Page 14 of Doozer

“I have agun,” she replied.

“Hold on. I think I got off on the wrong foot, here. To be honest with you, my brain is a little scrambled right now. It’s been a strange evening, but you seem like an interesting person and I’d like to have a real conversation with you.”

She narrowed her eyes but didn’t respond. She also didn’t walk away, so I tried again.

“Can I have a mulligan?” I asked.

“It’s a free country. You can drink whatever you want,” Trouble replied, and in that moment, I knew without a doubt that I was fucked. Not regular fucked, mind you. I was royally fucked. I was royal family fucked. I was the crown jewels shoved up my Tower of London fucked.

“No, a mulligan isn’t a drink it’s a golf term,” I said, unable to hide my smile. “It means a do-over.”

“Don’t laugh at me because I don’t know old man shit, like that,” she said.

“Is golf old man shit?” I asked.

“Don’t get all offended. What, are you a caddy or something?”

“The only golf I’ve ever played was in high school with my buddy, Munyon, and it was mini golf.”

“What the hell is a Munyon?” Trouble asked.

“Answer my question first,” I replied. “Can I have a mulligan?”

“I don’t know,canyou?”

I rolled my eyes. “MayI have a mulligan?”

“Why do you need a mulligan?”

“You came into the room in the middle of a bunch of macho bullshit, caught me completely off guard, and I think I came across like…kind of…a…”

“A douche,” Trouble provided.

“See, look at that,” I said with a smile. “We’re already completing each other’s sentences.”

Trouble struggled with only minor success to hide a smile, but she wasn’t going to budge. “Okay, so now I know what a mulligan is. What the hell is a Munyon?”

“Munyon isn’t a what. He’s a who.”

“Thenwhois Munyon?”

“Munyon was a stoner kid I knew back in high school who worked at the old Golf-O-Rama in Vancouver.”

“And?” she asked.

“And if we brought him weed, or a punk bootleg or import he didn’t already have, he would let us play mini-golf for free after hours.”

“And why are we talking about him?” Trouble asked.

“Because Munyon is the one who taught me the term ‘Mulligan.’”

“Did Munyon have a first name?”

“If I ever knew it, I forgot it a long time ago. Maybe that was his first name. I feel like we’re talking way more about Munyon than I’d originally planned.”

Trouble paused. Her eyes narrowing before saying, “Mulligan granted.”

“Thank you,” I said with a slight bow. “Hi, I’m Doozer. It’s so genuinely nice to meet you for theveryfirst time.”

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