Chris McCormick - Desert Boys

If Karinger had shaved and worn a long blond wig, he’d have looked just like Linda. She even wore baggy T-shirts, too. After working at the shelter all day, she’d come home to Karinger, his younger sister, Roxanne, me, and the three cats living in the trailer. I couldn’t tell if the shaggy brown carpet smelled like the cats or if the cats smelled like the shaggy brown carpet. Either way, Linda had that smell, too.

One time, Karinger and I cleared a patch of that spotted carpet and sorted our golf balls. We put newer balls in one pile and scratched or warped ones in another.

That’s when Karinger told me we should sell the good ones.

Linda was standing in the room, rocking a big brown cat named Potato in her arms. “Why don’t you tell Daley your real plan,” she said. She had a smile on her face like a kidder.

“That is my plan,” Karinger said. “We can sell them and spend the profits on better clubs. Then we’ll get really good at golf and be rich.”

His eleven-year-old sister — who, like my own sister, and therefore like all sisters, as far as I knew, had an amazing ability to disappear and reappear without my noticing — suddenly stood beside her mother. Roxanne Karinger said, “That’s not a bad idea, but me and Mom like your other idea better.”

Karinger slapped his hands together and nearly shouted: “Good-bye, ladies.”

Potato leaped from Linda’s arms and into our golf balls. She batted them between her paws and messed up the neat piles.

Karinger hissed at the cat. “Get out of here,” he said.

Roxanne stepped over and scooped Potato up from underneath. She flattened the cat’s face with her open palm and made funny noises. “You’re mashed, Potato,” she said. She giggled and squeezed the cat tight. I laughed, too.

Karinger rolled his eyes. He made a gun with his finger and thumb and pulled the trigger at the side of his head. “Boom,” he said, and flopped dead on the floor.

* * *

A few times a year, Linda brought kittens home from the shelter in groups of six or seven. They’d stay at the house until they no longer needed to be bottle-fed. Sometimes the batches overlapped. Sometimes there’d be thirteen or fourteen kittens living in the yellow bathtub. Once in a while, one of the kittens would die. When this happened, Linda wouldn’t bury the kitten nearby, even though Karinger asked her to let us bury it in the desert out back. “I can make a cross out of some twigs and we can say something nice,” he’d say, but his mom wouldn’t budge. She’d get rid of the dead kitten some other mysterious way.

She told us not to name the kittens. No use in getting attached, she’d say. Karinger did anyway and named them based on their colors. Black kittens were called Midnight or Oiler. He called orange ones Tangerine or Carrot. One time, Linda brought home a black and orange kitten and I suggested we call him Halloween, but Karinger said no. “That’s too easy,” he said. I wanted to point out that calling a white cat Snow White wasn’t exactly difficult, but I just shrugged. After a little while, Karinger said we could call the kitten Halloween, just until he thought of something better. He never did, and Halloween, like the rest of the kittens who survived, eventually went back to the shelter with Linda.

* * *

We carried our golf balls and clubs to the new course across town. We walked for an hour before we came to the place, a lush green oasis with a big parking lot full of cars. A large boulder sat at the gate between the parking lot and the driving range. The words KNICKERBOCKER GOLF CLUB were engraved on it and painted red. When we walked past the boulder, Karinger slapped it with his hand and said, “They use these fake rocks to cover up electric boxes and things like that.”

The boulder looked real to me, but I didn’t argue.

Toward the end of the packed driving range, we found two empty slots. When we set down our bags and clubs, Karinger knelt down and brushed his hand against the grass. “Not Astroturf,” he said.

Real golfers, he said, have to stretch before they start hitting. He put his 3-wood behind his neck and across his shoulders and hung his arms over the club’s shaft. He twisted his body left and right for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. I cracked my knuckles and rolled my ankles. Karinger said, “We need tees.”

In the grass we collected broken tees. They were wooden and colorful and left behind by real golfers. Some of them still had enough length to stick into the ground. A few of them had tops that were still intact enough to balance a golf ball. Once we found enough, we emptied our plastic bags onto the grass. Karinger had about fifty old balls and I had maybe half that. I got through mine with one swing per ball. My shots rarely got off the ground, but some of them rolled pretty far, spitting up dust like a car in the distance. I turned to see how Karinger was doing. I expected him to have a few more left to hit, but he hadn’t even made a dent.

“I’m taking practice swings,” he said. “Don’t get mad at me because you rushed through yours.”

He teed up and took a few more slow practice swings. He stepped up to the ball and placed his club behind it. He looked out into the targetless field for a long while. Then he brought the club back and around. He lost his footing on the way down and barely made contact. The ball dribbled a measly fifteen feet into the grass.

“Redo,” Karinger said. He jogged out into the field to re-collect his miss-hit. Just as I was about to tell him he needed to hurry up, a man a few slots away in a Crocodile Dundee straw hat yelled out, “Kid, get back behind the line!” I hated being scolded, and even though Karinger was the one getting yelled at, the fact that I was with him made me nervous.

“Sorry,” I said to Crocodile Dundee.

When Karinger got back, the man came over with a huge metal driver in his hands. “You guys have got to be careful,” the man said. “I’m not a good enough shot to guarantee I won’t shank it in your direction next time.”

“Sorry,” I repeated. Karinger didn’t say anything. The man tipped his hat and went back to his slot.

“Can you believe that?” Karinger asked. “Old farts like that give golf a bad name.”

“I thought he was pretty nice about it,” I said. “You really shouldn’t have gone out there. It’s dangerous.” I pointed to a sign that said so.

Karinger was quiet.

“You need help finishing your pile?” I asked. I hoped he would say yes so we could get on our way.

“No,” he said, “I’ll be quick.” He went over to his slot and without much of a wait started hacking at the pile of golf balls. Some of them shot out at strange angles, but most of them hardly moved. He was chopping at them with his club. The 3-wood ripped hunks of grass out of the ground, leaving wet, muddy holes. Chunks of turf and mud splattered all over Karinger’s pants and T-shirt. Crocodile Dundee and a few other men ran over, yelling. Karinger, holding his weapon, grabbed my wrist with his free hand and we fled.

“Sorry!” I yelled out as we ran. On the way home — through the desert, to avoid roads — Karinger didn’t say a word.

* * *

When we got back to the trailer, Linda told us she had a surprise in the bathtub. We went into the bathroom and opened the sliding door of the shower. A yellow kitten, alone, roamed. It had huge eyes, one blue and one green. Roxanne, toying with her single blond braid, appeared behind us and said, “Her name’s Kallie. Isn’t she cute?”

Karinger said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to name them.”

“Well, this one’s not going back to the shelter,” she said. “Mom says there’s something special about her.”