I was in the 8th grade, 12 years old. It was 1958 and I had a penis the size of a plastic drinking straw, only a lot shorter.
The Albany Country Club was a beautiful four hundred acre expanse, eighteen holes perfectly blended into the wooded rolling hills on the outskirts of the city of Albany, New York. The campus of the State University eventually obliterated the place, so it now exists only in photos and memories like this one:
On summer days at five a.m., I’d hitch hike or walk the four miles from home to club with Billy, my younger cousin. The earlier you arrived, the higher on the caddy list you’d be that day. The higher on the list, the sooner you’d get called to go out. The sooner out, the more likely it was that you’d be back early enough to go out again. The going rate was three dollars per bag for eighteen holes. If you carried two bags and made two rounds, you went home flush with twelve dollars in your pocket. Not bad for a kid, especially in those days.
The caddyshack was an actual shack, mostly a large lean-to to protect us from the occasional rainstorm. It felt like being in the woods, because that’s what it was. Green trees generating super-oxygenated country fragrance, butterflies and bugs buzzing by, all kinds of noisy birds and cicadas. It was out of sight from the clubhouse and the members—way out of sight. It was a haven for city riff-raff.
The shack had an intercom on the wall through which you’d get called to the upscale clubhouse, a five-minute walk through the woods, to pick up your golfers. There were soft drinks, candy and sandwiches for sale in the caddyshack if you didn’t pack your own lunch. There were also a lot of rough and tumble caddies of all ages, from 11 to 25, and some were favorites of the club members, so they got called out of order, jumping the waiting line.
Some days, depending on the weather, business was slow so we had to entertain ourselves. Stories were told. Poker with dollar bets and dollar raises was big, physical fights sometimes erupted, but mostly it was boring. There were no girl caddies.
I once peed into an empty Corona beer bottle I found in the weeds and offered it to one of the bullies who occasionally gave me a hard time. Clear glass, you could see the foam head so it looked like the real thing. He took a swig, realized it wasn’t beer, and spit it out cursing. One of the caddies who knew what I’d done yelled out, “It’s piss! You asshole, you just drank piss!” Anyone around was either laughing or staring open-mouthed at the audacity of the prank.
I didn’t know what the consequences would be. Luckily, the bully never paid much attention to me after that. Must’ve been the humiliation. Like I said, it was rough and tumble at the caddyshack. Held my own.
Cutting through the property was a deep and wide ravine with a bridge leading from the shack to the clubhouse. On the near bank of the fifty-foot deep chasm, a thick, knotted rope hung from a high branch of an ancient towering maple. I wondered who tied that rope there and how they did it. The branch was twenty-five feet off the ground and partially projected out over the gully.
It took an act of complete bravery to overcome gripping fear, to grab the rope and swing out in a huge arc over the death-for-sure valley, looking down upon the treetops below, hoping and praying the rope would swing all the way back to return you to the bank from which you flung yourself amidst the cheering and jeering and peer pressure to do such a stupid thing. We were bored and young, soon to be men. Normal stuff.
Being a young caddy on such a beautiful golf course was a spectacular adventure. Wealthy members enjoyed manicured fairways, unblemished greens, raked sand traps and immaculate water hazards.
At every third tee, in the glorious shade, was a four-foot tall cast iron water pump. You had to pump the long handle to bring up the coolest, cleanest water that remains unmatched in all my subsequent experience. This simple act of pumping water was a primal connection to nature that installed in me a compass for the rest of my life pointing due north to the perfection of planet earth.
I learned about priming pumps, too. In order to draw water, one had to first pour water into the top of the pump before pumping and then, importantly, leave a bucket of water for the next foursome after you were done.
When I later heard the song, Desert Pete, written by Billy Edd Wheeler and recorded by the Kingston Trio, I already knew the message. For a city boy, that was worthy of a stripe on my sleeve:
You’ve got to prime the pump, you must have faith and believe
You’ve got to give of yourself ‘fore you’re worthy to receive
Drink all the water you can hold, wash your face, cool your feet
Leave the bottle full for others, thank you kindly, desert Pete
Everyone drank out of the same dented tin cup hanging by a string on the side of the pump without a second thought. It was the kind of rustic you don’t often experience.
I became a topnotch caddy and was often requested. I could always find a ball in the rough; I was always the first to reach a ball and wait there for my golfer to arrive for his next shot. The variety of club members was fun in itself. Some were really good par golfers. Some were duffers just out to enjoy a day in the serene outdoor paradise.
One skinny lady golfer, about fifty-five years old, stands out in my mind. After the second hole, her left bicep always became marked by a kiss of red lipstick. It was her unusual swing. She brought the club up until her mouth touched her arm, held it for a beat, and then had at it, leaving a lipstick tattoo. She wasn’t much of a golfer but her kindness and bicep always made my work more enjoyable.
Some of the men drank their way through the fairways, telling stories and jokes and playing pranks on each other. They were good enough golfers to have a good time and play a decent round while doing it. When they joked about sex, my youthful ears perked up.
There’s this 85-year-old guy who marries this hot chick. It was, like, his fifth wife, a trophy bride, right?
Well that night, after the ceremony and reception were done, they started their honeymoon in this amazing beach house right on the water. They were cuddling on the couch, talking all about the day, and the bride starts to nibble on his ear. She whispers to him, “Honey, let’s go upstairs and make love.”
He thinks about it for a second and says, “Sweetheart, I can’t do both.”
That one ignited daydreams that lasted the rest of the day—sex and honeymoons and girls nibbling on my ear.
Golf carts hadn’t replaced walking yet, not there anyway. Playing eighteen holes up and down those verdant hills required drinking a lot of water, for golfer and caddy alike. So we had to duck off into the woods to pee along the way. At the turn, at the end of the ninth hole, was a small wooden snack shack. Some of the nicer members would treat their caddy to a sandwich and a drink.
This fifteen-minute break was the perfect time to pee. And there were plenty of bushes on this course to give a caddy some privacy. But on one fateful day, an unexpected sighting occurred which would haunt me forever. Four caddies gathered around a clump of bushes to take a whiz. The bushes provided cover, but one of them was sparse enough for me to see through and across to the older caddy who was peeing opposite me.
Trauma!
While I used my thumb and forefinger to maneuver my penis out of my fly and point it at the bushes, the twenty-something caddy opposite had an enormous member. I had no idea that they came in such a large size. My dad’s was half that big.
I looked away. I looked again. I looked away. Was I staring? Did anyone see me looking?
It was both the girth and the length that were the shocking elements. It was the size of an empty toilet paper roll. Imagine holding a cardboard toilet paper core with all four fingers on one side and your thumb on the other and aiming it like a fire hose. Forceful stream of pee to boot.
Perhaps it was my young, inexperienced sensibility that was at work here. Maybe if I saw the same penis today peeing against a tree or in a restaurant men’s room, I’d have a less violent reaction.
Regardless, the image is burned in my memory. That simple incident on that clear blue-skied day forever fuels my occasional and irrational paranoia concerning my ability to please my female partners. My one-inch straw has grown by now. It’s by no means unhealthily small—trust me—but I’ll never reach the cucumber dimensions that so damaged me those many years ago.
I once heard a golfer greet a friend on the first tee in a joking tone, “Oh, if it isn’t needle-dick the bug fucker.”
Across from me stood the caddy I’d seen in the bushes.
He grinned.
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Peter Trivelas is a television writer/editor and a Transcendental Meditation (TM) instructor. A Vietnam Vet with a BFA in Filmmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, Peter is on staff at the David Lynch Foundation providing TM to veterans at no cost to them. He is working on his first novel and on his first collection of short stories. He is a member of the UCLA Wordcommandos creative writing workshop for veterans.
Photo: Mackenzie Marco
