Once Upon a Tee Time

Ray was startled from sleep by the alarm. He had overslept on what he hoped would be the biggest day of his golfing life.

“Are you okay, dear?” Pat mumbled.

“I’m fine. Couldn’t fall asleep last night. All I could think about was getting to the course today.” He had gazed at the ceiling long into the night, watching himself putt from all over the Leisureville greens. He never missed. The defective lens was the cure for the defect in his game. The lens with the bubble. The ultimate gift. He took the contact case from beneath his pillow and fumbled his way to the bathroom.

Both Harvey and his wife stood at the curb in front of Sleepy Hollow, but Lucy wasn’t holding Ray’s customary stainless steel cup. This one was white. With Jingles written on it.

Ray forced a smile. “Perfect, Lucy. How will I ever be able to thank you?”

She grinned and blew him a kiss.

“You’re wearing sunglasses now?” Harvey asked, tilting his head.

“Actually, they’re yours. I remembered you kept them in your bag. I’ll buy some at the pro shop after our round.”

Harvey sat down in the cart. “Those are old ones, not prescription like I wear now. I don’t even know where I got them. They’ve been in the bag forever.”

“Well, they’ve sure come in handy. With my contacts, it’s too bright outside.”

The men headed off and Ray sampled the coffee, still great despite the new cup. Harvey reached into the Oreo bag to enjoy his first cookie. He nearly bit into a dog biscuit before realizing the bags had switched places. The change had been no accident, not after two years. Ray was chuckling.

“Now you’re a wiseguy too?” Harvey asked. “You’ve been hanging around Knickers too long.”

“Didn’t I tell you? I took a wiseguy class as a high school senior. Never played hooky!”

Ray watched Harvey for a response, but his friend pointed ahead. Ingrid Samuels, Speed Bump herself, was walking her toy collie. The animal was almost as elegant as she.

Because Ingrid was on the right side of the street, Harvey had the privilege of pulling a Milk Bone from the bag. When Ray pulled up beside her, his partner put the treat between his teeth and delivered it to the collie mouth-to-mouth. Only Ingrid’s dog rated Harvey’s special delivery, and she always giggled and jiggled.

“Eenjoy yer gawf, boys,” she said through perfect pearly whites, and then waited a moment for them to respond. When they only nodded, she moved on.

“Can’t you be more sociable and say hello?” Ray asked.

“I tried, but nothing came out,” Harvey admitted.

“Ditto,” Ray said, slapping his friend on the leg. “If I tell you something, promise you won’t mention it to Knickers and Mulligan?”

“What’s that?”

“Every time I see Speed Bump, the damn Monkees start singing ‘Daydream Believer’ and she’s the homecoming queen!”

“Damn,” Harvey exclaimed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? I like that song.”

Harvey chuckled. “I’m sorry you thought I wouldn’t tell the guys! That’s so damn funny, you’ve left me no choice.”

A minute later, Mulligan waved his cigar at the new arrivals. “Morning, Harvey. What’s up, Jingles?”

Ray stiffened, but decided to ignore any teasing. Ignore it and it will go away, he told himself. Better yet, maybe he should pretend to like it.

Knickers stared at Ray and cocked his head. “What’s with the shades? You look like one of the Blues Brothers. No, one of the Bruise Brothers.”

Ray reached up and touched the spot where the stitches had been. Got it. Very funny. “It’s the new Jingles look. A new look for my new name.”

Harvey pulled the driver from his bag. “By the way, Jingles and I hit a speed bump on the way.”

Both Knickers and Mulligan stood at attention. While each member of The Foursome was joyfully married to the love of his youth, they also had a common appreciation of art, at least as represented in the sculptured perfection of the Leisureville goddess. Mulligan asked what she was wearing. Knickers wondered if they talked to her.

Ray gave the report. “She told us to ‘eenjoy our gawf’ and called us boys.”

“Now I know your bullshittin’,” Knickers said. “She didn’t really call you boys, did she?”

“It’s a fact,” Harvey confirmed.

“And Harvey kissed her dog,” Ray added. “Right on the lips!”

“That’s nothing,” Harvey exclaimed. “Jingles hears ‘Daydream Believer’ whenever he sees Speed Bump! He told me.”

Knickers snorted. “The Monkees’ song? No shit?”

Mulligan started singing. “Wake up, sleepy Jean, oh what can that mean?”

“That’s the song!” Harvey shouted.

Knickers asked, “Does she wake up your Sleepy Jean, Jingles? Is that why you hear that goofy song?”

The cigar dropped from Mulligan’s teeth. “Sleepy Jean! A perfect name for an old man’s rusty machinery.”

“Let’s perform a Monkees concert for Jingles,” Harvey said, lifting his driver head to his mouth like a microphone. “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees!”

Knickers and Mulligan chimed in, singing into their drivers too. “People say we monkey around, but we’re too busy singing, to put anybody down ...”

The following foursome pulled up in their carts. Hearing the performance, they asked for an encore. With the first tee as their stage, the three men sang with even more animation and threw some dance moves into the mix.

Ray lifted his arms. “I should be making fun of you, not the other way around. You guys even know the words to their songs!”

Knickers grinned. “Jingles, it’s an unfair world. The joke is always on you.”

“Or me,” Harvey added, giving Ray a fist bump.

After the others teed off, Ray stood over his ball, oddly flustered. He had planned to use his left eye for swings and the right eye to putt. Unfortunately, one-eyed practice swings felt awkward. He realized he should have spent time on the driving range. A tentative swing produced a rainmaker that flew barely a hundred yards.

Mulligan dropped his stogie again. Harvey gasped. Knickers pondered the effect of the concussion.

“Okay, okay,” Ray grumbled, heading back to Birdie Chaser. “I hit a moon ball.”

“Ray Plumlee doesn’t hit moon balls,” Knickers said. “I can walk two hundred and thirty yards down the middle of this fairway, draw a ten-yard circle, and every single drive you ever hit would be inside it. That’s the miracle of Ray Plumlee!”

Ray forced a laugh. “Just call me Jingles then.”

With the green still 280 yards off, Ray laid up with a three-wood. Back at the cart, he consulted Harvey the Historian. “When’s the last time I didn’t get up in two?”

“I can’t tell you. We’re on new ground here. The top pros hit greens in regulation seventy percent of the time. Your stats are closer to eighty-five percent. Heck, if you added a couple yards around the perimeter of the greens to the equation, you’d be near a hundred percent.”

Ray knew that was true, something he took for granted. He hit the ball low and straight and always square. “Well, the Leisureville links hardly measure up to Pebble Beach. On this course, the pros would probably hit a hundred and twenty-five percent of the greens.”

Harvey scratched an ear. “Interesting math again, Jingles. How do you figure?”

“They’d hit all our par-fives in just two shots, right? That’s better than regulation. And almost a quarter of the holes are par-fives ... four out of eighteen anyway. Just do the math.”

“I’ll have to think about that,” Harvey laughed, figuring it probably made more sense than seventy miles to a gallon. “Anyway, a couple weeks ago, you hit every green but one and still shot seventy-seven. That means you had forty putts. Over half your score was putts!”

“I’m going to turn that around. My new contacts are going to help.”

Ray stopped on the cart path when they neared Harvey’s drive. In accordance with their own policy, The Foursome’s carts never left the pavement. The practice helped preserve the fairways and forced the men to get more exercise. While his partner walked to his ball, Ray opened his right eye to check out the immediate surroundings more closely.

When Harvey returned to Birdie Chaser, he found five golf balls on his seat. “Check ’em out,” Ray chuckled. “I found them all right here, stuck in the bushes. There’s even a blue smile there!” The blue smile was actually a C, identifying it as one of Knickers Collins’ balls.

Harvey examined Knickers’ grinning Titleist. “That’s amazing. He lost one over here a month ago. That’s the only time I remember.”

Ray drove only a few yards before hopping out of the cart again. He extracted a couple more abandoned balls from a hedge. “They’re everywhere! Like picking berries.”

“How did you see those?” Harvey asked. “Seven balls on the first hole? We haven’t found that many total in two years!” Harvey vowed to get his own eyes checked.

Ray felt more comfort with his third shot, but still failed to make perfect contact. His ball stopped a few feet short of the putting surface. Only lots of practice would cure the one-eyed swing dilemma.

At the green, he grabbed Pinger and surveyed forty feet of landscape between his ball and the cup, which looked more like a gallon. The putt didn’t appear to be difficult at all – more like a cinch. He stroked the ball and knew that he yanked it left. Too much enthusiasm in his right hand. It slid by the edge of the cavernous hole and rolled three feet by. Chasing after the miss, he stopped at the hole, reached out with his putter, and backhanded the ball into the cup for a bogey.

Harvey stared in shock. “Careful there, Jingles! That was no gimme. You could’ve very easily missed that.”

Knickers and Mulligan glanced at each other. The Ray they knew would have walked around studying the short putt, taking his time. At least he would have awaited his turn. Why would he slap at a putt like it meant nothing? Maybe he was pissed about his poor drive.

Ray didn’t hear Harvey or notice the quizzical looks from the others. He just wanted to get to the next green.

With better swings, he managed to do that in style. Even with one eye, he put a seven-iron approach within six feet of the hole.

“You can make that,” Harvey told him, though doubting it. Statistically, pros made putts of that distance sixty-four percent of the time. Even on the bouncy Leisureville greens, Mulligan made six-footers three fourths of the time because he was brilliant with his belly putter. Both Knickers and he made them over half the time. His partner was another story.

Ray had averaged a miserable thirty-seven putts a round for the last few months and showed no sign of improvement. Mulligan averaged only twenty-nine. Knickers and he averaged about thirty-one. In effect, Ray had been spotting them all six or seven strokes a round on the greens. If Ray’s overall game could be combined with Mulligan’s putting, the hybrid golfer would average 68!

Nonetheless, Ray stroked his birdie putt straight into the cup, and did the same on three of the next four holes. His only miss came on a thirty-five-footer that lipped out.

Knickers announced, “I don’t know about you, Mulligan, but I’m gonna get myself some contact lenses.”

Mulligan, disappointed to be losing the match, tried to stay upbeat. “I’ll bet my wife already made an appointment for me. She wants me to look more like Joe Pesci. And what’s with Jingles? I sure haven’t heard any whining today.”

When Ray stood on the seventh tee, Knickers scrutinized his every move. While Mulligan assumed his opponent was having a lucky day, the old baseball coach wasn’t so sure. From the very start, there had been added life in Ray’s step. The limp had nearly disappeared. His approach to putting was different, and it wasn’t just a new open stance. Instead of standing over the ball with a frown of resignation, he looked confident. There was no celebration when he jarred a long putt, which made no sense. Ray rarely made a long one and always danced when he did. Heck, he didn’t normally make many short putts. Ray was suddenly all business. Maybe he’d been half blind and didn’t even know it.

Continuing his run, Ray hit another accurate approach to the green, leaving no more than ten feet for still another birdie. Despite that, the joy of the day had disappeared. His right eye was killing him.

The assumption that lubrication would cure the problem was wrong. His shirt, already soaked from eye drops leaking down his cheek, now absorbed tears triggered by pain and frustration. The bubble lens was a cruel joke. It showed him its magic and punished him for its use. He was done. His head was throbbing.

At the green, he delivered the news to his friends. “I’m sorry, guys. I have to go … have to go home and lay down.”

The objections came as expected. What about your round? How can you leave when you’re playing like this?”

In reply, he took off the sunglasses and showed the men his right eye. They leaned close to inspect it, then frowned as one.

“What happened?” Harvey asked. “Did you scratch it or something?”

“Maybe it’s an allergy,” Knickers suggested.

Ray removed the right lens. “I’m afraid I wasn’t meant to wear contacts, at least not that one. My day is over.”

Mulligan said, “We can go to the dog track some other day. Don’t worry about it.”

The thought of his car and the wager lifted Ray’s spirits slightly. Removing the lens had eased his pain, at least the physical part. “No, we’ll still go this afternoon. Just meet at my place at twelve-thirty or so. I’ll be fine. Maybe Harvey can run me home and come back to finish your round.”

In his bedroom, Ray reclined with one of Mr. Tanner’s ice packs on a washcloth over his right eye. That sting had subsided, but now his ears were on fire. Pat had turned up her volume for effect. “If one of your lenses gave you all that trouble yesterday, why would you put it on again? What kind of person does that? And why didn’t you tell me the truth yesterday ... instead of making up some story?”

He lifted his hands in surrender. “I told you already. I can see better with that lens. It helped me with my golf game, but it’s over now. We’ll take it back to the doctor.”

“I’ll return it now,” she said, softening her tone. “Your glasses are ready to be picked up too. Dr. Sturrock’s office called earlier.”

“It’s in the container by the bathroom sink.” He watched her scoop up the case and drop it into her purse.

She was almost out the door when Ray thought of his wager and chased after her. “Wait, Pat! The tank is full and I have the bet to settle with Mulligan.”

Sighing, she returned and dropped her purse on the kitchen counter. “I guess your glasses will still be there tomorrow.”

Sprawling out on the bed again, Ray stared at his trophies on the dresser. He couldn’t help but wonder what score he might have shot today. At three-under through six holes, another birdie awaited him on seven.

The lens had been fine for over an hour, just like yesterday. Then things went south in a hurry. If only he could play a round in an hour instead of close to four. Closing his eyes, he pondered the situation. He used the lens only to putt. Why not wear it only to putt? It was awkward trying to swing off the tees and fairways with a single eye anyway. Couldn’t he wear his regular lenses from tee to green, then switch right lenses? Why not? How long did he spend on each green anyway? Five minutes? What was eighteen times five? Less than an hour, right? No, wrong. More like an hour and a half. Still, his right eye would be resting under a regular lens most of the time. It might work!

He bounced off the bed and headed for the kitchen, passing Pat’s office on the way. The door was slightly ajar. She sat at the computer. After snatching the contact case from her purse, he returned it to safety beneath his pillow. There was no point in trying to sell her on the new idea; he would have to show her. He would show everyone.

As 12:30 approached, Ray filled an ice chest with beer for his friends to enjoy on the drive, Sam Adams for everyone. He placed the cooler in the center of the backseat, between where Harvey and Mulligan would sit. Shotgun was reserved for Knickers, the only one who hadn’t challenged his claim about the car’s mileage.

The men showed up on time and The Foursome set off for Apache Wells. Along the way, the passengers talked mostly about Jingles’ mastery of the course that morning.

“Do you realize we witnessed history?” Harvey said. “Jingles’ three-under for the first six holes was the best start for any of us, at least since I’ve been playing with you guys.”

Mulligan leaned forward to talk into Ray’s ear. “How did a cup become a bucket? You kept saying the hole looked like a big ole’ bucket.”

Ray grinned. “It’s my contacts. That’s the way the hole looks to me now.” He meant contact in the singular, of course, and was anxious to tell them all about it. First things first, though. He wanted to show them its magic over a full round. He wanted to see that much for himself.

Mulligan passed Knickers another beer, chuckling. “Well, the cup must look more like a thimble to my partner. He three-putted all morning long.”

At the race track, the men took their usual position along the rail near the finish line. By custom, each had to make $20 in wagers for the day, no more, no less. Whoever wound up with the top bankroll got the balance of everyone else’s stake. By losing only six of his twenty bucks on the previous trip, Harvey proved to be the big winner. He walked away with a total of $27.

In the past, Ray struggled to read much of the program other than the names of the greyhounds in each race. With his new contacts, he could read the fine print. Owners and trainers. Past performances. Career winnings. A lot to digest and consider.

Each of the men had his preferred method for losing money. Mulligan played numbers and didn’t need a program. He always bet on Two to win, Five to place, and Seven to show. His address, coincidentally, was 257 Leisure Way. Knickers ignored the odds and statistics, focusing on the athletes themselves. He placed his bet on the entrant that looked fittest and fastest, with a single exception: If a dog stopped to crap before the race, it automatically earned his wager. Harvey was a true handicapper. He studied past performance so thoroughly that he predicted the entire finish of each race, first through last. Although he only bet on his top dog to win, he loved comparing his guesses to the results. Ray had always based his selection on his favorite name in the field. Even with new data at his disposal, he decided to stick with following his heart. Old habits were hard to break.

The men had missed the first two races, so Ray read the lineup for the third. The group was rich in quality names: Wedding Bell Blues; Willy’s Blue Moon Rocket Racer; Just Call Me Angel in the Morning; PJ’s Black Alco; Exterminator; Nash Bridges; Laughing Game; and Patsy’s Special Birthday Wish. A very tough choice.

“Just look at these wild names!” Mulligan exclaimed.

Knickers laughed. “Yeah, whatever happened to Fido and Spot?”

“Did you know that these dogs are put up for adoption when they’re done racing?” Harvey asked. “I read about a charitable foundation that helps them find homes.”

Ray was amazed. “Just Call Me Angel in the Morning will be a house pet someday? What happens if she gets off her leash? You sure as hell couldn’t catch her!”

“You’d have to walk around the neighborhood callin’ her,” Knickers laughed. “Just Call Me Angel in the Mooorrrning! Come hoooome! Just Call Me Angel in the Mooorrrning! Here, girl!”

Mulligan cupped his hands in front of his mouth. “Willy’s Blue Moon Rocket Racer!” he shouted. “Where aaare you? Willy’s Blue Moon Roooooocket Racer! Come home to Daaaddy!”

Lacking inhibition, the two of them started walking around, calling their dogs at the top of their lungs. All the spectators looked at the yellers as if they were nuts.

Though they wouldn’t dream of emulating the crazy behavior, Harvey and Ray were amused. They envied the wit and bravado of their partners, but were satisfied to play straight men to the comedy team of Knickers and Mulligan.

Ray’s decision boiled down to two dogs. ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ was a Fifth Dimension song. The lead vocalist, Marilyn McCoo, was one of his favorite singers ever. Patsy’s Special Birthday Wish was in the running too. Patsy wasn’t Pat, but it was close. He splurged right off the bat, betting $2 on Pat to win and another $2 on Marilyn McCoo to place. A fifth of his allotted funds might be gone after a single race, but he felt right about it. He felt right with everything.

The stuffed rabbit circled the track, the doors on the cages opened, and the lean, muzzled dogs were off in flying pursuit. Ray’s two picks ran side by side throughout the race, joined at the hip. They finished a nose apart in sixth and seventh place.

When the track announcer called out the names of the winner and second place finisher, Ray knew the day belonged to Knickers and Mulligan. Just Call Me Angel in the Morning and Willy’s Blue Moon Rocket Racer finished first and second.

“Oh, boy,” Ray whispered to Harvey. “This is going to be good!”

Hundreds of eyes focused on their two friends, who had emphatically identified the top dogs. Mulligan raised his arms. “What?” he yelled, looking back at all the faces. “You didn’t bet on our dogs?”

The next race featured a half sister to Just Call Me Angel in the Morning, a brindle called Top of the Morning to You. Their mother of had the shorter handle of Morning Glory.

Ray and Harvey watched their friends go back to play, wondering what they might do for an encore. Mulligan walked among the crowd, shaking hands like a politician, and greeting patrons with: “Top of the morning to you!” He handed each stranger a Mickey Collins card and pointed out his friend.

Some approached Knickers, excited to meet a genuine major leaguer. He responded to each with: “Some kind of wonderful to meet you.” Some Kind of Wonderful was wearing Number 4 in the upcoming race.

Dozens of patrons scrambled to the ticket windows to invest their retirement or Social Security income on those two dogs. Ray and Harvey were part of the stampede. Due to the flood of wagers, the odds on the pair dropped quickly.

After both finished out of the money, Knickers and Mulligan shrugged and lit cigars. Neither of them had placed a bet on the race - or even the previous one. They were having too much fun messing around.

One of the bolder spectators shouted at them. “Look at you two, just blowing smoke up our asses!”

Mulligan exhaled a cloud of smog. “What? You expect us to be right every single time?”

Nobody could be right every time, Ray thought. And nobody could make every putt. Or could they? He was going to try to do that very thing in the morning. The world had changed in a matter of days. Putting with the bubble lens was like betting on the stuffed bunny that the dogs chased around the track. A sure winner!

On the drive back to Leisureville, Harvey gloated over his winnings. By shrinking his $20 to $11.60, he performed best again. When he counted the handful of dollars and change from Knickers and Mulligan, he came away with $20.80. Ray hadn’t cashed a single winning ticket.

Knickers continued to rave about Ray’s putting, explaining how new eyewear had benefited many baseball players as well. He talked of pitchers that saved careers with improved control, outfielders that got a better jump on fly balls, and hitters that raised batting averages by fifty points, all with the help of glasses or contacts. He also analyzed Ray’s new putting stance, proclaiming there was no single right way to hit a baseball or a golf ball. Each player had to find his own formula for success.

Mulligan said nothing. He slumped against the left rear door, snoring loudly.

Ray steered in silence. His spirits had dipped right along with the needle on the fuel gauge. Now it seemed to be dropping with every spin of the tires. When no one was watching, he thumped the gauge with his knuckles. Something was horribly wrong. With his shirt stuck to his skin, he turned up the air conditioning.

From the corner of an eye, Knickers studied Ray’s every move. The timing of the drop on the fuel gauge was predictable. A car had to burn a couple of gallons before the needle really got moving. He barely contained a grin when Ray tapped the gauge. Sweat was beaded up on the poor bastard’s forehead. It was beautiful.

When Ray finally pulled up to a pump near Leisureville, his stomach was churning. The gauge was down almost a quarter tank.

Harvey elbowed Mulligan to wake him and all four men climbed out. Ray’s knees were so weak that he leaned against the car.

Mulligan walked to the pump, swiped his credit card, and took hold of the nozzle. “It’s my treat, Jingles. Just open the tank cover!”

Ray looked down at the switch on the floor by his seat. Sucking in a deep breath, he lifted it.

“Let’s bet on how much it takes,” Mulligan said. “Five bucks.”

Knickers had drifted away from the car, but Harvey answered. “I’ll take that action. How about you, Jingles?”

“My bet’s big enough already,” Ray said, not recognizing his own voice. What was he going to tell Pat?

Harvey seemed to understand. “Okay, Mulligan. You guess first.”

“Five point two gallons.”

Harvey grinned. “I’ll take five point three.”

Knickers stood well back, admiring the scene, perhaps like Da Vinci may have studied one of his paintings. Mulligan and Harvey stared at the numbers flying by on the meter, fists on their hips, nodding their heads. Ray’s face had lost all color. His expression was the Mona Lisa’s in reverse.

When the meter stopped at 5.1, Harvey said, “You can squeeze a couple more tenths in there, Mulligan!”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Mulligan asked. After a brief argument, the two decided to call it a draw.

Mulligan returned the nozzle to the pump and started singing. “Take me out to ball game, take me out to the crowd, buy me some peanuts and ...” He stopped abruptly when he saw Ray slouched in the driver’s seat, his forehead resting on the steering wheel. Was he crying?

“Jingles, are you okay?” Mulligan and Harvey asked in unison.

Ray mumbled something about a twilight zone. “Oooh,” Harvey said. “That’s how he refers to Alzheimer’s. I’ve heard him say that.”

Ray felt himself slipping out of control. Life as he always enjoyed it was officially over. He was losing his damn mind. What would Pat think? How would she deal with him? Would he have to enter a nursing home? He groaned aloud, oblivious to the others.

Mulligan circled the car and gently patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry about the money, Jingles. We can all buy our own tickets. We all knew that you miscalculated or something. It’s no big deal.”

Harvey said, “That’s right. We love you even if math isn’t your best subject.” He forced a laugh, hoping to cheer his friend.

“Good grief, Jingles,” Knickers said, returning to the car. “Don’t be such a crybaby! It could have been Mulligan or Harvey just as easy. Well, almost as easy.”

Mulligan stared at Knickers for a moment, then fell into the back seat, exploding in laughter. “Holy crap! You did this to him! You did this to all of us, didn’t you? Holy double crap!”

“Knickers did what?” Harvey asked. “What does Knickers have to do with this?”

The prankster slipped into the front passenger seat, smiled, and continued to savor Ray’s misery. Without a doubt, it had been a perfect execution.

Mulligan coughed from all his laughing. “Knickers, you’ve been topping off his tank, right? Oh, my aching gut! That had to be it. Holy triple crap!”

Ray grasped the steering wheel with both hands, squeezing with all his might. In his mind’s eye, the wheel was Knickers’ neck.

Knickers nodded to Mulligan. “I can’t remember how many gallons I put in that car. I did it every day for three weeks.”

“But how could you get to his car? Without him knowing?”

“I went over to his garage at five every morning. Jingles gave us keys, remember?”

Ray released the tension in his grip. He should be thankful for the news, shouldn’t he? At least he wasn’t going crazy. Relief suddenly overwhelmed him. He was fine! It had all been a joke! With a burst of energy, he leaned across the center console and wrapped his arms around Knickers. He kissed his cheek with a loud smack.

Knickers shoved him away. “If I’d known you were gonna kiss me, I wouldn’t have gone to all the bother!”

Harvey was dumbfounded. His membership in The Foursome was officially awesome.

As the men headed back to Leisureville, Ray described every detail of his thinking about the car, even the explanation he had manufactured for himself. The words played like a symphony to Knickers, who basked in the praise of his friends. He finally announced they were indeed going to the Monday Night Football game; Bess already bought the tickets. He’d decided to sell a few shares and have some extra fun.

Back at home, Ray tried to tell Pat about Knickers’ prank. He got no further than the part about his friend sneaking into the garage each night. She shot him an icy stare, turned, and walked away, saying, “Get our key back.”

Wonderful woman, Ray thought, but no sense of humor. “Pat, we got over twenty gallons of free gas!”

When she didn’t respond, he added, “I’ll get even with him on the golf course, where it really counts.”

“Good luck with that,” she shouted.

Ray scratched his head. What was that supposed to mean?