Reflections (II)
2021
Catamount joe blair
I
t was thirty-five degrees and raining when we arrived at Catamount Country Club in Williston, Vermont. Catamount is a nine-hole track that includes a fancy double-decker driving range. “They’re only open till two,” I told Dave before he set out from Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts. That was at about ten o’clock. It takes three hours to drive from there to Williston. “I don’t know whether they mean they actually close the course at two, or they stop taking tee times at two,” I said. “They’ll take our money,” Dave said. We pulled into the parking lot at 1:30. The wind was gusty. I wore my work shirt and the Old Mill insulated hoodie I bought at Menard’s for eighteen dollars. Dave wore his paintsplattered Carhartt pants and his paint-splattered Carhartt coat. Dave’s an artist. He’s broke. And all his clothes are flecked with colorful oil paints. I unloaded my clubs from the back of the Honda Element and set out to see if we could get on. The lights were out in the clubhouse. Doors locked. I googled the number and dialed it. “Catamount.” “Yeah. I called earlier. I’d like to pay for a round? There’s two of us. “We’re around back. Just pull around back. We been down here since June.” Black Ping bag slung across my back, I clattered down the concrete stairway to the lower level and circled around on the outside of the high wooden fence separating the driving range from the lower parking lot. At the far end of the driving range I found a small concession stand window. A teenage kid slid the glass aside and said, “That’ll be twenty. Apiece.” I handed over two twenties and looked around for Dave. There was no sign of him. I decided I wouldn’t be walking back up the hill to look for him. Why would I do that. He’s a grownup. He can find the first tee. I turned and headed for it. The ground was soggy. I heard there had been snow last week and then rain. At present, the rain felt like ocean rain, not stopping or starting but fading in and out in time with the wind gusts. Almost unnoticeable but soaking. The first hole at Catamount is a par-four dogleg-right with two bunkers short punctuated by a large granite boulder. There are two or three giant burial mounds straight away and left from back in the day when giants roamed the earth and played golf and asked to be buried in the rough of the first fairway at Catamount. It’s an easy driving hole, especially if you’re a fader of the ball like I am. You could hit a big banana slice here, and if you can carry a couple hundred yards, you’ll have a pitching wedge to the small, flat green. I teed up a ball and looked around again for Dave. Here he came, sauntering around the driving range fence just like a fucking artist. No hurry.
The Lowell Review
119
