The Underdog Parade

by Michael Mihaley

  Mr. James laughed. “When things in life aren’t going the way you planned, or you’re not happy where you’re at, you need an escape plan. I think Josh is just really confused right now. You will understand one day.”

  Peter hated when adults said stuff like that. He knew about escape plans. He had to devise one regularly when dealing with Chipper.

  Mr. James went on, “I can tell you from experience, and you can probably relate in your own way, it’s no fun feeling like you have nowhere to turn.”

  Mr. Terry walked down Josh’s lawn, past the ark, with Josh following slowly behind. CJ and Uncle Herb were still on the walkway in front of their house, and Mr. James called to them.

  “Hey Wonder Woman, Herb, will you guys be joining us?”

  “Join the fun!” Mr. Terry said, waving them over.

  They fanned out, taking up most of the street and made their way down the block. Uncle Herb cruised a few steps behind the group with a silent Josh farther behind him.

  CJ turned to Mr. Terry and whispered, “Why is Josh not happy?”

  Mr. Terry smiled. “He’s a rebel, darling. Rebels are never happy.”

  They decided to get some water and sandwiches at the general store. At the end of Ranch Street, as they waited to cross the street to enter the pavilion, a silver-colored SUV lugging a boat trailer came through the gates heading their way. Peter didn’t recognize the vehicle, but the boat sure looked familiar. From under the sun’s glare on the windshield, Chipper’s menacing eyes stared out at Peter from the passenger seat.

  Peter couldn’t believe it was Chipper’s boat they had taken for a joy ride. He hoped Chipper would never find out. At least right now Chipper would have to be on his best behavior around all the adults. Plus, he might wonder how Peter got the bandages on his face and why he wasn’t a part of it somehow.

  The car stopped, and the window rolled down, releasing a blast of cold air and revealing the straight and shiny white teeth of Mr. Kassel.

  “You boys shooting eighteen?”

  Mr. James rolled his eyes. “You know we don’t golf, Kenneth.”

  Peter tried not to make eye contact with Chipper, but he could feel his eyes on him.

  Kenneth Kassel Sr. nodded leisurely, and a smirk appeared on his face. He looked briefly in Josh’s direction. “That was some monsoon last night, huh?”

  A strained look appeared on Mr. James’ face, as though it was taking a lot effort to take part in the conversation. “Have a nice day, Kenneth,” he said through his teeth.

  Kenneth Kassel’s smirk turned into a full-blown smile as the car started to roll forward. Peter glanced over at Chipper and realized he’d fallen directly into another Chipper trap. Good ol’ Chip was just waiting to make eye contact. He clenched his fist at Peter, as if he was squeezing juice from a lemon. Peter guessed that at some point his head would be the lemon.

  Mr. Kassel didn’t speed up or close the window before passing Josh. When they were face to face, Mr. Kassel stuck his head further out the window and said, “Monday,” in a tone a lot less friendly than the one he’d had with Mr. James.

  “Nice boat,” Josh replied.

  Peter watched with relief as the SUV sped into the distance. Mr. James also watched, shaking his head.

  Mr. Terry came out of the pavilion with a bag in each hand, and the group headed back down Ranch Street to a cart path that cut between two homes and led to the golf course. Once there, it was a short walk across two fairways to get to the edge of the Pine Barrens.

  They reached the first fairway and saw four golfers teeing off from about two hundred yards away.

  “Try to track the ball after they swing,” Mr. James cautioned. “If you hear them shout ‘fore’ or I shout duck, crouch down and cover your head. Herb, CJ, maybe you should move back a little.”

  Uncle Herb took note and guided his chair in reverse back onto the cart path. CJ followed him.

  The first two golfers hit their balls straight but not far, landing in the center of the fairway between the two groups. The third golfer’s drive traveled much farther than the first two but at a distance safe enough away from the group that they could admire the trajectory of the ball. It bounced a couple times on the fairway, then stopped on the fringe opposite where they stood. Peter watched the golfers high-five and back-slap each other. The fourth golfer studied the flag in the distance, carefully placed his ball on the tee, then practiced his stroke several times before slicing a ball that landed in one of the trees separating the holes.

  Josh muttered. “And I thought I wasted my time.”

  After they waited for the golfers to make their second shot, moving them closer to the flag and green, the group started to cut across to the fairway to the woods in the distance. Another golf foursome pulled up in two carts to the driving tee. Peter watched as they sauntered up the small hill with their drivers in their hands.

  “They’re not going to hit yet, right?” Peter asked.

  “They better not,” Mr. James said.

  Peter looked back at Uncle Herb who was having some trouble getting through the thick high grass of the fringe. Peter retreated to help him, but by the time he reached Uncle Herb, he’d made his way onto the fairway and started to move freely again.

  Josh stopped in the center of the fairway.

  Peter glanced over at the golfers waiting to tee off and could tell they were all watching, leaning on their drivers or their hands on their hips. His hair stood up on his neck. He hated having eyes on him. He knew Uncle Herb was trying to move as fast as he could, but they were moving diagonally over a slight incline. The wheelchair struggled.

  “Go-head, Pita,” Uncle Herb said.

  Peter paced alongside his Uncle, and he could sense their effort was unacceptable to the waiting golfers. CJ had walked across with Mr. James and Mr. Terry, and they were now watching safely from behind one of trees. Josh remained standing in the center of the fairway.

  “Any time now, this isn’t a boardwalk,” one of the golfers shouted from the tee. Even two hundred yards away, the sarcastic tone was evident.

  “C’mon!” another yelled.

  Peter could feel himself getting hot. He pretended not to hear and fought the urge to run behind the wheelchair and help push.

  Josh barely noticed when they reached him. Peter hoped Josh never looked at him the way he was staring at the golfers; he looked like he was ready to pounce. “I don’t trust these golfins,” he said under his breath.

  Peter kept pace with his uncle. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the golfers lean over and place a ball on a tee, getting ready to hit.

  “Let’s go, Josh,” Mr. James said.

  It was impossible to tell whether the golfer was serious about hitting the ball with Josh standing in the middle of the fairway or if he was just trying to intimidate him, but Josh didn’t budge. Actually, he spread his arms and opened his palms to the sky.

  This infuriated the golfers. One of the foursome, a tall, solid guy dressed in a striped, collared shirt with a navy-blue visor on his head, raised his club over his head and shook it at Josh.

  “These guys aren’t kidding around, Josh. C’mon,” Mr. Terry said.

  Peter and Uncle Herb reached the safety of the tree and Peter gave the golfers a good look. They looked to be about his father’s age, all in decent shape and what seemed like matching tempers. They cawed like crows at Josh. The guy with the striped, collared shirt took a few steps in Josh’s direction.

  “We’re all here, Josh. You can come now,” Mr. Terry said.

  Peter glanced up at Mr. Terry. It was one of the few times he’d seen him without a smile. Peter sensed that he was not the only one with butterflies in his stomach.

  Josh looked over and saw everyone waiting for him. He dropped his arms and started to walk over at a leisurely pace, his stare never leaving the golfers.

  Peter felt a sense of relief. He watched Josh saunter over. Then there was a single clap, a high-pitched whizz, and a secon
d later a golf ball bounced in the center of the fairway, only twenty-yards short of where Josh had stood moments earlier.

  The striped-shirt golfer was standing on the tee box, his body twisted and the head of his golf club at his back—the picture-perfect follow through.

  Josh turned and screamed, then sprinted in the direction of the golfers. The golfers reacted and stormed down the small hill of the tee box, ready to meet Josh head-on. To Peter, it was like a civil war battle, but the only one carrying a weapon was the striped-shirt golfer who ran with his golf club at his side.

  “Oh, no,” Mr. Terry said under his breath as he watched Mr. James take off at an angle that would get him faster to the point of impact. Then Mr. Terry followed, his loose, orange linen shirt puffed out behind him like a colorful boat sail as he rumbled down the fairway at a less fierce speed than everyone else. It all happened so suddenly that Peter’s feet felt cemented to the ground.

  “Ay-ear,” Uncle Herb ordered.

  Peter, sick to his stomach with fear, had no problem sticking to the command. He couldn’t move if he tried.

  Mr. James reached Josh before the golfers did. He blindsided Josh, who was never expecting an attack from anywhere but in front of him, and the two tumbled to the grass.

  Peter watched it all from a distance. As Mr. James and Josh writhed on the ground, a panting Mr. Terry reached them and stuck his hands out, crossing-guard-like, to halt the approaching golfers. The golfers had slowed on their own anyway—nothing dulled the impulse for violence more than a mad 100-yard dash, only to then see the enemy taken out by one of his own. Their confusion reached a new level when the long-haired hooligan who had baited them fell into such a hysterical fit of laughter as he rolled around the ground. He acted as if the golfers weren’t even there.

  Mr. Terry, seeing he had stopped the herd, doubled over to catch his breath.

  Josh was still laughing as he stood and helped Mr. James to his feet.

  “What are you, a closet linebacker?” Josh asked.

  Mr. James lifted his shoulder and winced in pain. “You’ll be getting my chiropractor’s bill.”

  “Excuse us,” Mr. Terry said, and waved the golfers off as they walked away.

  There was some grumbling and some head shaking, but the golfers seemed satisfied that at least they weren’t the ones limping away.

  Peter was eager to move on to the Pine Barrens and put the experience behind him. It was just another moment where he could have stood brave, but he crumbled like a cookie. Even CJ had uncurled her lasso from Uncle Herb’s wheelchair at one point and was prepared to defend not only herself, but her friends and family.

  No wonder Chipper torments me all the time, Peter thought. There’s no risk involved. It’s like fighting a guppy. Nemo could not have been a more appropriate nickname.

  As they crossed the second fairway, the trees of the Pine Barrens stood in the distance. They walked around the wide perimeter of the pond on hole number eleven, Josh’s swimming hole.

  The golfers continued their game. On the way up to the green to putt, one of the golf carts stopped, and the golfer with the striped collared shirt yelled, “Freaks!”

  They all heard it. No one turned around. No one acknowledged it even quietly to the person next to them. But the name struck Peter as if it was shot out of a bow.

  The Pine Barrens

  The group reached the back fence separating Willow Creek Landing from the Pine Barrens. Josh led them to a hastily cut opening.

  Mr. James raised his eyebrows. “Very convenient that you knew this was here, Josh.”

  Since he’d moved into the Creek, Peter had yearned to explore the Pine Barrens. There was something mystical about the twisted pine trees that rose from the hilly, dry earth. At sunset, the shadows of the pines took the shape of warriors dancing around a fire.

  Some of the trees were Peter’s height, others hunched over close to the ground as if stricken with osteoporosis. Even the ones that stood straight and climbed into the sky had thin branches with little foliage, offering the travelers little protection from the sweltering sun.

  Mr. Terry pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Not exactly the majestic northwest,” he said.

  “About a half mile up, there’s a clearing, then the pines turn larger. There will be more shade there,” Josh said.

  “I guess you’ve been here before,” Mr. James said.

  Josh didn’t answer. After his laughing fit on the golf course, he’d resumed his brooding post-non-flood behavior.

  “A half mile?” Mr. Terry sighed. He turned to Herb and stuck out his thumb. “Do you pick up hitchhikers?”

  The group trekked along the marked path, kicking up clouds of dust as they went. The dry dirt made for easy cruising for Herb’s wheelchair. Herb was relieved, considering he hadn’t known what to expect when they’d started. This was the closest he’d been to four wheeling since he was a child and his father would push him along on all these outdoor, nonhandicapped accessible adventures, wanting his son to experience as much as he could, disability be damned.

  Herb suddenly felt the familiar deep pang in his chest whenever he thought about his father. He was someone who’d never been considered the life of the party—a statue at family gatherings and neighborhood parties—but a quiet, strong, and devoted family man, an understated person whose strengths were not of the cocktail party variety, which Herb’s mother often chided him for. His father was serious, solid, and reliable—characteristics that don’t get you love from strangers at social events but were invaluable as a father of a disabled son.

  What Herb remembered was the security he felt whenever he was around his father. Herb’s father never worried about his safety, the decisions that had to be made, the follow-through; if his father said he was going to do something or go somewhere, there were no doubts. Herb knew that he was always at the forefront of his father’s mind. Not occasionally, not mostly, but always. The man suffered from constant back-and-neck problems from years of lifting his son; he endured three surgeries and never once complained or acted like he’d gotten a raw deal in life. His love was unconditional.

  It troubled Herb that his niece and nephew didn’t have that same shield—at least not right now. Herb hoped everything would have been settled between Abby and Nick before he left. It seemed a safe bet at first; his stay was close to two weeks. But on Monday morning, three days from now, Abby would drive him back to work and his old life, and Nick was still not home or calling on his family. It would have killed his dad to be away from his children for so long. Abby shattered the theory that girls marry a guy like their father.

  A bead of sweat slipped under his glasses and stung his eye. He blinked the irritation away. CJ had knotted one end of her lasso around the wheelchair’s handle and made the rope move snakelike as she walked alongside Herb. He wondered if she was too young to notice the turmoil around her, or if God gave her an extra heaping of inner strength. Since crawling, she seemed independent. He remembered Abby telling him how different her children were, even as babies. Peter would wake up crying and scared in the playpen, needing his mother’s companionship. CJ would wake humming or singing, content in her place, or grunting as she tried to escape the mesh playpen on her own.

  Just beyond the first stand of pines, a group of deer appeared, walking slowly through a patch of brush. CJ eased her way off the path and stood on a fallen tree to get a better look. Mr. James and Mr. Terry rested against a large rock, and Peter stayed nearby, eavesdropping. Their hushed conversation seemed a lot more interesting than a pack of deer.

  Mr. Terry glanced over at Josh—who had sat next to CJ on the log—to make sure he was out of earshot. He nodded to Mr. James to continue.

  “They gave him until Monday to move out. I don’t know what’s annoying them more: Josh himself or the ark in the driveway. They think it’s a monstrosity to look at and—”

  Peter realized interrupting a conversation while eavesdropping was a sur
efire way to blow your cover but he couldn’t help himself, the words shot out of his mouth like a shaken bottle of soda. “They can’t do that. It’s his house!” he whispered angrily.

  “It’s his parents’ house, Peter,” Mr. James corrected. He didn’t seem surprised by Peter’s interruption. “And apparently they gave the community board, or whatever the name is of those pompous asses that run our lovely and pretentious neighborhood, permission to enforce this legal writ of possession, which basically says Josh has to be out in forty-eight hours or the sheriff comes and takes him out.”

  Mr. Terry leaned over. “The board considers the home unsellable in its present state. They threatened to take Josh’s parents to court, and since you figure the parents are already spending so much time in court against each other—”

  “Let’s limit the gossip around people under age thirteen,” Mr. James said.

  Mr. Terry smiled at Peter then covered his mouth.

  After a brief moment of silence, Peter said, “I thought Josh was mad about the ark.”

  As if on cue, Josh rose from the log and swiped the dirt off the back of his jeans. He started to make his way back to the path with CJ, so Mr. James spoke softly. “I think Josh is upset and unsure about a lot of things. He might seem old to you, Peter, but compared to old farts like us—”

  CJ sidestepped Josh and jumped through the knee-high brush to a spot Uncle Herb had carved out for himself to watch the deer by using his wheelchair like a lawnmower. The last of the deer disappeared into the trees.

  “That was really cool, right, Uncle Herb? Josh said the deer are thirsty and heading to the river, because all the other water in here has dried up.”

  Uncle Herb nodded, wondering if that indeed was the case. It sounded good.

  “He also said all those big trees over there burned down in the Sunrise Fires over ten years ago, but look at them now.”

  Uncle Herb looked up at the pines. Nature was amazing. He’d read somewhere, or saw on the news, that fire was crucial to ecosystems like the Pine Barrens. Not only could some of the plants survive fire, but they actually needed it to aid in their growth. The fire’s ashes provided nutrients for the soil to promote quick recovery growth. It was amazing, really. Sometimes you have to burn it all to the ground to start again.