Divot or the Hole

The Divot Or The Hole
-- by Fayonne Alfaro and William Pancoast

Billy McKinney prepared to tee off. He stepped off the patio with a plastic Safeway bag full of whiffle balls, dragging a faded golf bag. He dropped the load next to the azaleas and reached into his pocket. Pulling out a tee with half the stem intact, he knelt and poked it carefully into the ground. He kicked at the plastic bag and selected a bright orange ball with a small crack connecting two holes.

When Grandma Nellis died, Nancy McKinney took her son and moved back home. Billy was thirteen then, his grandfather sixty-eight. Billy expressed some apprehension about leaving his school and all his friends. "No way am I moving to Dumpsville!"

"That’s Dossetville and it’s not like you have a choice here."

"Why not?"

"What are you going to do? Stay here?" She waved her arms in a gesture too immense for the shabby apartment.

"It beats spending the rest of my life making ugly birdhouses and taking apart toasters!?"

"Nobody said anything about toasters and birdhouses."

"So what else is in Dumpsville? A bunch of old farts sitting around growing hair outa their ears."

"God, you’re so dramatic!" She thumped Billy on the shoulder and his face shrank to a sullen bristle. "Besides, maybe Gramps will teach you to play golf."

"Oh, wow." Billy was unimpressed. "C’mon Mom. This is the shits."

"Watch your mouth. It might be good for you to get a new set of friends."

"What’s wrong with my friends?"

"Nothing," she sighed audibly and the discussion ended.

Nancy was pretty sure weird kids were as common as grass no matter where you were. They have purple hair and nose rings; they wear Paul Bunyan’s clothes and a studied stupor. Before they unpacked, Billy would have plenty of nice new friends just as dubious as the old ones. "It’ll be fine," she assured him, "you’ll see."

"’It’ll be fine’," he simpered, "That’s what you said when I baby sat for Doreen’s kids."

"And the kids loved you."

"They gave me the measles."

Nancy closed the trunk and got in the car. "That was a long time ago," she said and started the engine.

"I still itch."

Gramps was similarly pleased about the arrangement. "Jesus, Nancy, doesn’t he have any clothes of his own?" Amos Nellis greeted his grandson and stomped back into his garage.

Nancy viewed this as a positive beginning. Billy and his grandfather made every effort to contain their mutual indifference. Billy didn’t scoff at the old man’s birdhouses; they hung like fruit from every tree in the neighborhood. Amos encouraged his grandson’s athletic activities. He hung a basketball net on the side of the house and turned up his radio to drown the incessant thomp of the ball against the driveway.

Billy, in turn, made an effort to be as inoffensive as possible. This required a significant personality modification that was undoubtedly lost on his grandfather but which left his mother astounded and grateful. He took out the garbage when Nancy reminded him. He turned down his stereo when Gramps pounded on the door. One rainy afternoon he made a great production of repairing the handle on a bathroom drawer; it took several hours and an arsenal of tools. Pleased with himself and his mother’s praise, he invited himself along with Nancy for the weekly shopping.

"What’s this?" Amos scowled at his plate that evening and poked at a crusty nugget that rolled away, avoiding his fork.

"Tater tots, Dad," Nancy explained. "Potatoes."

"Just potatoes?"

"No, of course not." She reached across the table and tipped what appeared to be more of the same onto his plate. "Have some fish sticks."

"No vegetables?"

"Sure, try the fried zucchini sticks." She pushed another plate towards him with a bottle of catsup. "This is Billy’s favorite dinner."

"But the boy isn’t here, Nancy."

"He’s eating at Kevin’s."

"I should be eating at Kevin’s." Amos took his plate into the living room. "By the way" he called as he flipped on the television, "have you seen my screw driver?"

That summer Amos took Billy to the golf course three mornings a week. It wasn’t that he expected his grandson to actually play golf but the boy made a suitable caddie if heavily bribed.

When school started in the fall, Gramps took his seat in the junior high gym for eighth grade basketball games. On Saturdays, he would haul Billy off to the green, a public golf course five miles from the house at the edge of town. There were nine holes closely coiled upon one another, each starting point colorful with the litter of broken tees.

As Billy unwrapped his first Snickers of the day, Amos teed off, sending his ball a hundred and twenty yards to land near a stand of mangled sycamore. He set up another ball and handed the driver to Billy.

"Me?"

"You wanna try it or not?"

"I guess," Billy shrugged, wiped chocolate on his sleeve, set his half-empty Coke on the ground and stepped up to the tee. He gripped the iron and placed his feet apart, knees rigid, hunching his shoulders, tucking his chin and gazing upside down in the general direction of the first hole a hundred and forty-five yards away. Amos said nothing. Abruptly, Billy swung the iron over his shoulder where it quivered momentarily before his entire body crumbled like bailing wire as he brought the club down to blast the ball high above fairway. As it fell away and came to rest within a foot of the first green, Amos turned a sour look on his grandson.

"Hey!" Billy grinned. "I can make par! Right, Gramps?"

"Par shmar," he grumbled, grabbed the iron and headed in the direction of the sycamore.

Billy picked up his Coke, hoisted the clubs and followed after.

From this evolved a protracted, if not felonious, use of a public golf course. The game they played was not so much abridged as it was elongated by doubling par for each hole and bringing hazards in as challenges to be engaged rather than avoided.

This ritual exchange continued two years, until, in the spring of Billy’s fifteenth year, Amos Nellis got up from the supper table, settled himself into his threadbare swivel rocker and promptly dropped his head over the left arm. He died three weeks later, having never regained consciousness.

His grandson abandoned the golf course and took a summer job bussing tables at Denney’s. When Nancy cleaned out the garage in July and turned Amos’s tools over to Stanley Robinson next door, Billy retrieved Gramps’s golf bag.

Now standing in the back yard next to the flower garden, he pulled out a four-iron. Gramps had called this his mashie; Billy swung it vigorously several times. Then he leaned over and carefully balanced the orange ball on the tee buried in the grass. He stood up and looked down the length of his back yard, seventy-five feet to the wire fence. On the far side of the street Mr. Hubble was washing his Buick, arching the spray in the air and hosing soap from the hard top; suds eddied down the driveway into the street. He was without a shirt, his white middle protruding above plaid shorts that hung to his knees. He waded in the water with plastic flip-flops, dark hair clinging to his skinny wet legs.

Billy placed his feet apart, knees flexed, and took his grip in both hands. He leaned toward the ball and touched it lightly with the iron face. He looked left and took aim at a point just above the fence and to the left of the lilac tree at the corner of the yard. He drew a back swing over his right shoulder and swept the iron around to connect with the ball. Thwack! The orange spot launched out across the lawn, flew well above the fence, across the street and came to rest center green on the grass at the corner of Hubble’s carport.

Mr. Hubble turned to look at the bright dot in his yard, bringing the hose around to let a stream of water run into the grass. He stared at the ball as Billy loped to the fence, gripped it firmly and threw his legs over. He walked across the street and stepped onto Hubble’s grass.

Hubble scowled as Billy approached the ball. "Shouldn’t you be working or something, William?" He had a deep grainy voice.

"I am. I’m helping Mom clean out the garage."

"Looks to me like your preparing to do some damage with that ball. Shouldn’t you take that to the golf course?

"Green fees are too steep." He positioned himself to hike the ball across Hubble’s driveway. "Besides, I’ve got a hell of challenging course right here. I could train for the US Open."

"I never cared much for golf myself. Come to think of it, old Amos didn’t either." Hubble smiled and turned back to the Buick.

"He didn’t?" Billy eased his club down and squinted at Hubble’s back.

"Nope, wanted a record player. Wanted it in the worst way, so him and Agie could listen to Percy Faith records."

Billy thought of Gramps in his fedora and his shiny blue windbreaker with Nellis Hardware on the back. Percy Faith must be a comedian; Gramps liked to watch Bill Cosby on television. He never listened to the radio in the truck except once when they were expecting a tornado. "Who’s Percy Faith?"

"Orchestra music. Him and Agie loved orchestra music. Founders Day nineteen fifty-nine they had a big raffle to raise money for the Railroad Park. Amos put up a fancy set of wrenches for something, I think. Hansen’s Music store put up a radio-record player. A Grundig, big old console like they used to have with a record player on one side." Hubble hosed off the sidewalls, the water ringing off the hubcaps. He grinned slyly back at Billy. "Your grandpa bought fourteen raffle tickets at a buck a piece! He was going to have that Grundig!" Hubble chuckled, bending over to scrub at the tires, his shorts stretching and threatening to expose both cheeks.

"So what happened?" Billy asked.

"I don’t recall who got that Grundig but Amos won a brand new set of golf clubs from the Sears store. He was disappointed, I know, but he didn’t say much. Hauled that bag of clubs off home, next morning he went off to the golf course. I never heard him say another word about that Grundig or Percy Faith." He turned to look at Billy. "Resigned, I think they call it. Your grandpa was resigned. He figured he was meant to play golf."

Billy took aim on the orange ball at his feet and swung the iron lightly; the ball popped across the wet cement and into the front yard. "I guess he decided he liked it," Billy said and started after the ball.

"Guess so," Hubble grunted and began wiping down a rearview mirror. "Just make sure you replace the divots!" He called over the hood of his Buick.

"No problem," Billy replied just as the screen door banged open next door and Mrs. Warton stepped out and began flailing a dust mop against the porch banister.

"What are you doing over there, Billy McKinney?" She let the mop drop at parade rest as white flecks settled in the bushes. Mrs. Warton was a retired schoolteacher; Gramps had been in her sixth grade class. Twice. She was short and thick, her hair a wispy white cloud barely concealing her pink scalp. Her voice, however, had not gone to the frail screech of old age; Mrs. Warton still barked like a schoolteacher. "You over there helping Hubble wash that heap of junk he calls a car?"

"No ma’am," Billy called, "He’s got it under control." Hubble disappeared into his garage. "Is it okay if I hit my ball into your yard? Your tree over there is the first hole."

"What first hole?"

"Golf, Mrs. Warton." He brandished the golf club. "I pretend that tree is the first hole."

"And what if that ball goes through my front window?"

"It’s just a whiffle ball, Mrs. Warton. See?" He picked up the orange ball and carried it to the fence, holding it out so she could see better. "It’s plastic. Just for practice shots."

Mrs. Warton leaned the mop against the door and stepped off the porch for a closer look. She looked at the dirty cracked ball and then at Billy. "You’re starting to look like Amos. Kind of a smirk around the mouth. He never could carry on a solid conversation but he had that smirk; like he knew something about you that you didn’t know yourself. Nice man, though, your grandfather." Billy looked at his feet, and rolled the whiffle ball lightly back and forth between his hands. "Sure," she said, "you can hit your ball into my yard," and watched as he walked back and replaced the ball at the center of Hubble’s front lawn.

He took careful aim, wishing she would go back to banging the dust out of her mop. He swung the iron; the ball sailed over the low fence and struck the trunk half way up, bouncing into the street. Mrs. Warton smiled, went back to the porch and sat down heavily in a wicker chair. "Take that shot again," Mrs. Warton charged, "and don’t aim for the tree. Just hop that little ball over the fence; you can hit the tree anytime."

"Do you know anything about golf?" Billy wrinkled his forehead.

"Not a thing."

"Well, see, you’re suppose to get the ball in the hole under par," he explained patiently.

"Better to get it in the hole at some point than not at all."

"Yes, ma’am," he retrieved the ball and set it back in Hubble’s yard, recalling Gramps’s muttered, "Par, shmar. I’ll get to the hole soon enough."

Billy positioned the ball and swung the iron. The ball popped neatly over the fence, landing at the base of the tree. He stepped over the fence after the ball and grinned in her direction as he absently knocked the ball against the trunk.

"So what was Gramps like in school?"

"Ants in his pants. Today they call it attention deficit or some such. It’s still ants in the pants." She scowled at Billy, "Do you like school?"

"Yeah," he screwed his mouth sideways and rolled his eyes, "it’s okay."

"Not okay for Amos Nellis. Hated every blessed minute. Hated my class so much he stayed in the sixth grade for two years." Mrs. Warton cackled and Billy smiled. There were still schoolbooks on the shelf next to Gramps’s favorite chair; history, algebra and English grammar with frayed spines and antiquated pictures.

"Oh, Amos was a smart fellow. He just preferred his education on an as needed basis, just couldn’t see the sense of school. He couldn’t abide anything that wasted his time." She leaned back in her chair and her gaze wandered up the tree trunk and settled in the branches. "You know that man Yonker that took over your grandfather’s hardware store?"

"Yeah," Billy nodded but she wasn’t looking at him.

"Time was, he used to waste your grandfather’s time. He and the Stillman boy. Yonker worked at the hardware and Stillman helped his daddy in the bicycle shop on the corner. Those two boys could not share the same planet without waging war on each other. In school, out of school, always scrapping about something. Lived next door to each other so they could pound away at it all day. Until one day Amos caught them out in front of his store arranging to throw themselves through that big window. He walked out the front door, didn’t even stop to lock up, and threw those boys in the back of his truck. Drove them ten miles out east of town and dumped them out."

Mrs. Warton paused and looked at Billy. "Took them half the night to walk home and there was never a foul breath between them again." She leaned forward on the arms of her chair and stood up. "Your grandfather had uncommon common sense." She smiled at Billy and went back in her house, taking the dust mop with her.

He used the four-iron to pull the ball away from the tree, took aim and chipped it over the street into the Barlow’s yard. No one was home at the Barlow’s, their front lawn a hundred foot fairway broken only by a flagstone walkway. The house occupied two lots from here to the corner. Across the intersection Nancy was piling boxes at the edge of the drive. She stopped and looked in Billy’s direction, put her arm up and waved at him, pointing at the accumulation behind her. He smiled and waved; she put her fists in her pockets and went back in the garage, elbows akimbo. Pulling another tee from his pocket, he crossed to the Barlow’s and started his course back down the other side of the street. He set up his ball and prepared his approach to the rough that was Lyle Shank’s side yard.

Lyle Shank cultivated fruit trees at the side of his house. He fertilized the ground, but seldom mowed the grass around the apple, plum and apricot. Lyle had never said "Hi" to anyone Billy knew of. Nancy had never seen his face up close or heard his voice; she said Lyle Shank was not a neighbor’s neighbor. Billy liked to think he was a Nazi war criminal, hiding out in the obscurity of Dumpsville, USA. His hair and beard grew gray and wild, like his yard; he wore plaid work shirts and faded demins. He worked on various vehicles in his driveway at the other end of his property and some part of his house always appeared to be under construction. His back yard was hidden by a wood fence and a scrabble of bushes.

At one time, neighbors had circulated a petition to get a citation requiring him to clean up his property, remove the cases of combustible paint from his garage, and cease whatever enterprise his neighbors were sure violated at least one zoning ordinance. Gramps had refused to sign the petition but he did walk around to Lyle Shank’s garage. The next day Lyle moved his paint to the storage shed at the back of his yard, no citation was ever issued and Gramps was the only person known to have spoken to Lyle Shank.

From the far end of the Barlow lots, Billy took aim and hit the ball the length of his designated fairway, all the way into the dense grass at the outer corner of Lyle’s little orchard. Today a ladder was placed under the apple tree, the top concealed by thick foliage emitting country music from a portable radio. Billy stepped into the grass and hacked the ball into the street to move on past the harvesting of Lyle’s fruit. In the street he touched the ball and it rolled ten yards down the center of the asphalt to stop well past Lyle’s ladder.

Across the street Stanley Robertson was pulling weeds out of Grandma Nellis’s peonies at the fence that divided the properties, a cardboard box piled high with dandelions, thistle and ragweed. Gramps had an aversion to yard work; he paid minimal attention to the flowerbeds at the front and altogether ignored this end of his property. After Grandma died Gramps and Stanley formed a truce in the matter of weeds going to seed and infiltrating the Robinson’s well-manicured lawn. Stanley agreed to yank out anything suspicious and Gramps agreed not to be offended. On one side of the fence, Grandma’s peonies bloomed, on the other Stanley’s camper was parked up close on a bed of gravel.

Stanley lifted the box, came around the front of the fence and emptied the box into a trash barrel. He was tall and grizzled, older than Gramps and burned by the sun. He waved a big hand at Billy, squinting in the sun and grinning. "Hello, Billy. What d’you think of the scarecrow?" he asked, hooking a thumb in the direction of Lyle’s apple tree.

"Scarecrow?" He turned to look at the stepladder, comprehending that if Lyle Shank were picking apples, he would have to be perched like a monkey on the very top.

"It’s been right there for two days. Hasn’t moved and no one goes up or down."

"No shit?" Billy went back to Lyle’s yard and looked up into the tree. A plastic milk jug sat atop the ladder draped with a plaid shirt and finished off with a battered cowboy hat. A radio sat on the second step; John Denver sang about country roads and going home. He laughed and Stanley grinned as Billy pulled apples and plums from low branches and rolled them into the front of his tee shirt. He came back across to Stanley and handed him a few plums.

"Billy!" Nancy yelled suddenly across the yard. "Are you going to help me with this stuff or not?"

"I’m coming!" he shouted back. "Guess I better," he said to Stanley and walked back along the fence to where Nancy stood scowling. "I’m helping, I’m helping," he said, setting the fruit on a case of empty mason jars. "You don’t have to yell."

"Thanks, you’re a prince." She took the club from Billy and poked with it at his stomach. "Are you going to hang on to your Gramps’s golf clubs," she asked, quizzing his face with her eyes.

"I hate golf," he grinned back and Nancy looked away.

"Well, then," she pointed to a row of boxes and lumpy garbage bags piled next to the mail box at the curb. "Put them out there with the give away pile."

He went into the back yard for Amos’s golf bag and brought it out to the street. Nancy had already wedged Gramps’s four-iron into a box among twisted phone cords, a driftwood lamp with a scorched shade and two bent curtain rods. He propped the faded golf bag against the boxes, pulled the mashie out and went into the house. He went to his room and left the iron in the closet before getting a drink from the kitchen.

In the garage Nancy was dropping partly assembled birdhouses into a heavy-duty lawn and leaf bag.