I’m just driving down the street, you know, sort of checking things out and trying to find the side road where my friend Sandy lives. Or said she lives.
I'd only known her for a little while, met her in downtown Portland, actually, when I was out for a walk at lunchtime. With an hour for lunch, I could walk all the way to Pioneer Courthouse Square from IDC and have time to grab a bite at the yakisoba stand at the square. They had egg rolls that could almost compare to the ones you get on the sidewalk in New York City. From the sidewalk vendors, I mean. The kind where the grease runs down your arm to your elbow while you eat them, right up your sleeve. These were almost like that, and I was standing there that one day when it was sunny in November, which is not an everyday occurrence in Portland, and I was eating this egg roll, or trying to, anyway, because it was really hot and it burned my mouth, once I got past the crunchy outside part and the scalding made me jerk which spilled the dipping sauce out of its cup. The cup has always been a dangerous thing. It’s usually just balanced in the paper boat or barge really against the egg roll so that when you pick up the egg roll, the cup, which is usually full near to it's folded paper brim with the amber sauce with red pepper flakes floating around in a sort of suspension, the cup then tips and slides down into the paper barge, soaking the napkin which they always put under the egg roll. They always put the napkin under the egg roll, so it gets soaked with grease. Then the additional soaking by the sauce really destroys the napkin. The napkin then decides to further aggravate the situation by attaching itself in bits and shreds to the eggroll, becoming one with the crusty eggroll skin, requiring the would-be consumer to find a place to put down the paper boat, or barge, really so that two hands might be brought into play to remove, or attempt to remove, the offending bits and shreds of napkin, now more closely resembling pulp.
One time, not this time but one earlier time, when I ordered an eggroll, the woman handed it to me high. I mean instead of just putting the paper boat or really a barge down on the counter she reached it up high over the case where she kept the soda and juices. She was holding the barge up high over both our heads and I was putting my change back in my pocket with one hand and reaching up to take the paper boat or barge with the other.
“It’s hot.” She said.
I nodded and reached up with my right hand. I put my thumb up on top and my fingers below, just like she was holding it. But my thumb came down not on the edge of the barge but on the edge of that paper cup of dipping sauce and when I squeezed like you have to do to hold the thing that paper cup flipped up and the dipping sauce splashed all over my thumb and into the bottom of the paper boat, or barge really. Dipping sauce sliding down my hand and arm into my shirt sleeve. Dipping sauce all over the napkin.
When I think about that sometimes I wonder why I would ever go back for another egg roll.
But at any rate, this one particular day I was standing by the Umbrella Man Statue when I happened to bite into the too hot eggroll, and my arm jerked and splashed my dipping sauce onto the leg of an innocent bystander.
"Oh, shit, I'm sorry!" I said. Tried to say, my lips and tongue stinging.
"What are you doing?" She said. She was twisting around, trying to see what had spilled onto her leg. Her eyebrows were pulled together. She looked like she might get really angry any second now. Her friend stepped over to the food carts saying something about a napkin.
There was quite a large wet stain on her pants leg, starting at the calf and narrowing down in a drip to the hem. She brushed at several bits of dried red pepper, little red spots in the stain.
"What's the matter with you." she said.
She didn’t look up. I had frozen, I could feel bits of eggroll stuck to my face. Both my hands were greasy from holding the soaked paper barge and the eggroll and I had no napkin. Out in the middle of the square four young people dressed like bicycle messengers played hacky sack. Their dreadlocks were bouncing on their backs, their long lean bodies all of a kind, male and female. I wished I was one of them.
"I'm sorry," I said again, "it was hot, and I burned my lip and my hand jerked."
I jerked my hand to demonstrate, and splashed more sauce on the Umbrella Man Statue. He didn't care, just kept holding his finger up for a cab. He was facing the wrong way, though. He would never get a cab in the middle of the square.
The other woman came back with the napkins and squatted down to wipe at the stain. The woman my dipping sauce had splashed on looked up at me for the first time. Her eyes said she was not happy with what she saw.
"What is that stuff? Can't you be more careful? Here," she dragged one of the clean napkins out of her friend's hand and held it out to me.
"Wipe your chin," she said. She made a face like she’d just smelled dog poop.
"Thank you," I said. Took the napkin and wiped it across my chin. It came away soaked with grease from my face and fingers. Wanted to wipe my sleeve across my mouth. Still felt like I had stuff on my face. I looked around, saw a trash can by one of the food carts and went over to it. Dumped everything in. I wasn't hungry anymore, just embarrassed and angry at myself. Grabbed a handful of napkins and tried to clean myself off with some, carrying the rest back to my victim and her friend.
"I'm really sorry,” I said, “let me pay for cleaning it."
"That's okay," she said.
"No, I mean it,” I said, “those are nice pants, I hope I haven't ruined them."
"Really, it's all right." she said.
Our eyes met for the first time. No bells, whistles, music, violins, no sinking feeling or dizzy spell, no gut reaction, or moving earth. Just a pair of blue eyes meeting mine. I pulled out a business card.
"Call me if they're ruined,” I said, “I'll replace them. Really."
She looked at the card and smiled, just a hint of a smile.
"What's the R. stand for?" she said.
I told her.
Her name was Sandy she said, and she was up from San Diego. Sandy from Sandy Yaygo. We shook hands and I welcomed her to Portland and we talked a little and then I remembered that I had to go to work, but I suggested meeting later at Kell's Irish Pub for dinner, her friend included of course and she accepted with a maybe. She did show up and then we talked about stuff and she gave me her address and phone number in San Diego saying I should look her up if I ever got down there.
So here I am driving down a street in San Diego looking for her street. I’m on a two lane street, I mean two lanes in each direction with a divider island in the middle with palm trees planted in the divider. I’m trying to read the street signs and trying to read the map I’ve got out on the seat and I just drift over the line a little and there’s a bang. Kind of a crunching bang up against that left front fender that already has the dent in it and I think, Shit!
It’s a BMW. One of those new ones with the fancy trim and the dark windows. I pull over to the side and the BMW pulls over in front of me and Peter Jacobsen gets out.
I know him from the tournaments on TV. From the big picture of him at the Fred Meyers. Peter Jacobsen, Professional Golfer.
I get out.
“I’m sorry!” I say, loud so he knows I mean it. We both go around to look at his right front quarter panel. It’s a mess. Headlights and turn signals busted up. Bumper pulled down and the fender crumpled up like aluminum foil after you finished your sandwich.
“God, I’m really sorry,” I say. “I’ve got insurance. It’ll all be covered.”
“You better,” Peter Jacobsen says. “What the fuck were you doing anyway?”
“I was looking for a street.” I say. “Look, here’s my insurance card.”
I show him my license and insurance card. Registration.
“You’re from Portland?” Peter Jacobsen says.
“Yeah,” I say, “And you’re Peter Jacobsen. I’ve always wanted to meet you, but not like this.”
He writes down the insurance information, the driver’s license and stuff. I copy his down, too, but I don’t know what for.
“So,” I say, “You in town for a tournament?”
“Yeah,” he says, “Pro-Am, some computer company sponsoring it for a kids charity.”
“Cool,” I say.
“Yeah, it would be,” he says, “But my partner flaked out on me. Saw in the paper this morning he’s wanted on some embezzlement charge and he’s skipped the country.”
“I got my clubs in the trunk, Peter,” I say. “How about I take his place."
Peter Jacobsen looks at me like a cop. I mean he looks me up and down real quick out of the side of his eyes. His lips are kind of like he’s got something tastes bad in his mouth.
"Well, I don't know,” he says, “What's your handicap?"
"I never figured out,” I say, “but I usually shoot about two or three over par."
Peter Jacobsen nods.
"Per hole?" he says.
"No,” I say, “for the course."
Peter Jacobsen nods. He looks like he doesn’t believe me. Takes in a big breath, chest filling out. Puts one hand up behind his head, the other on his hip. Looks around at the house roofs on the other side of the cinder wall along the divided highway. Palm trees waving around a little over there.
"It's two thousand bucks,” he says, “for charity."
"Will they take a check?” I say, “Or I've got my VISA"
Peter Jacobsen sticks out his right hand.
"You're in,” he says, “Let's go!"
* * *
The round goes well, but I get stuck in a trap on the 11th hole and end up with a double bogey. Bill Murray keeps us all in stitches of course, and by the end of the round all of us in the foursome are trying to make those faces he makes. Trying to talk like he talks. Singing like the Bad Lounge Singer.
Jacobsen comes up to me as we’re leaving the 18th green.
“How come you don’t go pro?” he says. He’s wiping off his putter with a white towel that has green stains on it.
“I don’t know,” I say. I shrug my shoulders up and down. “I don’t know if I could do it, day in, day out.”
“Never know until you try,” Jacobsen says. He holds the putter like a long pistol, club head like the pistol grip in his hand, shaft out like the barrel. Holds it out like that toward his caddie without looking. The caddie takes a quick step and grabs the leather grip on the shaft.
“What’d you tell Bill?” Peter Jacobsen says, “He started doing great after you talked to him.”
“Well,” I say, “He had that nasty slice going; no control. I used to have that problem. I just showed him a trick I do where I turn my toes out while I’m lining up for the swing. He tried it and it worked for him, too.”
I hold an invisible club in my hand and take a stance like I am going to drive a ball. Turn my toes out while I say ‘turn my toes out’.
“Hmm.” Peter Jacobsen says. He nods his head up and down, looking at my feet. “Well, it worked great. I never saw him hug anybody before.”
Bill Murray comes up behind us and grabs us both around the shoulders. He sticks his crater face between ours.
“Hey, Peter,” Bill says, “Getting some tips from the pro?”
I see the paparazzi closing in, wondering who I am and why Bill Murray is embracing me on a golf course. I duck out of there before they can put me on the eleven o'clock news.
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