A pack of coyotes, an extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts and a dead ball-picker
At that moment, I felt like a zoo animal
Jim LaJoie
In our younger days, one of my best friends developed a golf driving range a few towns over from the one where we lived in Massachusetts. The range was off a busy main road, initially down a long gravel-topped road that eventually was paved. My buddy essentially developed the range by carving out space in the middle of a large, wooded area.
This was while he was dating his girlfriend, now wife, and I was newly single. We roomed together in a third-floor apartment that was part of a multi-family house his dad owned. My buddy started the range on a shoestring so I helped when I could, usually after working my regular, full-time job and weekends.
During the week I would be taking care of the cash transactions and handing out buckets of balls and golf clubs, if patrons didn’t bring their own. On weekends, I would come by early morning and drive the ball-picker around to gather up all the loose balls that littered the field like hundreds of eggs ready to hatch. Since the range opened at 7 a.m., I would try to be there by 6 am to not only pick up the balls but get the buckets filled, the cash drawer set up and do anything else needed to get the place ready before customers arrived.
On weekends when I arrived close to dawn, the place seemed as if in the middle of nowhere. It was not far from civilization, after all once you got to the top of the long road leading to the main street a heavily commercialized area was all around you. In the middle of the range’s field, though, surrounded by nothing but woods, on a quiet, early weekend morning, it felt like it was just me and nature.
Reinforcing that sense of isolation was the fact I would occasionally see coyotes on the outer edge of the range, just beyond the lip of the woods. They would look curiously at me as I puttered around on the ball-picker. I had moved to this area of small towns from a large, heavily industrialized city. I had never seen coyotes in real life until helping my buddy out at his range. I wasn’t frightened by them. I knew that they seldom attacked humans, they kept their distance, and I was certainly safe inside the ball picker’s cage.
One Saturday morning, after a long night out with work colleagues, I stumbled out of bed, threw on some clothes and headed off to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts (in Massachusetts, no matter where you live, in any part of the state, there is likely going to be a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby). That morning I bought, out of necessity, an extra-large coffee. I drove to the range, grabbed the coffee, and jumped into the ball-picker.
As I was riding around with the ball-picker I could see the coyotes near the woods. There were probably about a dozen scattered around watching me criss-cross the field. I had been riding around for about 10 or 15 minutes when, without warning, the ball-picker just died, right about in the middle of the range. I tried starting it several times, but nothing.
While I was trying to get the ball-picker started again, the coyotes began slowly coming closer, eventually getting within a few feet of me. I remember the surreal feeling of animals watching me, a human, in a cage. At that moment I felt like a zoo animal. The coyotes didn’t appear to be threatening, but seemed more curious. It was around that moment that I realized I had polished off my extra-large coffee and my bladder was urgently telling me to do something about it.
Ordinarily, at that time in the morning in the middle of the woods with nobody in sight, I would have just jumped out of the picker and done what I had to do. This morning, however, there was a pack of coyotes within a few feet of me. I was probably a good 50-60 yards from the small office building where there was a bathroom. But I never was a sprinter. I thought of getting out and as calmly as possible walking to the office. I was only somewhat confident the coyotes wouldn’t attack me. The key words in that last sentence are “only somewhat confident.”
In my hand was the empty coffee cup so......
There I sat for what seemed the longest time, an extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts cup filled with warm piss in my hand, inside a dead ball-picker, surrounded by about a dozen coyotes circling me. Fortunately, within about 10 minutes my buddy’s future father-in-law showed up to help at the range.
Standing in front of the office, he looked out at me in the middle of the field, inside the ball-picker, surrounded by coyotes, and laughed. He yelled out: “ball-picker dead?” I wanted to say: “no, I just enjoy hanging with coyotes” but thought better of it. “Yes,” I yelled. He went to the side of the office, took the covers off two metal trash cans and began walking toward me banging the tops loudly. The coyotes ran back into the woods before my buddy’s future father-in-law got to me. I climbed out of the ball-picker, emptied the cup onto the field and told my rescuer the story. He laughed and said with a grin, “I brought you a coffee. You can drink this one inside the office after you help me push the picker back.”
My buddy owned the range for several years before selling it. I continued to help him on weekends when I could, always buying a Dunkin’ before doing so and often seeing coyotes on the edge of the woods. Fortunately, I never again had a problem with the ball-picker that early in the morning. There was no repeat performance by me as the main attraction in an exhibit, surrounded by coyotes, a cup of urine in hand, helplessly trapped in a ball-picker.
About the author: Jim LaJoie was born and raised in Massachusetts,
but fled the harsh winters by relocating to North Carolina. He has lived more decades than he cares to admit.