Fairway Phenom Read online

  His mom returned from work shortly after five. “Mama,” Malik said after she’d kissed him hello, “the ceiling lamp broke.”

  “It did?” she asked, concerned but not angry. “How did that happen?”

  “I don’t know, Mama. I was just sitting there watching TV, and it went kapow!, and there was glass all over the place, and Keisha cut herself—”

  “Keisha what?!” His mom was off and running now, headed for Keisha’s bedroom. “My baby! Are you all right? What happened?”

  “Malik broke the light!” Keisha said, ignoring the threatening gestures Malik was making at her from behind their mother’s back. “And he was mean to me!”

  “Oh, he was, was he?”

  “No, Mama!” Malik protested. “She was so tired she doesn’t remember. I told her not to come in the living room, but she didn’t listen, and —”

  “Never mind,” his mom said, cutting him off. “You were baby-sitting, and your sister’s well-being was your responsibility.”

  “You gonna punish me, Ma?” Malik asked, the corners of his mouth curling down and tears filling his eyes.

  His mother sighed. “I want you to tell me the truth, Malik,” she said, sitting him down beside her on Keisha’s bed. “The whole story.”

  “Okay, Mama,” Malik said. He looked up at her with as much sincerity as he could muster. “See, a big bird flew in the window…”

  In the end, she only grounded Malik for the rest of the evening. “School’s starting tomorrow,” she said, “and I’m going to let you start off with a clean slate. But you stay in your room after supper, you hear? Don’t you go out in the street to play with the other kids.”

  Alone in his room, Malik took out the clubs again and examined them more closely. Three of them had those big, wooden heads. They had numbers on the bottom — 1,3, and 4. Six clubs had flat metal heads and were shorter in length. They were marked 3, 5, 7, 9, PW, and SW. Malik wondered what the initials stood for. Also in the bag was a putter — like they gave you at the miniature-golf course. This one, Malik knew how to use.

  Inside the zippered pocket of the old bag were four yellowed, scarred golf balls. Also some wooden toothpick-like thingies, whose purpose Malik couldn’t figure out, and a couple of little round disks — purpose also unknown.

  Malik took out the balls and lined them up on the floor. He got his plastic cup from the bathroom and put it on the floor, so that the open top faced him. Then he started practicing putting the balls over the worn carpet, to see how many in a row he could make.

  This entertained him for about half an hour, but then it got boring. Malik started thinking back to his first swing of the wooden-headed club, the one that had smashed the light. He wondered if it would have been a good shot — if that crumpled-up piece of paper would have flown into the next room. He tried to imagine how far one of these golf balls would go if he really hit it with all his might. He thought of the young golfer he’d watched on TV — number one in the world. Malik remembered how far he’d hit it; how all the people oooed and aaahed and yelled, marveling at how far the ball went.

  Suddenly, Malik felt compelled by some strange, invisible force — he had to try it. Right now. Had to. He took the wooden club with the number five on its head. He took the two oldest, most cut-up balls he could find, since he fully expected to hit them so far that he’d never find them again. And then he tiptoed across the open doorway of the living room and out the front door of the apartment.

  He’d be back in five minutes. His mom would never even know he’d been gone. Nothing to it.

  He hit the street and looked both ways to make sure none of his friends were out there. That was the last thing he needed, for them to spot him with a golf club in his hand. He took off down the street, looking for a safe place to hit the ball. He found it after a couple of blocks — an alley with brick walls on either side. Across the street was a blank brick wall. He could hit it down the alley, across the street, and off the wall, with no harm done.

  Malik placed a ball on a little patch of dirt and weeds where the concrete of the alley had broken. He didn’t want to break this club — the wooden number one club was already busted. He stepped up to the golf ball and swung as hard as he could.

  Whoosh! Malik looked up to see where the ball had gone but couldn’t spot it. Then he looked down. There it was, still sitting there! The crack in the ball was smiling up at him, as if to say, “You fool! You missed me completely!”

  Malik swung again, even harder. Same result. “Okay,” he told himself. “I’m gonna swing easy this time and make sure I really hit it.”

  And that’s just what he did. Thwack! He heard that perfect sound, the sweet click of club on ball, and saw the ball shoot down the alley — and smack right into the fender of a truck that happened to pass by just at that moment!

  The truck screeched to a halt, and the driver’s-side door flew open. “Hey, you!” Malik heard a man’s voice bark angrily. “What did you throw at my truck?”

  Malik took off like a shot, hopping the fence at the alley’s back end and cutting through backyards till he came out on the next block. He kept running until he was sure the truck driver wasn’t following him. Then he stopped to catch his breath.

  There was a park across the street, almost empty at this hour. Malik strolled over there. He casually dropped the second ball down, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being observed. He swung, aiming in a clear direction, where there was nothing but a row of trees to hit. No trouble to get into. None at all.

  Except his shot hit one of the trees, and the ball ricocheted toward the sidewalk. It narrowly missed a mother walking her baby down the street in a stroller. “Hey!” the furious woman shouted. “You trying to kill somebody? Help! Police!”

  Malik was already semi-out of breath from his first narrow escape. Still, he had to flee again at top speed, lest he get himself arrested. He arrived back home totally winded, but he still had to hold his breath as he tiptoed down the hall to his bedroom. He didn’t dare make a sound until the cursed club was back with its brothers, safely hidden away.

  Man! That Shut-Up Man definitely put the whammy on me! Malik thought. He lay in bed, recovering his breath and wondering where in the world he could safely play golf.

  There had to be someplace — but where?

  3

  Wednesday was the first day of school. There was the usual air of excitement as Malik neared the building. All the kids looked just a little nervous — wondering who would be in their classes, who their teachers would be, and whether they’d be nice.

  Kids who hadn’t seen each other all summer were sizing each other up. Who got a hot new look over the summer? Who got braces? Who got zits? The first day of school could be a really tough day in Sunset Park. If you’d gained a lot of weight, for instance, the kids could be pretty cruel with their comments.

  Malik didn’t do too badly, considering his voice had started changing. It squeaked once in social studies, and the whole class cracked up on him. But that was the only bad part of the day. His teachers were pretty cool, except for gym. He had friends in his English and science classes. And Mr. Ridley — his teacher for math, which he had last period — was mad cool.

  Mr. Ridley had been a minor league baseball pitcher. This Malik already knew from Luis and others, who’d had older brothers or sisters in Ridley’s classes. Rumor had it that he threw chalk at kids when they weren’t paying attention, but always just missed them, on purpose.

  Malik didn’t really believe the rumor, but he could seriously picture it happening. Everything about Mr. Ridley was fun and surprising — even the way he taught math.

  “So if my dog has six puppies the first year, four the year after that, and seven the third year, should I have gotten her fixed in the first place?” That cracked the class up — they’d been thinking it was a real math problem, because Mr. Ridley seemed so serious when he was saying it. But he told lots of jokes.

  And another thing: Mr. Ridle
y wore a short-sleeved shirt that had a logo reading “Richmond Country Club.” Malik knew what that meant — it meant Mr. Ridley was not only a baseball player, he was also a golfer.

  The bell rang, and Luis motioned to Malik to come outside with him. Malik did want to hang with Luis, to tell him all about his classes and the kids and the teachers and stuff. But he had to talk to Mr. Ridley first — alone.

  “Go on, I’ll meet you downstairs in two minutes!” Malik called over the noise of students free for the day and gabbing up a storm.

  “By the handball courts,” Luis shouted back, then booked it out of there.

  Malik waited till the crowd of kids surrounding Mr. Ridley had thinned out before approaching him. “Um, Mr. Ridley, could I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s your name again?”

  “Malik.”

  “Malik! That means ‘king,’ doesn’t it?”

  “That’s right!” Malik said, grinning. “How’d you know that?”

  “Oh, I know a lot of stuff,” he said. “I’m a math teacher.”

  “You know about golf?” Malik asked.

  Now it was Mr. Ridley’s turn to be surprised. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I play just about every week. You?”

  Malik paused for a second before answering, “Uh-huh.”

  “Cool,” Mr. Ridley said, nodding. “Where at?”

  “Urn, I don’t really remember the name of the place, actually. It was a long time ago.”

  “Uh-huh. How’d you do?”

  “Okay. Um, what do you usually score?”

  “Oh, mid-eighties, low nineties. How ‘bout you?”

  Malik didn’t know what to say. Having lied himself into a corner, he now had to pull a number out of thin air. He knew it had to be higher than Mr. Ridley’s average — after all, Mr. Ridley played regularly — but not too much higher. Malik didn’t want to sound like a dork who couldn’t swing a club. “Um, about ninety-five,” he said.

  “Ninety-five’s really good for a kid!” Mr. Ridley said, obviously impressed. “For real? Ninety-five?”

  Well, now that he was in it this far, Malik had no way to go but forward. “Yup,” he said. “Hey, where do you go to play golf around here? I mean, when I played, it was in Florida someplace.” He was lying out the wazoo now, but he didn’t care. He only wanted to impress Mr. Ridley — and find out where to play.

  “I belong to a private club on Staten Island,” Mr. Ridley said, pointing to the logo on his shirt. “But there’s a driving range by the Sixty-ninth Street Pier.”

  “No lie?”

  “No lie,” Mr. Ridley said, chuckling. “There are courses you can get to by subway, too. But take my advice and try the driving range first. You want to be in tip-top form when you hit the first tee.”

  “Right. I’ll do that,” Malik said, not quite sure what a tee was, but understanding about the driving range. “Thanks, Mr. Ridley.”

  “No problem. Pleasure talking to you, Mr. King.”

  “Mr. King,” Malik repeated. “Yeah, I like that. Mr. King.”

  There were no subways that ran down to the pier at Sixty-ninth Street, but by taking two buses, Malik got to within a few short blocks. He walked the rest of the way to the driving range. As Malik strolled out onto the pier, he could see the island of Manhattan across New York Bay. The sunlight, reflecting off the buildings, made him shade his eyes.

  The view didn’t stop there. The Statue of Liberty held up her torch out in the middle of the bay, and to the left rose the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Once, Malik knew, it had been the longest suspension bridge in the whole world. Till they built some bigger ones. Just as someday there would be new golf champions, even better than the champions of today. Malik could see himself lifting up a big trophy and smiling for the cameras.

  The driving range was a series of open booths with green carpeting. Sticking out of the carpeting were little white rubber tubes. People would put their golf balls on top of the tubes, then hit the ball off them, down the pier. But the balls didn’t go into the water. There were huge nets strung across the pier, strung on what looked like big telephone poles. The whole pier was covered in green carpeting, and there were little flags with numbers on them to tell you how far you hit your ball.

  Malik wondered if people were supposed to bring their own balls. He didn’t think so. Most of the people in the booths were hitting balls with a fat red stripe on them. Near the pier entrance was a little shack with a sign that read “Office.” Malik walked over and went in.

  Inside, an old man with hair growing out of his ears sat on a stool behind the counter, near the cash register. “Yeah? Can I help you, sonny?” he asked Malik in a gruff voice.

  “I need some golf balls,” Malik said.

  The man pointed behind Malik. “See them machines? You put a token in. What size bucket you want?”

  “Uh, small, I guess.”

  “Six dollars,” the man said, pushing a button on the cash register. It opened with a ring.

  Six bucks! Malik took his money out of his pocket and counted it. There was a five dollar bill he’d saved from last week’s allowance, and a lot of loose change. He needed $1.50 to get back by bus — it was an awfully long way to walk — and Malik found that he was exactly one dollar short. “Anything smaller?” he asked the man.

  “Smaller?” He laughed, like Malik had just said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Smaller than small?”

  “Never mind,” Malik said, and left the office empty-handed. He felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t he asked Mr. Ridley how much it cost to drive golf balls? And now what was he supposed to do? He’d come all the way out here just to hit balls where he wouldn’t get in trouble for it, and he couldn’t afford even a small bucket!

  Then Malik got a bright idea. Some of the booths were empty, and there were a few balls lying not far from the front of each of them. Probably missed shots, Malik figured. Anyway, if he snuck just a little ways out onto the carpet, he figured he could gather enough balls to make his trip worthwhile.

  Grabbing an empty bucket, he brought his clubs into a booth and laid them on the ground. Then, making sure nobody nearby was watching, he casually moved toward the front of his booth and stuck his longest club out. Nothing to it, he thought happily as he reeled in the nearest ball.

  Two others were just beyond reach. He got them by sticking one foot out onto the carpet. No sweat. Now he had three.

  Malik looked up at a sign that said “Stay behind yellow line! Danger!” The sign hung just above the yellow line, which ran across the front of all the booths. Looking both ways, Malik stepped over the line, with both feet…

  There! Quickly, he scarfed up four more balls and retreated back into the safety of his cubicle. He put a ball on the rubber thingie, reared back, and swung with all his might.

  Wham! The ball ricocheted off the side of the cubicle and bounced about ten feet beyond, coming to rest on the carpet with a new smile cut into it by Malik’s club.

  Undaunted, he put another ball down. This time, he swung even harder and faster — and missed completely. The ball toppled over the edge of the rubber thingie, blown by the wind from Malik’s mighty swing.

  This was not going too well. Malik changed clubs, selecting one of the shorter, flat-headed ones. He figured he couldn’t do any worse. He was right. He did just the same. After six more huge swings, all the balls he’d gathered were gone. Most were just a few feet away on the carpet. The one he’d hit the farthest had rolled along the ground, nestling next to a white flag with the number 50 on it. Fifty yards or fifty feet? Malik wondered. He wondered, too, if the white flag was trying to tell him something — like “surrender.”

  But Malik was not the kind of kid who gave up easily. Last year, he’d asked this girl he liked to go to the movies with him. She’d refused — not once, but five times — before she finally gave in and went with him, just to keep him from pestering her. On that one date, he’d discovered that he didn’t real
ly like her. She had a voice like scratchy nails, and everything she said was stupid.

  Anyway, he wasn’t about to quit now. He was just getting warmed up. He roved the space behind the cubicles, looking for another empty one with a lot of golf balls within easy reach. He finally settled on one and went to work fishing for balls, edging farther and farther out onto the carpet.

  There was a sharp clicking sound, and Malik felt something whiz right by his left ear. “Hey!” yelled an angry man’s voice behind him. “Get back behind the line, you idiot! You’re gonna get killed like that!”

  Malik retreated, but not before grabbing five nearby balls. He had just set one of them on the rubber thingie and was reaching for a club when he felt a tapping on his shoulder.

  “Hey!” the same man’s voice said, still angry. “You’re not supposed to do that, you know — there are balls for sale in the office.”

  “Oh,” said Malik. “Sorry.”

  The man took the bucket of balls and threw them all out onto the carpet. “You don’t go out there and take balls, understand?” he lectured. “If you wanna play, you’ve gotta buy the balls.”

  Malik wished he could run away from there, but the man was blocking the back of the cubicle. He had reddish hair and lots of freckles and was wearing a shirt that said “Golf on the Pier.” So he works here! Malik realized. No wonder he’d taken Malik’s bucket!

  “So what are you waiting for?” he asked Malik. “Go on and buy some balls, or else go home.”

  Malik looked down at the ground and sighed. “Don’t have enough money,” he muttered, almost too softly for the man to hear him. “If I buy a bucket, I can’t afford the bus home.”

  He sighed again, surprised to find that he was close to tears. He’d gone to such lengths just to get here, and now they were chasing him away — him, the potential future champion of golf!

  “Hey, kid,” the man said, his voice softening. “How much you need?”