Fairway Phenom (2 page)

“What are you doing up there?”

It was a woman’s voice. Malik turned to look at her. She was standing in the doorway of Mr. Quigley’s building — a tall, slim
woman about his mother’s age who looked like a younger, pretty version of the Shut-Up Man.

“I was just… um… looking.…” Malik felt totally lame lying about it.

“If you want those clubs, you can have them,” the woman said. “They were my dad’s, but he won’t be needing them anymore.”

“You Mr. Quigley’s daughter?” Malik asked.

“Yes.”

“Sorry about your father.”

“Thank you. He’d been very sick for a long time. It’s a mercy.” She sighed. “Anyway, go on and take the clubs. I’m sure he’d
be glad someone wanted them.”

Not if he knew who it was,
Malik figured.
One of the boys he was always yelling at.
“Thanks,” he said.

“They’re in terrible shape, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Quigley’s daughter. “Do you play golf?”

“Um, I played miniature golf once or twice.”

She laughed. “Well, you’ll find real golf is quite different. Anyway, enjoy them.”

“I will. Thanks again.” Malik waved as he headed home, the bag of clubs slung over his shoulder. Every few feet, he glanced
around nervously to make sure no one was watching.

When he got home, he snuck past the living room and into his own bedroom. Shutting the door behind him, he hid the clubs way,
way in the back of his closet, behind his winter clothes.

It was the best hiding place he could think of. No one would find them there unless they were looking for them — or unless
he was dumb enough to take them out.

M
alik didn’t think about the clubs again till the Tuesday after Labor Day — the day before school started. The time in between
was taken up with family visits. First he and his mom went up to the Bronx to visit Uncle Dwight and Aunt Letisha. Then they
went over to Ozone Park, way out by Kennedy Airport, to see their Edwards cousins, who lived with their eight kids in a big,
old house on a street with giant trees. On Labor Day, Grandma Johnson came over with a ham she’d made, and Malik’s little
sister, Keisha, pulled the tablecloth and dropped that ham right onto the floor. What a commotion!

So it was only on Tuesday that Malik remembered about the clubs. He was at home, baby-sitting Keisha while his mom was at
work. Keisha went down for her nap at two o’clock — she was only four
and still took naps, thank goodness! By three o’clock, Malik got tired of channel surfing. There was nothing on at three in
the afternoon during the week, even with a hundred channels.

Then he thought of the clubs. They were still there in the back of the closet, where he’d stashed them. As he took out the
filthy, old canvas bag, he thought he could smell the Shut-Up Man’s stink of mothballs and moldiness.

Taking the bag into the living room, Malik drew out a long club. It had a big wooden head and a metal shaft. The wood of the
head was splintered and broken where it met the shaft, but it didn’t look like it would come clean off anytime soon. Malik
took hold of the rotting leather grip at the top of the shaft and felt the weight of the club in his hand. Spotting a crumpled-up
piece of paper on the floor, he stood next to it, lined up his shot, and swung.

Crash!
Malik ducked and covered his head as shards of glass from the ceiling-lamp globe sprayed all over the place.

Malik cursed himself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t he checked first to see that he had a clear shot?

Oh, well, it was too late now. He’d have to clean it up, then figure out some good story to tell his mother, so she wouldn’t
know about the golf clubs. She might get mad and make him throw them out, and then where would he be?

“Malik?”

Oh, no
— now he’d gone and woken up his sister!

“Go back to sleepy-time, Keisha,” he called to her.

“What was that noise?” she asked, stifling a yawn as she came to the open doorway. “Oooo… you break something?”

“No,” Malik lied. “It was just an accident. Nothing happened. Go back to nappy-bye, Keisha.”

“Mama’s gonna be mad.”

“Shush,” Malik ordered. “Do what I told you, Keisha, or I’m gonna tell Mama you were bad. I’ve gotta clean this mess up. You
stay out of here, understand?”

He brushed past his sleepy-eyed little sister and made for the hall closet to get a broom and dustpan. He was on his way back
when he heard Keisha’s scream of pain.

“Mamaaaaaa!!!! I’m bleeding!”

“Rats!” Malik muttered, dropping everything and
racing to Keisha, who was standing in the center of the room screaming, her left foot bleeding in two separate places. “Keisha,
what did I tell you?”

But she just kept screaming, making him deaf as he carried her to the bathroom and sat her down on the edge of the tub. “Here,
let me clean you off.”

The cuts weren’t too bad, and, luckily, there didn’t seem to be any shards of glass in Keisha’s foot. Malik cleaned off the
wounds, Keisha screaming as he applied the alcohol. Then he bandaged them up and carried Keisha back to bed. He gave her a
lollipop to suck on, so she’d quiet down and maybe even go back to sleep.

Malik needed to think. His mom would be back from work soon, and he knew his story was going to have to be extra good this
time. Forget about any baby-sitting money she might have given him. No matter what, this was his fault, and he knew his mama
would see it that way, too.

Those stupid golf clubs — it was the Shut-Up Man’s ghost getting revenge on him, he just knew it! Those clubs had a whammy
on them. He told himself he ought to get rid of them before something else bad happened.

But he didn’t. Not just then. He decided to stuff them back in their hiding place till later, when he could figure out what
to do. Then he went back into the living room and started sweeping up the mess.

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?

W
ednesday 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.