It was written across his face, facing the white tees. The
expected challenge, when it appears to have increased, allows doubt to double
its threat. I believe it took about four holes for Joe Valdez to meet and
pass the angst. “I didn’t think I could keep up”—a sentence I would
ordinarily turn into something lewd or at least off-key, but on this occasion I
looked over at the sand-bagger riding shotgun in my cart and smiled.
There’s something humbling about a humble man; I missed the Humble
Class long ago and still see d’Artagnan while shaving. We traded questions
about golf, life, and yesterday—and left plenty of room for the moment. He
never complained, just rose to the occasion (another opp—but then again golf is
rife with them).
Joe Valdez is a curious man. I think curiosity is a trait that
extends one’s life, because it fills voids and gains its own appetite. It’s the
small stories in recent and not-so-recent pasts that often catch the listener
and make him thirsty for another small revelation in the enigmas shoved deeply
in another’s pocket. Trading such pearls on the way home with “The Hat” in
tow, I found myself open to revealing the less capitalized version of my story
and willing to show some vulnerable and even less savory sides of past shadows.
There is comfort in the trust we make with confederates frozen in a set of
seats going 65 mph, something in the laughs that loosens jaws, no matter the
score that day. I might have just let this go, just thought about it
instead writing about it. But for some reason, the comfort of the company made
its way down to my fingers, and I suspect a humble man named Joe had something
to do with it.
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