Alex and Joe sat with arms across their knees rocking on their vastly different posteriors on the rock slab above the pool. Alex could not help but wonder what puberty would be like for him. He had read up on it and Father had given him a vague sketch.
I’m such a runt compared to Joe and he’s only 2 years—not even 2 years—older than me. Am I going to be like Dallas Jones, a boy left behind, an 18 year old kid in a 12 year old body stuck between two worlds? Mickey already started. Joe obviously got the change like what—ten years old! He’s already got that ‘I need to shave again’ growth on his chin. I want to be an adult. I’m smart enough, just need the form to gain recognition and no longer be looked down upon as a child.
He found himself staring idly at Joe’s muscular arms horribly defaced with those Mickey Mouse marauder tattoos. Joe caught him out of the corner of his eye and looked ahead up the hill as he mumbled, “Id ‘em in the mirror with Dad’s pens—all of them—and Mom’s sewing needle. Om used to make clothes, her own clothes, before she lost it.”
Cheer this situation up Alex.
“That was a good thing you did helping with the cart Joe. That man is only crazy from sadness.”
Joe’s voice lowered to a soft kiss, “Oo you think John is his son?”
“I hope so Joe—they need somebody.”
Joe seemed to think for a moment, frowned, and mumbled, “Anks Aliss, fer, for be, bein’ cool with me.”
“No problem Joe. I’ve always wanted a li—Oh shoot.
Joe raised his one eyebrow comically, which made his wide head look even wider as he pronounced his words carefully, “Little brother huh?”
They both laughed out loud for a moment. After the laughs simmered down to smiles Joe shrugged his shoulders, “At’s funny, always wanned a big brother. Pose we’re even.”
Joe stood up and reached a hand down for Alex. “Ez get a golf course job Alex.”
A short scramble up the bank brought them to the stairs, 20 stairs below an opportunity for employment! Within moments they were emerging from the trees and tangled brush and vines into an ankle high tangle of matted grass looking out over a life size Christmas garden for well-off adults.
Joe pointed to a flag about as far away as a home run fence. “At’s number three Lex.”
Alex took off his glasses and squinted, barely able to see the flag let alone the number. “Wow, no wonder you are good at missing toes. We can go there, and then backtrack to the first hole where people start.”
They were off in a rush. He was surprised that there were so few people playing golf on such a nice day, and that on closer inspection this golf course did not look nearly as nice as the one Tiger Woods had been playing on. Within a couple of minutes they were—being hit by a ball! A little hard white golf ball ‘konked’ Joe in the head and then landed on Alex’s foot.
From about as far off as they had walked, but from the opposite direction, came a loud voice screaming the f-word. Both boys looked in that direction two see four adults—screaming at them and waving for them to get out of the way.
Alex picked up the ball. “Let’s go apologize. If adults are angry with us on the course we will get no caddy work…at least that is the way I see it.”
They walked briskly toward the adults who continued to shake their clubs, make hand signs, and yell swear words. By the time they got to where the adults were on a higher piece of nice turf, also occupied by two really cool looking white golf carts, Alex’s ears were burning from all the swear words, and it was occurring to him that with golf carts, a golfer would be in little need of a caddy. Nevertheless he walked up to the loud bossy man that seemed to be the leader, and handed him the ball. “We’re sorry Sir.”
The man was tall and dressed not like a golfer, but like a movie mobster on vacation in a loud lime green and yellow Hawaiian shirt. He was a tall muscular hairy-chested man with a classic lantern jaw and weird white shoes and tight cream colored pants. He did not, however, have any mobster accent, but sounded like a game show host who swore, “What the fuck kid! You two brats ruined my hole-in-one!”
The smaller man, dressed like a normal white person, spoke up in a soft voice, “Oh Jay, give it a break. You and Arlene are killing Betty and me anyhow.”
Jay turned toward the smaller man who shrank back behind a nice looking lady dressed up like a golfer.
Alex decided to save the situation. “Mister Jay, we were coming to look for caddy work. Since we fowled your shot perhaps we can make it up to you by caddying for free, and if we do a good job perhaps you might put in a good word for us at the country club.”
Joe was taking Alex’s cue and began to heft a bag of golf clubs that looked as heavy as Alex. The man named Jay became even more loud, “This is not a fucking country club you little sissy. This is a municipal golf course and your under-aged ass is trespassing. The City just knocked down the footbridge to keep you hoodrats out and here you are, fucking up my game!”
Droplets of saliva sprayed Alex’s face as the man yelled, looming forward like a big parental monster.
Oh my, what do I say? This is frightening—not at all like I supposed.
As Alex was looking open-mouthed up into the man’s angry face, who was looking like the bad guy from Beauty and the Beast, he heard the shrill hiss of the taller woman, “Get the fuck off punk!”
All eyes turned to Joe who was standing back from the taller of the two white ladies who had yanked the clubs from his hands only to have some spill from the bag, one of which hit her perfectly tanned brown shin, causing her to curse, “Shit.”
This lady was as tall as Joe, was built like a movie star, had long blonde hair, and wore a strange little vest that left her belly bare and boobs popping out and short shorts that left little to the imagination, as well as matching sneakers, all in bright green, as if worn to match the absurd fashion statement of her husband. This was surely Arlene, who would have been pretty but for the beady-eyed scowl on her tanned face.
Joe had backed away but his eyes were looking wide at the lady’s barely concealed figure, an occurrence that she was obviously accustomed to, and used to berate Joe for his attempt to help, “What, you never saw tits before retard?”
Joe swallowed hard in reply and kept staring at the woman’s heaving breasts as Mister Jay pushed Alex out of the way so that he fell and snarled viciously at Joe, who seemed on the verge of tears, “That’s my goddamned wife you’re staring at slope head? Get lost.”
Alex was being helped up by the mousy man who whispered, “You better go son.”
The lady, who must be Arlene, was now getting in Joe’s face, her hands on her hips, leaning forward so her big hard-looking bobbies, that could have been miniature lunar habitat domes, jutted from her tiny vest, and her foul mouth teased, “That’s alright Jay, his sand-nigger mother is probably built like an eggplant, or a bruised pear. You never seen a real woman before retard?”
Joe was backing away as Alex came to his feet and the small man whimpered, “Come on guys,” and then clutched his chest and began to seize up, having difficulty breathing. Alex let go of the man, who looked into his eyes with a kind of panic he had never seen before. Alex then went flying end over end as the man called Jay shoved him away and snarled, “Get kid,” as he turned the man around to face the woman who seemed to be his wife who brought up an asthma inhaler to help her husband catch his breath.
The big man then turned to Alex, who lay on his butt now, one arm propped up behind him, some grass stuck in his hair, and pointed his finger as he scolded, “Listen kid, you have to be sixteen and apply at the service des—”
Joe came into view and brought his fist crashing against the tall man’s jaw with a loud ‘pop’.
Oh no!
“Joe don’t!”
Joe stopped and stood over the man who had fallen unconscious to the turf, laying face first, a little trickle of bloody drool coming from his mouth which was ‘smushed’ against the neat green grass.
The small lady was now pecking away at her smartphone and proclaiming in a hysterical voice as her husband inhaled deeply, “I’m calling nine-one-one. You kids aren’t going to get away with the knockout game today!”
Is she crazy? Are all the adults insane?
He looked to the man with the inhaler who no longer seemed to have a care for anything but drawing a full breath. He was the one sane adult here and he was sick, was turning away. Alex looked to Joe who was turning to look at him, and then came the scream of a devil woman, for ‘mean’ Arlene had been transformed into something that should be chasing a video game hero through a dark cavernous realm!
“Aiyaaah!” came the mad woman’s scream as she ran up behind Joe and swung a large golf club with both hands at the back of his head. Her deep grunting breath and grinding teeth could be heard just before the air-cutting ‘whoosh’ of the metal club, which gave Joe time to duck his head and take the blow across his shoulders, impacting with a sickening ‘thwack!’
Joe gave him a comical look under scrunched brows as he hunched his shoulders to receive another blow.
“Aiyaaah—rrrrr!” sounded Arlene just before the ‘whoosh-thwack!” sound came again with sickening intensity, spraying blood from Joe’s shoulder.
The man named Jay remained unmoving at Joe’s feet.
The lady named Arlene was savagely ‘whoosh-thwacking’ away at Joe who seemed hunched and paralyzed in a stooped stance, looking into Alex’s eyes with a kind of unbelieving amazement. Then came the words that sent ice through Alex’s veins, “Yes, operator, we are being attacked on the golf course by black teens!’
Alex did not wait to hear the rest but reached out and grabbed Joe’s hand as another ‘whoosh-thwack’ sent blood droplets flying. No sooner had Alex grabbed Joe than Joe grabbed him and ran quickly away, dragging Alex’s as he stumbled and twisted his arm. They stumble-ran down off of this level grass place where the insane adults had gathered. Behind them sounded a feminine yelp and a cry, which soon turned to a growl. They stopped and turned around to see that the woman had chased them and tripped, her big hard-looking boobies spilling out of her skimpy top. She was on one knee staring angrily at her extended hand, cradled like a beloved pet in the other hand, regarding two broken fingernails colored like the very rainbow.
She then snarled, “Ooooooooo!” and got to her feet, grabbed her golf club, pointed at them, and hissed from beneath her now disheveled blonde hair, “It’s on bitches!”
Joe and Alex looked at each other and then back to her, as she ran furiously, bent golf club in hand, past her unconscious husband and the prissy lady babbling about a ‘gang of knockout kids’, and the gentle man catching his breath, and leaped like a witch onto a broom into the nearest golf cart. She then glared down at them as she turned the golf cart on and began speeding toward them!
“Run Joe, run!”
Instead of running Joe picked Alex up by the waist, slung him under his arm like a football, and then ran right at the demon lady in her whining golf cart!
“Joe, no!”
To be concluded in The Devil’s Golf Cart
