FanStory.com - Saving Mr. Calvinby Jim Wile

Prologue

I stopped at the blue tees, got out, and selected my driver. As I headed over to the tee box, I said to Allie, “Breakfast ball on the first tee?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Same as a mulligan.”

“Are you going to keep hitting me with this jargon all day?”

“You said you wanted to learn the game. A mulligan is a do-over, usually just on the first tee shot. They call it a breakfast ball when it’s in the morning.”

“Sure, why not? I might need more than one, though.”

“You can have as many as you want, sweetie. This is your first round of golf; I’ll be lenient.”

I gazed down the beautifully manicured, green fairway. The hole was a slight dogleg left. With my natural draw, I set up on the left side of the tee box. I took one practice swing, stepped up to my ball, and hit a long draw down the left side of the fairway—a good first drive. “I won’t need a breakfast ball.”

“Wow! That was amazing,” said Allie. “I followed it the whole way. Did you mean to curve it like that?”

“That’s just my natural shot shape. It’s called a draw when it curves a little right to left for a right-handed golfer. If it curves a lot, it’s called a hook. And a real lot is a duck hook.”

“What about the other way?”

“A slight curve left to right is called a fade. A big curve is a slice.”

I got back in the cart, and we headed up to the red tees. Allie got out, selected her driver, and headed over to the tee box. I accompanied her. “I’ll help you get aligned properly for a while until you get the hang of it yourself.”

“Thanks.”

She took a couple of practice swings before setting up to her ball. She had been consistently slicing it on the range before we teed off, so I made sure she was aiming to the left to help counteract it. She made good contact, but with an open clubface, it sliced quite a way to the right and into the right rough. “I think I duck sliced it.”

“I think you just made up a new golf term,” I said, laughing along with her. “You want your breakfast ball?”

“Nah. I can see it up there. It’s not too bad.”

We got back in the cart and headed up the cart path, which wound its way into the woods on the right. As I was looking at Allie and explaining some more about the game, we passed by a sign that said, “Cart path closed ahead. Please exit left and proceed in the rough.” As we continued straight, Allie said to me, “Aren’t you going to exit? The sign said the cart path was closed ahead.”

“I didn’t see any sign.”

“Yeah, I think you better stop and go back and look if you don’t believe me.”

I turned to her again and said, “Nonsense. I know every inch of this place. It’s my course, you know.”

Right then, we passed another sign that said, “Danger. Leave the cart path now!” and continued straight ahead.

“Kevin! You’d better exit left! Didn’t you see the second sign?”

“You’re imagining things.” We crested a hill and started down the other side at a good clip, but there was a huge boulder on the path at the bottom of the hill. There was no room now to exit left, as it was a solid bank of trees on that side. We were going too fast to be able to brake in time, so the only option was to swerve right, off the path, and hope that the cart wouldn’t flip. The right side of the cart lifted into the air as Allie clutched my arm and screamed. We made it through a gap in the trees on the right, but all of a sudden there was no ground beneath us. We had driven off what appeared to be a cliff and were descending rapidly to a pile of rocks about 200 yards down. We both screamed as the cart began to tilt downward. We held each other tightly and continued our inexorable plunge to certain death on the rocks below…

Part 1

Chapter 1

Two years earlier

It was the morning of Monday, May 22, 2034—Harvey Milk Day—now a national holiday since Gavin Newsom had been elected president in 2032.

My name is Kevin Parsons, and I’m 28 years old. I had the day off from my job as a mechanical engineer in Santa Barbara, and I had a golf game arranged for later this morning with my two buds, Paul Putnam and Ernie Dumbrowski. I decided to call them to confirm the game. Being typical guys like me, they both tended to require reminders about keeping appointments, plus I hadn’t mentioned anything about breakfast when I broached this idea with them last week, and I thought it would be nice to meet for that before we played. I called Paul first.

“Jesus, Kevin. Do you know what time it is? It’s… hm, 10:30. Guess I should be getting up now.” He said all this in his usual rapid-fire fashion. Paul did everything quickly.

“Just calling to remind you of our golf game today and also to invite you for breakfast first.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Where you want to meet? Bob Evans?”

“Okay, that’s on the way to Malimar Park. Can you get to Bob Evans by, say, 11:00?”

“Yeah, sure. See you there. Bye.”

Phew! Even after just waking up, talking to him was like talking to a speed freak. Next, I called Ernie Dumbrowski, aka “Dumbo.” He didn’t have big ears like his namesake, but the nickname was an obvious choice.

“Morning, Dumbo.”

“Kevin, my good man! What’s new with you?”

“I was just calling to confirm our golf game for later, and to invite you to meet for breakfast first if you haven’t eaten already.”

“Wise man. It completely slipped my mind. As for breakfast, I have indeed eaten, but I’m never one to turn down an invitation to eat, so I’ll be there. Where and when?”

"Bob Evans at 11:00."

“Perfect. I’ll see you there.”

“Hey, Dumbo?”

“Yes, my good man.”

“Don’t forget your clubs.”

“I appreciate the reminder. See you at noon.”

“11:00. At Bob Evans.”

“Right. See you then… with my clubs.”

I’ll never know how such a scatterbrain could be as successful as he is as a computer engineer. The guy is brilliant, but when it comes to managing his day-to-day existence, I don’t know how he ever gets through the day.

I got to breakfast first, went in, and was seated at a table. It was past the normal breakfast hour, so the place wasn’t very crowded, even for a holiday. I ordered coffee, but decided to wait until the others arrived before ordering the meal.

Paul showed up a few minutes later, found me when I waved to him, and joined me at the table. “Dumbo coming too?” he asked.

“Yeah, although it’s anyone’s guess when he’ll arrive. Maybe we could wait a few more minutes to order.”

At around 11:15, he still hadn’t shown, so Paul and I ordered our meals. He sauntered in at 11:20, came over, and sat down. “Geez, guys! I come 10 minutes early, thinking I’ll surprise you by being here first, and you’re already here!”

I looked over at Paul and just shook my head in amusement.

“So, when’s our tee time?” asked Dumbo.

“We don’t need a tee time anymore,” I said. “Hardly enough play to warrant even being open seven days a week. It’s not like it was even 10 years ago when you had to make a tee time at least a week in advance.”

“That’s true,” agreed Paul. “Makes me wonder how some of these courses even stay in business. I guess it’s because they don’t cost nearly as much to maintain anymore. They’ve all become like cow pastures now. Still cost just as much to play, though.”

The waitress brought Paul’s and my food then and got a menu for Dumbo. “Hm, couldn’t wait for me before you ordered?” he said.

“Sorry. You said you’d already had breakfast, and we were starved,” I explained, but Dumbo just waved it off with a little smile.

“You know,” he said, “the golfing population in this state has been cut by 80% since 2025, when the California legislature began creating all those water restrictions and banning the use of all fertilizer and pesticide applications on golf courses. It’s like they’re trying to ban the golf industry from the state without creating a specific ban. Only one in five golfers remains in the state now, and the country as a whole is beginning to follow its lead as the federal government is starting to look more like California now that Newsom is president. I was glad to get rid of that guy, but not to become president of the whole country.”

“Might as well enjoy the game while it still lasts. It might not be for too much longer,” I said, and I dug into my pancakes and eggs.