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Florida falling face-first onto the green, the look of confusion that come just before. He pictured the foam spilling out his mouth and nose, and knew he was drained inside too, every plug in there pulled at once. He pictured those things, and willed himself up the hill to the clubhouse, as if there was something up there that could change what had happened.
     
     
When he opened his eyes again, the building rose up in front of him and the sun was blinding off the windows where the white men sat and drank after they’d played golf. To his certain knowledge, there had never been a bleeding nigger without his shoes on inside the clubhouse at Brookline, but he ran directly over the practice green anyway, disturbing a gentleman in orange pants who was practicing one-foot putts, and through the glass doors that led into the lounge.
     
     
It was dark and cool inside, the air as still as a cave, and he stopped in his tracks and waited to see what would happen. Expecting they might shoot him. The bartender was a huge, sweet-smelling Negro called Richard, and he was staring at Train, seemed to have stopped breathing. Four ancient ladies were in a corner playing cards, a halo of cigarette smoke hanging over the table. He noticed their hands. Diamonds and bones. One of them looked up at him and smiled.
     
     
The bartender was coming around the bar now, looking left and right to see who else might have been afflicted by what just come in the door. His hair glistened under the overhead lights, and Train could not shake the feeling that he was about to be shot, and then it occurred to him, as the bartender came across the rug, that when he dropped Mr. Miller’s golf bag, what was peeking out the pocket was the nose of a pistol.
     
     
The bartender was smiling to keep the ladies from panicking. He came very close to Train before he spoke, and then leaned in so no one else could hear.
     
     
“Rooster, I ever see you again, it better be through that door, runnin’ the other way,” he said. Train could smell the pomade he used to conk his hair. He stepped back a little, needing some space to talk. The bartender glanced again at the ladies in the corner. One of them had her cigarette in a long white holder and picked it up now and had a pull. Diamonds and bones.
     
     
The bartender took his arm and headed him back toward the door. It crossed Train’s mind that he might not be able to explain what happened, but suddenly the words were right there, as easy as they were for Sweet or anybody else. “There’s a man died,” he said.
     
     
He felt the pressure change on his arm. “What man?” the bartender said.
     
     
“Florida,” Train said. “Pitched onto the green and died.”
     
     
“A caddy?”
     
     
“Florida. You know old Florida. . . .”
     
     
“No sir,” the bartender said, “I do not.” He studied Train a moment longer, then escorted him the rest of the way out of the lounge.
     
     
Train waited until he was back outside to tell the bartender that he was supposed to call the ambulance. He could see the ladies had to be protected from the sight of himself.
     
     
“This ain’t the place to come for no caddy pitched onto the green,” the bartender said.
     
     
“It’s where the man told me to come,” Train said.
     
     
“What man?”
     
     
“The man playing golf, said to tell Richard to call somebody right away.” He was surprised at how easily the lie came out of his mouth. His mother was ordinarily pleased to tell anyone who would listen that Lionel was the only child born with the male organ in the Walk family history that wasn’t an accomplished liar by the time he was three years old. She said the rest of them, it was the reason they learned to talk. He didn’t know if that was true— if there was any Walk family men around, he hadn’t met them— but it was correct that he couldn’t bring himself to tell stories. He didn’t have the looseness about him for