To begin with, we were never sure if Mulligan was his first name or last. You'd think it would be his last, but Peterson always swore it was his first and in time he (Peterson) persuaded a few of us to at least have doubts; all we were all sure of was that nobody knew another name, first or last, to go with Mulligan. Not that Peterson really knew the guy. Nobody really did, we realized much later. It was that time right out of college when your group of friends is pretty limited--high school buddies, college ones, maybe a childhood friend or two (long before one's network of friends extended to co-workers, neighbors, parents of kids' friends, in-laws)--and everyone not in the core group of us high school classmates could be easily connected to one who was. Except for this guy. A few years later when he was gone from our orbit, when we were telling old stories (as much as thirty-year-olds have old stories to tell) we kind of realized no one could be definitively, as in the Alpha-friend, connected to the guy. As far as we could tell, he just showed up and attached himself. We couldn't even agree on when he showed up: Fischer always argued it was the night of the darts marathon at Shakey's Pub, while Peterson himself claimed it was the night we had to get Straka out of jail. Whatever, he was one of us, and he was only, ever, known as Mulligan.
When I say he attached himself to us, it might sound negative, like he was the hanger-on nobody really liked too much. Not so. I'd say we pretty much collectively opened our arms to him (which, being young and parochial in ways literal and figurative, was no small group accomplishment; I mean if we had known that first night--whichever one it was--that nobody knew him, that he was not friend-vouched-for in some way, we surely would have shunned him, and Straka probably would have picked a fight with him within five minutes); he was immediately and ever after a fun, funny, all for one kind of guy. In those first couple of months/years of hodgepodge transition from college to adulthood, Mulligan was omnipresent. Everybody had had him as a kind of temporary roommate for at least a week or two, if not for two years, like Peterson. Everybody had had his car temporarily cured of its ills by Mulligan's voodoo-like under-the-hood ministrations. Everybody eventually had a girlfriend who had to endure (sort of like a benign hazing ritual) a drunken, clumsy declaration of love from Mulligan. And of course, everybody lent the guy money. But shit, as much as he could irritate you in the minute, you loved him for the hour. He was always the one who'd show up first thing with some suspect van/truck/U-Haul with an even more suspect crony when you were moving to a new place. A twelve-pack, a medium onion pizza, and ten bucks for the crony was all it ever cost you. Need a ride to or from the airport or place of employment in a pinch? Get ahold of Mulligan--he'd be there, always in a different car, to help you within half an hour. Need someone to go out with a girlfriend's friend? Mulligan. Fischer always tells the story of him showing up at one of these friendly set-ups with sunglasses, a cane, and a dog, which effectively ended his blind date go-to status on a high note. It's amazing that after all these years, after all the nostalgicohol get-togethers, everyone, and multiple sub-groups, has at least one Gospel of Mulligan story the others have never heard of.
No one of course could verify it, but it would seem that Mulligan was one of those guys who had a beer belly at the age of seven. And of course he could fart prodigiously and (it embarrasses me to say this, that there were actually a variety of appropriate occasions) appropriately for the occasion. Never what one would call tall, in the few years we knew him, Mulligan seemed to shrink, as if his already low center of gravity just kept sagging. When we first got to know him he had lost a bit of hair in the front and you assumed it would all be gone in five years, but he never seemed to lose any more. If by some miracle we saw him today, I'd be willing to bet his unkempt pile of light brown hair would be the most copious of us all, excepting Peterson's, of course, though Mulligan's I'm sure wouldn't be surgically enhanced. The smallest hands I've ever seen on a grown man. More than one of has said he would have been known as Stubby if he wasn't so completely Mulligan.
Among the many entertaining endeavors Mulligan involved us in, The League of Hackers is, to me, most memorable. He was the worst golfer, between his hyperactvity, beer intake, penchant for new gadgets and "hack thoughts," and fiery temper (always directed solely at himself). It was never a regular league, but a few times a summer you'd get a short message on your answering machine: "Pine Nook, 7:10, 7:18, 7:26, Sunday. Be there with a blank check made out to me, Mulligan. I've got plenty of coolers." The kind of guy who always had plenty of coolers. Why so early, we never knew and never could budge him from. "Dew's good for you," is all he'd say. And every time there was some new exotic bet, but always, afterward, on some patio, sweat-inundated, stubby pencil in his stubby hands, Mulligan would pore over the score cards, eventually emit a soul-aching, "Shit," toss the pencil over his shoulder, and declare, "Peterson gets a buck from everyone, everyone else basically smashed, and I owe everyone five bucks. I'll square up with you all next time." The ensuing laughter was all the squaring up we required.
It's so old by now and done by everybody that it should be aggravating as hell, but it still amuses: the practice swing on the first hole where the follow-thru consists of instantly reaching your left hand into your pocket and muttering, "Shit, I'm hittin' another one." Peterson, naturally, has his own take. When placing his ball on the tee on the first hole, he declares, "I gotta hit another one, guys."
We were playing at High-Lo for some reason once, probably on account of Straka's stalking one of the beer cart girls there. By this time, we had all pretty much followed Mulligan's lead at taking two tee shots off the first tee, though we weren't calling them Mulligans then (that came much later, after we lost touch with him). Almost as if he knew his place, Mulligan naturally hit last that day. By the time he had hit a worm-burner barely past the ladies tee and was re-loading another ball on his plastic, illegally-long tee, the surly black starter was flooring his suped-up cart down to the tee in fits of anger and shouting, "Only one ball off the carpet! Only one ball off the carpet." Mulligan, as stoic as I ever saw him, just waited, standing over the re-teed second ball, idly swinging his driver, watching the guy drive up until he braked loudly and repeated his admonition. "You guys hitting balls all over the place. I got starting times to keep up. Only one ball off the carpet. One ball off the carpet." Mulligan looked at the man and politely said, "Sir, men were born with two balls. It would go against nature and God's plan not to make full use of them." Without even looking away from the starter, Mulligan cranked up his herky-jerky swing and mashed one down the fairway; we agree it was his best shot ever. The starter just shook his head, muttered, "Crackers," and putt-putted his cart away. Straka swears the guy had to work the choke knob a few times to get it going.
One More Shot--Danko, Fjeld & Andersen
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