Holed Out (Haiku)

 

The course was well groomed

The greens were clipped and ran true

Everything was good

The ball was hit hard

It bounded towards the hole 

As if it had eyes!

                                      

Performing (Haiku)

 

There are those that do

Then there are those who watch them

Wannabe doers

In fairness to all

Some watch for the fun of it

To see others do

The Ball Hawk, a story

THE BALL HAWK

Ah, the place is right over there, my refuge after work. I’m a regular at Deke’s. I’ve been making that walk to the corner from my building on Market Street every day at about six o’clock for a long time now. I have a beer and some of their free peanuts. It’s a nice wind-down after being in the office all day; one beer and the bus.

Mostly the help desk is a fun job but I see the same few people all day, plus some users can be such pains, so it’s nice to have a beer, see other faces, and people who don’t have a lot of questions. This bar is neighborly for being across from the convention center and in the middle of downtown.

Where was Charlie? I saw Evan and Russ but no Charlie; there was a new guy behind this end of the bar. He wasn’t quite six feet tall; a little slouched with the hint of a paunch under his white apron, clean shaven, and gray hair cut by an up-to-date barber. He was in his late sixties and looked comfortable behind the bar. He seemed friendly enough. “Name’s Dick”, he announced. “What’ll you have?”

I told him a warm beer in a dirty glass because I like to get what I order, and then laughed. He laughed too and turned to fill a clean glass with beer with just the right amount of collar on it. The glass started to sweat almost immediately, so the beer was just the right temperature. But wait a minute; I noticed something odd about him.

When he pulled the tap, he didn’t use a hand but used an elaborately carved, varnished, wooden artificial hand that gleamed in the lights of the back bar. It had knobs on it carved with just the right shapes to work the tap. It was carved to simulate the size and thickness of a wrist and hand but it was a rich, dark brown color. He noticed my curiosity, smiled and said, “I get that reaction a lot. I lost it just above the wrist.”

I apologized for staring but he dismissed it saying, “Like I said, I get that a lot. I’m used to it. I’ve had Rosebud here for about five years now. I retired and got into a little trouble but that’s all behind me now.

“Working the bar is just fine for me, now I like to be around people and I like the work, lots of light and no big surprises.” I didn’t have a clue about what he was talking.

I hung around a little longer than usual that night, I was thirsty and curious plus the bar was almost empty so maybe he’d tell me the story of the hand. My curiosity must’ve shown through because he leaned his side against the bar and looking into the distance he asked, “Would you like to hear the story?” And without waiting for my answer, he started in.

He sounded strangely like Humphrey Bogart doing his soliloquy in the Maltese Falcon.

“It happened about six years ago. I’d been lying in the rough at Long Run Golf Course for, what seemed to be all night. I couldn’t even feel the chill and dampness of the early morning. I thought the grounds crew must be there soon; they’d find me and help me.

“As I lay there, I wondered to myself, how could this happen? I remembered moving towards the new clubhouse and feeling less like I was going to make it. The big pine trees, separating holes number ten and eighteen, seemed nearer when I started out. I had to slow to a walk; it was as if the clubhouse and parking lot were getting farther away. At the pine trees, I had to sit down and rest. It seemed really important that I rest and then I toppled over.

“I saw the headlights along Flat Rock Road turning into the service road to the course. That would be the grounds people coming to work. They’d find me. It was still not quite daylight but they’d find me. What happened before I started for the clubhouse?”

His eyes grew mysteriously dark as he continued, “I remembered feeling what I thought was a big rock, then it moved and bam! My hand felt like it was hit with a sledgehammer and was held there with a force that was too strong for me to pull against.

“It was a numbing heaviness on my hand. It was like the time that heavy water cooler slipped and pinned my fingers to the floor a long time ago. It wasn’t as painful as it was numbing, at first anyway; that was what I felt in the water only a lot more. It was as if my hand was caught in a steel trap. I finally wrenched it free but I couldn’t feel it. It was that same numbness.

“I remember coming out of the water, slipping and sliding on the muddy bank, which is steep on that side of the water hazard. I made it to the top of the bank and sat there a moment. When I tried to rub my hand; I was horrified. It was gone!

“The horror turned to panic. I had to get to my car. I had to get some help. I started to run but slowed to a walk, losing all of that blood slowed me down, made me tired, convinced me that I had to sit down, to rest, and then I must’ve slumped over.

“What on earth was I doing in a water hazard at that hour of the night? Oh yeah, golf balls, damn them. They were right, when I got through this I’d never look for another one.

“But anyway, I was looking at the now lit up shed and saying, well, c’mon guys, let’s get with it and I saw an exhaust plume from one of the tractors. I was hoping he would start mowing with this fairway; otherwise I may lie there until someone teed off.

“Yes! He was coming my way. I thought out loud, ‘Hey! Wake up!’ And then he saw me. He stopped and cut off the tractor, stepped down, and ran over to me.

“He wasn’t saying anything but I could tell he was concerned, well so was I. His eyes were wide with amazement when he saw the mess where my hand was. He gently felt my neck for a pulse. It must’ve been faint because he walked all around me, looking, looking, and looking at me but he didn’t say anything. He shook his head back and forth and I could hear him whistling through his teeth.

“He got out his walkie-talkie and started talking; I heard him tell them to call 911 and then get out there as soon as they could. Then I must’ve passed out.

“That was supposed to be my last ball-hawking excursion, my last water hazard. Doing water holes was a logical extension of what had taken me to woody patches separating holes on golf courses, lost balls waiting to be found. But one can’t go into the water hazards in broad daylight without the permission of the course pro and he only gives that to the divers who pay him off. So, I said to myself, Why not go when the course is down for the night? And that’s what I did, more than once and at more than one golf course.

“I had literally tons of balls that I’d found. They filled sacks at first, in my car, and then our basement until that was full. They were from the fifty, or so, golf courses that I visited on a regular basis.

“It started about fifteen years ago when I got to a course to play and I didn’t have a single golf ball; I had to buy two sleeves to play. That cost me $16.50 plus tax, for six lousy golf balls. Not many golfers would object to those prices but it really stuck in my craw.

“The thought of how much money I’d paid for those golf balls bothered me all through that round. I found myself wandering over to the heavy rough along the sides of the holes with an eye out for balls that could be lost there. I found four balls during that round without affecting the others in the foursome. We even joked about it.

“That was the start of it. Soon I had a bucket full in the trunk of my car. I began counting them at the beginning and end of each season. After the first season, I had 76 balls in the bucket and was quite proud of that. At the end of the second season I had 196 and the bucket was full. That’s sort of the way it went for a while. One would think that’d be enough. Well, it wasn’t. I just kept looking, for years, and I lost track of how many there were, thousands.

“During July of the third season I went to the course as usual one day. Instead of getting my cart and bag out of the trunk, I simply took my seven-iron and kept out of sight of the clubhouse as I started through the woods. I wasn’t in there long before I filled all of my pockets with balls. I couldn’t carry any more so I went back to the car. I threw them into the bucket and got the rest of my clubs and pull-cart out and played eighteen and found a few more.

“The next time I went, a few days later, I took a rather large canvas bag from the basement. Once again I parked, took my seven-iron, because it seemed to bring me luck and gave me a semblance of being a golfer, and started out through the woods. I had to stop after an hour and a half. The bag was full of balls and almost too heavy to carry back to the car. I did this three more times during the month.

“The golf pro came up to me the next time I started through the parking lot with just my seven-iron and he stopped me. ‘I’ve been watching you,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to see you out here any more. Ball-hawks are not allowed on my course, the lost balls belong to the course. If I see you again, there’s going to be trouble.’ I knew his threat was not for bodily harm but he could make it uncomfortable for me. I’m not so sure that lost balls belong to the course, but I decided not to cause any more of a scene and went to different courses, Seneca was closed for me.

“After that I simply began showing up at a course with a canvas bag, and a seven-iron. I didn’t go to the same course very often. I was too smart for that and I didn’t even pretend any more because my entry onto the courses was usually not visible from the clubhouse. After a while I became quite good at locating caches of lost balls.

“The game of golf had been a passion for me and I played it, watched it on TV, subscribed to Golf Magazine, and even read books about the lore of the game. I had the best clothes, kept my shoes and clubs clean and presentable.

“My interest in playing waned and then disappeared because here was the Easter egg hunt I liked so much when I was a kid, the thrill of finding coins in the cushions. This was more rewarding than one or two measly strokes off of my handicap. It was instantaneous gratification. I was on a quest.

“I’d given myself over to ball hawking instead of golf and didn’t even miss the game. My clubs became dusty and if I had used my pull cart it would have squeaked from lack use. They sat neglected in a back corner of the garage.

“One day, I saw another guy in the woods. He also had an iron in his hand and a canvas bag looped over his shoulder. We nodded to each other and inwardly snarled. I didn’t like it, that someone else was in the trade. That was the only time I saw that particular fellow but I saw others from time to time. We didn’t socialize, nor speak. There was a certain silent antagonism as we went our separate ways. It was a lonely life, the life of the ball-hawk.

“I had thousands of balls, all in bags, in my basement and was running out of space. My wife, bless her heart, was patient but complained that they were taking up too much room in the house. I was retired by now and she complained that I was spending my retirement scavenging golf balls and ignoring the possibility of a part time job, or paying more attention to our investments. I thought the scavenging remark was rather harsh. I liked to refer to it as finding lost balls. And besides, I thought she’d get over it.

“Titlelist, Dunlop, Top Flight, Pinnacle, Nike, and Maxfli were clearly the most popular brands lost. I suppose the better golfers, who use more expensive balls, either don’t lose them or they look for them. The majority was white but there were chartreuse, yellow and orange, plus a few pinks. There were lots of logo balls, probably free balls for charity events that were readily abandoned.

“I was amassing a lot of golf balls. I looked on Ebay to sell some of them, they were going for about fifty cents and this was music to my ears. This means I had thousands of dollars worth of balls on hand. Well, there was a glitch that I didn’t realize at first. There is a big difference between listing on Ebay and selling on Ebay. I sold some but not many. Then another strange thing began to happen. Gradually I began not to care about selling them. I liked them. I wanted to keep them. I liked their dimples, they were lovely.

“I rented self-storage space to clean out the basement. It took a while but they were all out of there and my wife was happy, about that much anyway. My continued quest for golf balls soon filled that one and I had to rent another. Then after a few years, I had three of them. The manager at the U-Rent-It self-storage was nice enough. He seemed to appreciate my business although we never spoke. I think he appreciated the fact that I paid my rent annually and there weren’t any trucks going in and out.

“Since I was retired, I wasn’t concerned with what people thought. In the last few years of my working life I avoided golf conversations because I wasn’t enthused about the game any more and no one wanted to talk about ball hawking. It has a dirty connotation in some people’s opinion.

“They see it as scrounging around for something but I saw it as a challenge. It is a noble pursuit and I was good at it; I had tons of golf balls to prove it. A low handicapper can blow up at any time and he would have mediocrity at best.

“A few years ago, the breakthrough came. I was hawking the woods along number sixteen, near that water hazard on number seventeen at Long Run Golf Course. I heard a lot of cursing coming from the seventeenth tee. This guy had blasted three balls into the water. He gave up, walked around, and dropped one on the other side. That got me to wondering, just how many balls were in that little pond? I didn’t hang around but the thought was there, the seed planted, the idea born, water hazards are golden.

“My first incursion was on the fourth hole at Midland Trail Golf Course. I waited until late one night in the middle of September when I had a full moon. No one was there after dark.

“The place was eerily quiet and the glow of the moon increased the ghostliness of the scene. I almost expected a headless golfer to come charging down the fairway. But I wasn’t into poetry there; I was into getting balls. I went down the embankment to the course below and cut across to the little lake in front of the number four tee.

“I had cobbled together a homemade cart that I thought I could easily pull up the steep hill when it was full of balls. It had those small diameter pneumatic tires, and a bin on top for golf balls. I had an inner tube with a net bag in the middle to use as a float.

“I put on a swimsuit and used the little pier at the pump house to go into the water so there wouldn’t be any tell-tale footprints. My clam rake was perfect for feeling around in the mud. One, and another, they kept coming up until the bin on my cart was full. I had finished with the water work for the night and it didn’t take that long.

“The cart was a lot heavier than I thought but I made it up the steep hill, put the balls in the trunk, broke down the cart and put it in the back seat. There was scant evidence that anyone had been there.

“I was home before four o’clock but she was waiting up for me, standing there with her hands on her hips. I tried to explain why, and what, and where; she simply got exasperated, threw her hands down, turned on her heel, and walked away.

“The adventure was more exhilarating than I’d bargained for. The adrenaline was coursing through me all the while I was out there; from the time I drove into the lot until I got back home again. I felt excitement, danger, and fear. It was such a rush that when I finally got back to the car, I vowed never to do it again.

“A month later, I found myself in the water hazard at Cherokee Park. Once again I was scared out of my wits about it and vowed never to do it again. A month later I was in the water between seven and sixteen at Midland Trail. And so it went for years, different courses, different water hazards, lots of balls, and no more fear. Each time I went; I would analyze how it all went and make improvements. The idea is to maximize the take and get out of there before the twilight of dawn.

“My wife was getting more and more upset with my behavior. She finally put her foot down when I arrived home early one morning and told me, as she sobbed, that she knew what I was doing but didn’t understand why. Just how many golf balls does a man need? I saw this as a selfish act on her part, why should she care if I collected golf balls? After all, I wasn’t hurting anyone and she was probably the only person who knew what I was doing.

“Then I came home one day and found my two boys sitting in the living room with her. It was an intervention. I couldn’t believe it. In the end I couldn’t counter their stubborn arguments. It was three against one and highly unfair. I finally said I would give up my ‘hobby’ as they called it; just that last sweep and I was through. It was in my heart a conditional concession and I might be able to figure out a way to continue. After all, I wasn’t doing physical harm to myself.

“Number seventeen at Long Run that night was to be my last and it was the preferred place because of accessibility, and there were rumors of a big snapping turtle in the larger hazard on the sixth hole.

“That night I pulled the cart to the top of the bank, got ready and went in. The netted inner tube was floating nearby, it reminded me of a faithful dog, and my clam rake was digging out balls almost immediately. In the water, I could see my white hands, one working the rake and the other retrieving the balls. They were illuminated by the light of the moon and almost glowed against the darkness of the water. That is when it happened, that’s when I felt what I thought was a big rock. I did not know that they migrate.

“There were a lot of cars in the parking lot now, a sea of flashing red and blue lights. An emergency vehicle, with lights flashing, came quickly along the cart path and across the fairway towards me. The grounds keeper was waving the EMTs over. I was barely conscious and there was enough daylight. They had what looked like large orange tackle boxes, full of medical tools and supplies.

“One of them found a faint pulse on my neck using his stethoscope. He seemed relieved. He looked at where my hand should be and tied the stump off with a piece of fishing line. The two of them continued talking while they hurriedly worked on me; one tossed his head in the direction of the vehicle and the other got up and ran back to the truck. There was extreme urgency now.

“He rolled the stretcher cart from the vehicle, bumping over the uneven fairway. They hefted me onto the cart, covered me, raised the frame and bumped it back to the truck. There was a police officer too. The groundskeeper told him what he thought happened. He told him something, pointed to the water hazard and spread his hands widely apart, probably telling them about the turtle.

“They got me to the hospital in time. They closed off my wrist and they had to give me several transfusions. The recuperation was slow but finally I got through it.

“Believe it or not, my wife stayed with me through it all and I don’t have to tell you that I lost any desire to even see another golf ball. The people I used to work with don’t know the story, they don’t even know where I am, or what I’m doing and that’s just fine with me.” He stopped and turned towards me and gave me a dry smile.

I said, “Thanks for the story, Dick; I’m glad everything finally worked out for you. See you later; I’ve got to get going.” And I got out of there, feeling a little shaky.

It’s always going to be one beer and the bus for me. I’m going to keep it that way; things can get out of control too fast. Here’s my stop and I’m much calmer now. I hope Carola isn’t waiting dinner for me; I didn’t expect to be this late. “Hi hon, am I too late?”

End

Bright Star the Musical

 

Six weeks of rehearsal and eight performances of the stage musical, Bright Star, have given me some insights into the nuances of the script.  It turns out to be an indictment of the masculine; every male character is flawed, one is forgiven, one damned, and one redeemed.

The major male characters are, in no special order, Jimmy Ray, Billy Cane, the Mayor, Poppa Murphy, Daddy Cane, Sanford, and Dr. Norquist.  Each of them exemplifies untruthful, unethical, immoral, or  illegal characteristics.

Jimmy Ray's line: "Ten more minutes in my arms, won't do any harm," sets the stage for all the harm that befalls the involved families.  His immoral act, albeit with the full cooperation of Alice, leads to the birth of a bastard child.  To his credit he never denies his fatherhood but fully embraces the prospect.  He eventually marries Alice, twenty-odd years after the fact.

Billy Cane, who on the surface is a nice young man, lies his way into the publishing company.  He is otherwise a good person.

The Mayor, Jimmy Ray's father, is morally bankrupt.  He pushes his son towards a marriage of convenience that will further the family business.  When Jimmy Ray reveals his complicity in the pregnancy of Alice, the Mayor abducts the child with the promise of a fully legal and anonymous adoption but throws him from a train in an attempt to kill him and remove the inconvenience.

Poppa Murphy fully regrets not employing corporal punishment to get his daughter,  Alice, to behave properly, "Should've raised you with the back of my hand!" Shows contempt for her by saying she's brought shame upon the family.  He signs over custody of the baby to the Mayor in order to remove the baby from the scene.  The script doesn't say it but it is implied that he was paid off by the Mayor to affix his signature to the release document.  He later atones to Alice for his actions.

Daddy Cane, upon finding the bruised and abandoned baby, with his wife secretly raise him as their own.  They allow the neighbors to think that his wife had a later-in-life pregnancy.  Young Billy goes through life, until in his twenties, thinking that he and Momma Cane are his parents; until Alice stumbles upon the truth.

Sanford, the mayor's toady, is ready to do anything to aid and abet the mayor in his nefarious plots.  He assists in the abduction of the infant.

Dr. Norquist, local physician, suggests abortion to "undo" the pregnancy.  A suggestion that is rejected by Alice and Poppa Murphy.  Then he offers a cabin in the woods, far removed from the vicinity, where Alice can hide until the baby is born.

Alice, Momma Murphy, Margo, and Lucy, the major women in the script, are handled with care and affection.  Alice, headstrong and intelligent, is victimized by the Mayor.  Momma Murphy is brushed aside in her attempt to save the infant.  Margo's chaste love of Billy is finally rewarded.  Lucy, on the other hand, is left out of the picture after an unsuccessful, albeit chaste, run at the hero, Billy.

Of the men: Jimmy Ray got redemption, Billy Cane went on as the basically good person he is, the Mayor got the death sentence, Poppa Murphy got forgiveness, Daddy Cane got understanding, Sanford got oblivion, and Dr. Norquist continued to tend to the good people of Hayes County. 

A dark plot is camouflaged, for the most part, by bright and cheerful music.  But has a fairy tale ending where everyone lives happily ever after and the "Sun Is Gonna Shine Again." 

You Have a Clue (Haiku)

 

Clues are all around

Dreams allow recognition

Work fulfills the dreams

Life is a journey

The dream a destination

Without which you're lost

You'll arrive somewhere

You may not want to be there

Or may be lucky

Resemblance (Haiku)

   

Our eyes are set so

We can not see our faces

That betray feelings

Content Missing (Haiku)

 

Spare me the details

Language of the demented

Generalities