Turtle Creek: The Water Trap I was on my knees in a muddy pond. The water was warm with decaying vegetation and stored Texas sunshine. It was one in the morning and I was feeling for golf balls with my bare toes and putting the balls in a mesh bag tied around my waist. How did I get to be on my knees in the muck on a private golf course? I guess it started with a conversation with my neighbor Mikey. We were drinking 40’s and talking about being broke. I had just gotten fired, and he was living off his wife’s money which she earned as an exotic dancer at Fantasy Ranch. There was little that was exotic about Jill or the Ranch, but she insisted upon the term. Mikey hated when she went to work there but someone had to support their two bratty children. These hooligans seemed to do nothing but eat, cry, and tear things up. I was shocked at the capacity for destruction that these brats had; they’d work together like wolves hunting prey; brandishing crayons, paint, nail polish, and lipstick, they vandalized our whole apartment complex. But they had to eat, and Mikey started talking about the great money to be made selling golf balls. We could make a hundred each, at the right water traps. It took awhile for him to talk me into it, because it sounded like work and I hate work. Finally, the principle of it won me over; I liked the idea of making money off of rich people’s golf refuse; it reminded me of when I was a bartender at the country club but that is another story. So I agreed and that is why I was covered with slime at the nine hold of the Turtle Creek golf course. It was slow going so far. Mikey kept saying how someone else must have hit this pond before us. The thought that there were other crews of half-naked people with mesh bags round their waists beating us to our promised riches seemed farfetched. We were struggling out of the pond like two Swamp Things, headed barefoot across the smooth crinkly grass when the spotlight hit us. “Oh, shit,” said Mikey, “Run!” Now I didn’t know that what we were doing was illegal. True, I had an inkling, as most of Mikey’s schemes were illegal, plus this one just sounded too good to be true. That being said, I did not anticipate having to sprint across the fairway with my shoes tied around my neck and a sack full of golf balls rattling behind me. The sprinklers somehow turned on, so we were running through jets of water like kids in the summertime. Except that vicious rent-a-cops were in hot pursuit of us and our illicit ball haul. If they caught us they would beat us with their billy clubs and take our balls and probably arrest or deport us. You can think a lot of thoughts when you’re running at night in panic. “Shit, man, if they catch us, say you don’t know me,” panted Mikey. I was trying to consider the logic of this (“honestly, sir, we just met up at this pond by accident!”) but it was hard to think while waiting for the strike of a billy club. We ran in opposite directions and met breathlessly at the car. I fell flat on my back and lay on my paltry collection of balls, feeling not so-much like Scrooge McDuck swimming in his money pile. “Okay, dude, next time when we split up, we’ll do like a bird call or something so we can find each other quicker.” “Next time? Are you fucking joking?” I felt like feeding Mikey all of our allegedly valuable golf balls. I just wanted a shower and a bed, to go to sleep and forget the poverty that had driven me to Turtle Creek Golf Course. When we sold the balls I had enough money to get my computer out of the pawn shop and to buy a lap dance from Jill. She was still working at the Ranch because, she said, she knew this golf ball thing wouldn’t last. I doubt if Mikey ever knew how I spent my money, but the next week he came over and said triumphantly, “Well, Jill won’t be going to Fantasy Ranch anymore.” “What, you got a job?” “Are you fucking kidding?” “Well, did you pawn your mom’s TV again?” He laughed proudly. “No, man, I threw her dancing shoes up on the roof so she couldn’t go to work. You should have heard her go off. I didn’t even know she could cuss like that.” The next day, he told me “hey man, I’ve got this great gig. They’re paying top dollar for copper at the scrap yard, and I was looking at the wiring behind the old K-Mart, and man, we could clear at least…..” It was hard to hear how much he said we could make because I was at the bottom of the ladder holding it while he climbed up to get Jill’s dancing shoes off the roof. | 
