o here I am waiting outside Captain Jack's Sea Adventureland, sitting on a bench that took some climbing to get to. It's quarter after eight and I'm still waiting for Baxter to show up.

I'm outside the gates to this place in the dimly lit parking lot while kids walking past me point and giggle. There is a giant plastic octopus above me, tentacles waving. The parking lot is filled with cars. It's humid out. Inside I can hear putting and laughter; the sounds of arcade games and golf balls clinking and clanking. The ground in front of me twinkles as the lights from a large wooden pirate ship flash on and off.

I see another kid point at me but he's not laughing, looks more scared than anything. His mother just holds him by his hand and leads him through the big sea green iron gates. I look down at my grass-stained shoes, spit on the pavement, swing my legs freely beneath the bench.

axter calls me into his office, tells me to go to Ms. Hannigan's place. She's freaking about how the excessively tall grass and weeds in her garden are driving her cats mad. I hate when I get assigned to Ms. Hannigan's crew. Her liver spots look like devil-faces and she tips in buttons, smelling like cat food and urine. But Baxter is the boss and I'm not about to complain. I'm not exactly the most personable of our employees. Not like Ritchie who flexes his sweaty muscles and smiles his big white smile when he's trimming trees. No. There's no extra pay for smiles. I do my job and that's all. And Baxter does his -- ordering us around until he leaves for his gated house in the hills, which is neighbored by more gated homes, enclosed by an even bigger gate; a trophy blonde to hump and a money-laundering bigot son to ignore.

So I get in the big green truck with the Grass Blasters logo neatly stenciled on the doors and there's my painted image: I'm standing with a pitchfork in a pointy red hat, fake grey beard, denim overalls and wooden clogs. Baxter pays me overtime hours to pose as the official Grass Blasters mascot: Lenny The Lawn Gnome. Behind that beard I'm doing something with my mouth that resembles a smile -- I think the way a real gnome would. I can't imagine lawn gnomes being the happiest of people. They're the bridesmaid to the orchid or elm tree.

Ms. Hannigan's place is off in bumblefuckÑway out where the trees are thick enough to cover the sky and the birds sing louder than our lawnmowers. I like the smell of the air out there. It makes my ears tingle.

But at Ms. Hannigan's we go to work while she yells at us through her screened-in porch, pointing out where all the weeds are like we can't see them. Her cats are hissing and leaping around, scratching awful at the metal screen.

Everybody spreads out and starts mowing and trimming hedges. Ritchie, the tallest and prettiest, trims the trees. I'm right below him weeding the flowerbeds and cleaning the decorative rocks. Ritchie purposely trims branches that are right above me, letting them fall onto my head, leaving tiny bumps and scratches. He snickers at me with that smile of his and turns to Ms. Hannigan asking, Is that how you like it? Ms. Hannigan blushes and nods from underneath her makeup, which looks like a clown made sick on her face. I can see her neck wrinkles stretch and squish like a fleshy accordion. In front of her is a small row of hedges no taller than me. I wonder if I could jump clear over their prickly tops but I'm not really going to try. I just spit at the ground, polish a rock until another branch brushes past my face and I hear Ritchie chuckle.

I get stuck doing these jobs every time because I'm the shortest. Baxter makes excuses like You're the closest to the ground and If I hired normal-sized workers to do these jobs, I'd be paying out workers comp every time somebody strained their back or scraped a knee. Baxter enjoys these little talks of ours, dangling his power over my head. If Grass Blasters were a board game, Baxter would be the banker, shelling out what he thinks is appropriate. But if things were actually shelled out appropriately, Baxter would not pass Go or collect two hundred dollars. Instead, he'd be molested with the pewter thimble by a larger man with tattoos and bad memories named, Tito or Iron-Cock Jerome.

But life isn't all sunshine and lemon meringue.

So we finish Ms. Hannigan's lawn and of course she tips us in buttons; Ritchie getting an extra because his shirt is off and his muscles are glistening and twitching. He pockets those buttons and drinks an entire glass of her homemade lemonade, making sure to keep his chest twitching. Ms. Hannigan's knees begin to shake and she fans her face. She makes a moaning sound, gives him a third button. I roll my eyes. Ritchie looks at me and grins that grin of his from way above me. I picture his nipples as buttons, his pectorals as pillows. I imagine taking the hedge clippers and cutting those button nipples right off, watching him hop around the yard. Ms. Hannigan sees him rolling around in the grass all erotic-like, yelping, grabbing his trimmed chest and her knees just give out and she falls to the ground all heated and grinning.

This type of stuff gets me through the day. I get home to my apartment. It's empty and dark, smelling like laundry socks and TV dinners. I have a message from my mother. She always calls me, asking how I am and why I won't call her back. I don't know why I won't call her back. There's really nothing new to tell. I'm in the same apartment, same job as always.

Sometimes I do get an urge to call, maybe see if she's heard from Dad -- if he's tired of chasing skirts in Texas, being a deadbeat rodeo clown or if he even remembers me. I don't remember him. But I won't call because if I do she's just going to remind me of what I could have been.

I wanted to be a high jumper; and it's her fault, and Dad's, for giving birth to a four-foot nothing. There was no way I was going to be a high jumper at my height. I couldn't even jump the track hurdles. Mom was also saying things like Quitters never prosper and Don't let me down. She'd sit in on some practices; her sunglasses covering more of her face than I would have liked. She chewed gum as I ran head first into hurdles, skinning my knees. Sometimes I'd sit in the long jump pit, push around a bit of sand as the other boys leaped six feet in the air; flying with purpose. Coach said I could be the assistant to the assistant trainer and the track guys would laugh and stretch their calves. That's when Mom stopped coming to practices and I quit; sat alone and watched from the bleachers with a bottle of water and a lump in my throat that never really went away. It comes and goes. I don't notice it as much anymore. Only when I feel for it.

So now if I were to answer her messages, I'd have to hear her feathery voice -- how I quit on her and myself. I don't need that so I just delete her messages. I haven't talked to Mom in years. She's been saying for a while now that every time she calls it's going to be her last. But the next day her voice is a little more desperate, a little more longing. She's married to some new man with a thick beard and lumberjack arms. She described him through the machine; how he mows the lawn and fixes up around the house the way Dad never did. He redid the kitchen cabinets, she told me once. Another time he put three coats of paint on the deck in one day. This guy reminds her every day, I'll never leave you. This really works well, me and you. I don't like the way he sounds; he's too perfect, too good. She needs to realize that nothing is as good as it sounds and that all good things come to an end sometime or another. She's got to realize that this is the type of guy that down the road starts asking for things she can't give him; begins to cash in on all the favors he's done. But she doesn't talk of him as much anymore. The excitement is probably gone; they're just comfortable. I think that lumberjack guy is going to leave her soon if the excitement really is gone. Mom never could keep a man around that she claimed she loved.

he parking lot is getting a bit colder now with a tiny breeze that's picked up. I got my sweater on over my collared shirt and tie so I'm fine for now. Baxter is still not here. I walk over to the entrance and peek inside the sea green iron gates. There's a wooden cutout of Captain Jack and he's got a word bubble over his head reading, A Swash Buckling Good Time! I can see a giant purple whale spouting water. The giant pirate ship still glows and people walk on it, putting off the plank, dropping balls into the mouth of a shark. Between some palm trees and a small treasure chest water fountain is a fake bamboo hut where you get the putters and multicolored balls. Inside is a man scowling, pale with tight lips and a flaky brow. Squinting, I notice his grass-stained crutches alongside the stand. I see him looking at me so I go sit back on the bench, swinging my legs a little slower now.

axter calls me into his office the next morning, hands me Ms. Hannigan's employee eval. It states that, Although the short, child-like young man is poor in customer relations, he did an excellent job in weeding the flowerbed and cleaning the rocks. She stated that the garden, Never looked better.

I've never gotten additional comments. That's Ritchie's department, always smiling and flexing. I usually just get good or poor circled on my eval. But when I see Ms. Hannigan's actual handwriting -- the scribbled, aging cursive -- I get that tingly feeling in my ears. It's good to know somebody took the time to write something down other than a simple circle here or there. It kind of makes me want to do even better next time, get something else written, maybe even a whole paragraph.

Baxter gives me a monotonous nice work, dismisses me so he can practice putting. Sometimes Baxter takes sand bags and artificial grass from the workers shed to make his own course in his office. He writes it off as a business transaction, taking potential clientele mini golfing all the time. If his wife comes in, with her bleached hair in curls, shirt looking like a bath mat over bulging plastic, bubbly breasts, he still stands there putting into his World's #1 Dad coffee mug. She comes in often, screaming how she found her son with pornographic magazines and a book bag full of twenties; or how Baxter forgot to pick up his son after school, forcing him to take the bus with the weirdoes and poor kids who have repeatedly threatened to knife him up. But Baxter simply dismisses her, saying he is about to go miniature golfing, shutting her up with a few hundred dollar bills from his money clip.

Baxter controls the thermostat in his family. His wife takes a pottery painting class and instructs Pilates to seniors. She really doesn't contribute any income. She's just along for the ride; riding the Baxter train -- sucking him dry I imagine with those pouting lips and sunny smooth skin. And I do what Baxter says because I need this job. There's nothing else I know how to do. I got to pay the bills like everybody else. I'm no different. I just want to save up and get myself my own place out in the country so I can suck in that clean air, maybe get a riding mower and cut my own grass and trim my own trees. I'll hire somebody else to do the flowerbeds and rocks. So if Baxter says, Dress like a gnome, smile and like it, that's what I'll do. Because Baxter signs the checks.

pair of beautiful girls, perhaps college grads, walk from their car in the parking lot. I watch the way they move: slowly, delicately. The one with red hair sucks her bottom lip as she walks, like she's thinking real hard. The other walks with her arms crossed over her chest. They both talk to each other, their purses swinging and their heels tapping loudly over the pavement. I guess I'm smiling pretty big because they see me and laugh these loud, haughty laughs. They echo up off the giant pirate ship like a cannon blasting. I just look back into the parking lot over each car, like they're all stars in an asphalt sky.

fter Ms. Hannigan's great eval, I decide to make a collage out of all the buttons she's given me over the years. I have this large jar of all kinds of multi-colored and misshapen buttons. Many of the buttons are blue so I figure I'll try an ocean scene -- a whale spurting water out its blowhole.

Whenever I'm not pulling weeds, I'm gluing down buttons. I like it. It reminds me of the times when I trained to jump; that feeling during those brief moments where you gracefully float through the air, looking down at the world, making your own rules until you land softly on your back, staring up into a cloudless sky.

I sketch out the frame lines where buttons should go and ponder my childhood, which was fatherless. I remember my mother's face as something special -- a grinning, beautiful woman who loved to eat fruit and sit out on the porch; watch me play as she knit. Her most striking feature, I remember, were her eyes: an almost lime green. But I remember as I got older -- never taller -- that the color in her eyes faded, shrunk away. She began blinking more and more as I aged, like she wanted to look at me less and less. I didn't jump anymore. I couldn't finish anything. I was the first one out in the school spelling bee and she left halfway through my word: archetype. She was fidgety through the A-R, but as soon as I hit the K, she stood up, brushed past other seated parents. She didn't wait for the buzzer to send me off stage. I finished off the word: A-T-Y-P-E, heard the buzzer sound, went and found my mother in the parking lot with the car running and warm. She hugged me then but her grip was loose and I slipped right through her arms.

I glue down blue buttons for the ocean, remember attempting to high jump track hurdles only to collide with concrete. I see myself trying to hurdle objects in my apartment; laundry baskets or stacked frozen dinner boxes. I see myself adding boxes to the stack until it's too high and I crash right through them. I can picture myself staring down the couch thinking, Someday I'm gonna jump you, you sucker. Now these memories begin to drown into the darker blue button depths.

I pick out warm-colored buttons for a sun and see my father; how he abandoned my mother to drink with whores and cattle ranchers. I remember my mother showing me pictures of his face when we used to curl up under blankets with flashlights, thunderstorms rolling over our heads outside. We used to go through photo albums. His face was darker than mine, larger. Even in the photos his eyes seemed to twinkle when we shined light on them. I noticed we had the same nose: short and pudgy. He had a lone freckle on his chin. Dad never seemed to be complaining, always smiling in the pictures, like he never even saw his own exit from our lives coming. But after I quit jumping, we stopped looking at these pictures and Mom stopped telling me stories about how he used to wear ties on his head during dinner for laughs, or how his ears turned red when he was embarrassed, or even how his mouth puckered when he saw road kill. The stories stopped and I imagined his face no longer bright, but painted like a clown -- a tiny green tear below his right eye. I saw him sleeping in streets, drunk and alone leaning against a trash can, papers floating by. Sometimes I can see myself curled up next to him painted too, sharing a newspaper for warmth. Like father like son. I miss him some cool nights when my apartment shakes with traffic and the voices of older men on the streets below drift in like tumbleweeds to my ears, whistling and cat calling.

I see my shortness in the brown and purple misshapen buttons of the whale's body. I see myself on my hands and knees pulling weeds and getting looks from people. I can feel these looks all over my body like bruising kisses. But I absorb them, thinking that everybody my size gets these looks but I'm not so sure. I don't know if I'm within my rights to go up to these people and bite them right below the mistletoe-like belt buckle, tell them to look someplace else. It's not like I picked out this body. I got handed this model figure. I try to make it work but sometimes it gets real tough. But whenever I feel that urge to start chomping my teeth, I think of that cabin I'm going to get real deep in the woods with thick trees as my neighbors, fresh country air and a perfectly trimmed lawn. So I take it all in; pull more weeds, breathe deeper and deeper until that lump in my throat feels like it's in my lungs. Then everything feels lumpy all over.

I sketch in the blowhole. I see Ms. Hannigan, a cat purring in her arms and television lights dancing off her quiet face. She tips in buttons! I think, How can you not love that? I see Baxter throwing dollar bills at his wife, naked and beautiful. He swipes his ATM card in her bum crack and coins and bills pour from her mouth. I see his son dancing, asking me if I will, Suck him standing up. And then there was Ritchie, as I fill in some symmetrical white buttons for the whale's little grin. I see a very successful young man with a future. I can see a long line of Ritchie-look-a-likes in the button waves of the ocean, getting ready to ripple and replace Ritchie once he's moved on. Each wave has a white cap and they look like brand new grins to me. And inside that whale made of buttons is a short, wooden reflection of myself -- wishing he could meet a well-dressed cricket. But there is no cricket. Just me with a handful of buttons.

hrough the sea green iron gates, over by the practice putting area, which is painted blue and surrounded by sand dunes, is a refreshment stand selling ice cream and candy bars. It's shaped like a giant locker with seaweed wrapped around it. I get a little hungry and think about getting some candy once Baxter arrives. The locker is painted grayish purple and from a few slits in its side, a deep throaty voice laughs whenever a guest walks by. If a guest happens to get too close to the slits water streams out, soaking them good. On the back of the locker is a poorly written, Davy Jones Wuz Here.

crew gets sent over to the Schroeder residence because Bill and Nancy are having a barbecue next week with some summer friends and business partners. Baxter lets Ritchie pick his own crew this time, which is a way of saying he is being evaluated for a promotion. Of course Ritchie doesn't pick me. Why would he?

Ritchie polishes my gnomish face on the side of the truck, flashes me that grin again. He climbs in laughing with a few other workers who are laughing, too. Another guy rides in the back of the pickup, tapping his hands on the side, talking in hiccups, bobbing his head around.

The rest of my day is filing paperwork; maybe dress up as Lenny The Lawn Gnome for some promotions if Baxter sees fit.

Before lunch, Baxter's wife comes gliding in on those mile-high legs. She has a birthmark on her upper thigh shaped like the moon and I wonder how many times Baxter has sucked on it. I kind of picture myself tasting that salty purple crescent, seeing the look on her face as I give her a hickey there, making it a full moon. I smile a bit when she walks by with her son who sneers at me. Mrs. Baxter doesn't notice. She goes into Baxter's office screaming. The boy sits outside staring at me, saying things like How does it feel to be a midget? or People like you are lucky to get work. I feel the urge to start chomping and the lump in my throat comes back. I just rub it with my index finger. When Baxter's kid finally shuts his mouth, he counts this huge clip of hundreds and writes in a notebook. I can hear Mrs. Baxter call Baxter inadequate and something about failure and a warped son; and as the word son is spoken, Baxter's kid stops counting for a moment, his tongue hangs out a bit. Then he keeps on writing. I can hear Baxter saying, Honey baby please sorry or Fuck off devil woman, get a job -- going back and forth like this until she storms out, grabbing her son by the shirt, dragging him as the kid stuffs the money and notebook into his bag. He makes sure to give me the finger and mimic lewd sexual gestures with his other hand as his mother leads him out.

My stomach starts to grumble and I know it's getting close to lunch. I think about going to talk to Baxter, maybe try and get on his good side by showing some compassion or a little shoulder to cry on or something. But before I decide anything, the guy is laughing in his office, maybe mixed with a bit of crying. He's on the phone with somebody and he's talking dirty, like sexual dirty. I hear him say something like his wife went to take his son to launder money but Baxter doesn't say launder money, because he just doesn't get it; and I decide I'm not going to tell him because he honestly doesn't deserve it.

Lunch rolls around and Baxter is running all over the place saying, Shit and shit, to himself. The workers from Schroeder's are back way too early and one of the guys has blood on his green Grass Blasters collared shirt. Another guy is crying, leaning against a locker full of rakes and shovels. Baxter takes this guy into his office and starts screaming bejeezus and shit. Not too long after this guy stumbles from the office, cleans out his locker. I haven't seen Ritchie but the worker with the bloodstains is trying to wash his shirt at a spigot and other guys are standing around him drinking water. I go stand behind a stack of cinder blocks and listen in. The stack is low and I think if I had a good running start I could leap over them. But maybe I'll do it later. The workers are talking about Ritchie; how one of the other workers was drinking, Because his old lady walked out last week, one says. Or maybe, Because he got no custody for them kids of his or something or other. Another says, This guy here was doing shots off the mower, climbed in, aimed that son'bitch towards the tree shouting 'fuck it, fuck it all Momma, here I come!' That boy Ritchie turned just in time to get his body out of the way, but that leg -- damn! That leg just split up the middle, right in two! Bang!

One of the guys spots me and nudges bloody shirt guy. Bloody shirt guy stops washing. He squeezes out his shirt and follows the nodding head of the other guy to where I'm standing. The other workers look in my direction as well. The man at the spigot grins a bit; his face turns a mild red, staining his cheeks. The guy who spotted me starts whistling and marching around in small circles, bowing and wagging his bum around. Bloody shirt guy falls on the ground rolling and laughing. The other workers around start laughing too, looking over to me to see if I think it's good fun. I just walk away, feeling that lump, thinking about how many bags of stacked mulch I could jump over.

I go back to filing, thinking about if Ritchie had put me to work -- looking up at him as he snipped branches on my head, snickering. But then his face would have got all white and scared suddenly. I would have heard a loud buzzing in my ears and turned around just in time to feel the mower blades across my body. Everything would have gone as black as loneliness, the scent of cut grass surrounding my trimmings. I'd be nothing but little pink grass clippings, singing Rodeo songs up in the heavens with a little gnome hat; maybe on a cloud looking down on my mother crying or my dad dancing with bulls.

Ritchie comes in later on crutches not looking so tan and cheery. His muscles don't look as big to me anymore and he's not flexing, but grumbling and curling his upper lip up a lot. He's got pine yellow crutches with bright green grass stains at the bottoms. His one leg just hangs, wrapped up to the thigh in a thick brown cast. Baxter puts him to filing but not too long after the kid knocks over a filing cabinet with his crutch, cursing and spitting. I just stand off to the side and Baxter fires him right there next to the tipped filing cabinet. Ritchie gets all teary-eyed and makes his jaw look chiseled as he holds himself upright, taking deep breaths, puffing his chest out. Baxter just walks away, calling me into his office. Ritchie's green collared shirt deflates and his shoulders sag a bit.

In his office, Baxter looks me up and down, tells me to sit. I can tell he wants to make this quick. He says to me, I got good news for you, kid, even though I'm thirty-two and he doesn't sound all that amused. He says, Due to today's happenings, I got a call from upstairs and the investors aren't too happy. This is bad for business, bad for me. So in order to fix this, they're willing to upgrade you. Thing is, we don't have a large group of minorities working important positions. He twiddles his thumbs and maybe rolls his eyes but he could just be looking at the ceiling, searching for summer flies or spiders. He says, Anyways, I guess they're starting with equal opportunities for Shorties, because you're getting promoted. Baxter definitely rolls his eyes. He tells me that the investors feel I have been placed in a stereotypical position and Baxter knows that he is the one that stereotypically placed me. He tells me that they'll be giving me stilts so I can supervise jobsites and trim the trees like I always wanted. It all sounds pretty damn good. Baxter says he wants to discuss this promotion over mini golf because it's policy, but I know he doesn't want to do anything but kick my little bum to the curb. He says to meet him at Captain Jack's Sea Adventureland next Tuesday at eight sharp and pencils me into his agenda. I don't think I've ever been in his agenda. I tell him thanks, hop off my chair; leave the poor bastard cussing to himself with his head in his hands.

I go to my locker to clean up and leave for the day and Ritchie is balancing on his good leg emptying his locker into a trash bag. His crutches lean against a bench behind him; the grass stains almost shimmering. I go to my locker, look back at him and see he's whimpering a bit but with this scowl on his face; tears on his cheeks. I always wondered why he didn't like me. After this he'll just go back to school next semester, get a new job next summer; start over. He's young. He can make mistakes and correct them. I think maybe that's why I never liked him. He's got room for error. I look at my hands -- all rough and weathered with splinters -- and think that without a rake in my hand there isn't a damn thing I could call myself. This is the life that I know.

I get to thinking; I bet everybody feels this way sometime or another. Some go home to troubled teens or lonely televisions, mistresses or housewives. Others welcome the sound of sleeping or the taste of bourbon; empty apartments, cats or buttons. Grass Blasters is employed by unhappy people. The whole world is. Maybe I'm acting all stupid for pitying this guy who made my work life hell, hitting me on the head with branches and smiling at me with that smile of his. I think maybe I should go over to him, stick my hand out but when he reaches for it I should pull it away quickly and run it through my hair, turn and laugh. But I don't because right now I'm remembering the image of my mother standing over me; her hair already beginning to curl up like aging spines, grey with impatience. She's looking at me with that look I can feel through my message machine -- when her voice trails off or gets real soft. She shakes her finger at me, raising her eyebrows, smoothing out her fine sundress with the other hand. She always smelled like pineapples. She's looking down at me and shaking that finger, saying what she always said after my father left, Robert, remember, Robert. Arrogance is the devil's swagger.

I wash my hands and take the collage out of my locker. It's complete and I think it looks pretty good; lots of blue and purple with a nice symmetrical white grin. I go over to him, reach up and tap him on the hip. He sort of jumps, turns to me, cranes his neck down, puffs out his chest again but quickly let's it deflate, sighing. His mouth never looked more like a straight line.

I hand him up the collage, wish him the best and I mean it. I give him a smile; much different than the one he used to flash me. He takes the collage and slants that straight line, a makeshift grin, and replies, Thanks. To me it sounds genuine. I offer my hand and he takes it. It's cold and smells like freshly clipped grass. I wonder if he'll miss that.

I collect my things and head out of the locker room but shut my eyes tight, pretending I can't hear the sound of the collage snap in two as the door closes behind me.

axter finally shows up. He's got his son and some of his loser friends slouching behind him. Baxter is dressed up and it makes me feel good to know he put some effort into tonight.

We go inside and the sounds of crashing ocean waves fade into my ears. The walkways are lined with colorful cement coral and seashell lights. Baxter uses the restroom real quick and I buy a candy bar from Davy Jones' Locker. Baxter's kid follows me, making bets with his slouching friends on how far he could throw me by my ankles.

After Baxter gets out of the bathroom we go up to the stand and collect our balls and putters. Ritchie's there, still on crutches. Baxter doesn't even recognize him until he looks up to hand over the cash. Then Baxter lowers his head, blushes a bit and I can't see very well over the counter but Ritchie seems to be gritting his teeth, staring down at the register with a hand out waiting for the money.

I get a child-sized putter. Baxter's kid snickers and his friends giggle and punch each other in the arms. Baxter pays for the boys and they go off on their own. I can see them on the practice putting green hitting balls wildly, trying to make bank shots off the dunes of sand. They slap each other's hands and dance around, laughing and swinging their putters like baseball bats.

Baxter and I play. Baxter is hushed like he's had the wind knocked from him. He's concentrating on his game, keeping score, talking about par and handicaps, asking only the essential questions.

On hole two, a windmill of dolphins sparkling and spinning, he asks, Why do you think you are qualified for this position? I simply answer that I have worked at Grass Blasters for ten years and have done practically every job available from filing to farming. I know the inner-workings of the company and how to manage it.

On hole six, a mermaid with two holes where her breasts should be; one hole leading to the finishing hole and the other hole taking you farther from it, he asks, What have you learned from on-site experience? I answer, the precision and skill it takes to perfect every garden hedge and blade of grass; maximizing customer satisfaction.

On hole eleven, where the ball has to pass through a large yellow blowfish that expands and contracts, he asks, Do you see yourself as a valued employee who will get the job done? I answer, yes. I am a valued employee. I look to the sky, wishing I could tell my faceless father I got promoted. I decide that I will call my mother when I get home.

Hole fourteen, which is on the ship and you have to putt between the tillers on the helm, he asks, What if a problem arises on the job site? I answer, I would respond as best I could in the way my boss, Mr. Richard Baxter, would deem appropriate. At this, he curls his lip like he smells something funky.

On hole number sixteen, where you putt into a cannon, Baxter asks me, Name one weakness of yours. I think for a moment and almost say my height but I know Baxter is looking for that answer. Besides I'm not so sure right now. Baxter wants to hear these words from my mouth. He's looking for little victories. I reply that my only weakness is that perhaps my ambition is too big. Baxter raises his brow, turns and spits, gritting his teeth while marking the scorecard.

By the last hole I'm beating Baxter. I'm surprised. For the amount of practice he gets, Baxter is awful. His stance is all wrong, his feet: pigeon-toed. He lifts his head up way before he makes contact with the ball and I believe that Baxter has to be cross-eyed after I see the way he lines up his putts. He says, Shit and shit a lot.

Maybe it's company policy to let the boss win. But I'm not going to. This is one of those lone opportunities that I've been handed and I'm going to take it. I'm not going to miss this chance. I'm not going to fail anymore.

All I have to do is come within four strokes of Baxter on this final hole to win. Since it's pretty much a one shot, miss-and-lose-hit-and-win type deal, I've pretty much secured the victory. So it's easy. I can do this.

The final hole is a giant whale; one that Captain Jack apparently wrestled and turned into a lovely pair of boots. The whale is dark purple with a blowhole that shoots water out every hour. Its mouth is wide open, forming a cocky you can't beat me grin. Around its mouth there is a trough where all the loser balls are collected -- these balls roll into a loser hole. The blue carpet is booby trapped with little cement fish. The whale's tongue is a ramp for the ball to get from the carpet into the mouth. A two-foot portion of the whale's white teeth open and close and if you can make the whale eat a ball, a few seconds later a siren goes off and you win a free game.

Baxter knows he's pretty much lost and hits his ball with a few lifeless beads of sweat on his temples. His ball makes it through the crossfire of cement fish but the teeth stop it short and it goes into the loser trough. He grunts and steps aside. It's my turn now and I line up my shot. I look up at Baxter for a moment before I shoot. I want to see his face. His eyes beg for my failure; yearn for an unsuccessful end.

I line up the putt. I send the ball past the cement fish and up the tongue but the teeth land on top of the ball and it gets stuck. Wow, Baxter says. Never seen that before.

I walk over to the whale, which towers over me. I figure that the ball has a fifty-fifty chance of winning and losing so all I have to do is free it and let it roll any way it wants. That's fair. I crawl up the tongue and lean into the mouth to flick the ball but I lean in too far and tumble into the belly of the whale.

The belly is six-feet deep and made of smooth plastic and cement. There's just enough light from the mouth to see inside. The floor slants towards one small hole where the winning balls go. Once the ball slides down the tube, something must trigger an alarm to indicate a free game has been won. Over where the whale's bum should be is a large maintenance door. It's locked and when I pound my fists on the metal it only makes little muffled tuft sounds. I try to climb, high jump my way out of this place where the whale's guts should be but the walls are too high and smooth for me to escape. I shout as loud as I can but the damn sea music and whale noises are too loud. I can also hear the sound of children's laughter, like the sullen melodies of the lost-at-sea.

I should have just poked the ball into the mouth with my putter and gone home. I know Baxter is having a good laugh right now on his way back to his gated home with his slouching son. I know he's not going to tell anyone I'm down here. This way he wins. I'm thinking this is a lesson, maybe guys like me are supposed to stay short, think small outside of the whale. Baxter's got the scorecard and it's written in pencil. Baxter is still holding all the cards.

I had my chance and I took it. Perhaps I shouldn't have. Now I'm stuck between a whale and a hard place. I begin to see that my ambition was too big for me. Maybe I should stay inside the belly of this whale forever.

t's only been a few hours -- it's getting colder and the sea music and whale noises are still loud but the sounds are clearer. There are fewer voices and laughter to muffle it all. They must be closing soon.

Since I've been down here the whale has swallowed only one ball. It was red and I watched it roll down the ramp and into the winning hole. A siren went off and it echoed inside the belly and I had to cover my ears. I'm thinking Baxter got another ball. The first shot was a mulligan, is what he'd say. Or maybe it was Baxter's kid because the ball came in with some gusto on it, like it was thrown in and the shadow that entered the whale was something of a slouching character's; the way it wiggled on the rounded walls. As soon as it was thrown in I thought I could hear laughter and hands slapping. I could have shouted but if it was Baxter's kid, or anyone like him, I don't want to be discovered. I don't want those people knowing I'm down here. That's why keeping quiet pays off -- but as the night gets colder, I'm beginning to think that sometimes, no matter who it is, you got to shout a little bit. Pick and choose your times to mix it up and let the words come out, the voice get a bit mighty.

After that single red ball, I take off my socks and plug the winning hole so someone would come to fix it, open that maintenance door and free me. No such luck tonight. But they got to check it tonight anyways. What if a ball were to get stuck in a crack or something? What if a small animal, like a squirrel, were to hide in the belly for shelter from the rain or cold and get itself stuck inside the winning hole? There'd be quite an odor coming from the mouth of the whale in that case, which would be bad for business. There could be loose balls lying around in the belly for clean up. They'll check it even though there aren't any loose balls. Sitting in here I've come to the conclusion that the world needs better putters.

I take a sip from the leaky pipe that connects to the whale's blowhole above me. My toes are getting a little stiff and I wiggle them as best I can. It's getting late; nobody's putting and the whale noises are off and the sea music is turned down. I can hear car doors slamming and brooms sweeping. It's clean up time, which means all I have to do is stay awake long enough to shout when it's all quiet and get that maintenance door open.

I try to stay positive but I keep thinking this is it, what it all comes down to: me in the belly of a whale while Baxter is at home humping his discontent, yet randy wife as his son sits in his room oblivious, slouching; counting money and cursing diversity. The drunken worker is unemployed, passed out in a bar and the other workers are off somewhere waiting for work to start the next morning. My apartment is going to be cold -- I remember I left a window open. And the more I get to thinking the more this belly isn't sounding so bad. I'm as big as I want to be in here. I imagine the whale walls getting farther away until they're not even there anymore. Soon enough, I'm miles away from everything and I can smell that country air and freshly clipped grass. Crickets chirp and stars shower down above me on a moonless night. I got buttons in my pockets and a nice tune whistling from my lips. And Ritchie's here all strong and tan giving me thumbs up; holding the collage, unbroken. And Baxter is charitable and happily remarried to Ms. Hannigan and they run a cat shampooing service. And my father is back, standing with my mother and they're hugging each other, smiling, saying, Great job son, my lovely, sweet child.

But then I stop my dreaming because it has gotten me nowhere but stranded inside the belly of this whale. And sooner or later that maintenance door is going to swing open and I'm going back out there, back to a four-foot nothing.

Or maybe not.

When that maintenance door swings open I'm going to walk out, shoulders square, hands comfortably in my pockets. I'll be whistling, nod kindly to the worker who released me. If Ritchie's still around cleaning up or whatever, I'm going to rip a button off my shirt and toss it to him, courteously wave. He'll only get one button from me. If he isn't around, I'll leave the button by the register or on the putter rental counter.

When the maintenance door swings open, I'll take back my socks, plug the loser hole when nobody's looking. Everybody deserves a free game at some point. When that maintenance door swings open, I'm going to go home, clean up a bit and call my mother. I'm going to keep calling all night until I get her voice on the other end. I won't be leaving any messages. I'm going to update her, let her know my situation. I'm going to give her a little bit of excitement; how I'm going to buy that house way out in the country, so deep in the forest that you'll have to know me to find me. I'll tell her to come find me. I'll tell her that I'm getting my own riding mower and I'm just going to drive around through the tall grass, between the trees and blaze my own trail. I'll say to her once I really get some money together, I'm going to start my own lawn care company and she'll get free service. I'll buy her a chainsaw so she won't need that lumberjack guy anymore. I'll tell her that I'll do all the tree trimming in this family from now on. I'm going to tell her about this promotion; how it's not another spelling bee or high jumping fiasco. This is the real deal, I'll say.

So swing open maintenance door. Swing away.

Because when that maintenance door finally swings open, I'm going to get a good night's sleep. I'm going to wake up, have my coffee and shower. I'm going to put on my one good suit and walk into work with pep in my step, a promotion in my back pocket keeping me upright and a voice in my throat where that lump used to be. My chin will be up. Other workers may say things but I won't hear it. Or maybe I will and let them know about it.

I'm going to walk right into Baxter's office without knocking. He's going to look up and snicker but it won't be as sharp as it used to be. We share a secret now and Baxter wants that secret kept. I'm going to take the putter he keeps next to his desk and one of the practice golf balls on the floor. I'm going to putt across his office into his World's #1 Dad coffee mug that's still lying on the floor. I'm going to sink the shot on the first try. I'm going to turn to him, look him right in those gated eyes, flash him that smile of mine and say, Still undefeated.