“I mean exactly what Richard said, Blake,” I told him. “It is my office. It is my club.” I stepped out of the pickup, in my work boots, and the gravel crunched under me. On the patio, five men in golf shirts had stopped with their bourbon halfway to their mouths. Blake held his driver at his side like a man who has forgotten what it is for. “I bought it in 2012, from the bank, for what a failing golf course goes for. I hired Richard to run it so I could keep an eye on the grass.” I smiled. “I have never stopped mowing it in my head. Those fairways were my life for twenty six years.”
Nobody moved. The sprinklers on the ninth green hissed in the distance. My grandson Jules, ten years old, stood by the cart barn with his golf bag, his eyes as wide as plates. Blake found his voice. It came out as a croak. “Pop, that is not possible. You were the groundskeeper.” I said, “I was the groundskeeper, and then I was the owner. A man can be both. It is a very American thing.” One of the other men, a heavy fellow with a red face, coughed into his fist. Another stared at the floor. Richard, beside me, wore the neutral look of a man who has been waiting two years to see this.
“Mr. Delacroix,” Richard said, quietly, “shall I bring the application?” I nodded. He went into the clubhouse and returned with a thin folder. The face of Blake was the color of skim milk. I opened the folder on the patio railing and read it aloud. “Applicant: Blake Thibodeaux. Occupation: regional sales director. References: three members in good standing. Statement of character.” I looked up. “Blake, you wrote that you believe in treating every employee with respect. You wrote that you hold the club grounds crew in the highest regard.” He closed his eyes. A bead of sweat slid down his temple.
A pickup parked around back and a golf club president who ran across the lot turned a snob into a caddie.
I closed the folder. “I read it twice, son. Then I drove out here to see whether it was true.” I let the silence stretch. “I am not going to blackball you. That would be petty, and I have never been a petty man. The board meets at four. You will present your application like anyone else. The members will vote.” Blake nodded, stiffly. I turned to the five men on the patio. “Gentlemen, I would take it as a kindness if you would vote your conscience.” A small, uneasy shuffle ran through them. The red faced man said, in a mumble, “Mr. Delacroix, I am sorry. We were only joking.” I said, “I know, Harold. That is what concerns me.”
At four oclock, the board met in the long, paneled room overlooking the eighteenth green. Blake stood at the head of the table, in a new tie, and gave a polished speech about leadership and community. Not one member looked at him. When he finished, there was an uncomfortable pause. Then, to my surprise, the oldest man on the board, a retired judge of ninety, raised his hand. “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I would like to hear from the groundskeeper. Antoine, what do you think of this young man?” Every head turned. Blake looked as if he might be sick. I took a long breath.
“I think he is the husband of my daughter,” I said. “I think he is the father of my grandson. I think he has been taught that people are worth what they own.” I looked at Blake. “I also think a man can learn otherwise. I would like to propose something. Not a vote. A condition.” The judge nodded gravely. “If Blake wishes to join this club, he will spend one week on the grounds crew. Five in the morning, every day. He will mow, rake sand, and fix divots. And at the end, the crew will tell this board whether he is fit to be a member.” A hush fell. Blake stared at me.
He went. I will say it for him, he went. The first morning, in the fog, he showed up in a pair of new, stiff boots, with a travel mug of coffee. The foreman, a man named Lucien who had worked for me since 2003, handed him a rake and pointed at the bunker on the seventh. Blake raked sand for four hours. By noon his hands were blistered, his back ached, and he had sand in places he did not know he had places. On the third day, he fell asleep sitting on a mower. On the fifth, he asked Lucien how long he had been doing the work.
Lucien said, “Thirty one years.” Blake said, “And nobody ever thanked you?” Lucien shrugged. “Mr. Delacroix did. Every Christmas.” Blake stood very still on the edge of the seventh fairway, with the sun rising over the cypress trees. “Lucien,” he said, in a strange voice, “I am sorry. I have walked past you for six years and never said hello.” Lucien smiled. He had a gold tooth. “It is okay, Mr. Blake. Most do not.” I watched the whole scene from my pickup, at the edge of the tree line, with my window down. I did not move until the foreman clapped him on the back.
At the end of the week, the crew voted unanimously for Blake. The board followed. He became a member that Saturday, and on Sunday, he asked me, in my kitchen, with Monique holding his hand, whether he could take down the sign on the patio that said, Service Entrance Around Back. I said, “Son, it was your idea to put it up.” He said, “I know. I would like to take it down.” We did it together, with a screwdriver. Jules stood by with the ladder. Where the sign had hung, there was a pale rectangle on the brick. Blake looked at it for a long time.
Now there is a new sign on the clubhouse, in black letters on white. It says, Everyone Enters Here. The grounds crew eats lunch in the dining room for members on Fridays, and the foreman has a locker next to mine. On Sunday mornings, I take Jules out for nine holes. Blake caddies, which is not required. He carries my bag without being asked, and when I miss a putt, he says, “Good effort, Pop.” I hand him a cold drink at the turn. “Thank you, Blake,” I say. And I mean every word.
