Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [78]
I walked through a smaller room that held nothing but lockers and dressing benches and found the can, passing along the way Scarecrow Augie Dougall, all six foot six of him, reading a comic book as intently as if his soul depended on it. The bathroom was filthy beyond description, with a row of showers that looked as if they hadn’t been used in years. The floor was carpeted with urine-soaked copies of the Daily Racing Form and the walls were adorned with beaver photos of outrageously large breasted women.
I splashed some water on my face and recombed the part in my hair. I walked back through the shack and out onto a back service porch overlooking the oil digs. There was an old man sitting on an overturned trash can reading a Louis L’Amour novel and smoking a pipe. I walked to the railing of the porch and watched the oilmen working, checking out Pops out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to have trouble concentrating on his book. The noise of the card play distracted him. He looked like a lonely, opinionated old coot, so I asked: “Does that oil property belong to the club?”
He gave me a disgusted look. “Of course it does,” he said, “providing more money for people who already got too much fucking money. They say it helps defer the cost of membership, but shit, when you got the moolah these Hebes got, who gives a rat’s ass for a few chickenshit million a year divided by five hundred fucking members? Can you tell me that?”
I said it was a mystery to me. I could see a windy monologue coming on, so I started popping questions, simple ones. “Do you loop here?”
Pops gave me another disgusted snort. “You could say that,” he said, “but I’d rather not. I’m on Hot Rod’s shit list, so I’m lucky to pick up a nine-hole single once in a while. Are you a caddy? You don’t look like one. Too healthy.”
“I’m a traveling caddy. They call me Coast-to-Coast Johnny. I’m in town checking out the accommodations of the various caddy shacks for an article I’m writing for Golf Digest. How come you’re on Hot Rod’s shit list?”
“I don’t bet with the cocksucker. I don’t drink at the cocksucker’s bar, or live at his cocksucking fleabag hotel. Does that answer your question?”
“Vividly. I take it you don’t like Hot Rod.”
“You got that dead right. You oughta write an article on the caddy masters of America. They’re all corrupt—bookies, pimps, and worse. They’re all tyrants and shitheels and Hot Rod Ralston is the worst.”
There was a general uproar inside the caddy shack, the sound of boxes slammed down, followed by excited voices. Pops got up from his trash can and rushed into the fray. I joined him. Boxes full of clothes were laid out on the concrete floor, and dozens of old suits covered two of the picnic tables. A horde of loopers had descended on them like a pack of wolves, gathering them indiscriminately, irrespective of size. Pushing and shoving ensued, and the caddies’ favorite verb, noun, adjective, and modifier, “cocksucker!” was heard many times with many different inflections. Within two minutes everything was snatched up and the loopers were proudly examining and displaying their booty.
Pops came back out on the porch gleefully bearing an old sharkskin suitcoat. He took off the ratty cardigan he was wearing, threw it out in the direction of the oil digs, and donned the suitcoat, strutting like a rooster. “Them Hebes is all right,” he said. “They take care of us! This is a three-hundred-dollar coat. Look inside here, it says ‘Made in U.S.A.’! This ain’t no Taiwan piece of shit, this is the real goods! Goddamn,” Pops went on, “now all I need me is a loop to make my day. Then I’ll be hopping.”
A loudspeaker crackled inside the caddy shack. “Augie Dougall, first tee, right away.” That was interesting. There were dozens of hardier looking loopers around to pack bags. Pops thought it was interesting, too. “Cocksucking Hot Rod,” he said. “I been here since six-thirty this morning. That beanpole gets here at noon, and he loops before me. Cocksucker.