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GOLF AND CANADIAN LITERATURE 'Canadian literature drove me to this,' I said to my friend Lorca as we sauntered down the fairway in search of my ball. 'Un raro gusto,' said he. I was a mess. I had a cigarette hanging out the corner of my mouth, a shirttail hanging out the back of my pants and a raging headache sending darts across my eyes. It's strange what cheap red wine will do. God, last night we drank gallons of it and Lorca read his poems and I tried to make head or tails of it -- Spanish is not my major language -- and so, while we were lighting cigarettes, I said: 'Tomorrow we will go to the golf course.' So it was tomorrow morning and as I snooped around the rough for my ball,I could hear him whispering behind me: 'Verde que te quiero verde.' He repeated it a few times verde te quiero verde until my white ball stood out like a beacon in the thick greening grass throwing off the pallid winter. 'Lorca, up there is where I have to put my ball. Up there where the flag is. Now the distance is such that I have to use my fairway wood -- that is the way these things go. Despite what anybody says fairway woods are fairly to hard master -- as a matter of fact, mastering a fairway wood is more difficult than mastering Canadian literature.' With that bold statement, I stepped up with a three wood in my hands and concerned myself with the ball. He laughed: 'La bolo como un immenso tulipan.' The effort I made was prodigious; at the end of my swing the ball had advanced about four feet ten and one quarter inches. From behind my Slumped Shoulders of Disappointment I heard Lorca say in clear English: 'I believe I understand.' |