“So Joe, what do you think about being a caddy after watching the Golf Channel?”
For a moment, as they crossed the street into the woods, Alex wondered if Joe had heard him. Then, just as he was wondering if he should ask again as they entered, Joe pointed to the weeds at the wood’s edge with one hand and guided Alex around them with the other. “Oison Ivy,” he said in his deep mumble.
They walked for some moments more through the woods, around patches of suspicious looking weeds, and over fallen trees, until they came upon a path littered with syringes, discarded vials with red and yellow caps, beer cans, malt liquor bottles, cigarette butts, and what looked like used and deflated water balloons—like someone had a water balloon battle among all this mess.
There was silence but for the sound of their padding sneakers on the hard dirt path. Joe seemed content, seemed to know his way around these woods even though he had been raised on army bases around the world until recently, when his family had moved to Odenton. His dad, an army soldier, had been reassigned just last year, and Joe’s Mom had joined the church. Then his dad got deployed and never came back.
That must be such a lousy feeling. How could I even bother him with more stupid questions about being a caddy? Maybe we should talk about places he’s lived.
Out of nowhere Joe mumbled, “Kay, sounds. Eople with money. Ight have other jobs need done.”
Joe never looked at him though, had eyes only for their path and where it was going.
That’s it, get him talking about the woods, get his mind off his dad and mom.
“Where do you think this path goes Joe?”
“Ad says downhill in urban areas means into a culvert—rainage ditch.”
‘Dad says’. Way to go butt brain.
Joe was picking up his pace, seemingly excited about something. Then Alex heard it, a ‘thunk’ sound up ahead coming from a place where two big trees had fallen together and caught trash bags, paper and leaves in their branches, kind of forming a screen. Alex looked around and noticed that they were so far into the woods that nothing—no road, no building—could be seen. They were deep into the woods!
Joe stopped and listened.
Alex stopped behind him.
They heard the ‘thunk’ sound again.
The trail circled around the big trash and leaf curtain that hid whatever was making the sound. Joe turned, smiled, and nodded for Alex to follow him.
They walked around the mess of dead branches, trash and leaves to find themselves looking at a shelter made of cardboard and trash bags, and other types of plastic. Outside of the shelter was a kind of bench made of boards wired to milk crates. Above this ‘bench’ stood a dirty teenager, an older teenager, maybe even 19. This skinny, scruffy looking white guy with a scraggly blonde beard was dressed in torn up jeans and a ragged flannel shirt. His boots were duct taped together, and he was bent over, prying a big wicked knife loose from the board that formed the ‘seat’ of the ‘bench’.
The guy looked at them as he wiped off the blade of the knife on his shirt. Joe said nothing, just stared at the older boy. Alex felt like he had to say something. “We’re looking for the golf course. Do you know where the golf course is Mister?”
The young man glared at Joe as he fingered his knife, with Joe just staring right at him, ‘challenging like’. The young man nodded at where the trail split at his feet, beneath his shelter. “The right path leads up to the shopping center. The left path leads down through the steam, where the footbridge used to be before those rich golf-playing faɡɡots had it taken down to keep us from trying to get work up there. It’s just for prep-boys and college-boys. They don’t want you. Besides, you can’t go down there.”
Joe blurted, “Y-not!”
The youth seemed older now, a light in his eyes that caused his brows to shrink up. “Because the Prophet lives down there. Go if you want, you’ve been warned.”
The strange person then turned and threw the knife down into the bench board and nodded as if satisfied after it had ‘thunked’ where he wanted it. As he bent to retrieve it Joe walked up to have a look and the man –he seemed a man now, a mean one—yanked the knife free and drew it back behind his hip as he put his other hand up in Joe’s face. “Step off boy!”
Joe seemed menacing somehow. “’m no boy.”
Oh God this is getting scary.
“Let’s go Joe.”
They seemed not even to hear him as the man continued, “So you a grown-ass man huh?”
Joe clenched his fists and shook his head up and down, meaning ‘yes’. The man then grinned and pointed at the board with his knife. “The last ‘grown-ass man that claimed he wasn’t no boy left his five-dollar bill right there. You got a five-dollar bill for me boy?”
Joe turned and looked at Alex as he reached in his pocket and pulled out some ones and change and placed them on the bench. The man grinned. “That only but fo fitty, but that I’ll get you five in John’s Game.”
The man then bent and placed an exceeding filthy five-dollar bill on the bench.
Alex just had to see what was going on and stepped up to look down at the bench, which was pocked with countless knife marks where that big blade had repeatedly ‘thunked’ into the boards. There were a number of bloody hand and foot prints, as well as long streaks of blood that had spilled, and pooled and dripped. Alex felt his mouth fall open as Joe took of his right sneaker and placed his bare foot—for he wore no socks—up on the board, on a spot where no blood had dried.
“Oh God Joe—no!”
Joe mumbled, “'t okay Ax. 'Ayed chicken with some townies in Lumberton when Dad was…”
Joe’s words fell off into a faint mumble and Alex could no longer discern the words.
The man took off his filthy shoe and put a dirty foot up on the bench, and spoke up like a game show host, “Welcome to John’s Game.”
He threw the knife into the board and yanked back his foot. “Pull your foot back, you leave your money.”
He then pried the knife loose and put his foot back up and ‘thunked’ the knife in beside it. “Stay strong and try again.”
He pried the knife loose, straightened up, and threw it into the bench with great force, so that the flat of the blade barely touched the outside of his foot. "Kiss the foot and you can have your money doubled, or pull out; no honor lost, no harm done.”
He then yanked the knife out, spread his toes, and threw the knife down in between his toes, somehow not touching them. “Split your toes, and you take the pot.”
He pulled the blade out again. “Cut yourself and stay strong and you take the pot also. Forgive me for not demonstrating that. Lose a toe or pin the foot—which will require my expert medical care—and you lose it all, though I will patch you up with my dumpster derived medical kit. Oh yeah, since you: bold, grown-ass man, have already put that foot up on John’s Game Table. You’re in. Pull out now and you’re a broke bitch-ass boy.”
Joe glared up at the tall lean, foul-smelling young man who stood holding a commando knife in his hand like Mom stood with her spatula while frying eggs. “I’m in John.”
That was the first time Joe had ever spoken without mumbling. It made Alex afraid somehow, made him wonder if they would ever get out of these woods alive.
Continued in John’s Game, The Caddy: Part Three
