Walking with Jack Read Online Free Page A

rifle range in the rain. Nothing good to write about this day. Glad it’s over.
    “What’s that?” Jack asked.
    “My father’s diary that he kept in the army,” I said. “I found it when I was in Pennsylvania a few years ago.”
    “Why’d you bring it here?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Something told me to bring it with us.”
    We were up and walking again when he asked, “Why’d he have to have all his teeth pulled?”
    “He grew up during the Great Depression, and even after it was over for America, his family was still poor. They didn’t have any running water. All his teeth were rotted.”
    I hit a low six-iron that flew the river in front of the green and rolled to a stop near the flag. “Best shot I’ve hit all day,” I exclaimed.
    Jack’s tee shot had landed only eighty yards from the green. From there he hit a soft wedge, and his ball fell out of the dark sky right next to mine.
    “Better,” Jack said to himself.
    “Two putts for birdies on the final hole,” I said.
    We marched the rest of the way to the green. Jack made his birdie putt; I missed mine. Back in the car I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror and said: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, behold the face of a 107-year-old golfer accused of swinging like an old woman.”
    I turned to Jack. “There are things about growing old that no one tells you. For example, right here on the rims of my ears I started growing fur about a year ago. If that happens to you, don’t shave it off like I did. Now I’ve got little mustaches growing on both ears.”
    I saw him smile at this. I can still make him smile, I thought.
    “How old was he when he was in the army?” he asked.
    “My father?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Your age,” I said. “He was exactly your age when he was writing in that diary.” I wondered if that fact was more startling to Jack than to me. “He and his buddies graduated from high school and went right into the army. They’d been waiting to get in since Pearl Harbor, three years earlier. They were being trained for the invasion of Japan.”
    He began to untie his golf shoes, and I started the car.
    In the center of town we had to stop for a train to pass. “You played well, given the conditions,” I said.
    “I putted like an idiot,” he said. “But can you believe we had Carnoustie all to ourselves?”
    It thrilled me to hear him say this. “Day of days,” I replied.
    “Day of days,” he said.

     JANUARY l6, 2007     
    Drink enough pints of Guinness on an empty stomach after twenty-four hours without sleep and you can banish even the darkest thought, even the small pain I had felt at the end of our first day when Jack fell asleep without thanking me. I guess I had imagined that each day in Scotland would be a grand victory march along the seaside fairways, serenaded by deep, thoughtful conversations and marked by stunning golf shots that I would remember until the last days of my life. Jack had provided several brilliant shots, but our walk in the deafening gale winds and freezing rain resembled more a retreat from Leningrad than any kind of victory march.
    So I drowned my sorrows in a couple of pints. Then, upstairs in our room, I stood at the tall window listening to the wind and rain. “I think it’s clearing … Do you think it’s clearing? … I think it’s clearing,” I said.
    Jack crawled under his down comforter without brushing his teeth.
    I lay down on my bed across from him and took out my father’s diary.
    “I may join the Marines,” Jack said.
    I tried to conceal the fear that settled in my chest and vocal cords. “I didn’t know you were considering the military. You’d go to Iraq.”
    “I know,” he said. “But if we’re really at war. I mean, if this is a real war we’re in, and it matters, then I’d like to do my part.”
    “War instead of college,” I said. I told him that I’d had a lot of friends from high school, a lot of the boys I’d played