I don't need you. I found Jesus

I’m on the golf course. No this isn’t an opening line it is the truth. There is the sun and the ripple lines caused by the heat of the day shimmering across the macadam of the golf cart path. I take a pull from my bottle of Gatorade and in the distance I hear the hiss of brakes of the trucks hauling rock from the nearby quarry. It is so fucking hot that I’m sure in the next instant Satan will rise from the brown flower bed by the first green but he doesn’t and for this at least I am relieved.

My ball lies ten or twelve feet away from the hole. I have an awkward right to left putt on my hands and there is probably a measly one in five chance I will sink the little bastard but this doesn’t rile me in the slightest. I’ve always spit in the face of odds when he’s laying my bet, chose the last place horse after he’s already lost, picked the woman with the far away eyes and someone else’s name tattooed on her back.

Negative thoughts out. Good thoughts in. Negative thoughts out. Good thoughts in. Tick tock. Tick Tock. That’s the rhythm of my putter going back and then forward. I hit the ball and the little white sphere grudgingly starts off its journey towards the hole.

Hmm, nice I think as the ball peels towards the hole. Could it be? Yes, I believe it is. Plunk. The ball drops.

“Ouch!”

I drop my putter. Did someone just say “Ouch!”? I could swear it is so.

The ball pops out of the hole and now I am really freaked out. I fear the hole is possessed with some demon, some soul sucking leech from the netherworld. If I were religious I would take out my holy water and douse the hole accordingly but alas I have but my putter, my wallet, and a pocket full of change. We these crude implements I make for the hole, putter in hand, ready to bash whatever has possessed the golf hole.

“Show your face,” I say.

“I can’t,” the voice says.

“Do you not have a face?” I say poking my putter at the hole.

“Yes, of course I have a face but I’m not tall enough to get out of the hole.”

“A likely answer. How do I know you won’t throw acid in my eyes? Stab at me with some sort of pungi-stick tipped with wasp and hornet killer and render my eyes useless balls of salty liquid.”

“You have an overactive imagination. I only want to get out of this hole.”

“Is this hole a metaphor for life?”

“No you idiot it is a place where I have fallen and can’t get out of.”

“Okay, sounds reasonable,” I say.

Ever so cautiously I lean over the hole and look inside. There stands a miniature man not five inches high. He is bearded and wears a long flowing robe. I reach in with the grip of my putter, hook the little man’s robe with the end and gently lift him up, out and onto the green.

“Thank-you my son,” he says as he dusts himself off.

“Right,” I say. “What were you doing in that hole?”

“I fell in and couldn’t get out.”

He's wearing very high platform shoes--glittery red ones--that look as if he hijacked them from a pimp.

“Right, you said that. Are you going to grant me any wishes?” I ask.

“No wishes.”

“No wishes! A pot of gold?”

“No pot of gold.”

“Well then maybe I should throw you back in,” I say and poke at the little man with my putter, coaxing him back towards the hole.

“Stop that,” he cries. “In me you have something more important than wishes.”

I stop poking.

“Yeah, what’s that? Money?”

“Salvation.”

“Salvation?”

“Yes, you’ve found Jesus.”

“Jesus was in a golf hole?”

“He is wherever you go. Or rather I am wherever you go and so is the old man.”

“Metaphor?”

“Yeah, but I did sacrifice myself for your sins.”

“So you say but you’re still here.”

“Sometimes I make appearances,” he says and for some reason does a cartwheel which I think is really fucking weird but impressive in the red platform shoes.

“Well, why didn’t you come around in a normal size,” I ask.

“I needed you to find me.”

A shadow cuts through the sunlight overhead. There is a squawk and before I can react a hawk soars down across the green, grabs the little man in his talons and soars off.

“That is so fucked up,” I say.

I stand on the first green for a moment.

“Hey buddy what the hell are you doing up there?” A portly man in pastel blue shorts yells.

It’s a group of golfers behind me growing impatient.

“I found Jesus,” I say.

“Where is he now?” the guy asks and laughs as do his friends.

“A hawk got him.”

“Did you hear that boys? A hawk got him. He found Jesus and then he lost him.”

“It’s not funny. I think we ought to go look for him.”

“You go look for him. We want to play golf,” he says.

I give him the finger and then make for the brambles where I last saw the hawk fly. I think that maybe if I hurry I can save Jesus.