General Fiction posted April 30, 2023

Chapters:

...11 12 -13-

Exceptional

This work has reached the exceptional level

The Final Chapter

A chapter in the book Lucky Eddie

Lucky Eddie - Chapter 13

by Jim Wile

Background
Two young men meet as opponents during the finals of the golf club championship and soon become lifelong best friends. It is their great friendship that helps them navigate many of life's challenges.

Recap of the previous few chapters: On a visit to Kenny’s house to plan a new golfing trip, Eddie prevents a tragic accident to Kenny and Abby’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Emily, who is charging across the street to greet him. He throws his body in front of an advancing car to push Emily out of the way and is struck instead, while Emily bumps her head on the curb. Both are rushed to the hospital. Emily has only suffered a minor concussion while Eddie’s pelvis and leg were severely damaged in the accident. The family visits him in the hospital the next day.

After months of rehab, Eddie is recovered and goes over to Kenny’s house to plan another golf trip. He doesn’t look quite right, and it’s revealed that he has pancreatic cancer, and this will be his last trip. They plan to go to Scotland together to play the Old Course at St. Andrews.

The first day there, they visit the “Himalayas Putting Course” adjacent to the Old Course where they play a round with two young boys. Eddie breaks the both the course record and the ace record with his superior putting.

The following day, Kenny and Eddie play The Old Course. By the 12th hole, Eddie has run out of steam, so Kenny and he decide to combine their talents to finish the round as they did years before against the hustlers. Together, with the help of two miraculous putts by Eddie on the final two holes, they succeed in breaking 80 to end the trip on a high note.

A continuation of the chapter The Trip

Several weeks later, back at home, I visited Eddie one afternoon at his house. He was clearly ailing now and was thin as a rail. Still, he greeted me with his usual “Hiya, Sport!”

“How are you doing today, Eddie?”

“Probably best not to ask.”

I sat down beside him on the sofa. “Well here, take this,” I said as I handed him a chocolate milkshake I had bought him. He thanked me and took a few perfunctory sips, but I could see he really wasn’t in much of a mood for it.

He asked about Abby and Greg and Claire and Tom and Emmie, and we talked for a while about old times together. Eventually, the conversation wore down, and I had a hard time keeping my spirits up for him.

“C’mon, Sport, why the long face?”

“I don’t know, it seems like your luck has changed, Eddie. Starting with the accident... ”

“Look, Kenny. That was the luckiest day of my life. The fact that I was close enough to save that little peanut, well... ” he trailed off.

He seldom called me Kenny, so I knew he was being dead serious. “But then the cancer, Eddie—”

“Never mind that,” he interrupted. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. He wasn’t the least bit wistful as he said, “I’ve had a good life, and we’ve all gotta go eventually. Maybe my time is a little sooner than I’d hoped, but so what?" He paused again as he shifted in his seat to face me directly.

“Luck is all in your point of view, Kenny. Was I lucky to have beaten you in the club championship all those years ago? Maybe, probably, but in the grand scheme of things, that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. You know what real luck is? Of all the thousands of people you come across in your life, it’s finding those very few, like you and Abby, who you can really connect with and call your friends. More important to me than winning a club championship was that I met my best friend that day. I rub a lot of people the wrong way, you know.”

“That’s because you’re rude, you’re crude... you’re lewd.”

“With that, I certainly am imbued! So, why do you like me, Sport?”

“I don’t like you, Eddie.... I love you, man.” My voice cracked, and I brushed back a tear as I put my arm around his thin shoulders and pulled him closer. We just sat there like that for a while, deep in our own thoughts.

I visited him almost daily, but the last time I saw Eddie alive was two weeks later. He called me early one evening and said he had something to give me.

When I got there, he was sitting up in the hospital bed that had been brought in for him. He now had hospice nurses taking care of him pretty much full time. He looked very gaunt but did not seem to be in pain as he was being well-medicated.

“Hey, Sport. I want you to take care of this for me and have ‘em carve this on my tombstone.” He handed me a paper on which he had scrawled his epitaph.

I read it over and looked up at him. “Really, Eddie? This is what you want it to say?”

“Yeah, and if Emmie asks you wha’ it means, tell her you’ll ‘splain it to her when she’s older.”

I chuckled at that and told him I’d take care of it.

“Thans, Spor. I gotta sleep now. These meds jus nop me ou. See ya tomorra, huh?”

“See you tomorrow, pal,” I said, and kissed him on the forehead, but he was already asleep.

A month after Eddie was laid to rest, I got a call from the stone carver. Eddie’s tombstone was ready and would be placed on his grave that afternoon.

Abby and I decided to go to the cemetery to see it that evening after dinner. It was a beautiful fall evening, and the last of the day’s sunlight was shining on the tops of the red and gold trees clustered throughout the cemetery. We parked the car and walked up the little hill where Eddie was buried. As we stood before the new tombstone, I looked at Abby to watch her reaction. At first she gasped, then she let out a “Ha!” And then we both dissolved in laughter, for this is what it said:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Wait for it…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

                                        xx
                                    xx
                             xxxxxxxx
                                xx
                              xx
                               _________xx__________
                             "                       "
                          "                            "
                        "                        "
                     "                                     "
                   "                                         "
                 "                                            "
                "           EDWARD “Eddie” PHILLIPS           "
                "                                             "
                "                 1952 - 2016                 "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "                                             "
                "     HERE LIES AN OLD GOLFER NAMED EDDIE     "
                "                                             "
                "     WHOSE HANDS ON A PUTTER WERE STEADY     "
                "                                             "
                "          WHEN ACCUSED OF MAD LUCK           "
                "                                             "
                "                HE REPLIED WTF               "
                "                                             "
                "    I AM PROUD TO BE CALLED “LUCKY EDDIE”    "

" "

___________________________________________________________________________

Note: I've been informed this doesn't show up very well in some browsers. The actual text on the tombstone is:

EDWARD "Eddie" PHILLIPS

1952 - 2016

HERE LIES AN OLD GOLFER NAMED EDDIE

WHOSE HANDS ON A PUTTER WERE STEADY

WHEN ACCUSED OF MAD LUCK

HE REPLIED WTF

I AM PROUD TO BE CALLED "LUCKY EDDIE"

The End

Write A Review

Book of the Month contest entry

To all who have joined the story somewhere along the line, thank you so much for reading and reviewing it. It was a great pleasure sharing it with you.

This was my very first attempt at writing fiction, and the original draft of it was written in 2016. Several of the characters were based on real people who I met during my caddie days when I was a teen.

I found out that I really enjoyed writing fiction, and I loved these characters, so I wrote three more stories with them. The next one was entitled Lucky 1 which I published as an E-book on Amazon. I then published this one, Lucky Eddie, on Amazon. Then I wrote Lucky Abby which completed the trilogy. I never published that one, because then I had the idea to combine all of them into one full-length novel (as the others are quite a bit shorter), and the result was Some Call It Luck, which I presented a few months ago on FS. I took parts of each of the other three and placed them into SCIL because they all featured the same characters and took place at approximately the same time.

I am currently attempting to find a literary agent for SCIL to try to publish it via the traditional route. So far nothing but passes from the agents. It may never happen, but that's okay. I've found an appreciative audience here on FS for these stories, and I'm very happy to have shared them with you.

In the near future I will be posting a few short stories extracted from two of the other books that never made it into SCIL. Until then, thanks again for reading.

Jim Wile

Pays one point and 2 member cents.

You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.

The Final Chapter

A chapter in the book Lucky Eddie

Lucky Eddie - Chapter 13

by Jim Wile

The FanStory Store For Writers

Your Poem On A Mug