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essays on how we will never get caught fighting on camera in a dive bar again?
    Finchem takes the top one off the stack and feeds it into the VCR, which along with a monitor has been wheeled into his office. By now I’ve seen the footage half a dozen times, but it doesn’t get any easier. This version, which picks up the action about a minute sooner, is even more damning than the one they’ve been airing. A camera mounted on the far wall shows Earl and me bent over our drinks as Peters and his friends take the empty spots beside us, then captures our awkward surprise as we discover we’re sitting next to each other. Finchem winces at the monitor, as if the seedy interior of the Ding Dong is desecrating his immaculate office, and seems baffled that anyone, let alone three members of the Senior Tour, would choose to be there.
    For the next thirty seconds or so, the tape shows Peters attempting to engage me in conversation. While Peters’s posture is upright, expansive, and friendly, I look down at the surface of the bar. Then, without any apparent provocation, I spring from my stool and attack him.
    “This is from last night,” says Finchem as he ejects and replaces the tape.
    The screen fills with color bars, which give way to a stage on which Jay Leno is in the midst of his Tonight Show monologue.
    “I guess you’ve all heard about those two palookas McKinley and Peters? Did you know HBO’s doing a rematch—McKinley and Peters II? It’s going to be on pay-per-view for nineteen ninety-five. Sounded pricey to me, too. Then I realized they’re going to pay us to watch.”
    As Peters mimes a burlesque drummer providing a rimshot, Finchem switches cassettes again, so we can see what Letterman can do with the same material.
    “You know where this fight took place?” asks Letterman, fingering a button on his double-breasted blazer. “A very classy watering hole by the name of the Ding Dong Lounge. I’m not making that up,” he says, then slowly repeats the name with exaggerated clarity—“the…Ding…Dong…Lounge. I know what you’re thinking—what kind of person goes to a place called the Ding Dong Lounge? Well, now we know the answer: ding-dongs. The Ding Dong Lounge is a place where ding-dongs feel welcome and at home.” As the CBS Orchestra plays the theme from Cheers, Finchem hits Eject and the audio-video presentation is over.
    “Commissioner,” says Peters, “I have nothing to say about these last two tapes, except that they remind me how much I miss Carson. As for the first, it couldn’t be more misleading. Based on that tape, you, or anyone else, would think Travis started this. In fact, this fight was instigated entirely by me and my big mouth. Without sound, you can’t hear me taunting Travis repeatedly about what happened a few hours before in sudden death.
    “Commissioner, I didn’t say one or two things. I said about five, all unnecessary, all uncalled-for, and at least one came after he politely asked me to stop. Under the circumstances, I think Travis showed a lot of restraint.”
    “You call that restraint?”
    “That’s what I said, Commissioner. Restraint.”
    “Hank, I appreciate you standing up for your fellow competitor, but the video shows what it shows. You two have embarrassed the tour and tarnished our brand. You think the banks and investment advisors who sponsor our events want to see two of our most popular players brawling in a dive? Hank, you’re on probation for the rest of the year. Travis, you’re suspended for six months.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” says Peters. “If anyone should be suspended, it should be me.”
    But this isn’t a hearing, and Finchem is already out of his chair.
    “I feel terrible about this,” says Peters when the two of us are alone. “And you were playing great golf. That shot on eighteen was the best shot I’ve seen this year. You need to borrow some money to tide you over, don’t hesitate to ask. It’s the least I can