THE ARRANGEMENT

by Rosalind Barden


Like all creatures, golfers have predators.  At the local golf course, the predator was a chupacabra, a beast so rare it is believed imaginary by educated types, but it is a beast vilified in remote villages for eating goats and chickens.  The fairway chupacabra had no taste for goats and chickens, though.  Only golfers.

Golfers were easy prey for the chupacabra.  Unlike goats and chickens, they weren't wary and watchful, so preoccupied they were with little white balls.  Much plumper too.  The chupacabra learned the easiest of the easy prey were golfers who played alone, wore tattered golf shirts, never left the course like the others, even at night, sleeping under bushes.

Curiously, all golfers cried the same last words: "You can't eat me!  I must play one more round!"  

The chupacabra couldn't help but become fascinated with this game, this golf.  What was the pull?  It tried playing with its meals' clubs, but never got the knack and gave up in frustration.

That changed one night when it dragged a particularly scruffy lone golfer out from under the bush where he slept.  "Please," the golfer begged, "maybe we can arrange a trade!"

The chupacabra sighed.  "I've been offered money, cars, women, my own television show, but I have no interest in these things."  It opened its jaws.

"Wait!  I'll teach you the game."

The chupacabra drew back.  "You will?"

The golfer nodded.

The chupacabra hung its head.  "I'm not sure.  I've tried playing golf, but I'm so inept."

"Don't be hard on yourself.  It's all a matter of being taught properly.  Anyone can play golf."

"Really?  It would mean so much to me if you could.  All right.  I won't eat you now.  But you must teach me everything you know about golf."

"Fine."

So, deep in the night, by the light of the chupacabra's huge glowing eyes, the golfer taught it how to hold clubs, how to putt, the importance of a proper swing.  It was challenging because of the chupacabra's shape: its small haunches, its snake-like torso, its long skull feathers that wanted to flop into its eyes.  But over time, the golfer became impressed with the skill it developed, and the chupacabra beamed with pride at its first hole in one.

The golfer coached the chupacabra to forget lone players with scruffy bags of clubs, but instead prey on spiffy characters with shiny new equipment.  "The club makes the man," he advised.  In the lengthening shadows of golf games gone on too long, he lured spiffy players to remote spots where the chupacabra waited by calling, "Your ball's over here!"

The golfer did feel bad as they tearfully begged to live for another round, but he explained to them it was a sacrifice for the game.  Which it was, if you thought about it.

One night months later as they lounged on the fairway picking over the bones of their latest meal (the golfer had to eat something, didn't he?), the chupacabra asked, "Do you ever miss your old life?"

The golfer was thoughtful.  "To tell the truth, I'd been fired from my job because I'd sneak off to play golf.  My wife left me for the same reason.  I'd been living on the golf course already.  Many of us do.  That's why no one's concerned when a golfer disappears.  I can't miss my old life, because this is my old life.  And you know, it's the most ideal life a golfer could hope for."  Then the golfer paused, emotion welling up, "And I want to say I'm so happy I've met you.  You're the best buddy a guy could hope for.  Everything I know about golf I've taught you, and I wouldn't do that for just anybody."

"Everything?"

"Oh, yes, all the golf lore I've learned over my life, and the secret tips I came up with myself.  Everything."

"I've been waiting for you to say so," smiled the chupacabra and it bit down upon the golfer, picked his bones clean, then loped off for its nightly game because, after all, the chupacabra is a solitary creature and is loathe to hunt in pairs.