James Ross - A Young Adult Trilogy (Prairie Winds Golf Course)

by James Ross

“Why did you do that?” Justin asked.

  Curt was starting to breathe extremely heavy. “That piece of grass signified that I had reached my goal,” he explained. “Now you boys run as long as you’d like, but make your own goal. I have to stop for a minute and rest.” He pulled up to a stop and bent over to catch his breath. Justin and Keith continued to jog.

  Curt couldn’t believe how out of shape he had gotten. He used to be able to easily run anywhere from five to eight miles every morning. This was the most peaceful time of the day and he could comfortably come down to this part of the golf course and get a nice uninterrupted workout in. Now he could barely run one hundred yards without having to stop. He peered off in the distance and watched as the two boys grew smaller and smaller. At least they can still get it done, he thought with a smile.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Curt pulled the John Deere into the cart barn after the boys had finished their laps around the lake. “Isn’t that a great way to start the day?” he gushed.

  “I don’t know,” Keith answered. “I think eating breakfast would be a better thing to do.”

  “That was fun,” Justin said. “I wish that you could have run with us.”

  “Me too,” Curt replied. “I’ve just gotten really out of shape the last few weeks,” he added as they returned to the clubhouse. “Now if you boys want to take a shower, I can get you set up in the locker room downstairs.”

  “That sounds good to me,” Keith said. “I’ll go first then come upstairs for breakfast.”

  “You guys grab your duffel bags and I’ll set you up with a couple of lockers,” Curt said after entering through the front door. He motioned for them to follow him down the steps to the men’s room. The area was about the size of a large walk-in closet. Six lockers stood against the wall with a single, elongated bench opposite. A single shower had a curtain that provided a small amount of privacy. “When you get done come on upstairs and I’ll introduce you to some of the guys. They’ll be straggling in by then. And make sure you make an effort to remember their names.”

  “We won’t take too long, Curt,” Justin assured him. “We both want to get something to eat.”

  “Take as long as you need. We’re not leaving here today,” Curt yelled over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs back to the pro shop. He stopped at the top of the climb to catch his breath only to be noticed by J Dub. His breathing was heavy and he felt totally out of gas.

  “Are you alright, Curt?” J Dub asked. He saw his brother grab the rail and then hurry to a chair.

  “I’ll be okay. For some reason I’ve gotten really out of shape. I guess I’m just getting old,” Curt said as he sucked as much air into his chest cavity as he could. “If I would have known you can get out of shape this easily I wouldn’t have taken a two-month break from the workouts. All I did this spring was eat.”

  “Get to the doctor or get on a diet,” J Dub sighed. “This is so unlike you. You’re normally the one with the most energy in the room.”

  “I’m getting just like all the other old-timers that hang out in here. Time waits for no one,” Curt rationalized as his breathing returned to normal.

  “What projects do you have going on today?” J Dub quizzed his brother.

  “Justin and his friend, Keith, showed up at dawn. We’re going to let them do some of the odd jobs and then I’ll get them out on the course,” Curt replied. “They got themselves in a little trouble and Tina wants me to straighten them out. So I put them on the payroll and invited them to hang out with me all summer until school starts.”

  “Are you going to be able to keep up with them in the condition that you’re in?” J Dub asked his brother.

  “Well I wasn’t planning on cutting back my hours around this place,” Curt said. “I’ll be fine. Heck, they’ll be doing all of the work. I’ll be supervising.”

  The door opened and Fred walked in with his customary box of doughnuts. “Good morning all,” he blared across the room at no one in particular and everyone in general. He placed the doughnuts on the counter and continued to his seat at one of the booths in the back of the room. He had spent so much time in the same spot that most of the guys could have sworn that the seat was manufactured especially for him. The springs had worn out under his daily weight, and the padding had begun to mold itself around Fred’s body. “What did you think of that storm that we had through here the other night?” Fred started off the conversation.

  “We didn’t get too much of it,” J Dub answered. He was setting up the register as Curt was working the morning crossword puzzle on the customer side of the counter. “I think we got only about two-tenths of an inch or something like that.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t enough to give the sprinklers a rest for the day,” Curt added.

  Fred was going through the index cards trying to get a feel for which guys would be showing up to play. Certain guys had their regular days and other guys would pop in whenever they didn’t have anything else to do. He took a massive bite out of a cream-filled doughnut and watched a good portion of the cream ooze out the back end and drip on the table. Instinctively, he reached down, scooped up the cream, and licked his oversized finger clean.

  “Some things never change, do they Fred?” Curt fired some good-natured ribbing at his golfing buddy.

  “As many of these things that I eat, you’d think I’d learn that the filling squirts out of the hole,” Fred grinned.

  Of all the guys that played golf at Prairie Winds, Fred was the one that had a job that enabled him to play golf almost every day of the week. He was the night maintenance supervisor at the local GM plant. He had accumulated enough seniority over the years that the management gurus left him alone. After clocking in at eleven o’clock at night he would make his rounds, troubleshoot the hot spots, and then head for his office.

  If things weren’t working well by one or one-thirty in the morning, Fred was known to get a little irritable. That was when he wanted to close the door to his office and climb into his easy chair. He had managed to manipulate the management guys through the union rules and regulations to smuggle an easy chair into his office. Once that chair was in recliner position, Fred was known to catch a few winks while on the clock. After punching out at seven in the morning he would normally take a straight path to Prairie Winds. He was as much of a fixture around the place as the oak trees and zoysia grass.

  Justin and Keith finished their showers and started to make their way up the stairs. The morning run had roused their appetites and they were ready to eat. “What do you have for us to eat?” Justin asked Curt as he got to the top of the stairs.

  “I want both of you to meet Fred first of all,” Curt offered. “He’s the one that brought breakfast in for the two of you.”

  Justin and Keith peered at the massive man that was poured into the back booth. He had a flat top that was closely cropped to take notice away from his thinning red hair. His pug nose blended in with multiple layers of jowls. Two crystal blue eyes dotted his face and displayed his gentle disposition. “What brings you fellas in here this morning?”

  The boys looked at Fred with a fair amount of trepidation. It was easy for them to be skeptical of the enormous figure. “Go over and introduce yourselves,” Curt urged. “He won’t bite.”

  Keith made the first move. He was anxious to try out the handshake that Curt had taught him earlier in the morning. He extended his hand which was promptly gobbled up by Fred’s colossal paw. Justin quickly followed suit. “Nice to meet you and thanks for the doughnuts,” he said.

  “Do you young boys have names?” Fred inquired.

  “I’m Justin and my friend is Keith,” came the meek reply.

  “Glad to meet you two,” Fred continued. “What brings you to Prairie Winds?”

  “Curt was nice enough to give us jobs for the summer,” Justin explained.

  “There could be worse things that you could be doing this summer,” Fred continued.

  “Yeah, we already found that out,”
Keith said in subtle reference to the trouble they had gotten into soon after school let out.

  “Can I have one of your doughnuts?” Justin asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “You boys help yourself. That’s what they are there for,” Fred encouraged. Both boys turned and hurried to the counter. Fred wanted to continue discussing the topic at hand knowing full well what kind of trouble that the boys had gotten in. “So what did you do that could be worse than here?”

  Curt gave Fred a wink and grinned out of the side of his mouth. “After we got done cutting grass one day we cut across a neighbor’s lawn,” Justin started.

  “And he got mad at us,” Keith continued.

  “So that made Keith mad,” Justin added.

  “And we sprayed paint balls all over the back of his house after it got dark,” Keith admitted.

  “Then the police came and we had to spend a night in jail,” Justin explained further.

  “And Tina came to the rescue and got us jobs here,” Keith stated.

  Fred was staring intently at the boys as they told their story. Curt had tipped him off earlier as to what had happened so Fred thought that it would be a good time to dish out a little ribbing. “So that was what happened.” He turned to Curt and winked. “Well the way I figure,” he began, “is that both of you guys owe Curt and me a quarter.”

  “Why is that?” Justin asked in between bites of the doughnut.

  “Because,” Fred answered. “I take it that Tina is your mom?” Justin nodded. “When she called the other day the phone rang right in my backswing and I missed a putt. It’s your fault that the phone rang and I missed that putt. It cost Curt and me a quarter each.”

  “I don’t know why spraying paint balls on the back of a house caused you to miss a putt,” Keith argued.

  “Yeah,” Justin added.

  Fred roared with laughter. He enjoyed teasing the boys. “You two didn’t cause me to miss the putt,” Fred said with a laugh.

  “His rabbit ears made him miss it,” Curt interrupted.

  “ . . . Rabbit ears?” Justin looked confused.

  “His ears don’t look like a rabbit,” Keith said as he stared at Fred’s ears.

  “No, that’s an expression that we use on the golf course. Lots of times when a guy messes up a shot he’ll blame it on a noise that he heard in his backswing,” Curt explained.

  “Yeah, we all make mistakes,” Fred added. “You boys learn from yours. For example, look at me. I’m what they call a fat boy. If there’s anything that you learn this summer, then learn not to eat like me.” Justin and Keith put their doughnuts down. There was no way they wanted to end up looking like Fred. “I didn’t mean for you to stop eating your breakfast right now.” He chuckled.

  “One or two doughnuts won’t hurt you this morning,” Curt interrupted. “You put in a few miles around the lake. I’m proud of you for that.”

  “That’s true,” Fred continued. “Just watch the foods that you eat and cut down on your portions. Look at this.” He tried to lean over to touch his feet but barely got past his knees. “I’m so fat I can’t tie my shoes.” He changed his jovial mood to preach a serious message. “Watch what you eat and don’t get fat like me. I’m a heart attack waiting to happen. We all make mistakes. Don’t make the same one that I’ve made.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The fun side of being on a golf course and hanging out with the guys was about to change for Justin and Keith. Curt needed to have some clean-up work done in one of the creeks that traversed the property. “When you two get done with those doughnuts, we’ll go down to the maintenance shed and give you some work to do,” Curt said.

  Keith balked. “But we just took a shower.”

  “That was only to get the sweat off you from the run,” Curt replied. “You’ve had your break this morning. Now we’re going to put some hard work in until lunch.”

  Justin wrinkled his nose and gave Curt a dirty look. “You’re starting to sound like my mom. She wouldn’t let us talk our way out of anything either.”

  “It’s not going to be all fun and games down here for you two,” Curt advised. “We’ll mix it up some so you don’t feel like you’re in prison.”

  “I had a night of that,” Justin admitted. “That was one too many.”

  “Heck that might as well have been a country club. You were only in a municipal jail cell,” Curt reminded him.

  “You’ve never been in one, have you?” Keith asked.

  “No I haven’t,” Curt said, “and I hope that I never will.”

  “It’s no country club,” Justin muttered.

  “And neither is this,” Curt agreed. “Come on. Let’s go down to the maintenance shed.” He led them out the door and into the cart barn to board the utility vehicle.

  “Let me ride in the front seat,” Keith said as he pushed Justin out of the way.

  “I thought you said that the best ride on this thing was in the back,” Justin argued. He was starting to think that Keith only said things so that he could hear himself talk.

  “Maybe I spoke too soon,” Keith admitted. “Let me ride up front then I’ll cast my vote.”

  “That’s fair,” Curt conceded. “You ride in the back this time Justin. Make sure that you hang on so you don’t get bounced out.” Justin climbed into the bed of the truck and held onto the back of the seat.

  Curt sped down a cart path and then took a diagonal path across one of the fairways. He made sure that he didn’t disturb any golfers that were starting to play on the course. Riding around in the utility truck was similar to being on an all-terrain vehicle. The boys enjoyed the ride since it provided a bounce in the air once in a while.

  The maintenance shed was nothing more than a worn out metal building. It, like the clubhouse, had seen better days. It was jam-packed full of tools. There were wrenches and saws; pliers and sockets; drills and blades; tires and hoses; buckets and trash cans. Two old tractors were parked inside the shed. Gang mowers were on the ground outside the building. A work bench with a bright fluorescent light hovering overhead was against one wall.

  “Hey look over there!” Justin yelled. A calico cat jumped from one of the tractor seats to the ground and sprinted to a corner of the shed. Three kittens that couldn’t have been more than four or five weeks old playfully rolled on the gravel. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” Justin called as he approached the newborns. Two of them scattered and bolted off in different directions. The grey one with white paws approached Justin immediately. It rubbed its body up against Justin’s leg and licked his hand when he went to pet it.

  “Looks like you found a friend there,” Curt suggested.

  “Listen to it purring. Can I take it home?”

  “It’s probably better if they all stay here,” Curt responded.

  “Why?” Justin asked. “I bet my mom would love to have a pet like this around the house.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Curt countered. “They’re fun when they’re kittens, but they like to roam the night when they’re cats. Besides, we need to have a few of them around to catch the mice.”

  “ . . . Mice!” Keith shouted. “ . . . Where?”

  “There goes one right there,” Curt pointed to a spot by the wall. Two cats darted and weaved through the equipment to try to catch it. “You better look out before one of them tries to run up your pants leg,” Curt teased.

  “Don’t play with me like that,” Keith said, his machismo taking a step back.

  Curt chuckled. Justin squatted, picked the grey kitten up, and held it in his lap. The more that he petted it behind its ears, the more it purred its appreciation. “We need to give this one a name,” Justin proposed.

  “What do you think would be appropriate?” Curt said.

  “How about Paintball?” Keith suggested. “That’s what got us here to begin with.”

  “Nah, he doesn’t look like a Paintball to me,” Justin disputed.

  “We’re on a golf course you know.” Curt nudged.<
br />
  “Then how does Birdie sound?” Justin thought out loud.

  “That is kind of like an oxymoron,” said Curt.

  “An oxy, what?” Justin asked, revealing his limited vocabulary.

  “Think about it,” Curt started, “naming a cat Birdie is kind of funny. That’s what they chase.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” Justin admitted.

  “Then how about ‘Bogey’?” Keith recommended. “They have those on the golf course too, don’t they?”

  “I don’t think that name would fly too well around here,” Curt went on. “We used to have a golf course dog named Bogey and it was J Dub’s best buddy. In fact before the day is out maybe I’ll show you guys where Bogey is buried.”

  “What kind of name can we come up with then?” Justin asked as he continued to pet the kitten behind the ears. Its motor was purring so loud that even Curt and Keith could hear it.

  “We don’t have to worry about a name for it right now,” Curt advised. “Names seem to come at the funniest times.”

  “Aaahhh!” Justin shrieked and dropped the kitten down to the ground.

  “What did you do that for?” Curt asked.

  “It peed on me.”

  “You must have gotten it to relax,” Curt said laughing.

  “Look at this puddle in my lap,” Justin said with disgust.

  “There it is,” Curt mentioned.

  “What?” Justin asked as he looked around for some relief from his dilemma.

  “The name for your kitten,” Curt suggested. Justin looked confused. He didn’t know what Curt was referring to. “You just said it a second ago.”

  Justin was bewildered. “What did I say?”

  “You said it made a puddle in your lap,” Curt replied. “There’s your name . . . . Puddles.”

  “I like that!” Keith exclaimed.

  “Yeah, that’s a good one,” Justin admitted, “all because the little thing peed on me.” He looked down at the mess in his lap. “Where’s a towel or a rag or something to wipe this stuff up?”

  Keith was laughing hysterically. He went to the work bench and grabbed an old rag. After throwing the rag at Justin he remarked, “Maybe it was marking its territory.”