags for a bunch of poor sad fuckers who can’t hit the ball that makes the whole thing so sad.”
Stan The Man finished his soliloquy, and I sighed in the darkness. I said, “I feel for you. I know how it is to be trapped, watching your life hotfoot it away. If your upholstering gig falls through, I can help you get started in the repossession racket. I know a lot of people. You could get paid for ripping-off cars. You’d have lots of free time to pursue whatever you wanted. Consider repo-ing, you might like it.” I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and handed it to him. “You can reach me at one of these numbers. I’ll do all I can to get you started.”
Stan put the card into his pocket and stared at me for a long moment. “Thanks,” he said. “I mean it. This has been one crazy night. I always figured that if someone offered me a break it would be some rich member at the club who liked the way I called putts, not some private eye repo-man. Let me think about it, okay? This is all happening real fast.”
“Think it over. Kick it around with your shrink. He might think it’s a bad extension of your disease,