Peeking his head in through the door, Mustang took in the sight of the small reception area outside the Principal’s Office with all the caution of someone who’d just accidentally stumbled into a tiger enclosure with a ribeye taped to their face.
“Uh … hi, I’m Mustang Peyton?” he said, his trepidation at entering the office causing him to, inadvertently, inflect his voice as if he were asking a question.
“Are you telling me?” replied Ms Kralik, shifting her steely gaze from off of the papers she’d been perusing through at her desk and turning it onto Mustang; her cold, hard eyes glaring out at him over the top of her narrow, gold-rimmed reading glasses. “Or asking me?”
Mustang hated when people were overly pedantic about things like that; like asking a teacher can you go to the bathroom and they respond by saying, “Well, I sincerely hope you can, but I believe what you meant to say is, ‘May I go to the bathroom?’”. It was infuriating.
“Telling you,” he answered, making sure he said the words as flatly as possible to avoid further correction.
“Well, in that case, you can stop skulking around over there like a scalded dog and go straight in, then,” said Ms Kralik, gesturing loosely at the door into Fr. Breen’s office as she returned to carefully scrutinizing the bundle of papers in her hands with a scornful glare. “Just knock before you open the door.”
Having been given his instructions, Mustang stepped fully in through the door of the reception area and closed it gently behind him. As he then began making his way towards the door of Fr. Breen’s office – his steps muffled on account of the rough, hard-wearing carpet covering the floor – the potent aroma of Ms Kralik’s sickly-sweet perfume mixed with the extra-strength menthol throat lozenges she forever seemed to have, at least, one of in her mouth, began to waft out over the edge of her desk the closer Mustang got to it, stinging the inside of his nostrils as if he’d just had a whiff of some smelling salts.
“You know, for someone called ‘Mustang’ I’d have expected a little more urgency in your step,” noted Ms Kralik, her critique coming sharply from behind her desk. “So, let’s move it along, yes? Fr. Breen is a busy man – he doesn’t have time for dawdlers.”
Were the situation any different, Mustang would have liked nothing more than to brazenly return fire with some smart-aleck answer he’d aim right over the bow of Ms Kralik’s desk – he even already knew what he’d say. But ‘return fire’ he didn’t. Instead, Mustang swallowed his retort back down and stored it away for another day. Because Ray and Beau had worked hard to get him into St. Nick’s – he knew that. So, as much as he wanted to, Mustang wasn’t about to then turn around and repay that effort on his behalf by getting into it with the school receptionist on his very first day.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, quickening his walk appropriately. “Sorry.”
With no response forthcoming from Ms Kralik, Mustang finally reached Fr. Breen’s door and knocked three times on the panel of frosted glass that made up the vast majority of the upper portion of it.
“Come in,” said Fr. Breen, his voice sounding out from inside the office.
After quickly readjusting the strap of his backpack so that it wasn’t digging as much into his shoulder, Mustang, after taking a breath to steady the slight nerves he was suddenly feeling, turned the brass doorknob and walked into the office.
Though he’d been a frequent visitor to his old principal’s office back in Florida when his mom was sick and, then again, after she’d died, given Fr. Breen was both a principal and a priest, Mustang hadn’t been quite sure what to prepare himself for as he’d made the journey from Homeroom to his office. In his head, he’d imagined that it would be decorated very much like how the rest of the school was, except with the ‘religious dial’ bumped all the way up to ten. Paintings depicting even more graphic scenes from the bible that a “staunch Catholic” like Mustang ought to be familiar with. Neatly painted sculptures of various saints on display like a set of holy action figures. Bookcases laden with rows upon rows of religious texts and leather-bound books so thick and heavy they could be wielded as a weapon if the mood struck you. These seemed to be the most realistic images Mustang could conjure up based on what he’d seen of Catholic priests in movies or on television. What he found when he actually laid eyes on Fr. Breen’s office, however, was that whilst his choice of décor was, indeed, reminiscent of a shrine, it wasn’t so much one honouring a deity, as it was a shrine to something that, unlike Catholicism, Mustang happened to know quite a lot about: golf.
Where the paintings he’d imagined being on the wall were? There were, instead, framed photographs of Fr. Breen posing in group pictures filled with smiling, sunburnt faces from golf trips he’d taken to famous golf courses all around the world and a rainbow of framed flags from all the Major Championships he’d attended – everywhere from as recent as Tiger’s comeback win at the Masters in 2019, all the way back to Payne Stewart capturing the U.S. Open at Pinehurst in 1999 – each of them inscribed with a bevy of hastily written autographs scratched out with a black Sharpie.
Instead of the collection of forlorn-looking religious statues? A series of perspex boxes were dotted around the office with carefully mounted pieces of memorabilia housed within – everything from obvious things like golf balls and golf gloves to the more obscure collector’s items like broken tees and small pencils that, once they’d filled their purpose of filling in a scorecard, had been discarded for treasure hunters like Fr. Breen to go scavenging for.
And whilst there was, indeed, a bookcase pressed up against the rear-most wall of the office? From what Mustang could see from where he was standing, every inch of real estate on its four shelves looked to be dedicated more to books and magazines about everything golf-related as opposed to sacred texts and books discussing the philosophical ‘ins & outs’ of Catholicism.
In short, it was like Mustang had, somehow, taken several wrong turns after leaving Homeroom and wound up opening the door into a golf museum instead of a principal’s office. And he was quite alright with that.
“Mr Peyton … good morning …” said Fr. Breen, the curator of the ‘museum’ sounding a touch distracted as he stood over a putt he was about to take on the large ‘PuttOUT’ mat lying on the floor near his desk. “I’ll be right with you …” He drew the head of his putter back – an old-school, brass-coloured Bullseye – and sent it knocking into the back of the ball sitting on the mat. Though it popped quite nicely off the putter’s impossibly small face, after just a foot into its 12-foot journey to the target he’d set up at the opposite end of the mat, Mustang could tell it was going to miss. And quite badly at that.
“Arrrgh …” groaned Fr. Breen, frustratedly, as he watched his ball not only skid past where he was aiming but drop right off the end of the mat entirely. Flipping the putter in hands so that he was now holding it by the head instead of the grip, Fr. Breen looked at it and said, “Well, you had your shot, buddy …”. With that, he moved towards the commemorative United States golf bag standing in the corner of the office, one from the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla, and popped the Bullseye back in alongside the host of other putters and archaic golf clubs already crammed inside it.
“Now, to business!” he announced, turning around from successfully benching his Bullseye for the foreseeable future and walking briskly towards where Mustang was still standing by the door, his arm already outstretched for a handshake. “How are you, young man?!” he asked, grabbing Mustang’s hand and giving it a firm, vigorous handshake. “Settling in ok? Finding everything easily enough?”
Though he was mainly focused on just coming out the other end of their handshake without any broken bones, Mustang couldn’t help but be taken aback at just how different Fr. Breen looked compared to how he’d imagined he would in his head. He was dressed head-to-toe in black with the white clerical collar to top it off, as he’d expected a priest to be; but, apart from that, he couldn’t have defied Mustang’s expectations more if he tried. He was a tall man – not as tall as Ray, mind – but he was still pushing close to 6-foot. He was in his late 60s, just as Beau had described, but now that Mustang was actually standing in front of him, he felt Fr. Breen looked far younger than someone who’d be needing more than 65 candles on their next birthday cake. Thanks to the short-sleeved shirt he was wearing, Mustang could see he obviously liked to stay in shape when he wasn’t on the altar – or the golf course, for that matter – as his tanned, sinewy arms looked as though they’d be more at home on the body of a professional wrestler than a man of the cloth. And between his tastefully coiffed hair and dashing smile, he looked as though his time would be better served on the talk show circuit promoting an upcoming movie he was starring in rather than being locked away in some dark confessional hearing the sins of his flock.
“Uh, yes, sir …” replied Mustang, before quickly catching himself as Ray’s parting words to him that morning, suddenly, popped into his head. “I mean, Father!”
“Relax,” grinned Fr. Breen, clapping Mustang reassuringly on the shoulder as he could sense he was internally lambasting himself for his slip of the tongue. “This ain’t no audience with the Pope. Now, come on, let’s take a seat, shall we?”
After seeing him gesture off towards the comfortable-looking chairs sitting on either side of his large, imposing desk, Mustang walked the short distance across the office and took a seat on the one nearest to the door. As he took a second to slip his backpack down off of his shoulder and lay it on the floor alongside his chair, however, Mustang couldn’t help but notice another framed picture sitting alongside the computer monitor on Fr. Breen’s desk.
“Is that you playing at Augusta?!” Mustang asked, the question flying out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to remind him who exactly he was speaking to. “On 13?!”
“Good eye!” smiled an impressed-sounding Fr. Breen, lowering himself down into his high-backed, leather chair on the opposite side of the desk and looking at the picture in question. “That it is. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: a priest getting his picture taken at Amen Corner? Just a touch on the corny side, right? But, hey, what can I say? I just couldn’t resist!”
“Who cares about ‘corny’ when you get to say you played at Augusta,” replied Mustang, frankly, as he leaned all the way forward in his chair and carefully ran his eyes over every minute detail the photograph had to offer. “That must have been insane!”
“It really was,” said Fr. Breen, the memories from that magical morning still so potent in his mind that to recall them now caused a barrage of sights, sounds, and smells to flood his senses. “And to make it even more ‘insane’? That morning I played there? It was actually the Monday after the final round of that year’s Masters.”
“No way!” gasped Mustang, his eyes widening in disbelief as he looked across the desk at Fr. Breen. “So, you played it in tournament condition?! What was it like?!”
“Impossible!” laughed Fr. Breen, his head leaning back and hitting against the headrest of his chair. “But, to this day, it’s still the most fun I’ve had shooting 120 on a golf course!”
Mustang laughed as he sat back in his chair. He could only imagine the challenge that had awaited Fr. Breen when he stepped on the 1st tee at Augusta that crisp April morning. The pristine conditions and hallowed silence belying the fact he was about to subject himself to the most arduous examination of his golfing ability he’d ever be likely to face in his life. What a rush it must have been.
“Still, having seen what you’re capable of producing on a golf course …” Fr. Breen continued, now taking to sitting forward in his chair and placing his elbows up on top of the desk as he gently clasped his hands together. “I’m sure you’ll put up a far better fight than what I did once you get there next April.”
Though Mustang had known from the moment he knocked off Carlton Mynor 2&1 in the semi-final of the U.S. Amateur to secure his place in the final against Fletcher that, regardless of what happened in those 36-holes, he was after guaranteeing himself a spot in the field for not only the following year’s Masters but also the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines by just being one of the final two left standing, it was something he had made a concerted effort to block from his mind ever since then. Because he didn’t want to think about it. Because to think about it would mean he’d get his hopes up. And, as a matter of self-preservation, that was something he’d learned not to do; for the higher his hopes got, that just meant the harder the fall would be when things would, inevitably, not work out. So, until the physical invitations came in the mail and he could literally hold them in his hands and see his name written on them? As far as Mustang was concerned, his schedules for April and June 2021 were wide open.
“Hopefully, yeah. Luckily, though, that’s all still way off in the future, so I’m not really thinking about it yet, to be honest,” said Mustang, pulling his usual trick of just smiling and reeling off the line he’d developed that seemed to have the intended effect of neutralizing any further conversation about the prospect of him playing in two Major Championships. “Mainly, I’m just looking to get ready for the Walker Cup in a few weeks, learn what I can from that, then really just focus on my game for the next few months, improve where I can, and take it from there.”
“Yeah, of course; that’s probably the best approach to take, really,” replied Fr. Breen, picking up on the subtext of what Mustang had just said and looking to shift the focus of their conversation accordingly. “Though, funny you should mention ‘focusing on your game’, because, in a way, the reason I called you in here this morning could help you do just that.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, the thing with keeping your game sharp – or even making it sharper, in your case – is that practicing can only do so much,” Fr. Breen answered, beginning his pitch. “What a player of your calibre really needs, though, is competition. Because look, you could come back from Seminole next month, start clocking up round after round over at the Creek and grinding your way through countless buckets of balls on the range, and wind up in pretty good condition for Augusta – I’m not denying that. But what if I told you that come April, you could be driving down Magnolia Lane knowing you’d spent the previous months honing your game in the heat of battle against some of the very best young golfers in Louisiana? That you’d had drives where you’d needed to find the fairway; iron-shots where you’d needed to stick one in close; and must-make putts with actual stakes on the line? That I could give you all of that and have you stepping on that 1st tee at the Masters primed and ready-to-go like a prize-fighter after a training camp … what would you say?”
Mustang looked off to his side as he considered Fr. Breen’s proposal. He spied a worn-looking copy of ‘Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf’ lying on top of a decorative console table pushed flush up against the wall of the office – his second such occasion coming across that book in the past few weeks. The other copy had been hiding beneath a pile of old ‘USA Today’ magazines in the waiting room of Dr. Hopkins’ office, the “golf crazy” dentist in New Malo who’d spoken enthusiastically with Mustang about his performance in the Memorial Matchplay before then proceeding to drill out a number of his teeth because, as it turned out, he’d had more cavities than a system of underground caves.
Unsurprisingly, Mustang had found the ‘chatting’ portion of the appointment to be the most agreeable part of that particular excursion to New Malo.
“I’d say …” Mustang answered, taking his gaze from off of Mr. Hogan’s instruction guide and shifting it back across the desk at Fr. Breen. “What would this fight camp entail?”
Fr. Breen smiled. He did always enjoy when a pitch went well. “It’s called the ‘Louisiana State Inter-Parish Golf League’ – though, everyone just calls it ‘The 66’ after the number of parishes who enter teams to play in it,” he explained, sitting back in his chair as he attempted to reel Mustang all the way into the boat.
“Oh, so it’s a team competition?” Mustang asked, that particular detail colouring his opinion slightly.
“It is,” confirmed Fr. Breen, picking up on Mustang’s sudden hesitance. “But that doesn’t change the fact it’ll give you the opportunity to experience everything I told you. And as you’ll learn come the Walker Cup? Playing golf when you have teammates relying on you to play well? That adds a whole other level of pressure for you to contend with that just playing for yourself can’t ever teach you.”
“Alright … so, I take it you’ve something to do with one of these 66 teams, then?” Mustang guessed, choosing to skip to the end he felt Fr. Breen was, inevitably, building towards.
Feeling suddenly restless, Fr. Breen pushed himself back up out of his chair and turned to gaze out through the large window directly behind him that looked out over the front of the school; the pandemonium of students being dropped off for their first day back by parents in large, gas-guzzling SUVs that clogged up the entire street now, gratefully, replaced with peaceful silence.
“Eight years ago I was put in charge of our team here in New Malo Parish; given my obvious interest in the game, it seemed like a natural fit …” he began, a vaguely nostalgic tone entering his voice as he nestled his hands inside the pockets of his trousers. “Unfortunately, though, in those same eight years, I’ve yet to have a single team manage to be one of the two who make it out of our conference and get to the championship tournament. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some talented golfers in my ranks who’ve gotten us close to getting out of the conference, but they were always outliers – lone wolves lacking a sufficient pack to help carry the burden and get us across that line.” Fr. Breen turned around and looked, once more, at Mustang. The relaxed energy that had been emanating from him since Mustang had first entered the office had now been replaced with a far more earnest and serious one. “But this year?” he continued. “This year I have a pack – and a good one, at that. But, you? You’re the missing piece, Mustang. With you in this team? Not only could we finally get out of the conference, but I think we could make a deep run in the championship tournament – I truly do.”
As Fr. Breen took a moment to move back around his desk towards the side closest to the door, it gave Mustang a much-needed second to think about his offer. It was tempting. Really tempting. The only thing giving him reservations, though, was, given the somewhat ‘sketchy’ circumstances behind his admission into St. Nick’s, Mustang couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Fr. Breen’s ‘offer’ was, in actual fact, more of an ‘ultimatum’ than it was an open invitation he could freely reject if he so wished.
“Before you give me an answer, though …” said Fr. Breen, taking to just leaning up against the outer edge of the desk now that he’d reached the side Mustang was sitting on. “And taking it as a given that you obviously need to talk it over with your guardian first; let me just make it abundantly clear that there is absolutely no pressure on you to say ‘yes’ to this. If you feel that it’s not something you want to be a part of, then it will have no bearing whatsoever on your position here at St. Nicholas’ – ok, you’re one of us now and that’s that. I just wanted you to know that.”
Having had his sole concern about Fr. Breen’s offer exorcised – and in such emphatic fashion that it made him wonder if ‘reading minds’ was actually a superpower secretly bestowed upon all priests when they received their collars – Mustang gave himself another moment to think everything through.
“So, what you can do is …” continued Fr. Breen, leaning back away from the edge of his desk as he now took on that same distinctive aura everyone does when they’re looking to wrap up a discussion. “Take some time to think everything over; see how it’s all sitting with you in a day or two; and when you know which side you’re after coming down on, just pop into the office here and Ms Kralik will–…”
“I’m in.”
After interrupting him mid-thought, a wide-eyed Fr. Breen, unwilling to believe that he’d actually heard what he thought he had, looked sharply down at Mustang. “Are you serious?” he asked, struggling to hold back his excitement. “You’re in?! You wanna join the team?!”
“Well, I’ll have to talk it over with Ray, like you said,” answered a now smiling Mustang, getting up out of his chair to be on a more level standing with Fr. Breen as he reached out for a handshake. “But, yeah … it sounds like it could be fun.”
Flashing that Hollywood smile of his, Fr. Breen took a firm grasp of Mustang’s outstretched hand. “In that case, then, welcome aboard, young man …” he said, unable to conceal his delight a second longer. “Cause you just became a New Malo Pirate!”
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