The worst part was Marianne. She's the nicest, prettiest girl in my school and probably the whole world, and after psyching myself up all week to give her this note saying "I love you" I chickened out. It figures, I guess. Until yesterday pretty girls always made me nervous, and then there was that dickhead bully Alfie to worry about--I heard someone say he liked Marianne, too, and I didn't dare get in his way. I was scared he'd kill me if I did. Just to make up for not killing me the day before, when he asked me to sneak cigarettes into school for him and I said I couldn't because I was scared of getting caught. "You're a suck," he told me. "I'd kick your balls in, except you don't have any."
On top of that my big brother, Jake, hit a baseball through the porch window and made me take the blame, so I ended up with a licking from Dad. Plus I lost my allowance, which meant I was flat broke.
So I had to go hunting.
It took me ages to get to sleep Friday night, and I slept lousy. I dreamed Alfie was chasing me with a huge pair of scissors and all his hair was cut off. I woke up in a cold sweat when it was still dark outside and put on my shorts and a T-shirt. Then I packed my knapsack. A towel, a small shoe brush, my old running shoes--that was all I needed. And all there'd be room for, if the hunt went okay.
To save time I skipped breakfast. I got my rusty, beat-up Raleigh three-speed out of the garage and just took off. I didn't have to say anything to Mom or Dad. They'd think I was helping a friend with his paper route, paying for the window the hard way.
It was a long ride. The farther I got, the better I felt. By the time I made it to the suburbs, Alfie and Jake and Dad seemed about as dangerous as the quiet streets and lawns and fancy houses. For a while after the sun came up, everything stayed dead quiet. I had the world to myself. Nobody was awake to give me a hard time. That's what I thought, anyway.
I followed a winding side road into some thick woods and stopped when I came to a sign at the edge of the trees. The sign said:
The best place to start the hunt was on the other side of the trees, straight across from the sign. I wheeled my bike into the middle of the woods and covered it with branches and leaves. Then I opened the knapsack, changed into the old running shoes, strapped up the knapsack again, and moved on.
When I got to my secret entry point I looked around and listened. A squirrel scooted into a bush and birds were chirping all over the place, but there was no sign of any people.
I tiptoed behind a thick tree at the edge of the woods and stuck my head out. There was a long strip of open space about fifty yards wide, and along the far side there was a drop. That was the river. Good thing the bank was so high--it kept you out of sight.
The coast was clear. I made a dash for the river.
As soon as I laid eyes on the water, I knew I was in for a good hunt. The water was crystal clear. That was lucky. Sometimes after a lot of rain the water got so muddy you could never find anything unless you stepped on it. I didn't see anything right away, but there were some rocks about halfway across where something could have got trapped. So I made for the rocks.
The water was nice and cool. It was only up to my knees when I got in, but closer to the rocks my shorts got soaked. I didn't mind. Usually the deep parts, the parts nobody could reach from the banks, were the best. Like the rocky part up ahead.
I was almost there when I saw something stuck between two rocks. Something small and round and white. Was it for real, or just a crumpled-up piece of paper? I moved in on it. My heart started pounding like crazy.
It was for real.
I took a running step and reached down to grab it, practically dove for it. When I had it I straightened up and closed my eyes and ran my fingers over it. I thought I felt a crack. I lifted my hand to my face. This was the most exciting moment. I opened my hand and my eyes at the same time. I looked at my first find.
"Power Plus," it said. Not exactly a famous name. First time I'd ever even heard of it--and there aren't too many golf balls I haven't heard of. But at least this one looked pretty new.
I got the shoe brush out of the knapsack and scrubbed off the few little spots of mud. The ball was new, all right. The only thing that spoiled it was a crack about an inch long. It looked like somebody hit it the wrong way, real hard. I dried it and polished it with the towel until it was all shiny and sparkly, like some precious jewel. Too bad about the crack. I put the brush and the towel and the ball into the knapsack and moved upstream.
For the next fifteen minutes I stayed in the river. I found two perfect Titleists, a perfect Maxfli, and an Arnold Palmer that had only a tiny crack.
Then I struck it rich.
I was still in the river, a few yards from a bridge that connected the fairway along one bank to a green on the other side, when I heard this loud clang where the railing was. A second later a ball plopped into the water a foot in front of me.
Naturally, I picked it up. It was a Spalding Executive, and it was in good shape. A little dirty, but no cracks. I peeked over the bank along the fairway and saw two men in an electric cart only about thirty yards away. They were coming straight at me.
I had an idea. I tossed the Executive back into the water, so far from the banks that you couldn't reach it without getting wet, even if you used a ball retriever. Then I hid under the bridge. I'd wait there until the men in the cart gave up on the ball, and when they were gone I'd take it.
The cart rolled over the bridge. Clubs rattled, voices talked. I could make out bits and pieces of what the voices were saying, something about "closing a sale" and "billing ten million". Most of it I didn't understand. Listening to this business talk made me feel like I was in the wrong place. Like I had a long, long way to go before I was grown-up enough to talk like that and play golf with other grown-ups and not have to hide.
The rattle of clubs stopped. I smelled smoke.
"Hey," one of the voices said.
A face looked at me over the top of the far bank. It was a fat, bossy kind of face with a cigar between its teeth. It gave me the eye as if I was a caddie who was goofing off.
"Do me a favor," the man said, "and get me my ball."
I was going to tell him to get lost. Then I imagined what might happen if he came after me, and I remembered the licking Dad gave me and how much it hurt. So I fetched the ball.
The man took it and checked it over, not thanking me or anything.
"I'm running a little short," he said. He looked at the other man, who was already on the green, then at the knapsack. "Show me what you've got."
I opened the knapsack and showed him. He took a wallet out of his pocket.
"How much?"
Those beautiful balls, it was almost a shame to sell them. But when I thought of the broken window and all the allowances I'd have to give up to pay for it, there didn't seem to be any choice.
"Two dollars each for the Titleists and the Maxfli. A dollar for the Arnold Palmer. Fifty cents for the Power Plus."
"Give you five dollars for everything."
I did some arithmetic.
"Seven-fifty."
"How about six?"
I shook my head.
The man let out a deep breath, poked around in his wallet.
"Got any change?"
I shook my head again.
"How about throwing in a few more?" the man said. He stared at the knapsack and his eyes seemed to get bigger, like a hungry dog or cat gets big eyes when it sees food. It was enough to make me feel sorry for him.
"I don't have any more."
Now he was looking pissed off and helpless at the same time. He moved the cigar around in his mouth, and I thought he was going to eat it.
"You're lucky I'm hard up," he said, pulling a bill out of his wallet. It was a ten! "Give me your balls and get out of here."
He gave me the money and took the balls and walked off in a huff. I moved farther upstream, feeling like a real big shot. Like I was the toughest, richest guy in the whole world, tougher than Alfie and Jake and richer than any grown-up.
The feeling lasted until I got to the cliff.
By that time my knapsack was bulging with balls--some from the banks, some from the rough, and a lot from the river at the bottom of the cliff. Then there was the one in the bush halfway up the cliff.
The cliff was maybe eighty feet high, with not too many footholds. A fairway and some sand traps ran along the top. The ball that was stuck in the bush must have come from up there.
I went for it. What the heck, I thought, you can never have too many balls.
This one turned out to be another Power Plus. When I saw the big crack in it, I was ready to tear out the bush and throw it into the river. But a sound at the top of the cliff stopped me cold.
"Sonofabitch," someone said. "It's buried."
I waited. Nothing happened. Then . . . whoosh! Sand flew at me, covering my face and blinding me. I stuck my arm up to stop it. The knapsack came loose.
I looked down the cliff. The river seemed like it was miles away, but that wasn't what gave me goose bumps. It was my balls--they were spilling. Most of them were already in the water.
And so were three guys.
They were about my age and dressed like me, and each guy was carrying a plastic shopping bag that looked stuffed. They raised their heads and spotted me.
Now, it's bad enough losing your balls when you do something stupid and it's your own fault. But when somebody steals them from you . . . that's the pits. And that's what those guys started doing. They charged at my balls like crazy animals, shoving and grabbing and swearing. I opened my mouth to yell at them, then slipped and almost wiped out. More balls spilled.
Those pricks, I felt like bashing their heads in and ripping their guts out and kicking them in the--
Suddenly they all stopped what they were doing. I didn't catch on why until the sound of the motor was real close.
I looked where the sound was coming from, across the fairway along the far bank. A workman was driving one of those maintenance carts that carry sod and stuff around. He was going for the river.
The three guys got out of the water and ran. The workman stepped on the gas and barreled along after them. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and his shirt was unbuttoned so you could see his tanned chest. He looked so tough and mean it was scary. Just like Alfie, only this guy looked older and even tougher and meaner.
I waited until everybody was out of sight and the noise of the motor was far away. Then I climbed down and picked up the two or three balls that were left over. After that I moved away from the river. It didn't make sense to stay there, since those pricks must have cleaned out the rest of it, judging by their stuffed bags. I took a chance and checked out a long strip of trees and bushes between two fairways. It was risky, because to get there you had to cross one of the fairways. But usually the risk paid off.
It started paying off this time, too. I came up with half a dozen decent finds. Not a bad catch, but it didn't make up for the disaster on the cliff. I sat down under a tree, emptied the knapsack, and counted my balls.
The grand total wasn't even close to what I had before the disaster. Those assholes. From now on, I told myself, everything was fair game. I was going to grab every stinking ball I could get my hands on, every one. Even if it was sitting in the middle of a fairway. Or on a green. Or in a sand trap. Or--
"Shit! Goddamnit, shit!"
Something hit the branches above me. A second later there was a thud in the grass a club length away, and I found myself staring at a sparkly white ball.
I jumped. Without thinking, I went over to the ball and picked it up. It was another Power Plus. But with a difference.
This one had no cracks.
I peeked at the fairway. About a hundred yards down, a man was hitting the ground with a club. He did this four or five times, and then this lady who was watching him said something to him and he stopped. They both got into an electric cart and headed in my direction.
Just then a motor started up on the other side of the bushes and trees. The motor got louder fast. I ran behind a tree on that side. And when I saw what was coming at me across the fairway, I just about wet my pants.
It was that workman in the maintenance cart. He was pulling away from a couple of golfers who were smoking cigars and looked familiar. I could see the sweaty hairs on his chest, that's how close he was.
I froze. For some reason I thought of Alfie and my nightmare. I pictured Alfie running after me with gigantic scissors, like in the dream. Except now he had all his hair and it was me who didn't have any. So I asked myself, what was he trying to cut off with the scissors?
The motor died. The silence woke me up and I dashed back to the knapsack, started stuffing balls into it. I heard the workman stomping through the bushes. Just after I put the last ball away, a foot came down on the knapsack.
"How's business?"
I looked at the guy's running shoes, then up along a pair of jeans to the hairy brown chest under the unbuttoned shirt, all the way to the cigarette sticking out of the mouth and the mean eyes staring at the knapsack.
"P-pardon?"
The workman took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ashes at me. Just like Alfie did when I told him I was afraid to sneak cigarettes into school.
"This is private property. There's no ball hunting allowed here. No selling, either."
I held the knapsack tight and tried to be cool.
"I'm not selling my balls."
"You're not, eh? Somebody just told me he got ripped off for ten bucks. By a kid with a knapsack, he said."
The workman kept staring at the knapsack. My mouth went dry. Even if I could have thought up a line, I wouldn't have got it out.
"You're trespassing on private property," the workman said. "You're hunting balls plus you're selling them. Know what I do with kids like you?"
Just when my knees felt like they were going to cave in, there was a noise in the bushes. Footsteps. We both looked up.
"Behave yourself," a woman's voice said. The footsteps got closer and shuffled around. The voice laughed. "Too bad you're never in the mood when it counts." The footsteps shuffled around some more.
"I think I lost it," a man's voice said. "Shit."
"Act your age, will you."
I looked at the workman. "I'll get out of here now if you want me to," I said, and turned to go. He caught me by my T-shirt and yanked me back.
"Stick around. This is just getting interesting."
While he was holding me the two golfers came out of the bushes. We all looked at each other. The lady golfer had a long ponytail and a real pretty face and nice big tits that made me think of how Marianne might look in a few years. The man looked about the same age as the lady, and when I saw them standing there together I imagined I was him and she was Marianne.
They just stood there. Their faces were all pink.
"What was it?" the workman said. His eyes were glued to the lady's tits and she was looking at his chest. They were smiling, as if they liked what they were seeing. I would have given anything to have the workman's hairy chest.
"Power Plus," the man golfer said. "I forget the number." He was looking back and forth between the workman and the lady and not smiling at all. "You didn't see it come down, did you?"
"I didn't," the workman said, "but I got an idea who did." He turned to me. "All right, let's have it."
They all stared at the knapsack, and then the lady turned to me and smiled, as if we were in on some secret and she was on my side. The smile made me feel warm all over. It made me feel like putting up a fight and being a hero, just for her.
I thought of something. I opened the knapsack and handed the man another Power Plus, a cracked one. He ran his finger over the crack.
"Christ, this is the one I just hit?"
He showed it to the lady. She shrugged. "No wonder, the way you swung at it."
The workman threw his cigarette down and squished it with his foot. A cold tingle ran down my back.
"Give me the sack."
What he said didn't really sink in at first. Or maybe it hit me so hard I was too stunned to do anything.
"Your balls, let's have 'em."
I snapped out of it and backed away, but he grabbed me before I could get far enough. Then he grabbed the knapsack and turned it upside down, so that my shoes and the brush and the towel and all the balls tumbled out.
"Wow," the man golfer said. "Looks like I'm not the only one who's been losing his balls."
The lady giggled. They all crowded together to look at the balls while I waited and went crazy. I heard the man golfer say that all the Power Pluses belonged to him, and while he was examining them the workman put everything else back into the knapsack. He didn't even ask the lady if she'd lost any balls; he just took the knapsack away and headed for his cart. I followed him and saw him dump the knapsack behind a pile of sod at the back of the cart. Then he noticed me.
"I'm not through with you yet," he said. "You can hand over those ten bucks now."
That did it. The way he made me feel reminds me of what happens to a golf ball, the kind with elastic wound up inside, when you put it in a vise and cut it open with a saw like I do for fun sometimes. After you cut through the cover and the elastic snaps, the inside starts unwinding. First the elastic just oozes out from the slit in the cover, like some weird animal crawling out of an egg that just hatched. Then the elastic unwinds faster, keeps picking up speed. Next thing you know, the whole inside is fighting to get out, pushing against the vise and trying to squeeze through the slit. In the end the cover gives way, and then something real spectacular happens--the rest of the elastic and the gooey wet stuff in the middle all come gushing out at once, shooting all over the walls and the ceiling and sometimes your face, too. The whole thing just explodes.
That's what happened to me. I exploded.
I took off past the workman and got to the cart before he could lift a finger. The knapsack was on top of a big gym bag that was unzipped halfway. Some of my balls were scattered in the gym bag, so I jammed the knapsack in with them. Then I snatched the bag and ran.
The workman yelled something dirty at me. I yelled the same thing at him and kept going, hardly noticing how heavy the bag was. I didn't look back until I heard the cart's motor start up, and by then I had a good thirty yards on him.
I crossed a fairway and went right over a sand trap I didn't see in time, stepping on a ball and burying it. When I looked over my shoulder again the workman was less than ten yards away and gaining fast. He didn't see the trap in time, either, and one of his wheels caught the edge of it. The cart dipped to the side and sent him flying into the sand.
I could have cheered, but then he came barging out of the trap, his face and hair all sandy, and started running after me. Jeez, that desperate look on his face would have made you think he was running for his life. I kept going but slowed down a bit. The gym bag was feeling heavier every second. He started gaining on me again.
The clubhouse was up ahead. I took a shortcut across the patio, knocking chairs over and making a lady scream. The workman's hand gripped the back of my T-shirt. I grabbed the first thing I could reach with my free hand, a plate on the lady's table, and threw it at him. The workman let go of me and crashed into the table. His face was plastered with some gucky, creamy dessert. The lady screamed again.
I took off across the nearest fairway, and still the guy was coming after me! He was about forty yards behind now. I whipped past trees and bushes and across three more fairways, all the way to the river, and then my lead was back down to ten yards.
On the other side of the river was the last fairway before the woods, where my bike was. I splashed through the water and so did the workman. His long legs and the heavy gym bag were wiping out what was left of my lead, and in the last twenty yards before the woods he got so close I could hear him growling through his teeth, "You're dead."
Somewhere far away, another voice spoke up:
"FORE!!"
I heard something big and heavy hitting the ground behind me. I looked back, and that's where the workman was, rolling on the grass, holding his foot and swearing like there was no tomorrow.The thing he seemed to be swearing at rolled over to me, and I picked it up. It was something called "Super Hi Velocity," and it was in perfect condition. I slipped the ball into my pocket.
The workman still wasn't giving up. He started hopping after me on one foot. I thought I heard him say something like, "Give them back." It was easy to get away from him now, and when I saw his face with that creamy guck stuck to it I forgot about being scared and wanted to laugh. At the same time I wondered how come he looked so freaked-out, like it was the end of the world and he was going to cry.
I didn't have to wonder for long.
Once I got into the woods and I knew I'd lost him, I zipped the gym bag wide open. There was the knapsack with my shoes and things and some of my balls. Under it, along with my other balls, I discovered a pack of Camels, a lighter, a comb, and a bottle of Coppertone. The rest was covered with a towel, as if the towel was supposed to hide something. I lifted the towel.
And there they were--more balls. Dozens of them stuffed into three plastic shopping bags, and another twenty to thirty outside the bags. Titleists, Top-Flites, Maxflis, Arnold Palmers, Golden Bears and Golden Rams. You name it. I could tell without counting that the grand total came out to a lot more than I'd ever found in one day. And except for a Power Plus, none of them had any bad cracks! Not only that, but they were all new-looking and sparkly, as if the workman took the trouble to give them a wipe. Too much!
I crammed all the balls into the knapsack and got the bike on the road, leaving the gym bag in the woods. Then I went home. Man, I felt like I owned the world.
That all happened yesterday. Today I still feel the same.
Tomorrow, Monday, I'm going to give Marianne that note for sure. Screw Alfie. As for the window, I already told Dad the truth about who broke it--at first he didn't believe me, but when he caught Jake trying to punch me out and I actually punched back, that changed. Now Jake has to pay for the window and I'm getting my allowance and keeping all of the ten bucks.
And all those balls, too. I was going to take them to another course and sell them, but since they're so nice and new and it almost cost me my life to get them in the first place, I've changed my mind.
I figure they're worth hanging on to.