Tar Beach

Tar Beach

by Mick Hale


"Just aim for the center of the green," Ben Hogan said.

"There's no wind, I'm taking the pin," Billy replied.

"Aim for the back bunker, take an eight, hit it soft," Ben Hogan insisted.

In the imagination of a child the world is such a different place. Fantastic things can happen there; dreams shaped to desire, wishes charged with magic, and if the sky should happen to fall, well, then this imaginary world can be the perfect place to hide.

In the imagination of Billy Malloy, the corner of 77th and York was the twelfth hole at Augusta National Golf Club.

"You put it in the creek with that swing," Billy said.

"Only once," Ben Hogan replied.

The ball sailed across the fairways of Billy's mind and settled four inches from the pin.

"Shot," Ben Hogan said.

Billy picked up his school bag and started for home.

His Mom, Sally, was in the kitchen. Mondays was steak. Billy's Mom always made steak on Mondays. Before her money ran out, before Thursday rolled round again, Sally went to the butcher and bought two steaks.

"A fifteen year old boy needs iron," she said.

"A nine iron," Billy replied.

"Forget the golf," his Mom said. "Think about school."

In his room Billy stood in front of the mirror. Everyday he dressed the same; white shirt, tie, slacks, and cap on his head. On Billy's bureau was a picture of the legendary golfer, Ben Hogan, dressed the same, a cigarette in his mouth, and a smile of god-like confidence on his face.

Billy checked the mirror until he was satisfied, then crawled out the fire escape onto the roof.

He stood there looking across the East River, the water's rapid course chasing an ocean tide.

"They put a new tree on the 18th at Pebble Beach," he said.

"It's the same shot," Hogan said. "There's only one way to reach that green in two."

Billy swung, a powerful stroke; the ball faded along the rocky coast of California and settled near the tree.

One day Sally made an appointment with the principle of Billy's school, Mr. Judson.

"I'm worried," she said as soon as she took a seat.

Mr. Judson looked down at papers on his desk. "He has passing grades."

"But the way he dresses . . ."

"He's the best dressed kid in school."

"But it's so unusual, and he rarely talks at home. Everything seems to be about golf, and there is no golf in Manhattan. He's never even been on a course."

Mr. Judson leaned back in his chair.

"I've seen this with children before," he said. "They chose to a follow a path no one else would think to take. It isolates them more. They can't deal with things so that's what they do. Maybe you should take him to the Van Courtland golf course in the Bronx."

Sally thought about that, but there was no money for things like golf. The rent was barely paid every month. Sally already answered phones at a law office all week and worked four shifts as a waitress at the Heidelberg Haus. Billy never complained. He was content walking the streets, playing courses in his mind.

The island in the middle of Park Avenue was the island green at Saw Grass. The Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza served as the approach to the seventh at Balustrol. The potholes on Lex marked the bunkers at Saint Andrew. With Hogan by his side he played every course.

He missed sometimes, just to give Hogan something to carp about, but mostly his swing was locked and the crowd hung on the ball's arc, then wildly cheered in Billy's head when he nailed a shot.

In her heart Sally knew what it was that drove her son to lose his days.

Billy drifted toward the green fairways to avoid the ranked fields of blue. Lines of men, white gloves and measured step, a piper's lament floating over all, a mayor's platitudes, meaningless to the boy. Ranked fields of blue, white gloves and measured step, muffled drums beating on and on, echoing off the gothic spires, and forever in his soul, the tolling of a solitary bell.

On Thursday nights Sally went to dinner with a man named Hank. When Hank came to call Sally made Billy come out of his room and shake the man's hand.

"Nice and strong," Hank always said. "That's the way a man shakes."

He showed Billy how to clasp a certain way.

"If you do it wrong, I can squeeze your knuckles." Hank then made Billy do it again and squeezed his knuckles until Billy winced.

"See?" said Hank. "Never let a man do that to you."

"You don't like Hank, do you?" Ben Hogan asked.

"My Mom likes him."

"For years my mother lived alone," Hogan replied.

"Before my father died Hank worked with him on the police force."

"It's worse you know, if the gun was in your father's own hand."

One night at a restaurant Sally told Hank she was worried about her son.

"Fifteen's a tough age," Hank said.

"Ever since Jimmy died – Billy just seems so lost without his father."

"Jimmy was a good man, Billy will be too."

Hank poured wine into Sally's glass and she took a sip.

"He needs a man," she said.

"I can't be Billy's father."

Hank and Jimmy had worked together for fifteen years. He'd been there when Jimmy was shot, watched the stream of blood snake from his friend's chest across the sidewalk and into the gutter.

"Remember at the funeral?" Sally asked. "All the police officers in their dress uniforms and pipers and the mayor – remember what he said? James Malloy gave his life in service to us all. Jimmy didn't give his life. Some junkie took it from him because he needed a fix."

"Sally, Jimmy loved the job."

"What about us, Hank? What about Billy? How can a boy live in a world where his father died for a twenty buck high?"

In his room Billy had posters of Hogan on the wall. He knew everything about the golfer and the way he played the game. He knew about the struggles and the car crash and Hogan hobbling on, the ball always in control, each motion on the course perfected and followed in focused ritual, Hogan always dressed in pressed cool.

"Forget about me," Ben Hogan said, "Concentrate on the shot."

"I'm not sure which club to hit."

"You need to be sure. Don't swing until you know."

"But what if I never know?"

He passed the days and nights this way, the other kids in school wary of the boy dressed in shirt and tie, his eyes on some distant place. Sally worked her two jobs, spent some time with Hank and watched her son. There was nothing wrong with Billy's grades. He did his schoolwork and helped around the apartment. On Saturdays he made some extra money working with the super, cleaning the basement, or painting hallways. Billy seemed content enough; he was just never there.

One Thursday night Hank arrived with a paper bag in his hand.

"This is for you," he said, handing the bag to Billy. "It was always on a shelf at the precinct."

"What is it?" Billy asked.

He opened the bag and took out a garden gnome, paint chipped and faded from the years, but with a placid smile on its face and merry eyes.

"Your father loved that gnome," Hank said. "He even gave it a name – Oscar."

Billy remembered the gnome; it sat over by the window behind his father's desk. When he visited the station house he always wondered why it was there.

Sally got her coat and turned to her son.

"Are you going to be okay? You can call me on my cell if you need me. I won't be late."

She kissed her son and they left.

Billy took the gnome to his room and placed it on a shelf. He sat on his bed, looked at the dark eyes, red hat and the white beard that flowed down across the gnome's puffed out chest.

After a time he took the gnome back off the shelf and climbed out his window, onto the fire escape, up to the roof.

A field of urban stars filled the night, a thick quilt of combustion chants, siren counterpoints, the air laced with tendrils of carbon.

Billy held Oscar in his hands, presented him to the ocher sky, then smashed the gnome against the wall. He picked up each shard, then smashed them again and ground the plaster with the heel of his shoe into the tar. When he was done he took the pile and dropped it off the roof, watched the plaster remains fall to the alleyway and shatter into dust.

He stood and looked across the sweep of concrete and steel.

A massive drive, a rising arc, the ball drawing past a cliff of glass and bouncing down the avenue.

There was something different this night. It was not the rolling fairways and impossible greens of some distant course; it was the city itself he played.

He went to his apartment and got his jacket, then took the stairs down to the street and began to walk.

There was no sense to where he went, he just followed the ball, sensing the contours of the asphalt challenge and swirling winds slipping between the tall buildings.

When Sally got home she looked for Billy in his room, then crawled out the fire escape and checked the roof. There was an instant moment of fear that quickly grew into a clammy clasp around her racing heart. She phoned Hank on his cell. He returned and got on the phone to the precinct house.

"He probably just went for a walk," he said.

"It's two o'clock in the morning!"

"Sit down, Sally. I'll get you a drink. We'll find him. Don't worry."

Quiet words, a policeman's charge, but Hank had been a cop a long time. He knew the city and its edgy ways. Methodically, he checked the front door to see if there were any signs of forced entry. He went to Billy's room and tried to get a sense of the boy there. He went to the roof and carefully roamed his eyes across the tar. By the ledge he found a small piece of the garden gnome. With a clinching gut he looked over the side, down to the alley, then went to the alley itself, found more pieces of the gnome, but no sign of Billy. He was almost relieved, but when he returned to the apartment Sally saw a look in his eyes and questioned him as to what he'd found.

She dropped her face into her hands and wept.

By now more policemen came. The apartment filled with the procedures surrounding the event of a missing child. Too many questions, too many eyes set in knowledge of things like this and where they led. Sally herself, a policeman's widow, knew too much. She fled to the roof and stood there looking at the city, watching the sun rise, streaking the agitated current of the East River.

Hank found her after awhile and put his arm around her shoulders.

"He has no friends," Sally said. "Ever since Jimmy died – he's so alone."

But that wasn't true.

"It's a water hazard," Ben Hogan said.

Billy stood by the harbor side, along the Esplanade, down by Bowling Green. He'd walked all night, playing a winding course in his mind, through streets, across plazas, carving arcs through the canyons.

"A hard driver might make it," Billy said.

Across the waters Liberty stood in the morning sun.

"Impossible," Hogan said.

"Isn't that what you always did? Made the impossible shot?"

"No, that's not what the game's about."

A Staten Island ferry swung past them, a thousand people on its decks, workers heading for the Wall Street cubicle farms.

"At the US Open in 1950," Billy said, "no one thought that one iron would reach the green."

"It reached the green. It was not an impossible thing to do. What is possible – that's what you want to see -- an impossible thing is just a waste of time."

"But you saw things others didn't."

"I dug them out of the dirt," Ben Hogan said.

Behind them the urban day unfolded as the restless city rose again to meet another morning. The current scurried around the island's tip, on a precarious balance between the turning tides. They stood there a moment looking out over the water and then Ben Hogan said:

"Let's go home."

When Billy arrived home the policemen swarmed him with questions. Sally's motherly sense took charge and she scooted all the men out of the apartment and put Billy into his bed. He slept most of day and in the early evening she went into his room with some soup and toast. He sat up and began to eat. She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his leg.

"I'm sorry, Billy, for what happened to us."

"It's not your fault, Mom."

"Your father would have been proud of you."

Billy ate his soup for a moment and then put the spoon down.

"Mom, you know, I used to think if I wished hard enough I could make Dad walk back in through the front door."

"Billy, I . . ."

"No, it's okay now, Mom. I understand that's impossible. I just miss Dad, but I guess – well, missing him is okay too. Maybe missing him is the best thing. I'm not going to hide from that anymore."

Sally leaned over and kissed her son on his brow.

The next morning there was a knock on the door and Hank stood there.

"Come on, Billy, we're going for a ride."

They drove in Hank's old Ford over the Madison Bridge and North on the Deegan into the Bronx.

"Where are we going?" asked Billy.

"To Van Courtland. We have a 10AM tee time."

"I've never played golf."

"Then you start today."

In the parking lot Hank opened the trunk and pulled out two sets of clubs; he handed a bag to Billy.

"You can have these. It's my old set."

Billy ran his hand over the clubs. The steel was cool to his touch. They hefted the bags and made their way toward the first tee.

"This is the oldest public golf course in America," said Hank. "That's something, huh?"

On the tee Hank swung his driver and the ball scooted over the grass, settling barely fifty feet away.

"I guess I need practice," he mumbled. "Okay, do you need me to show you some things?"

Billy took the driver, felt the weight in his hands, took his stance and swung. The ball sailed into the air and then turned right in a huge banana slice, landing behind some trees halfway down the fairway.

He shook his head.

"I guess we'll have to dig it out of the dirt."

"What's that?"

"Something Ben Hogan used to say."

"What's it mean?"

"I guess it means you've got to work things out for yourself," Billy said. "Nobody can do it for you."

Hank thought about that for a moment and nodded.

"Okay, let's go dig it out of the dirt."

They put the bags across their shoulders and began to walk down the fairway.