See John Play

By Dave DiGrazie

Some want his MONEY. When you're a pro in a lucrative game and something suddenly clicks, there are many fast friends.
Some want his HEART. When you've had so much fun with so many for so long, you can't help but wreck some dreams.
Some want his WIFE. When you hold on so loosely to a jewel others want, don't be surprised by your foes - or your friends.
Some want him DEAD. When you've gone through life not settling all of your debts, it's a matter of time before there's hell to pay.

... but there is a strong woman in John's life who is determined not to make the choices that others urge upon her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave DiGrazie
• Release date: Apr 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9780984003655

Dave DiGrazie

Dave DiGrazie’s journey began in a middle class ethnic neighborhood in Buffalo, New York that had its share of characters. After cooking (and eating) his way through his high school and college years in his dad’s small restaurants, he became a decorated military officer and then, after several amusing vocational side trips, began to make things up and write them down. Dave calls Northern Virginia home and lives with three wonderful people – his wife and two children. He still makes a very mean home-made pizza when he’s not putting his imaginary friends and foes in each other’s way. His other interests include history, a safer world for children, and his hometown's star-crossed professional sports teams.

Book preview

SEE

JOHN

Play

by Dave DiGrazie

COYRIGHTS AND NOTICES

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SEE JOHN PLAY. Copyright 2012 by Dave DiGrazie. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Wine Flash Press, P.O. Box 2112, Fairfax, Virginia 22031.

Published by Wine Flash Press at Smashwords

Thank you for supporting this author by purchasing this work and by protecting his legal rights. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. For information about discounts for bulk sales, please contact Publisher at the address above. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this and every author, and for making Smashwords a safe environment for authors and publishers by your compliance with copyright law.

Library of Congress catalog number 2012934497

Cover art by Sarah Billington at Billington Media, Melbourne, Australia.

This book will be available in paperback form at many fine book retailers in May, 2012.

DEDICATION

For Tom, whose lessons in the summer of 2009 inspired this story.

THE COURSE LAYOUT

THE FRONT NINE Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

THE BACK NINE Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

EPILOGUE: The Nineteenth Hole

Acknowedgments

About Dave DiGrazie

THE FRONT NINE

One

It had become her predicament, this Fort Mitchell neighborhood. It was not what Connie had imagined for herself as she grew up like a wildflower on horseback, a few miles deeper into Kentucky. She was used to being the epicenter of the earthquakes she started, controlled, and manipulated for her own pleasure. Damn this neighborhood! And everything it had begun to stand for.

She was intentional about it, back on that night at the country club when she planted her earthquake inside the man she would marry. But now, four years, a courtship and a wedding later, Connie Kaminski was all by herself on a Friday evening. She fingered the ornamental silver ball in her navel. She wanted to feel her husband’s hands on her. John promised to be home before ten. Ten was an hour and a half ago. She felt the beginnings of a sarcastic smile and shook her head. The full-length mirror revealed how foolish the boy was if he wasn’t here, enjoying her. She felt the anger. She was letting herself experience a little more of that, these days. Anger like an earthquake. Her smile hardened. Her head shook slowly. She turned away from the mirror.

Her home was now this brick-and-stone two-and-a-half bedroom cottage, close to a city of note that America was learning to call the Nati. Too close to the airport, and just a block from Dixie Highway with its nonstop traffic. This lawn, unlike the Spencer estate where she grew up, required no tractor for its upkeep. There was no pool or garage at this address; no double French doors leading from an oversized kitchen out to a beautiful patio garden. No horses or hay on this modest, barely-suburban lot. No dream fulfillment here.

And, on many a night, no husband.

If they were even a block further from the main drag, they could have had a bigger yard, a garage, even a decent-sized porch instead of their pathetic little stoop, for crying out loud. Connie exhaled sharply through her mouth, blowing a stray bang out of her eyes. A technique she'd perfected over her twenty-seven years.

Still, it was good between them sometimes. When it was, she'd curl up in his arms and he'd talk to her tattoo, a moderately-sized bird of prey with wings spread, feathers rendered in loving detail, between her shoulder blades. The messages he passed to her via the bird never failed to make her laugh.

When it was good between them, John called the bird Frederica.

She grabbed her mobile phone and sent a text message: where r u

She pulled down the bed covers and threw herself onto the sheets, stretching out, enjoying the cool linen. She buried her face in the pillow on her husband’s side, inhaling sweetly mingled, familiar scents. She wrapped her arms around the pillow and caught herself pretending it was John. The enjoyment was fleeting. She wanted him home, now.

A familiar cry echoed down the hall.

She unburied her face and noticed that her hands were balled into fists.

It was two year old Laurie-cakes, awake in her room down the hall. Rousing herself to check on their daughter reminded Connie that she was now four days late. She and John had last re-consummated their marriage when he came home a little tipsy on the night of Cinco de Mayo, two weeks earlier. She remembered how, in the afterglow, John had conversed with her directly rather than through the bird on her back.

On her way out of the bedroom to check on her daughter, she grabbed her phone again and added two new words to the question she had just sent: this time

If he ever won, they could afford a houseful of kids. Even if he could finish seventh, or thirteenth, the money would be good. Of course, he’d have to avoid farting away the cash if winning was to help them any.

What is it, sweetcakes? Mommy's here, baby.

She was bending from the hip to swoop her daughter up from the kiddie-bed when the home phone rang. Not John; he would have buzzed her mobile. The sound gave way to a voice straight from Connie’s childhood.

Connie? Pick up if you’re there. Connie, I have to talk to you.

Laurie was safely in her arms, whimpering. Let's talk to the queen, she said aloud. Connie carried the little girl back into her bedroom and placed her little darling gently into John's place in the bed before grabbing the phone and lying next to Laurie.

Mother, it’s late. What is it?

Is John home yet?

No. And you've awakened Laurie. Are you happy? Connie hoped her white lie would throw her mother off balance. So you called to pick on John?

Mom hadn’t been happy with John since the wedding, three years earlier. Connie heard a long, loud exhale right in her ear.

Connie, I just don’t think he’s going to come around.

You don’t know that. And I’m not a quitter.

Quit? Con, you’re a mother and my granddaughter needs a father. You’re in a different season now, and John is not in it with you.

This isn't a good time to discuss it. Why are you calling so late, anyway?

You answered so late. You must want to talk about it.

With John, maybe.

And how long have you been trying that? You’re letting yourself be a victim. It’s time for us to re-think your life.

"For us to re-think? Mom – we didn’t marry John. I did. And I don’t feel like a victim."

I’m concerned for you. And so are you. I can hear it in your voice.

Oh, cue the violins. I can handle it.

Connie, you used to control your own destiny. You still can. You’re young.

I have to go. I’m staying married to him.

Please don’t need him so much that you put him in God’s place.

It’s late and Laurie's upset. I have to go.

Connie pressed a button and replaced the phone on the night stand. She experienced a vivid flash – of John. Her man, the king of any crowd; the most present man in any gathering. Big and solid, sandy-haired, fearless. John, who on the night he met Connie, had the nerve to smile like royalty while the Tri-State's richest young adults, whom he was meeting for the first time, joined his own uninvited middle-class friends in calling him Uncommon John.

The man who had managed to set off an earthquake of two of his own, deep within her. Though judging from his more recent behavior, he must not have intended any of that.

In fact, maybe God had taken the night off and had put the universe on auto-pilot the night they met, because the chain reaction of events that night started had landed her here in Fort Mitchell with her man missing in action. This was so damned frustrating it couldn't have been God's idea!

Sometimes it even made her wonder if the things she learned about God as a kid were just a big lie.

But there was John’s special skill, which she learned about in their second-ever meeting, their first intentional encounter.

If he worked at it, John could make it big on the PGA Tour. He had already played well enough on the tour to win some money in a few Midwestern and Southern events, and had even become friendly with a couple of the better-known golfers. She and John shared big dreams when things were good.

But the guy who covered golf for the Cincinnati Enquirer had written, just a month ago, that John was not serious enough, that he was an underachiever. Connie remembered the story word for word; it stung her as much as if he’d been writing about her.

Connie stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the special feeling that only John was capable of causing in her. He sparked a skipping heartbeat in her that she loved. She remembered that night he brought a diamond to dinner with him, and challenged her to lay aside her expectations for an upper-crust husband in exchange for a lifelong adventure with him, just him. She remembered how she accepted in a mouse-like voice and they hugged and laughed and the people in the restaurant clapped for them. How she cried in front of them and it was three days before her voice returned to its normal pitch.

Connie noticed that her child was calm and breathing deeply. But herself? Her mother just had said – again – that she should give up on John. She noticed the tension in her jaw. She would not concede her husband to his vices without a hell of a fight.

*÷÷÷*

No more bets, please, said a man in a tux on the other side of town, above a din of players playing.

John felt a warm glow, and Valerie Bonilla’s fingers massaging his shoulders, as he watched the ball. His Friday night comfort zone surrounded him: Polished wood, green felt, red and black lines, printed numbers. The last portion of his second Macallan Sherry Oak – the twelve year, always the twelve – and no rocks. The scotch and Val’s soft voice and inviting touch propelled John into the world of sensation that he craved. It was a whole-body throbbing, a peculiar focus of his vision and his attention, a certain sensual acuity that made everything seem sharp and gave him a feeling of control. Val, a companion hoped for and welcomed, especially since the night awhile back when they took Ecstasy together. Now she stood at his side cooing to him, brushing up against him. John felt his own amplified heartbeat, felt the blood pumping through every inch of his solid twenty-five year old body. Bliss.

The wheel slowed. The ball would drop within the next few seconds.

Val withdrew a hand from his back and extended a fist toward the wheel. Come on, baby! Her enthusiasm seemed to bubble up.

The ball found its way into a numbered slot. John did quick, silent math. He had just gone from a hundred and forty bucks behind for the night to a hundred and eighty bucks ahead: a one hundred and eighty dollar reduction in what he’d owed The Garage before the evening began.

Val basted her voice with special sauce. You’re brilliant! See what I mean?

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets one more time, please. Mad Tommy, in the tux, red cummerbund and matching bowtie, was the man running the wheel.

John laughed to himself again about Mad Tommy’s nickname. Tall, gangly, middle-aged Tom Brocchi, curly-haired and mustachioed, cigarette dangling from his mouth, was the steadiest guy John knew. And discreet. Discretion was the better part of work or play in The Garage. This wasn’t Vegas, The Foxwoods, or Atlantic City, or even one of the old riverboats downriver on the Ohio. This was Tom Brocchi’s cousin Sammy’s Northbrook, Ohio transmission shop which had been converted into a decent-enough looking gin joint with back room action. The locals said the chili was decent, the beer was cold, and the pizza even better than you’d find up in Chicago. The Garage, an intentionally-modest presence among the other establishments on Springdale Road, was tucked into a second-rate intersection a mile down the road from the strip of well-lit chain restaurants near a big, half-empty shopping mall. Sammy himself generally stayed away from the place.

But John was drawn there like an insect to a light bulb. Repeated visits to enjoy the heat, the physical thrill, the celebrity derived from Storytime with Johnny, those occasional, makeshift co-ed football huddles out near the bar, over which he presided.

John. The she-devil in the blue dress tugged on his elbow. Umm… Johnny? You have a problem.

What are you talking about, my friendlette? he asked Val.

You’re getting whipped. You gotta take a break.

It was true. It had been five turns since his last winning bet on the roulette wheel, and his bets had been getting bigger.

You’re right. Come on. He tugged her toward the blackjack table.

Val grimaced. She and Mad Tommy had talked about this. Sometimes, when a guy was losing and needed to settle up, her job was to break it to him. It was easy for her to switch roles. She had plenty of practice; it was her job.

John, listen. She twisted her wrist and broke free. This, too, was easy for her; John's was a gentleman’s grip. It’s not your night tonight, babe. See what I mean? You’re bleeding. You’re over twelve grand in the hole. Your house credit’s maxed, you see?

Oh, come on! Don’t pull that with me now. I’ve got a comeback in me tonight. Come on, Valerie. All my big rallies start when you’re on board with me.

Not tonight, babe. They won’t let us, see? Not until you settle up.

She looked over at Mad Tommy, who returned her eye contact. They exchanged complete sentences and agreed on an action plan with nary a word exchanged.

Nothing personal, John, Mad Tommy said with a smile, crossing his arms in front of him. We’ve got to respect the house rules, that’s all. So as to protect our interests and yours too.

Come on, Big John. Val touched his hand. I’ll walk you out. We can talk for awhile.

John let her take him by the arm and she led him out into the warm night air.

Val, I need to see Sammy about this. Would you come with me?

Aw, you don’t need me for that. That’s guy stuff. You’ve been down like this before, and you worked it out without me getting in the way.

Come on, my friendlette. You came to Chicago last year for the Illinois Open and I won nine G’s. You’re good luck.

John followed her eyes as she looked down. He watched her toenails morph from gray to ruby red in the sudden shine of headlights from a car turning into a nearby parking space. I don’t know, John, she said. You can handle Sam. You go see him on your own.

I can, but it’d be easier if you came. You have a civilizing effect on men, you know.

She tickled his wrist with her fingertips and gave her lips to him. There, go with my good luck kiss, Big John. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re back in action. Then we’ll play again, I promise.

*÷÷÷*

Connie’s older-by-three-years sister Melanie Strand lived with her husband Rich in a narrow three-bedroom house in a refurbished pocket of Covington, just across from downtown Cincinnati, and a few short blocks from the interstate. By virtue of her training as a counselor – on track to a career as a marriage therapist – Saturday phone calls such as the ones she had already fielded this morning were not uncommon. She'd been on the horn with both her mother and her sister; and it was not yet nine AM.

I’m scared for Constance, Melanie said to her husband over Saturday breakfast, after the couple's two little boys were excused to watch television. I talked to her earlier this morning. John never came home last night. Scumbag.

Rich scowled and shook his head. He’d made his feelings known to John during Sunday dinner about a year earlier. John, as a result, had curtailed his involvement with Rich and Mel and had encouraged Connie to do the same.

I think we can do something for her, she continued.

We can’t live her life for her, sweetheart. He reached for another helping of home fries. Until she’s willing to do something drastic –

Well, I happen to have a drastic idea, Mel answered. "One that'll get her to either insist on John being a real husband – or to leave him.

Rich peered at her through wary eyes.

Isn’t your buddy Vic Williston coming in next weekend for the Reds and the Fringe Festival?

Rich’s nerves fired off as though he had just been told the house was ablaze. Connie’s still married. What are you saying?

Just that Vic is single, the nicest guy, impressive, funny, good career, big arms and handsome... I’m not saying they need to hook up… but Common John isn’t gonna be spending next Saturday evening with Connie. You know that.

He studied her warily.

Look, she continued, I’ll get Mom to watch Laurie and our kids, too. Next Saturday night, after the ballgame, we should invite Connie. We won’t tell her about Vic. And we’ll all go see a Fringe show. Connie's into that local indie artist stuff. Then we go drink a glass of wine, sit down and have a meal...

Melanie. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

She rose from her seat, circled the table and took one of his hands in both of hers. It was the ritual that accompanied her asking Rich to do something important to her, something he wouldn’t ordinarily go along with. They both knew her next words would be delivered in a furtive whisper, and that he would be addressed as Richard Strand.

It’s not fair to Victor, he objected before she could resume telling her idea. He wants to get married, and Connie is – well it’s a cinch he’ll be attracted to her. This is evil.

Melanie rubbed Rich’s hand in between hers. Okay, so what if they like each other? Maybe they’re right for each other, Richard Strand. Maybe she’ll wake up and get her life back. Maybe she’ll see that it’s time to leave John, and eventually Laurie-cakes will get a responsible dad out of the deal. Isn’t that what we want?

I know that’s what we’ve – He caught himself. Vic lives in Indianapolis. This is insane. Dead on arrival.

Just a two hour drive. Maybe she needs a change of scenery to break out of her old patterns. Maybe she’ll move there.

You scare me. You're serious, aren't you?

Lots of horses in Indiana, and you know Vic could afford to indulge her.

This isn’t right. For so many reasons. Like playing with dynamite.

Exactly. I’ve heard you say so many times yourself that when someone’s stuck, they need to be blasted into action by something big. Maybe this will be it for her.

Who are you? You sound like some woman on Jerry Springer.

I beg your pardon! I do not watch that man. We’re talking about my sister, not some ho.

Exactly. That’s why this idea sucks.

You’re saying I suck? Because I love my little sister? Is that what I’m to understand?

Mel, you're crazy. And you want to be a marriage counselor?

One blind date – no, not even that. It's a casual encounter. And if they don't take root, I swear I'll drop it forever. You know you want her to leave him. You're the one who gets angriest when you hear about the latest way John hurts her.

Consternation took over his face. And then, his head began to bob up and down ever so slightly.

*÷÷÷*

John sat behind the wheel of his Buick. In the nine hours since being booted out of the back room of The Garage for the fourth time in a little over a year, he'd been driving a looping, meandering path into and out of Cincinnati’s patchwork West Side neighborhoods. Factories and warehouses, corner beer gardens where before midnight, men drank to smooth over their blue-collar days and weeks, bragging about their sons' headfirst Little-League slides and other evidence of Charley Hustle's work ethic. What would Pete do? John stopped for a doughnut here, an energy drink there. Pete might’ve gotten the boot from a place like The Garage, too. Maybe John wasn’t in such bad company.

John thought about numbers. He was over twelve thousand dollars in the hole with Sammy, had gone from twenty-eight to twenty-three bucks in his wallet since leaving The Garage, and the family’s credit cards were practically maxed out.

Last time, the cash and interest, compounded weekly at a rate that would make credit card companies blush, reached a shade north of $14,000 when John realized he couldn’t pay it and went directly to Sammy to discuss. That solved nothing, and was followed by a home visit in the middle of the night by two arm-breakers who’d grabbed John in the driveway, scaring but not hurting him. The next day, John strode into Sammy’s downtown Cincinnati office. You keep your goons away from my wife and kid! he shouted as Sammy’s goons evicted him from the premises with a clear reminder that more interest was being tacked onto his outstanding balance with every passing week.

They knew where he lived. Where Connie and little Laurie lived. Where Laurie went for day care. Would they visit the place again? He shuddered, remembering the phone call from the child care center. The one about the guy who came into the building and asked a couple of the ladies on staff about Laurie. It had been enough to catapult John to the unthinkable: He confessed the debt to Connie, careful not to say anything that might upset her about Laurie's safety. It was he that they'd harm, he told her. And he’d never, never, gamble again.

The Spencers bailed John out – just this once. John remembered it like a repeating nightmare. More humiliation than he could bear. He wept before his beloved Laurie-cakes; at least his daughter wasn’t old enough yet to understand what an idiot her dad was and how she had been used to make him so afraid. Thank God for the Spencer's money, just this one time! Dozens of millions of dollars in spare change, and they never said 'no' to her.

But that card, John figured, had already been played.

Ask his own dad for help? Ha! He already owed his father several thousand smackaroos and besides, old Caz Kaminski had already written his only child off in disgust. That emotional transaction was mutual. Dad wasn’t in a position to help, and John wasn’t in a position to ask.

The history with Dad – John couldn't help it if he didn’t want to spend his teenage years working in the family grocery store five days after school and one long Saturday each week! He wasn’t born for drudgery. He didn’t want Dad’s store someday, and he didn’t care about lifelong friendships with the people and families in Erlanger who knew that Casimir’s Emporium and Butchery was always there in a pinch when Kroger’s, Speedway, and Sam’s Club didn’t meet the need. Girls, a bowling alley, a driving range – hell, even studying for a math test beat cutting a side of beef into steaks in a meat room that reeked of animal carnage and whose thermostat was set to year-round winter.

Maybe Dad meant well, but it never came out right. Not even close. Take, for instance, Dad’s meddling during senior year, when that sophomore Brenda began working at the store as a cashier and stock girl, and caught John’s fancy. Dad might even have liked Brenda more than John did. What a disaster that turned out to be.

Valerie. He knew she’d never be his, and that was okay. She was just part of the game. A naughty, hard-bodied girl who wore her clothes and her perfume well, who liked to color outside the lines just like him; a fantasy cooker who knew exactly how to bring a man’s blood to a rolling boil. The perfect Delilah to his Samson. Sometimes he’d win with her, and sometimes he’d lose. Just like the games themselves – heart-stimulating make-pretend that sometimes bled over into reality. Emotions between them were just highs and lows to be managed like chips in a poker game.

He had a wife – how did that happen? His mind went back to the night they first met. She’d caught him with something beyond her looks. Challenge. That was it. Early on between them, it was their word. They were, they had concluded with private smiles on that very first night, each others’ challenge.

So now, he was a husband and a father. He knew what Connie and the world expected of him. He could get a decent-paying job – finance was his college major, and he graduated with honors. His old supervisor at First Third Bank would give him a good recommendation from his two summers as an intern.

But he’d already tasted just enough tournament success to keep dreaming of life-changing paydays. One good week – he just knew he had one in him. Then, even after taxes, a lousy twelve thousand dollar gambling debt would melt into trivia. If he could just avoid the slice problem that sometimes took his drives off the tee too far right…

... In two weeks, the Jim Buck Classic was coming up, a few hours’ drive away in Moline. He knew the course, and knew a caddy there who fit him like a glove. If