“You guys are good!” he said at one tee.

“It’s just practice,” the dreadlocked one said. “We play a lot.”

“It’s our religion,” one of the others said, and his companions cackled as they made their next drives.

Then one of Frank’s own approach shots clanged into the chains and dropped straight in, from about thirty yards out. The others hooted loudly in congratulation.

On his next approach he focused on throwing at the basket, let go, watched it fly straight there and hit with a resounding clash of the chains. A miracle! A glow filled him, and he ran with an extra bounce in his step.

At the end of their round they stood steaming in the dusk, not far from the picnic area and the homeless guys. The players compared numbers, “twenty-eight,” “thirty-three,” which turned out to be how many strokes under par they were for the day. Then high fives and handshakes, and they began to move off in different directions.

“I want to do that again,” Frank said to the dreadlocked guy.

“Any time, you were keeping right with us. We’re here most days around this time.” He headed off in the direction of the homeless guys, and Frank accompanied him, thinking to return to his dinner site and clear away his trash.

The homeless guys were still there, nattering at each other like Laurel and Hardy: “I did not! You did. I did not, you did.” Something in the intonation revealed to Frank that these were the two he had heard the night before, passing him in the dark.

“Now you wanna play?” the chess player said when he saw Frank.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

He sat across from the boy, sweating, still feeling the glow of his miracle shot. Throwing on the run; no doubt it was a very old thing, a hunter thing. His whole brain and body had been working out there. Hunting, sure, and the finding and picking up of the frisbees in the dusk was like gathering. Hunting and gathering; and maybe these were no longer the same activities if one were hunting for explanations, or gathering data. Maybe only physical hunting and gathering would do.