Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto (9 page)

Intro Music: “Gold Digger” by Kanye West (feat. Jamie Foxx)

Welcome back to
The Love Manifesto,
a podcast where we examine what love is, why love is, and why we are stupid enough to keep going back for more. That last song was “Gold Digger” by Kanye West, and it has tons to do with what we've been talking about today. But first, GrapeApe97 tagged me in a meme. He wants me to list twenty-five things that people might not otherwise know about me. That's a tough one to do while I'm trying to hide my superspy identity, but I'll list a few.

The first is that I love Sam Raimi movies. Most people know him for his work on the Spider-Man movies, but I think his best work was the Evil Dead trilogy. That was a really campy series of horror movies from the eighties and nineties. I have all the DVDs and have practically worn them out.

Second, when I was a kid, I wanted a pet monkey. Actually, I wanted a monkey that wore a Superman costume. Of course, he'd have to have monkey diapers under there, but there are few things cuter than a monkey in a Superman costume. And, of course, a tuxedo for formal affairs.

Another thing is that I'm good at golf, but I don't love it. I grew up with a golf club in my hands, and as a kid I played a lot. I think my father had visions of me being the next Tiger Woods. But being good at something and loving it are totally different things. And I do not love golf.

Another thing about me is that I'm still off the market. I mean, sure, I'm single, no girlfriend, all that; but if I started dating right now, I'd be a total terror. I'm just not ready. I've got a few things to sort out first.

So, sorry, GrapeApe97, that's as much as I'm going to share, at least for now.

Continuing with the ex list…I think we're on number nineteen, which is that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep anything from her. I'm not a bad liar, but somehow she could see right through me. And number twenty: She had the cutest hum when she would do her Spanish homework. Okay, I know! I'm going to get a lot of crap from you guys out there on how girly I'm sounding right now. But it's true.

Now on to other news.

New stuff.

I saw her. I actually spoke to her. I spoke to the woman who is sleeping with my father. I was pretty sneaky about
it. She doesn't suspect a thing. At least, I don't think she does. I mean, why should she, right?

Now that I know where this woman lives, I can officially begin surveillance. Does anyone have any surveillance advice? Aside from lots of high-octane coffee and glazed donuts, I'm not sure what a cop actually does on a stakeout.

All right, let's get to some music. My father roped me into a late-afternoon round of golf, so I've got to cut this show, post it, and get down there. Somebody please remind me to keep my mouth shut. The last thing I need is to drop a hint to my father that I suspect anything.

This next song is called “Dueling Banjos.” Sure, it's an old one. Sure, it's a weird one. I'll explain the importance of it when we come back.

Intro Music: “Dueling Banjos” by Eric Weissberg

“O
kay, I'll admit it,” my father says as we walk up to the tee box on the twelfth hole. “The little bastard is growing on me.”

Mr. Peepers. My father named the puppy Mr. Peepers. Supposedly, it's a character from an old
Saturday Night Live
episode, some monkey man or something. My dad freaked out when he came home and discovered a dog peeing on papers in the laundry room, but it only took a few hours for him to warm up to the fuzzy little guy. I warmed up to him too when he started humping the tennis ball I put in his crate. His paws were barely touching the ground, but when I went in there this morning, he was showing that ball who's boss.

“I just wish he'd stop scratching up the hardwood,” my dad says.

“He's only eight weeks old. I'm sure he'll stop at some point.”

“He'd better. Otherwise he'll be stripping, sanding, and
refinishing the floors.” The thought of a Chihuahua running a rotating sander is funny, but I don't crack a smile.

My father tees up his ball.

There was no avoiding him when it came to today's round of golf. My father stalked into the basement as I was answering a few comments from the podcast. I got more than fifty downloads just today. It's a good thing he didn't have a chance to read what I was typing. With my allowance—almost a full week's worth of gas money—in his hand, how was I supposed to say no to a late-afternoon round? Anyhow, I was too panicked to do anything but pop on the screen saver and tell him I'll grab my cap.

Every time I look at him, thoughts of Luz Rivera flood into my mind. I try to keep focused, to let golf consume me. But the game never pulls me away from real life like it seems to do for most guys who play.

Swack!

My father's swing is so regular, so mechanical, that a team of MIT geniuses would have trouble building a robot nearly as consistent. He turns at the hips, keeps his elbow in and his head down. If I didn't see his face, I wouldn't be able to distinguish between him and a pro golfer. His ball rockets from the tee faster than the speed of the golf club should allow. It soars over the reeds, over the small patch of fairway, and lands lightly on the left side of the green. Although I've seen plenty of golfers stick it right next to the pin on this hole, it's a respectable shot for 170 yards—a shot I'd be stoked about.

“I yanked it.” He thumps his tee into the ground with
the head of his five-iron like he's driving a railroad spike into concrete.

“It was a good shot,” I say.

“It's on the upper tier, a two-putt at best.”

“At least it's on the green.”

I tee up my ball and take a few practice strokes. I swing. My shot flies higher than I wanted. It's a towering shot that might have been all right if the wind wasn't cutting across the tops of the trees. My ball begins to drift.

“Motherf—”

“Watch your mouth,” my father warns.

It's hard to watch your mouth when you're busy watching your ball sail away and plummet into a sand trap with a distant
thump
.

There are so many variables in golf: wind, slope of the ground, length of grass, thickness of grass, height of the landing surface relative to the hitting surface, and so on. And that's just the external variables. You also have to think about the internal stuff: type of grip, where the ball sits in your stance, the width of your stance, the angle of your downswing, and all sorts of other crap.

And I always seem to forget a few dozen of them.

“Teed it up too high,” my father says.

“Guess so.”

“Want your mulligan?”

“Nah, I never use my do-over on a par three.”

“Suit yourself,” he says. “That's a deep trap. I got stuck down there once and…” I let him go on with his story, but I completely tune him out.

One of the things I like about golf is that there's so much to concentrate on that there's never a lot of pressure to talk about anything beyond the game. Most of the time you're thinking about your last shot or your next one. Between holes, you talk about your clubs, the weather, the time you hit an eagle at some tournament someplace. Whatever. But there's never any pressure to talk about personal stuff. At least it's been like that for the first four holes. Now it all comes to a screeching halt.

“So what's been bothering you?” my father asks.

I slide my club into my bag and take a seat behind the wheel of the golf cart. “I hit into the stupid trap.”

“No, I mean over the past week or so. You've seemed real bent out of shape. Your mother and I, we're sort of concerned.”

If I were a girl, I'd be able to blame it on cramps and that would shut him up. What do guys get to blame things on? “I've just been down in the dumps is all.”

“Look, Seth, I had my fair share of girlfriends. I know what you're going through. This sort of thing will pass. You just have to buck up.”

“Buck up? Sounds like something from a cowboy movie.”

“You know, take a deep breath. Move on. You need to find another girl and get back in the game.”

Just what I need, a string of clichés. “You sound like Dimitri.”

“Well, maybe your friend isn't as dumb as I thought.”

I'm glad Dimitri wasn't around to hear my father say
that. He'd gloat about that back-handed compliment for weeks.

I stomp on the pedal. The golf cart whips forward, and I steer us down the path that runs along the right side of the hole. I hook around the sand trap to the gravel walkway behind the green. “It's different nowadays, Dad. Dating is different.”

“How is it different?”

“This isn't the cheeseball seventies.” I step from the cart and pull my sand wedge from my bag.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“This isn't the age of polyester shirts with wide lapels. This isn't the age of gold medallions and hairy chests. And this sure isn't the age of partner-swapping free love.”

I glance at my father to see if he has any sort of reaction, but he just laughs. “I was born in nineteen sixty-nine,” he says. “I wasn't a teenager until the eighties.”

“Well, this isn't the age of acid-wash jeans, mullets, and Michael Jackson gloves, either.” I grab my club and tramp down into the sand pit. It's a deep one. My ball is sunk so low in the sand, it looks like a fried egg.

“You watch too many movies,” he says. “Anyway, brooding about it isn't going to help any.”

Brooding. Isn't that what Veronica said I did?

“You need to get out and do something to distract yourself,” he goes on. “Your grandfather would have put a shovel in my hand and sent me out back to dig a ditch.”

“That's weird.”

“He used to think sweat was the best way to work
off any kind of emotion. Told me it was cheaper than any shrink.”

I point at the trap with my sand wedge, at my ball lying there buried past its equator. “Looks like I'll be digging a ditch soon enough.”

My father lets me assess the situation. It's not good. The green sits about eight feet above me. To make matters worse, my ball is on the back slope of the trap, which will give my shot a lower trajectory. I should have taken my mulligan.

I know it's hopeless, but I swing.

Hard.

White powdery sand poofs into the air. It rains down on the upslope of the trap and onto the fringe of the green. I look for my ball. It's sitting in the trench I've just dug with my club.

This time, my father doesn't say a word about the string of nasty words that spews from my mouth.

“Take another stroke,” he says. “Hit behind the ball.”

I line up again, wiggle my feet into the sand, and swing. My club comes down and pops the ball into the air. I scramble up the hill to see where it rolls. I get there just in time to see it take a hard turn to the left, away from the hole.

Shoot, I forgot to account for the slope of the green.

I'm sitting three strokes with no less than a forty-foot putt.

“Good up,” my father says. He tosses me my putter and drives the cart around to the other side of the green.

He's farther away, so it's his shot.

“I guess things are different today,” he says. He lines up as I pull the flag and toss it to the side. “When I was your age, we used to date. We didn't pair off and stay with the same girl for months on end. Maybe some guys did.” He draws back his putter and swings. His ball rolls toward the high side of the green, reaches the ridge, and trickles down to the lower tier. It picks up speed and veers to the right, coming to a stop within three feet of the hole. It's an amazing shot, considering where he started.

“Nice one,” I say.

“Don't kids casually date anymore?” he asks.

I want to tell him kids do that all the time, but Veronica and I were different. We were a couple. I also want to point out that clearly nothing has changed with
him
since his high-school days—that he's still dating as often as ever—but I keep my mouth shut on that one, too.

“I guess I'm more monogamous,” I say.

“Nice ten-dollar word.”

“It's like cars,” I go on. “Why keep test-driving them? If you know you like BMWs, then why would you go and try out an Acura Integra?” The words come out of my mouth before I have a chance to put them through any sort of filter. I don't know why I say it. I just do.

I glance at my father from behind my sunglasses. He makes no indication that he picked up on my dig. He walks to his ball, marks it, and steps away from the hole.

“Want me to tend the flag?” he asks.

“No, thanks.” I stand over my ball and swing. My ball
starts out on a path that would take it nearly five feet to the left of the hole, but the slope of the green brings it in a gentle rightward arc. Like it's traveling on a steel track, the ball rolls to the edge of the cup and drops in without slowing. Dead center.

I just knocked in a forty-footer.

Maybe longer.

My hands shoot into the air like Rocky Balboa's. It might be the longest putt I've ever sunk, and the only person who was here to see it was my no-good cheating father.

That's when Audrey bolts from the woods. Her hands pump in the air just like mine, and she rushes onto the green like it's the final seconds of a college bowl game rather than a quiet golf twosome.

I watch Audrey spin around on the green and jump into the air. I want to celebrate with her—to spin around and jump into the air, too—but no matter how happy Audrey seems and no matter how happy I feel, I can't. All I can do is run through the conversation I just had with my father and wonder how much she overheard.