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Lucite Embodiment

Neal Burnham

    My order is ready one week ahead of schedule—the owner of the trophy shop is on the phone. Richard B. Mount - that’s his real name - is pleased with the results. The trophy does have a “slight imperfection ...” however, and could I inspect it “as soon as possible?” I return to work, but my heart is no longer in it. My curiosity has gotten the better of me, and soon I have to slip out and catch the subway, heading for downtown. On the way to the station I start to think about my upcoming vacation. I am going to Ireland—one of those one-week family affairs that should provide plenty of golf courses for my dad, and sightseeing and shopping for the rest of us. I am looking forward to this trip; it has been a long time since we have been together as a family. My thoughts run back to the trophy, which I have commissioned for my father.
    What is this “slight imperfection ...”?
    The train accelerates into the tunnel and I lapse into a daydream. As a child, growing up in Paris, France, I developed such subway reveries as a means of passing the time on the way to school (when I was not finishing up my homework). In the winter months it was still night outside when I left early in the morning, and I was barely awake. As the metro rolled under the city, I would focus my eyes on the passing lightbulbs lining the dusty tunnel wall (trying to resolve each glowing filament). Sometimes I spent the whole ride just gazing at my own profile reflected in the darkened window.
    Kendall Square. Screeching brakes jar me for a moment from my daydream. The first wave of people piles in, including a man smoking a cigarette. Seating himself next to me, he senses the disapproving glare of several passengers and quickly extinguishes his cigarette. The smell of the tobacco smoke reaches my nostrils.
    I remember the many smoke-filled Sunday mornings of my childhood, spent in my dad’s sleek British Leyland Rover, riding to the golf course outside of Paris. A carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes always adorned the Rover’s dashboard, and wherever he drove, my father lit up Lucky Strike after Lucky Strike (“MFT: Mighty Fine Tobacco”). He did so with a masculine snap of the well-worn “zippo” lighter that had been given to him by the Time-Life corporation years ago (the distinctive, colorful enamel logo had long since worn off).
    In a few weeks I will be riding with my father once again, only this time through the Irish countryside, and in a rented car. No longer, however, will I settle into the pleasant daze that used to overcome me as the blue smoke swirled in the morning sunlight, mingling with the rich smells of the Rover’s leather seats and the kerosene lighter fluid fumes from the zippo—over a year ago a hospitalization had forced my father to quit smoking.
    Charles Street. Beyond the Charles Street jailhouse I can make out the new wing of the Massachusetts General Hospital, still under construction. Two more stops to go.
    The Sunday morning drive to the golf course was a quiet time for my dad and me, often spent in silence. It was a time to be together as father and son. Comfortably ensconced in the Rover’s seats, we enjoyed each other’s company and we engaged in, yes, “male bonding.” We usually made good time on the road, as the AutoRoute de l’Ouest tended to be empty on Sunday mornings (much like the German Autobahns, the French AutoRoutes were exempt from speed limits in those days).
    We teed off before noon, played our eighteen holes, and sat down to a hearty lunch afterwards in the old Norman stone farmhouse that served as the clubhouse. It was in that comfortable dining room one Sunday when Jim, in a hushed and confidential voice, told me about the facts of life. In those days my dad had a handicap of twelve, and he had won some tournaments. A barrel-chested American, he also smoked while playing. He kept another carton in his locker, and several packs were always tucked away in his golf bag. He would delicately shred his butts, scattering the remains over the fairways and roughs. Cupping his zippo with his hand, he would light up, even in the driving rain (and the strongest of gales). I can still remember the sound that the zippo’s flame made, like that of a flag snapping in a strong wind. (It was no wonder to me that the zippo had been the regulation lighter for US servicemen in World War II. I could testify that the lighter had proven itself highly dependable in the bunkers and open fields of Western Europe, under truly adverse weather conditions.) I remember the rawness of the worst winter months, when my hands became numb from the cold and rain. Sometimes when I swung the golf club, it flew out of my weakened grip, landing, with a few great bounces, at some considerable distance down the fairway. This invariably brought a wry smile to my father’s lips, whose own powerful grip never seemed to slip.
    Park Street. One more station to go.
    The Rover is gone now, and it is no longer l’AutoRoute de l’Ouest that leads to the golf course—still, these Sundays Jim’s handicap holds steady, at twenty-five or so. Despite the short drives. Despite the shortness of breath.
    Downtown crossing final stop. The shoppers are streaming in and out of the department stores. A light drizzle is just starting up as I round the corner to the trophy shop.
    Awaiting me on the counter is Jim’s half-cocked zippo, embedded in a block of clear Lucite.
    Slightly tilted to one side.

    Neal Burnham still plays golf with his father. He dedicates this story to the former Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, and to the golfing champion, Tiger Woods.

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