Friday, October 17, 2014

Golf clubs

The Green Bay Packers were playing, and Rock's friend Josh Bernhurst had called to say he would host a small watch party. Rock usually watched televised Packers games at home, alone, but made an exception and rode his bicycle to Josh's apartment.
Josh lived in a first-floor efficiency off of a drab alley in an impoverished, decadent part of the city. Rock had been there before, thus knew to expect the overwhelming clutter he walked around and over as he entered the apartment. The rooms were sanitary, but there were boxes of all sizes everywhere, empty and full, mostly made of white cardboard. Josh led a research team at the local medical school, and desks and counters and tabletops throughout his den overflowed with a seemingly infinite variety of laboratory equipment—miniature centrifuges, test tube racks, washers, shakers, transfer vessels, hot plates, and many things Rock could not possibly identify.
"Find a seat if you can," Josh said.
Rock negotiated his way to a chair near the television. The game had already started, so Rock did not hesitate to sit next to a mutual acquaintance of his and Josh's, a short, slim man name Craig, with his omnipresent, flawlessly-trimmed goatee.
Josh stood behind a waist-high cabinet, all that separated his small kitchen from the den. He turned to open the refrigerator, but stopped and turned back toward Rock. "Hey, man, I have something for you," he said.
"Really?" Rock said. "What is it?"
"Man, I'm not sure, but it looks like it might be golf equipment. It came in the mail. It's in some boxes in my bedroom."
"You're kidding. Did Linda send it?"
Linda was an ex-girlfriend of Rock's. He had left his golf clubs at her and her husband's house in Texas the last time he visited them, a year or so earlier.
"I don't know," Josh said. "I have no idea who sent it."
The first box Rock opened contained several golf shafts, the others no doubt heavy club heads. Rock couldn't believe his clubs had been disassembled and was immediately angered. Even the grips had been removed from the shafts. "I can't fucking believe it," he said. "Why would anyone do this?"

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