The 18th Hole

By Cayce B. Shelton

The sun shone bright and hot over the four men. Standing at the tee, the Mayor called out, "A hole in one, boys."

Dilbert, the prominent overweight Councilman, laughed. He turned to his partner for the game and said, "If he makes a hole in one, I'll eat my hat."

The Mayor grinned and turned his head slightly saying, "Well, Dilbert, you better put some salt on the brim so it will go down easy."

Dilbert snorted and looked at Raymond, the eldest of the four, a retired paint contractor. Dilbert muttered under his breath, "Damn showoff." Raymond grinned at him and made a motion with his thumb and forefinger. Dilbert's eyes widened and he turned to the Mayor.

"Hey, your honor, sir, I bet you can't make that hole in one shot," Dilbert called, loudly. The Mayor and his partner, Frederick, looked at each other and grinned.

Frederick, the local barber, called to Dilbert, "What do you want to bet, big gut?"

Dilbert frowned at the jab to his size. "Well, shit, make it easy on yourself, loudmouth," Dilbert shot back.

The Mayor paused in his preparations to swing and leaned on his number three wood. "Well, Dilbert, I think I'm gonna take that bet. How about a big loaf of bread?"

Dilbert laughed out loud and retorted, "White or Rye?"

Frederick called out, "Make it white."

Raymond joined in, "Sliced or whole?"

The Mayor laughed as he replied, "I want it whole just like this shot right now."

Dilbert called out, "Hey, wait a minute, we ain't got the bet down yet. Uh, how big a loaf you talking about?"

Frederick and the Mayor looked at each other, grinning. Finally, the Mayor said, "Well, Dilbert, why don't we make it about two feet long?"

Raymond shouted, "Done, make your shot and let's get on with it."

The Mayor took nearly one whole minute getting ready to hit the golf ball, looking at the ball and then at the fairway. Just as he swung back to take his swing, Dilbert muttered, "Damn fool, ain't anybody ever hit a hole-in-one on this hole."

All four men watched the little white orb jump up into the sky and fly away. Four pairs of eyes focused on the ball diminished in size. Finally, the Mayor called out, "Did it go in?"

Dilbert was the first to respond. "It went into the woods on the other side of the green," he said with a snort.

Raymond laughed and nodded. Dilbert grinned, his cheeks getting more crimson as the skin strained. The Mayor glared at them as Frederick placed his tee in the ground.

Although this hole was a par three, all four players had birdied on it one time or another, but none had ever made a hole-in-one on it. The fairway was rougher than any other hole on the course with two deep depressions between the tee and the green. Putting the ball on the green was a comparatively simple thing, but seeing it land was difficult as one could just barely see part of the green at the flag.

Each time one of the players would hit his ball, the others would chastise him for following the Mayor's lead into the rough at the green. None of them knew for sure that their ball was really in the rough or on the green out of sight. The Mayor and Frederick strolled quickly along the fairway as Raymond stayed close to Dilbert who seemed to have the most difficulty traversing the rough ground.

"That Dilbert, if he don't lose some weight, he ain't gonna be playing any of these holes much longer," the Mayor mumbled as he strode alongside of Frederick.

His partner grinned and replied, "Yeah, I think so, too. I heard Raymond giving him hell this morning about how he was huffing and puffing out on the driving range."

The Mayor turned his head over his shoulder and hollered at the two players behind him. "Hey, Dilbert, are you going to donate that loaf of bread to charity if my ball didn't go in?" The mayor did not look at the fat man behind him as he heard the retort.

"I, uh, I, damn, go to hell."

The Mayor and Frederick were grinning as they heard Dilbert cussing and Raymond laughing behind them.

Then, Raymond called out to the Mayor. "Hey, Mayor, have you found out what that disease you got is yet?"

The Mayor stopped and turned to face the older players approaching him. "Just because I don't have that dunlap disease Dilbert's got don't mean I got some other disease," the Mayor said as Raymond stopped and looked behind him at Dilbert. The heaviest of the four men finally reached the other three and blew air like a well-run horse.

"Damn, Dilbert, you sound like a pig in heat," said Frederick, laughing. Raymond and the Mayor grinned as they watched Dilbert struggle to breathe and talk at the same time.

"I'll make you, uh. I ain't too, shit. Just keep your, unh. Damn."

The grins left the three men as their friend Dilbert fell to his knees. Six arms grabbed the heavy man before he fell on his face. As the Mayor pulled the golf bag from Dilbert's shoulder, Raymond pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and pushed the straw hat from Dilbert's head as he began wiping the sweat off his friend. Dilbert stuttered and sputtered as he tried to fight the men trying to help him.

"Shit! Hell, I ain't dead. Quit beating on me," Dilbert cried out as Raymond and the Mayor pushed him onto his back and Frederick began pushing on the large man's chest. The three worried men stopped moving and looked down at the red-faced man on the ground.

"I just stumbled is all," Dilbert stated through his teeth as he struggled to turn over. The other men rose from the ground and stepped back as Dilbert grunted and struggled to get to his feet. As the heavy-set man reached down and lifted his golf bag to his shoulder he looked toward the green ahead of him and spoke, "Well, you skinny bastards gonna stand there with your jaws on the ground or are you gonna play golf?" As Dilbert pushed past his friends their faces broke into grins and they retrieved their own bags to follow their friend.

Upon reaching the green where the flag with the number 18 waved slightly, the four men stopped and looked around. Not one white ball was on the green or even at the edge of the green in the rough. As they stepped on the wavy, evenly-cut, darker grass of the green, the four men turned at a sound in the nearby trees.

"What was that?" Dilbert asked, his voice more like a growl than the whine the other three were used to from him. As six eyes searched for the source of the sound, Frederick walked towards the flag. A sudden exclamation from the gray-haired barber made the other three players forget the sound in the woods.

"Come here and look at this," Frederick called as he pulled the flagpole out of the hole. He was still staring at the hole as the other men closed on him. Then, as they all stared at the dark hole in the green field, the sound they had heard before rang in their ears again. Four faces, an incredulous look on each, looked up from the hole and stared toward the woods nearby. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, each one slowly looked back at the hole at their feet. Then, one by one, each of the golf players reached into the hole and withdrew a stained, white golf ball. Although the Mayor, Raymond, and Frederick grinned as they looked at one another, Dilbert started cussing.

"There ain't no gol-damn way all four of those balls could have rolled into that hole on their own," Dilbert growled as he put the ball he had picked up in his pocket.

The Mayor grinned and jibed at his friend, "Well, Dilbert, seeing as how my ball was on the bottom, you could say that I made the first hole-in-one, couldn't you?" The three grinning men watched as Dilbert's face got redder.

"Shit, ain't no way you made a hole-in-one and I know all three of us didn't either. I don't know what's going on here, but I ain't paying no damn bet off when I find four balls in one hole. Hell, that's impossible, anyhow. I don't know how you did it, Mayor, but, I'd bet a hundred dollars you pulled this stunt off somehow," Dilbert snorted as he pulled his golf bag to his shoulder and turned away.

The other men laughed at their fat friend and followed his lead. As they walked toward the trail leading back to the clubhouse, Frederick turned his head toward the woods nearby just in time to see two young boys looking their way. Frederick stopped walking and watched the two grinning youths race away through the woods. Frederick laughed at the knowledge that been handed to him and began to walk after his friends, shaking his head. As the elderly barber reached the other men, the Mayor asked him why he was laughing.

"Oh, I was just remembering some days gone by when me and my friends played tricks on our elders," he said, walking briskly to the front of the group. Dilbert continued griping and cussing as the four hole-in-one players walked along.