The Wake

The car door slams shut and I walk toward the first hole. I make big circles with my right arm, roll my neck from side to side and clear my throat with a cough. Hole one: 320 feet.

There are sturdy oak trees to the left and right, only a narrow window for my disc to travel through. I line up my shot and focus on making the perfect throw. I take two steps, and with a flick of my wrist and a slight grunt, the disc flies off my hand and hits the tree 30 feet in front of me.

“Nice shot, Lane,” my friend, Alex, says. He laughs, “Curse of the ages.” He takes his shot, and his disc lands 10 feet from the pin.

I walk to my disc, shaking off the effects of my terrible first shot. This one will be better. I wind up and throw. The disc soars high and far. “Not bad,” I think. Then it hooks hard left, toward a stream running through the course. “Fuck,” I mutter. Another disc lost in the water.

“Concentrate,” my friend yells at me. He already finished the hole in two shots. I approach the stream and see that the disc is directly in the middle of it. Thankfully, the water is shallow. I kick off my moccasins and roll up my pants. Goosebumps form on my arms while I walk through the painfully cold stream. There are people behind me, snickering, as I reach in to grab my disc.

“My next shot has to be good,” I say to myself. I take a long pause before I shoot.

“Let’s go!” Alex shouts. I heave my disc toward the pin. It hits another tree.

“I give up,” I yell. This game is ridiculous anyway. If I wanted to throw a disc as far as I could, I’d get a dog. Then at least, I wouldn’t have to walk so much. What’s the point of this game anyway? All you do is throw a piece of plastic until it lands in a metal basket. And you do this over and over and over again. It’s not like you have to run and catch the disc. You don’t get to tackle anyone. There aren’t any timers. There aren’t any points. There aren’t any cheerleaders or halftimes. All you do is throw a stupid disc.

“Sheesh, Lane, it’s not your day is it?” Alex says. “This is like the time when we were making up our own course around campus and you threw your disc into the Mississippi.” I laugh, pull out a cigarette and begin smoking.

That was a long time ago, back when I first started disc and the novelty of the game was still strong. My friends and I would walk around campus with our discs and designate trees and posts as holes. We figured you didn’t need real pins to play the game. As long as you had a disc, you could make a course anywhere.

“That was pretty funny,” I reply. I pick up my disc and walk to the next hole. “Give me a double bogey.” As much as I want to leave the course right this instant, I trudge forward for my friend’s sake.

I line up for my drive, and am convinced that I will hit another tree. I really don’t care anymore. I turn my body and extend my arm. The disc flies off my hand and soars straight ahead. It flies level, like there’s a pilot inside of it and I’m struck by how beautiful the Frisbee looks when it floats through the air. It stays in the air for a long time, and doesn’t descend back to Earth until it reaches the base of the pin.

“Nice shot,” Alex says. For the first time since stepping out of the car, I smile. We walk down the green hill toward the pin in silence. I hear birds flying overhead. I can smell freshly mowed grass. It’s refreshing. I realize I’m glad this game isn’t timed. I’m glad I don’t have to run or tackle anyone. I’m glad that all I’m doing right now is throwing a disc and walking.