Chapter 1
Bidwell's Crotch

Sometime in July of 1935, Club Member, Stuart Bidwell, who played to a 17 handicap, requested that the Maple tree just to the right of the elevated 15th green be cut down. In an informal note to The Club’s Grounds and Maintenance Committee Chair, Winthrop Dearson, Bidwell mentioned that he was concerned about the spread of Dutch Elm Disease and was positive this Maple was rife with it. Dearson knew full well that the suspect Maple was as fine and as healthy and as strong a specimen as he had ever seen. Besides, it was a Maple and not an Elm. Dearson thought the Dutch Elm Disease assertion was poppycock and politely dismissed Bildwell’s request. It was well known to other Club Members of consequence, including Dearson, that Bildwell’s approach shots to the 15th green had an uncanny knack of always coming to rest behind the aforementioned Maple. In fact, during the 1934 Club Cup, not one, but two of Bidwell’s new balatas became wedged the same y-junction of the Maple’s sturdy branches. From that day on, the y-junction of the Maple, with Bidwell’s two balatas prominently stuck in it, became know as “Bidwell’s Crotch." 

A limerick began to circulate throughout The Club:

Keep your head down
for your ball you must watch

Or you could end up
in Bidwell’s crotch

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Chapter 2
Bidwell's Growing Obsession

Bidwell had the misfortune to overhear the limerick, the japes that followed and some hearty chortling in the men's locker room of The Club. "That's rich Winthrop, positively rich." The members were politely restrained and would never utter it in front of Bidwell much less even acknowledge its existence.

Originally, the Maple had stood between him and good showing on hole # 15. Now the Maple was a standing affront to Bidwell personally and sullied the sanctity of the Bidwell name. It gnawed at his marrow and caused many a sleepless night. The nature of his family’s standing among the Boston Brahmins is summarized in the doggerel "Bidwell Toast" by Harvard alumnus Sears Gardner Wigglesworth:

"And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots
And the Cabots speak only to the Bidwells and God."

Bidwell, his resolve steeled by his growing indignation, knew that the Maple would have to be cut down sooner rather than later. Much sooner. And after overhearing the locker room bantering at his expense, Bidwell knew that he would be unable to enlist any supporters among The Club’s membership to pressure Dearson to have the Maple removed.

Plus, the 1935 Club Cup was less than a week away. Bidwell simply couldn’t afford to let anything get in the way of his winning the coveted Cup, a highly unlikely event considering his dismal past performances and lackluster 17 handicap. However, Bidwell was prone to flights of fancy and was used to getting his own way.

The Maple would be gone by first light tomorrow. Bidwell dug into his breakfast grapefruit and eyed his soft-boiled egg sitting attentively in its Sterling Silver cup. Bidwell, of course, knew nothing of the messy details. An old friend of the family who took care of such matters had arranged it all. At that precise moment, a Canadian gypsy known only as “Frenchy,” was on his way down from Kokadjo, Maine with his five sons to cut it down and clear it out clandestinely under the light of the full moon in the wee hours of the morning. 

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Chapter 3
Enter The Orphan

 As Frenchy and his sons made their way down from Maine, a small, slight, undernourished lad of eleven walked tentatively next to the crushed shell, tree-lined main entrance driveway of The Club. This leg of his journey was the culmination of his daily two hour walk to The Club from the St. Boteus Orphanage and Boys Home. He was a second year caddy. Boys of his age and diminutive size either worked as caddies, jockeys or cleaned out the insides of enormous treatment drums at the various tanneries along the river.

All of the boys at St. Boteus were expected to turn their earnings over to Otto, an imposing man-child of considerable size and diminished IQ who collected the boy's wages for Mr. Brickstone, the non-clerical comptroller of the orphanage. Mr.Brickstone liked the undersized caddy and alloted him a generous 11 cents weekly as spending money. Brickstone even offered to reccommend the lad for work as a towel boy at the Russian Baths he frequented downtown. However, the boy liked caddying and demonstrated a remarkable talent for it in his second year. Club Members liked the tiny caddy too and requested him frequently. He intuitively knew the game, knew his yardages and acted as a tailsman, bringing good fortune to any golfer whose bag he carried. Mr. Brickstone was a prudent enough observer to recognize that the earning potential of his young charge lay on the golf course and as a result, never pressed The Russian Bath position on the boy too hard. "Oh well," Brickstone mused, "there is always winter."

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 Chapter 4
"Mr. Leatherwood, Sir, The Tree Is Gone!"

"Hoppy" Warren was the first to notice that the Maple was gone as he rounded the bend with his hand mower at 5:23am to cut the 15th green. Frenchy and his five sons were as fastidious as they were thorough. There was absolutley no evidence of their work that morning--no branches, no sawdust and no footprints–from man or horse. The only indication of their overnight handiwork was a clean cut stump.

Hunsley Leatherwood was the first Club Member to hear about the Maple's disappearance. Leatherwood had secured Hoppy a job at The Club after the father of eight lost most of his right foot in a particularly nasty accident in one of Leatherwood's foundries. In exchange for the promise of work at The Club, Hoppy agreed to admit that he wasn't paying attention when the safety restraint broke on a 2,500 lb girder he was sanding and it landed smack dab on top of his right forefoot There was no workman's compensation or liabilty in those days, so Hoppy's admission of carelessness was merely to assuage Leatherwood's niggling guilt over his progeny's injury (Unbeknownst to Hoppy, he was actually the bastard son of Hunsley Leatherwood who had impregnated countless factory girls during the summer break prior to his senior year at Exeter).

Leatherwood informed Dearson who immediately knew that Bidwell was responsible. News of The Maple's remarkable overnight disappearance spread quickly that day in the lockjaw whispers and furtive glances of Club Members. The utmost propriety and prudent restraint exhibited by members was sterling. Nothing was said out loud. No need to ruffle feathers. No need to get on the wrong side of the Bidwell family.  Nothing was ever mentioned of the Maple again. It was if it had never existed.

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Chapter 5
Dead Solid Perfect

It had been a whirlwind week for the diminutive caddy from the St. Boteus Orphanage and Boys Home. Stuart Bidwell had selected him over all the other older and more experienced caddies to carry for him during The Club Cup. The lad had been looping for Stuart Bidwell daily for the last five days in preparation for The Club Cup. Bidwell was generous with the orphan, paying him fifty cents a side with a dime tip. Bidwell, childless due to an inherited disorder that affected first-born Bidwell males, liked the orphan’s natural subservience. And that boy from St. Boteus seemed to bring him luck. Bidwell had never played better golf in his life. He shot an average of seven strokes better since the lad started to carry for him.

Yes, Bidwell was feeling his oats and thought he might have a shot at giving seven-time Club Cup Champion, Winthrop Applegate, a run for his money in this year's quest for The Cup.

The orphan was feeling pretty good, too. It had been a prosperous summer. He always had a little “extra” every week to share with Otto. In turn, the oversized, imposing Otto protected the little guy from the bigger and older orphans. Otto even looked the other way and falsified log times when the tiny caddy returned to St. Boteus late. The lad liked to stop at the library and read everything he couldabout insects on his walk back from The Club.

His passion for entomology has started modestly enough when he collected a couple of dead cockroaches from St. Boteus’ kitchen, a few bed bugs from his dormitory cot and later added some silverfish he had the good fortune to find on the slick crumbling tiles of the group shower. His collection had grown exponentially since he started working at The Club. The course was literally crawling with all sorts of insects. He stored his specimens in an empty Cracker Jack box and often daydreamed of becoming a entomologist someday.

It was the orphan's passionate fascination with insects that caused him to notice the teeming life that was scurrying about in the freshly cut Maple stump to the right of #15. The Club Cup was in progress and Bidwell had been playing well--eleven over (certainly not nearly a good enough showing to win, but Bidwell's best tournament round to date).

The pair came into #15 confident. Since the mysterious disappearance of Bidwell's old nemesis–the Maple to the right of the green–Bidwell had shot par on the hole in every practice round that week. Bidwell made solid contact in his drive off #15 tee that slightly faded into the glades to the right, approximately 140 yards from the hole. Bidwell and the orphan were relieved to find that he had a clear shot to the elevated green. A low hanging branch necessitated that Bidwell punch a line- drive Mashie to the ridge of the green which would brake the ball's trajectory and allow it to bounce softly onto the green within scoring position. The orphan handed the Mashie to Bidwell and softly said, "This is the club, sir, that you're going to get it done with. I can feel it."  Bidwell smiled at the lad and felt the tacky firm assurance of the Mashie's calfskin grip while he waited for Leatherwood and Prewitt to complete their approach shots. The boy walked ahead to the Maple stump next to the green and removed Bidwell's putter from the bag and waited. He couldn't help but notice all the activity that was going on in the stump–ants, beetles, larvae and borers of all kinds were skittering, sawing, scurrying, wriggling, wiggling and eating like there was no tomorrow. The orphan's eyes widened as he stood silently, transfixed by the teeming life before him.

Meanwhile, 140 yards behind him, Bidwell swung his Mashie confidently and struck. The ball left the clubface of the mashie at 135mph on a piercing low trajectory that cleared the low hanging branch easily.

The orphan hadn't noticed. He was fascinated by the wriggling larvae and was softly repeating a neat poem Sister Rosemary had forced his fourth grade class to memorize. 

Do you ever think as a hearse goes by,
that you may be the next to die?

They wrap you up in a big white sheet
From your head down to your feet.

They put you in a big black box,
And cover you up with dirt and rocks.

All goes well for about a week,
Then your coffin begins to leak.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout.

They eat your eyes, they eat your nose,
They eat the jelly between your toes.

A big green worm with rolling eyes,
Crawls in your stomach and out your eyes.

Your stomach turns a slimy green,
And pus pours out like whipping cream.

You spread it on a slice of bread,
And that's what you eat when you are dead.

Just as the orphan caddy craned his neck to look deeper into the darkness of the stump, Bidwell's ball struck the back of his head at about 90mph and bounced gently onto the green, five feet from the hole. The orphan was dead even before Bidwell putted out for birdie. Hoppy was summonsed and draped the lifeless body of the little boy over the snout of his Worthington and drove off toward the grounds and maintenance building to call the authorities.

Bidwell finished his round and while he didn't win The Club Cup, he had shot the best round of his life, 12-over, to finish respectably. Bidwell went on to live a long, prosperous and happy life. When asked later in The Clubroom about the events that transpired that day, Bidwell ended his recount with the emphatic aside, "And that orphan boy was one heckava' caddy."

 In reality, like the Maple that once stood where he fell, it was like the lad had never existed. 

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Epilogue

Hunsley Leatherwood, at Hoppy's urging, paid for commemorative plaque placed on a tree adjacent to the rock and stump where the orphan caddy was killed by Stuart Bidwell's approach shot.   The inscription made no allusion to death or even the orphan's life. That would have been a smidgeon "untidy" and "unsettling" for the members. Instead, the terse and cryptic declarative, "One heckava' caddy"was hand lettered in gold script on the enameled cobalt blue plaque. Today, the plaque is pitted with layers of rust, its inscription illegible and its words' implications have even evaporated as memories.

In the seasons following the orphan caddy's death, other caddies would pinch a bit of sawdust from Stuart's Stump and sprinkle it over their player's clubs. It was rumored that the sawdust of the stump was enchanted and brought good fortune to the caddy/player duo that utilized it. Since all caddies always sprinkled a pinch, the playing field remained level. Eventually, the superstition waned as the knowledge of Stuart's Stump dissipated nebulously before disappearing entirely from the conciousness of The Club in 1965.

Stuart's Stump still stands.
 

Copyright © 2016 Vincent Carriuolo

You and nothingness are one

You are nothing. You may have your name and title, your property and bank account, you may have power and be famous; but in spite of all these safeguards, you are as nothing. You may be totally unaware of this emptiness, this nothingness, or you may simply not want to be aware of it; but it is there, do what you will to avoid it. You may try to escape from it in devious ways, through personal or collective violence, through individual or collective worship, through knowledge or amusement; but whether you are asleep or awake, it is always there. You can come upon your relationship to this nothingness and its fear only by being choicelessly aware of the escapes. You are not related to it as a separate, individual entity; you are not the observer watching it; without you, the thinker, the observer, it is not. You and nothingness are one; you and nothingness are a joint phenomenon, not two separate processes. If you, the thinker, are afraid of it and approach it as something contrary and opposed to you, then any action you may take towards it must inevitably lead to illusion and so to further conflict and misery. When there is the discovery, the experiencing of that nothingness as you, then fear -which exists only when the thinker is separate from his thoughts and so tries to establish a relationship with them- completely drops. 
J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
 

Matthew 6:19
Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.