Untitled for Now

Crit welcomed.

"What would you write about me?"

"What?"

Andre sighed and gazed down the fairway. "I mean, what about my life do you think is worth telling?"

Jason cocked his head to the side. "You're kidding me, right? After all you've been through in the past few months?"

"Yeah, but.... I don't know, man." Andre paused for a moment, waggling the sucker in his mouth before teeing up. Squinting into the afternoon sun, he looked past the water at the green to make sure that the golfers ahead of them had cleared out. "I guess I don't want to be known just for that, you know?"

"Dude, that's not the only thing you're known for."

"Don't think so?" Andre put his head back down and swung, grunting with obvious effort. His ball lazily arched towards the green before touching down and rolling off a few feet into the fringe past the hole. "Dammit. What am I doing wrong this time?"

"Swung too hard. Plus, you're not thinking about your swing."

"You don't play golf to think about golf. You think about golf when you wish you were on the course, then you get there and realize that your wishes were horrendously ill-conceived."

"Well, there's something."

"What's that?"

"I can at least write about your extensive vocabulary."

They shared a chuckle as they hopped in their golf cart and strolled towards where their balls had landed. The spring air, cool but warmer than it had been in some time, blew through Jason's hair as he drove while Andre stared out the side of the cart, watching the green fairways slowly turn amber in the waning sunlight. As Jason slowed to a stop, Andre stepped out, grabbing a putter before walking to the green. Jason jogged to catch up to him, halfway between the cart and the green.

"Besides, you're just being nostalgic since we're graduating. You're supposed to act like that at a time like this, aren't you?"

"Well, I guess so." Andre kneeled by his ball, checking the slope of the green. "I'm just not sure what about me is all that spectacular – and I'm not counting that."

"Well, you've always been happy, right?"

"I'm a teenager."

"Ok, fine – you've never been so jaded that you'd want to kill someone or burn their house down."

Andre sighed. "Yeah, but that's normal, right? That's the problem. Everything – ok, almost everything – about my life has been normal. Middle class family in suburbia, decent grades in school but nothing like yours, no horrific family struggles or anything."

"I'm telling you, it's a small miracle you're even here after—"

"Jason. Shut up."

"I'm just saying—"

"Dude, shut up – I'm trying to putt."

Jason rolled his eyes, realizing the convenient breaks in conversation that golf provides. Maybe that's why Andre had called him out here in the first place, especially since he hadn't taken up the links until recently. Then again, it was a much less demanding sport than the others he and Jason had always played. When they were kids, they had shot hoops or thrown footballs for hours, just to try to one-up the other. Even after the sun went down, they played by streetlight or retreated inside for video games until all hours. Truth be told, they were fairly evenly matched at almost everything they did, something neither one chose to believe. Golf, however, was a different story.

"Nice putt, Tiger," said Jason as he watched Andre's ball fly past the hole and nestle lightly in the fringe on the other side of the green from where the shot had begun. "Give me a call when you finish walking to your ball, would ya?"

Andre sneered and wagged his finger in Jason's face as he passed by. "Just because I ain't got a short game doesn't mean you've got me beat yet. And you're just calling me Tiger because I'm black"

"Seems to be the only thing you two have in common." Jason sized up his own putt, reading the slope of the green as he listened to the crunch of Andre's spikes fade away in the distance. He'd really put a licking on the ball. Rising, he lined himself with where he wanted to run the ball, using the experience from years of Saturday mornings to know just where to put it. With a measured stroke back and forth, the ball leapt off the putter, taking Andre's gaze from where the ball had sat all the way to the lip of the cup before disappearing into the hole.

"Damn. I still don't see how you do that."

"Same way I do everything – with style." Andre laughed at the line, then guffawed when he saw Jason, in an attempt to smoothly retrieve the ball from the cup, trip over his own feet and fall flat on his face. Jason scrambled up, brushing himself off quickly before glaring at Andre for a moment, then falling into hysterics himself. They carried on like that for a few minutes before Andre finally calmed down enough to knock his ball close to the hole, then mercifully tap in. As he bent towards the cup, he glanced over at Jason, chuckling to himself as he slowly scooped up his ball without incident.

"You know, Jason, I could teach you a thing or two about this game. Stick with me and you'll be all right."

"God, the last thing I need is you teaching me about anything."

Andre nudged Jason towards the cart with his putter before dropping it in his bag. Chuckling, Jason caught himself before plopping into the driver's seat and heading to the next tee. He watched the sun slowly lower on the horizon as they approached the final hole. "Good idea coming out today. I don't know why you didn't turn on to this game sooner. Scared?" asked Jason.

"Scared of you? Nah, man, I didn't want to hurt your feelings when I beat you at you and your old man's game."

Jason smiled, jotting down their scores. "I don't think you've got a chance of doing that. For you to beat me this round, I'd need to shoot a..." Jason paused, playfully counting on his fingers. "Hang on, I'm gonna count on my toes for this one."

"Man, shut up and drive."

Laughing, Jason grabbed his driver and climbed to the tee box. It had been a long time since he and Andre had been able to laugh like this, and he was elated that it had been Andre that made the suggestion. Even knowing that graduation was going to be a big transition, Jason hadn't been prepared for everything that had happened recently. Worse, he wasn't sure how he was going to handle the road ahead. He had expected that, too, but he had expected that it would be this hard to overcome.

"You gonna stand there all day or hit the ball, man? Graduation's in, like, two months, and I'd rather not miss it."

Jason smiled, teeing up the ball and looking down the fairway. For now, he didn't have to worry about what lay out there. He didn't have to think about what situation demanded what decorum or who would be hurt by whatever he did. Out there, it was just he and Andre, something that, at one point, he didn't think he would ever have again.