Read Barbarian King Page 5

over and looked more like he was using a putter on a green versus teeing off with a driver - picture a giraffe bending over to drink from a water hole, front legs stiff and straight.

  Hunched over from the hips, his weight centered, his skinny arms resting heavily against his narrow chest, he gripped the club as one would a baseball bat. An athletic posture to be sure, but something more resembling a hockey player.

  His ball teed up the President hovered the club head above the ball just like he had seen the pros do and just as it seemed that cur would never stop its yapping the President drew back his driver and with all his might, as far back as his skinny arms allowed...and let fly!

  Twang!

  The ball missed its mark slicing hard right in a long, lazy arc before it hit the woods. The shot did, however, have the effect of causing the canine to turn and scamper off to investigate the noise.

  "What the hell, you missed by a mile!"

  BamaOay lied, "No, I just wanted to make sure that the swine could be distracted," indicating with his finger how the dog had vanished. "It won’t be gone long, but there is a point in what I do. It is a trick I picked up on the Big Island.”

  “In Hawaii?”

  “Yep, you just wait and see."

  Grabbing another ball from his bag he handed it to IllaryHay who took it with bafflement written all over her face.

  "What good will this do? I’ve never thrown anything in my life."

  “Come on, you have never thrown a baseball?”

  Woof...woof!

  The bunny-eared bastard was back, but did not distract the two intellectuals from their heady conversation.

  “My parents never let me throw anything, instead they had me climbing everything, like the monkey bars at the kids park, the tree in the backyard, a ladder...anyone’s ladder, and the fire escape at dad’s office.”

  “Why on earth did they do that?”

  “They told me it was because they both longed for me to be like Sir Hillary, you know the first person to reach the top of Everest...my namesake.”

  BamaOay had heard the same story perpetrated by this chick during the campaign in ’08, only the whole story turned out to be a complete fabrication, made up out of thin air. Turns out IllaryHay had been born before the Brit had made his fabled climb; it was a lame attempt at embellishing this otherwise painfully incompetent politician.

  “Can you at least attempt throwing it? It only needs to distract that cur into looking away, take a practice throw.”

  BamaOay stepped a distance to the side he thought clear of her toss.

  “Okay, but you better not laugh,” she spouted, before preparing to throw the ball.

  Rearing back with her arm she looked as if she was nothing less than a professional baseball pitcher, nothing sissy, or innocent about her throw only her accuracy was off a bit.

  Beaming the President in the back of the noodle while he was watching to see how far she cast the object. He fell like a ton of bricks, his legs completely collapsing from underneath him and fell to all fours. His head reeled, his buckled legs would not respond to his mind’s command to rise. The President was like a sodden heap on the sand unable to move.

  BamaOay believed he had just tasted the ultimate in humiliation at her hand, shame at being knocked to the ground...by a girl...by a golf ball.

  That wench had always been inclined to despise men. That marriage of hers was nothing more than a sham, a not-so-well-laid-out plan to ride the coattails of her celebrity spouse to the White House. He knew it was quite likely she meant to hit him in the head...and for good reason. It had to be difficult for her to come across the one man who had taken her turn as President. For him it had been easy and almost like taking candy away from a baby.

  “BamaOay...!” she bleated out with a taint of sarcasm. “Are you okay?”

  He unsteadily pushed himself to his knees.

  “I warned you, I told you I never learned how to throw.”

  “Damn bitch, that really hurt!”

  “I said I was sorry you son-of-a-bitch!”

  “Say, you didn’t mean to throw that at me did you?”

  “Of course not, if I had I would have tried to hit you somewhere where it really counted.”

  “You realize that getting rid of me would not have helped your efforts in reaching the White House, in fact it might have hurt your chances. It very well may have given that half-wit Vice President of mine, Joe-Bob, a shot in the next presidential election. Just remember that the next time you get any more of those smart ass ideas.”

  “Oh, go fuck yourself!”

  He stood up wobbly and swayingly picked up the cast golf ball. “Well, at least this did not go to waste. Say, do you suppose you can hit the woods this time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you try? I do have a plan.”

  “Sure, why not, just make sure you’re standing beside me next time.”

  BamaOay nodded that he clearly understood, while rubbing his bruised noggin.

  “Did you happen to notice that dog was a male?”

  “No, why?”

  “It means that bastard has got balls and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to drive one of these,” the President showed her the Titleist, “right up that things ass. Yep, there is more than one way of skinning a cat and I’m sure this plan of mine will work, but that brute has got to be distracted into looking away first."

  “Come on, you’re kidding right?”

  "No, I’m not, that’s an awfully big target, besides, I’ve been taking golf lessons from some of the best and most expensive instructors my team could find."

  Handing the recovered ball to IllaryHay the President reached for and grabbed another.

  “Come on, let’s get a little closer.”

  Still wobbling slightly, the President clutched the driver close to his chest and began to address the cur above the sound of the breaking waves.

  "What are you waiting for you misbegotten offspring of questionable parents?" was one of his more engaging questions. "Stick your balls in my face one more time you donkey-eared mutt, or do you want me to come over and kick those silly bunny ears off your head?"

  There was more of it...some of it crouched in articulateness that made IllaryHay begin to believe BamaOay was a real, honest-to-God sissy. BamaOay’s scathing declarations had, however, its effect upon the canine. Just as the incessant crying of a baby in coach class during an overseas flight disturbs and makes crazy constitutionally silent fellow passengers, so the clamorous chattering of this skinny, brown man roused psychotic rage in the beasts bosom. With appalling suddenness the mastodonic brute made a dash toward the two in a furious effort to reach this vociferous man whose yelling was disturbing the pastoral silence of its beachside realm, only to stop short again of the surf.

  “You big chicken!” yelled the President.

  Drawing aside to avoid being smacked anew the President dropped the ball on the sand, the first step in striking what he hoped would be a mortal blow. The President now aligned his body, feet, hips, and shoulders parallel to the target line of where he estimated that critter’s family jewels would end up.

  “Are you ready?” the President asked, sweat now beading on his brow with tension, his hands trembling for the need of a smoke.

  “Yes.”

  “When I say run...run!”

  “Run, run where?”

  “To that cookout, of course.”

  She was confused, “But, how do we...?”

  “Now, throw it!”

  She hesitated for just a second then threw the ball. This time it sailed over the curs head and moments later hit the woods!

  The mongrel heard the racket and cut short its barking turning to see what was what. BamaOay had judged his line up perfectly, the creature’s derrière was lined up to perfection with where his ball had to fly. Just two-dozen yards separated the bullseye from the President. All the President
had to do was hit the thing straight.

  Twang!

  IllaryHay watched as the ball hooked hard left missing the menace by a wide margin only to go dancing off the beach one, two, three times.

  The canine saw the ball this time running the thing down like a golden retriever.

  BamaOay flinched, his obvious failings as a golfer having stung his self esteem, his lack of skill at just about anything outside basketball was now further exposed. The President clutched the driver close to his chest, then turning grinned his apologies back at the stunned looking woman.

  “I thought you told me you could golf?”

  He shuddered, “I really need a smoke.”

  “That certainly goes without saying!”

  Woof!

  Over on the beach the bunny-eared canine was now wallowing like a puppy playing with that newfound plaything. The dog shook his head from side to side ball in its mouth, pawed at it and repeatedly chewed it. Presently it got his huge front paws on the thing and managed to tear the covering off. Then it threw his head back, jaws wide tossing it into the air.

  This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in the woman’s veins, but BamaOay was really a person at heart too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest. To this man of the Islands no such gulf existed between himself and nature, not as existed in concept for the cosmopolitan matron. The rabbit-eared beast before the President was merely a form of life differing from himself mainly in physical shape. The President attributed its characteristics like his own and saw in its playfulness the counterpart of his shenanigans back in the capitol, in its roars and bellowings merely animal-like equivalents of the name calling he