Me voy a tierras extrañas.

The strains of Julio warbling drowned out the zizz of the frying mushrooms . . . Bub stood over the Sterno can, absentmindedly pushing the browning mushrooms around the frying pan. It had been a hell of a day. The shattered bits of beef pie had been raining down on the caddy shack since eleven that morning. Coupled with the bawlings and screechings of the half-naked golfers out on the green, the continued cacophony was driving Bub to the brink. A faint bleating outside the door alerted Bub to the sheep’s arrival. Bub reached below the sink to open the cupboard door. Pulling out a handful of grass clippings, he methodically beeped to the door. Bub swung the screen door wide and prepared to chuck the fist of mulch at the sheep. A whole beef pie struck him firmly in the jaw.

“My brave face...,” began Bub cautiously. Taking a deep breath, he shouldered his load into the wind and straightened the seventh-hole pin. Not knowing any better, he never stopped to consider the implications of his proclamations and exclamations to the uncaring wind. Unthinking and unknowing, Bub tightened the knots in his shoes and swore never to let go off the rope. He took a deep breath and began again.

“My brave and bully boys,” he breathed, then warbled queerly, “now we’re planning / The crime of the Seventies..." His singing snapped off suddenly. There was a bustle in his hedgerow. “Don’t be alarmed now,” he cautioned himself, squatting lower and lurching forward like a Cub Scout in too-tight shorts. A giggle emanated from the shrubs.

“Snnnnk-k-k-k-k,” came a snicker. Two figures were hunkered down like forgotten brooms, up to something, no doubt. There was a warm, metallic “clank,” then a feminine squeal of delight.

“Good God, Danny.” Cornpone was clearly pretending to be scandalized. But Bub knew the Saperstein was only making believe she was scandalized. Danny grunted, low and insinuating.

“Hush, Crunchy,” Danny said in a too-loud stage-whisper. Bub inched slowly forward, pinching his shoes to stop them from sounding like a pair of runaway squeaky toys.

“Sweet Pooter Pitamous,” Cornpone gasped. “If that’s the Mayor...”

“No sweat. My plastic cat can jump until after hours,” exclaimed Danny. “That tin-horn geezer in the ten-gallon hat might just be the cutest caddy on the course, but me and my younger brother will clean his clock! Mayor or mayn’tor, either way you say it makes me mad!”

Bub commando-crawled his way farther into the hedgerow. He wasn’t one for casual voyeurism, but if there was a chance for a glance at a pair of full pants, he wasn’t going to pass it up. He squeezed his head between the branches of the dwarf maples and watched intently as Danny and Cornpone rattled another one into the cup. The youngsters, unaware that their fun was being shared, continued the game.

“As the tiddles wink, thus the winks will tiddle, eh, kids?” Bub thought to himself. He desperately wanted to join their game. But that would never do. Even trying to make his presence known would be certain to frighten the two.

“A spraggler,” said Danny, pointing proudly at the hubcap into which they were flipping the rusty bottlecaps.

“I beg to differ,” Cornpone said through clenched teeth, fire in her bloodshot eyes and hot wind whistling from her flared nostrils.

“Yes way,” Danny asserted, becoming more assertive. “You think I don’t know when you’ve been spraggled?”

“Please, Dan-o — let’s not squabble,” Cornpone beseeched. “This afternoon has been so lovely. No preposterous insistence on Jungian analysis; no trembling hours in the dwarf maples; little — if any — butt-dragging. Isn’t this better than letting Dexter goad you into swinging wide?”

“Aw, Dexter isn’t so bad,” Danny began. “He’s just a tad more transitory. He’s got to go for all the gusto he can snag. You can dig that, can’t you, Cornpone?”

“Aw, stale beer wisdom from the bottom of the barrel — that won’t cut it back in the bus with the Whacky Show, you know, Danny. When you graduate from Patroon College, you’ll know that my dive’s a perfect ten. No smiling sandman will visit your twinkle on the morrow. If there’s one thing that Daddy Doggone always tells us, it’s let it lie where the good Log left it. And I plan to lay my log wherever it loafs. Dig, compadre?”

Danny rubbed his omni-brow and puzzled over Cornpone’s words of wisdom. How could such a doll-face fidget so much in her chair? Did the buckles bind? Did the straps chafe her muchly? What gave?

Bub, his mind reeling from the young Saperstein’s speech, felt one godawful teat rub against his rough tweed tunic. He was sinking. The soil beneath was giving way under his clownish bulk. If hewas to make his move, he would have to make it soon. He nosed his way out of the shrubbery and into the clearing.

“Whuzzup, kidlets?” he asked.

Danny and Cornpone saw what they took to be a large brown monkey slowly dragging itself out of the underbrush. Cornpone screamed. Danny, always quick with the wrist, cuffed Bub’s nose smartly. A quick Ha-honk issued from the clown.

Cornpone turned tail and fled through the thicket, leaving her stubs and stalks behind. Danny, pausing to consider the consequences of striking a Clubhouse Chimp while off duty, decided better to flee than flinch and took off after Cornpone.

Bub fell forward off his elbows, his white-painted face striking the ground with a plaintive Wheee-uurpp.

“Frabjabulous,” he thought to himself bitterly. “Even when I make the move — no disrespect intended — they bolt. Wherefore hast mine keen eye misperceived this scene? How could I have been so wrong?”

“Like you don’t know,” muttered one of the chimps, who’d been watching the entire misbegotten collision and unfolding from its treetop perch. “If I told you once, Bub, I told you a dozen times: don’t burn the locals. Have you heard the news? There’s good rockin’ tonight.”

“You can’t mean that,” Bub stammered. “They— They— All I wanted was to — ”

“Right. That’s you, Bub — always the injured party. It couldn’t be something you did, could it? Of course not. You’re much too kind-hearted, aren’t you? No way the ol’ Bubster’s ever going to hamper the members, is there? Get a grip, clown. Your stinking self-pity is starting to get on our nerves.”

That certainly gave Bub something to think about. He might even do that. Later. For now there was a loud bang and another pie wobbling over the horizon.