Do adopted highway stretches fight with each other? Jimmy did not know, but as he sat in his office off the first tee at the Finch Golf Club, he wished that maybe he just owned a highway.
Hole 10, adopted by Boris Funeral Services, was fighting with Hole 11, the Haunted House and he needed to mediate the proceedings. Was this really better than just mowing twice a week? Jimmy now hated his adopt-a-hole golf course experiment, but he was too far into the plan to abandon it.
The only hole without drama was Jimmy’s hole–Hole 1, which sat next to the clubhouse. Jimmy was quickly becoming a city-renowned chef. But the drama came to him as the two men sat in his office—the haunted house purveyor Nicktor and the funeral director Parker Walsh.
“It’s just not how things should be done,” Walsh said, holding up a sign for Nicktor’s fright of the living dead poster. “He’s ripped off our hole design with bodies coming out of graves along the course. Why would people choose to be buried in a place where they’ll be made fun of?”
Nicktor countered, “One of your tombstones says, “Foregone, but not Fore-gotten. You’re the one making the mockery.”
Both of them looked at Jimmy expectantly as if he were supposed to solve this problem. He guessed he had to solve it. Adopted children are still children. Adopted golf holes still belong to the owner of the golf course.
“Is it just the gravestones you have a problem with, or are there more issues?” Jimmy said.
“It’s the whole décor. Why do we even allow a haunted house on this course? It makes a mockery of the whole enterprise.”
“You’re completely ignoring Hole 17 because it’s a frat house over there, but they let you drink for free,” Nicktor said. Jimmy wished that Nicktor hadn’t come in full costume makeup—fake blood dripped down from his eyes, along with a bite mark on his neck.
“Drinking is a time-honored tradition in funeral services to honor the dead.”
“Drinking also contributes to people driving their cars into the lake over there, so soon you’ll get more clients,” Nicktor responded.
“It’s still not as sad as your Valentine’s Day Haunted House flop.”
“Low blow,” Nictkor said, standing up. “You take that back.”
“Boys, boys, boys,” Jimmy said. He would not refer to these two as men. “How about this—Nicktor, you donate 10% of your profits to the funeral home and Parker, you take Nicktor along once a week to your Hole 17 drinking party.”
The two men looked at each other.
“I mean, we do both have an interest in death,” Nicktor said
“And a good business deal,” Parker said. The two shook hands.
Jimmy got up and fled his own office.
The Finch Golf Club is part of a series, you can read other entries here.