The drainpipe tales

The day El Tree Doctor rolled his disc all the way through the drainpipe, I sighed and shook my head. He is at one with inanimate objects. Trees send him Christmas cards. Lakes and creeks shrink up when they see his disc coming. Forests will spit out his RoadRunner like a bad peanut. He is at one with nature, man made objects, and all forms of luck. There is witchcraft involved somewhere, but I’ve yet to catch him in the act.

The sorcery in question happened on Hole #8 at Gower Park. It’s a shortish lefty hyzer alongside a tennis court with a small land bridge built over a nine-foot long, 15-inch wide cement drain pipe at the midpoint of the fairway. It’s impossible to say if my partner could’ve thrown his disc any worse or more inappropriately for the hole. The throw that came out of his hand turned into a wicked roller that ran for the drainpipe like dog-chased rabbit. In my heart, I–the constant loser–celebrated a bit. What was about to happen would be funny. I’d get to see a large man try to retrieve his disc from an irretrievable spot. The witchdoctor would finally be the zombie.

When the disc–against all laws of physics and religion–rolled out the other side of the pipe and up toward the hole, I think I almost cried. Like Charlie Brown lying on his back, once again Lucy’s optimistic victim, I had again been beaten by the doctor’s black magic. I probably used the f-word.

Like all things that happen on Upstate South Carolina disc golf courses, I vowed to put it behind me. Nothing good could come from lying awake at night, running formulas in my head, and falling asleep to dreams of that bastard laughing, laughing and laughing.

I would have forgotten it completely. It would’ve slithered its way into my subconscious, in that place where I don’t remember Daddy not taking me to the circus or the time that girl in sixth grade made an inappropriate remark about the size of my manhood. Indeed, I would’ve forgotten about it entirely if it hadn’t been for that day months later at Holmes Park.

It’s impossible to say exactly how bad my drive on #3 was. I know it probably didn’t make it halfway down the fairway before crashing into some sort of tree, bush, or invisible snowman. I simply hung my head, clutched my treasured Moray in my hand, and trudged toward the inevitably bad lie.

My release on the second shot probably wasn’t as good as it should’ve been. Nor was my aim. Nor was, if I’m being honest, anything about what happened that afternoon. And, I should point out, despite the relatively clear path from hand to basket, I lost sight of my antique disc almost the moment it left my hand.

By the time I made it to the basket, I’d pretty much resigned myself to the fact I was going to bogey the hole. It was going to be depressing. Rinse and repeat.

I looked for my disc for a couple of minutes before the Tree Doctor off-handedly mentioned that my Moray could be in the giant pipe that ran underneath the nearby road. Probably three feet wide, the pipe ran a good 12 feet back before diverting off to some unknown hell. I stuck my head in the mouth of the pipe and with the little light available looked for that little circle of red.

I am not an easily scared person. I spent ten years of my life around killers, rapists, and thieves. I’ve jumped from high places, ridden Class 5 rapids, and driven a convertible at 135 miles per hour down a two-lane country road. That is a long way of saying, I didn’t want to see the Moray. I didn’t want to see it 12 feet down that long pipe in a pile of filth. It wasn’t because I was afraid of getting eaten by some Greenville underground zombie. It was for another reason.

I crawled to the back of the pipe where my Moray sat looking at me like a kid forgotten by his parents at school. That’s when I heard the noise. It echoed down the pipe like some maniacal woman. With my Moray back in my hand, I grudgingly followed the sound all the way back into the sunshine. There, I took a stroke penalty and double bogey on the hole. All the while, the sound continued.

It was the Doctor…laughing, and laughing, and laughing.