Going Home

      A young boy, wielding a bared branch that is bent just rigtht, approaches the wooded rough. Gnarled, moss covered watch trees crowd the rough; their mottled roots worming into the fairway. Tangled ground creepers and chaotic bushes conceal the place in a blaze of greens, reds and browns. Though the breeze is light, the leaves and branches within stir and whirl in ramdom, restless patterns. The scent on the breeze is old and tired. Pausing, the boy considers the boundary between rough and fairway. It is so clean , so defined. Only the roots dare cut over, maybe the earth gives them protection. He steps nearer and kicks at a root. No response. Slowly, carefully, he stalks along the border. His jeans still squeak with dampness. Dark muddy streak mingle with the grass stains at his knees and cake to ash at his thighs. Forgotten, his backpack rests comfortably on his back. An old potato sack, dangles from a belt loop. It contains the booty he has thus far. He clutches at the bottom of the sack, scrambling the contents within, gaining confidence and power by the clicking sounds it makes. A short distance later he pauses, peering into a small break in the tangle. He shudders at the darkness, at the chill breath that doesn't ease the bite of the sun. Kneeling, he uses his stick to overturn a leafy patch of earth. A dark and pungent smell arises, the moist scent of rotting, of decay. Skittering crawlers and burrowing wormthings scatter from the sunlight and there, between layers of rotting leaves, is a silver of gleaming white. He snatches at it, digging fingers into the loam, "Hah, maybe this won't be so tough after all. There's probably a million of these things in here." He slips the golfball into his sack.

      "A dime? For each?" the boy had said earlier that morning.
      The old man mopped the sweat from his face with the same rag he uses to clean the golfballs and chuckled. "Yep. You can find them all over in them roughs and creeks out there," he waved his rag in vague direction. "But don't get yourself drowned or anything and don't let me catch you stealing them off the fairways or greens." When he spoke, like most everyone the boy had heard in Texas, he pronounced his words all wrong, not like real and live people were supposed to. "And stay away from the customers. Just bring them to me here at the shed. I'm here most the time."
       He'd met the old caretaker a few days earlier, while exploring the golf course on his own. The old man had caught him playing with a ball washer and made him do odd jobs around the maintenance shed and swimming pool. Welcoming the caretaker's company. the boy had returned the following mornings to help him with the simple things. This morning, while they were cleaning old recovered golfballs, the old man said, "Well youngster, you can't keep coming here and helping me for nothing. I wouldn't feel right about that at all." He plucked a ball from a bucket filled with them and held it to the boy's face. "Tell you what, you go out there and find me all them lost golfballs that just be sitting out there and I'll give you a dime for each of them."
      In this offer the boy saw hope. He had agreed, promising to return before dark, and ran back to the house where his family now lived to get the things he would need. Money was important, his father had always said so, and he needed money if he was ever to make it back home. All the planning he'd done during this long summer had always ended with money, he knew he needed it, but did not know how much. As he came upon their new house his jaw clenched and his ears burned. He was sure that it was the house that he hated; the creaks and clunks it made for no reason; the bedroom that was so, so dark when the lights were off; and the air conditioner that was never turned on, no matter that his bedsheets were soaked with sweat. Even the grass in the yard was coarse and ithcy and left welts on his back. But most of all, it was the complete emptiness of the place. He entered the house and went straight to the bedroom he shared with his older brother. His mother must not see him, she would know instantly, she would know. The room was empty. Quickly, quietly, he filled his backpack with the necessary things. The last thing to go in was the most important. It was the envelope from a letter he had received from his best friend back in California. His mother had shown him many times how to address an envelope, and what the words and numbers meant. He needed the address on this envelope to be sure he could find his way. As he zipped the backpack up, the family dog, Snooks, wandered in and nosed at him insistently. Snooks was a black furry mutt, the laziest and fattest of his kind. He hugged the dog fiercely. "You be good Snooks. I wish I could take you with me, but you eat way too much." He saw no blame or betrayal in the dog's eyes, only love and trust. He scrubbed the dog's head one last time and stood up, shouldering the pack. Silentlly, he padded to the front door.
      "Jeffrey, is that you dear?" His mother called from the kitchen, her voice strained, worried.
      He stopped, dead. The air around him thickened and the pack on his back was suddenly, impossibly heavy. Fighting against the knot in his throat, in a voice that roared in his ears, he said, "Yeah mom, I'm heading back out to the golf course to help Justin around the pool." Silence. Snooks whined.
      "Alright then, but be careful and be home for lunch," he could hear chopping sounds, could almost smell the onions." "And tell Justin you won't be able to help him tomorrow, we have to go enroll you in that school, remember?" That school. He normally liked school. She had told him that he would have to go to a school on the other side of town. There was a school in the next neighborhood, but he could not go to it. She would not tell him why.
      "Alright mom, I'll tell him, and I'll be okay. Bye." He launched himself through the door and ran, without stopping, back to the golf course.

      He is deep within the rough now, having spiraled around and around while the bushes poke and grab and tear at him. His potato sack is nearly full and too heavy to keep on the belt loop. He hugs it close to his chest to keep the branches from tearing and snagging at it. The twist and turns that his path takes remind him of the day his family moved into the new house. His father had constructed a maze by connecting together the empty boxes that the movers had left. He would crawl through with his brother while their father would grab at them through the slots and roar like some wicked monster. He smiles at the thought, then frowns. He bashes a tree with his stick. Dropping the sack, he hits the tree again and again until, finally, the stick shatters. He hurl the remains away then slumps, in a heap, against the battered tree trunk. "Why! Why! Why did we move to this stupid place!" Uncontrolable, unstoppable, the tears and sobs come. Sliding to the ground, he hugs knees to chest and cries and cries and cries. Finally, mercifully, the tears subside. Cleaning his eyes on his sleeve, he notices the potato sack, golfballs spilling from it. He then stands to survey his surroundings. The wood are less green here. Tiny fluffs of white floats lazily by, riding the beams of sunlight. Patches of pale mushrooms and other strange and colorful growths spot the ground and the trees. The slushing sounds from the tree tops remind him of rushing, bubbling streams. Toward the center of the rough, he notices a small clearing with something odd looking within it. Curious, he approaches for a closer look. stopping about ten yards away, he inspect it for several seconds, then, with a sudden squeak of delight and disbelief, sprints the remaining distance. It is actually a tiny hut, constructed of long dead branches and squirrely brown vines. Bright green moss has grown over and between the branches, sealing them together in places. The roof, only about waist high, is covered with layer upon layer of leaves, twigs and muck. The thing is smaller than a car, like a dog house or a fortress for some miniature army. Peering through a gap in the branches, he finds it empty but can see a larger opening at one of the shorter sides. He circles to the opening, and on hands and knees, crawls inside. The floor of the hut is lightly covered by short, resilient weeds, sunlight flickers and wavers over them, having to find its way first through the swaying trees above and then the tiny gaps of the hut walls. Tiny flowers with delicate white petals extend from some of the plants, in the close quarters he can smell their light, earthy scent. Laying the sack to one side he shrugs off the backpack, pushing it in front of him and to the far side. There, he uses it as a pillow as he lies down onto his back. The work and excitement of the day has left him exhausted and he begins stretching his sore and cramped muscles. His hand brushes something that makes a dry, cracking sound. Glancing over, he sees a dirt covered plastic bag. rolled up and stuffed between the hut wall and the ground. He pulls it out, shaking off the dirt, and unrolls and opens it. Inside is an old, wooden smoking pipe. Taking it out, he examines it. He has never seen one up close before. The bowl is light brown and shiny, the stem is a duller dark brown and webbed with thin white cracks. Its smell is oddly sweet, like burnt molasses, nothing like his father's cigarettes. He notices a sean betweeb the stem and bowl of the pipe and tries to twist the two pieces apart. With a dry snap the stem breaks into several pieces, white flaky dust falls from it and spots his chest and stomach. He bolts upritht with a sudden surge of panic, then realizes that he is totally alone; no one is there to punish him. He sticks the remaining pieces back into the bag and tosses it aside. Lying back down he realizes that he's very thirsty, his last drink had been at a pond he'd found at the beginning of his search. The pond had been at the edge of a fairway and had a large fountain at its center that blew a column of water high into the air and left a cloud of cool mist. He had taken his shoes, and socks off to wade in the shallows, searching for the golfballs with his toes. The smell off the water was that of frogs and algae. It stirred up memories of the creeks by their house in California where he and his brother, David, used to prowl and stalk. Creeks that were filled with the turtles and fish that they would have caught by the armloads, had they only known how. He would have to show David the pond someday, maybe they would even learn to fish there. There were other memories too; of the camping trips his family took to the mountains where the trees were huge and the streams icy; and of the beaches where the roaring surf would toss and roll them onto the burning sand. But these memories fade into dreams as the organic coolness of the hut and the gentle, thrumming cadence of the woods lull him to sleep.

      "Hey there! Wake up, you."
       The voice, as well as a tugging at his foot, jars the boy awake. He glances around for a second, disoriented, before realizing that he is still in the hut. Motion at the entrance draws his attention and he scrambles back, onto his elbows, as he sees a man crouching there. The man's roundish face is deeply, darkly tanned and spotted with black moles. His brown, bloodshot eyes seem to have more yellow than white in them and his grey and brown hair is slicked back and long. The strong scent of his hair tonic fill the hut. He wears a frayed brown coat over a dirty white tee-shirt and his baggy grey trousers are stained with grease at the thighs. He looks old, older than the boy's father. With a wheezing chuckle, the man worms his way into the hut, dropping onto an elbow next to the boy. He leaves a large green duffel bag blocking the entrance.
      "I hope you're comfortable here boy. I built this glorious place, you know." He makes a sweeping gesture with a stubby hand. His yellowed eyes, narrow as he stares intently at the boy. "Alright, what's your name, boy? And what are you doing in my house?"
      "J- Jeffrey. It's Jeffrey, and I'm not doing nothing here. If y-"
      "What's this?" The old man interrupts, plucking the plastic bag with broken pipe off the ground. "What's happened here, boy!" He pours the pieces into his and looks up at the boy. "By those white flakes on your shirt, I'd say you knew something about this, Jeffy."
       Again, Jeffrey feels a surge of panic, but this time it does not go away. "I'm sorry, sir! I didn't mean to, really." He glances at the bag blocking the exit, then back to the man, who is staring back, wheezing. "I'll pay for it. I will, really."
      "Pay for it!" He considers this for a moment. "How're you going to pay for it?"
      "Well," Jeffrey thinks frantically. "I have these golfballs." Holding up the sack for inspection. "The man who works at the club said he'd give a dime for each. I could give you some of them."
       The old man chuckles and shakes his head. "Well, Jeffy, that guy at the club said he'd give you a generous dime for them, not a stinking old derelict like me. He'd probably have me thrown in the slammer for trespassing."
      "Oh, I didn't . . . I don't . . . "The boy's voice trails off as he stares intently at the weeds in front of him.
      "Well, what do you got in here?" The old man snatches the backpack from behind Jeffrey and holds his hand up before the boy can protest. "Don't you worry, I won't break anything. Not like you broke my pipe." Unzipping the pack, he peers inside. "Let's see, a used envelope." He pulls it out, holding it to a ray of sunlight. "It's addressed to you, right here in town." He eyes the boy for a moment.
      "Can I have that back please? Please!"
      "You don't sound like you're from around here. It's from someone in California. Is that where you're from, Jeffy?"
      "Yeah," the boy says. "that's from my best friend, Mike. I really do need that back."
      "Well, alright, here you go," he says, flicking it to the boy. "What else do we got?" Grumbling and wheezing, he rummages through the pack, holding it up to the boy.
       Jefrey takes it gratefully, exhaling with relief.
      "Well, you don't have anything I want." Again, he levels his eyes at the boy, considering him intently. "But what you do have seems pretty odd for a boy to be carrying around in a golf course." Jeffrey stuffs the envelope back into the pack then hugs it close. "A pack filled with clean, folded clothes, extra underwear and socks, a baseball glove, a flashlight and an envelope from a friend in California." He takes a deep breath, huffs it out noisily. "What're your intentions, boy? What's on your agenda?"
       Jeffrey gulps several times, unable to bring his eyes up to look at this strange, nosy old man. "I want to go back to California. I hate this place!"
      "Is that where your family is, in California?" the man says solemnly.
      "No, they're here, but all my friends are there."
      "Oh," the old man says, shaking his head slowly. "Well, boy, you can stay here for the night, if you like. There's room enough for us both."
      "I've got to go get my money for these," Jeffrey says, holding up the sack. "So I can pay for breaking your pipe."
      "Aw, don't worry about that pipe. I'll come across another one of these days." Reaching over, he pulls the duffel bag from the entrance. "Go on now. Go turn in them balls."
       Silently, Jeffrey shuffles out of the hut and out of the wooded rough.

      "You sure got a haul here, youngster." Justin says, counting the balls one by one, dropping them into a bucket of water as he does so. "Your parents are going to be proud of you."
       Jeffrey shifts his weight from side to side as he fiddles with a strap on his backpack.
      "You got more in that pack, boy? I don't know if I can pay you for all that today."
       Jeffrey stares at the pack for a moment. "Did you know there's a guy living in the forest out there?"
      "What? Why would he want to do that? There ain't no plumbing out there." He chuckles softly. "Besides, if the customers don't see him, they can't complain about him." He points to the sack. "Is this all of them?
      "Yeah," the boy says, nodding.
      "Well, it's getting late and you'd best be getting home. How about I give you ten dollars now, then give you the rest later, when you come back?"
       Jeffrey turns toward the course, searching it. "Okay."
      "Alright then," tying up the sack, Justin puts it, and the bucket, into the shed. He then takes the money from his wallet and hands it to Jeffrey. "There you go, boy, I'd say if we did this once or twice a month you could do pretty good for yourself."
       Staring at the bill, Jeffrey says, "I got to go now, Justin, I'll see you later."
      "Alright then, you go on home now." he says, locking the shed door.

       Jeffrey examines the bill as he walks, folding and unfolding it over and over again. After a short while, he suddenly realizes that he is in his neighborhood. He is only a few blocks from his house, he can almost see it. The neighborhood is busy with activity, children are playing in the yards and streets. Dinner smells waft from the houses to mingle in the air. An old man in a thick, green apron is pruning a row of bushes with large, white flowers, whistling loudly to himself. Stopping, Jeffrey turns back toward the golf course. His eyes widen as he sees his brother riding frantically towards him on a bicycle. Screeching to a stop, his brother says, "Where've you been, you little runt? Mom's going to beat your butt!"
      "Look David! Look what I've got!" Jeffrey says, waving the ten dollar bill at his brother.

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