“Kid! … Wait up!”
Mustang, though, had no intention of listening to Ray. His gut had told him to run. To get as far away from the practice green as possible. Away from the crowd of people staring at him. Away from the sight of a bleeding Fletcher still reeling from the punch he’d given him.
So, he was going to run.
And keep running until he no longer felt as though his insides were on fire.
“OSCAR!”
It was rare for Ray to call Mustang by his actual name. So rare, in fact, that Mustang could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever actually heard Ray say it. And on those rare occasions when he did? It was always a strange experience. Because while he knew that was, technically, his name, he’d become so used to being called ‘Mustang’ by pretty much everyone he knew – not to mention the fact it was how he, now, even introduced himself to people he didn’t know – hearing someone other than his grandfather refer to him as ‘Oscar’ made him feel as though he was a secret agent whose cover had just been blown, exposing him to the reality of who he really was, and the past that came with it in an oddly sobering manner.
So, knowing the game was up, Mustang stopped running. It was time to come in from the cold … if only temporarily.
“Care to tell me what the hell all that was about?!” snapped Ray, his breath ragged as he finally caught up to Mustang in the large parking lot which fronted the palatial-looking clubhouse at TPC San Antonio.
“I dunno …” mumbled Mustang, willingly deluding himself that he could somehow bluster his way through this exchange with nothing but pure stubbornness.
“Naw, ‘I dunno’ ain’t gonna cut it!” replied Ray firmly, now that he’d fully regained control over his breathing. “So, talk!”
“I dunno what you want me to say!” argued Mustang, his head now feeling slightly dizzy as he struggled to remember all the details of what had just gone down. “Alright, we were talking … Fletcher asked me was I going to the Masters … when I said I was, he started talking trash about how I was gonna miss the cut and how he’d win the low amateur. Then he offered to shake my hand, but as soon I did, he started squeezing mine really hard and saying all this stuff about you and Dallas … how I was gonna embarrass myself at Augusta … and then …” Mustang trailed off. He didn’t want to say what happened next. To repeat what Fletcher had said.
“Then what?!” probed a still irritated Ray, not willing to let Mustang off the hook.
Despite Ray trying to pry it out of him, however, Mustang refused to speak. He just looked away, clenching his jaw as Fletcher’s words replayed in his head, causing the anger he’d felt just before he hit him to swell, undesirably, back up.
“I’m not screwin’ around, kid!” warned Ray, taking the toughest stance he’d ever had to assume with Mustang. “You just laid someone out! And I know it was Fletcher, and I know he’s earned it ten times over in the past, but I need to know what happened – otherwise, I can’t hel-…”
“He talked about my mom!” barked Mustang, breaking his silence. “Alright?! That’s what happened!”
Ray’s demeanour instantly changed. Given he knew Mustang wasn’t the type of kid to just go around throwing out right hands for no good reason, he’d figured something quite serious must have happened between him and Fletcher for the latter to end up with a busted lip. And hearing that it was because Fletcher had been sadistic enough to say something about Mustang’s mom again? Well, suddenly, everything was making perfect sense.
“Was it worse than what he said when he called you at the Walker Cup?” Ray asked, his tone softening dramatically. “You know, before you played Finn?”
“Yeah …” Mustang answered, now far quieter after his previous outburst. “He said that even if I am going to embarrass myself at the Masters, at least …” Again, Mustang trailed off for a moment. He took a breath. A much-needed one. “At least my mom’s not around to see it,” he continued, ripping the band-aid, as it were, and just forcing the words out as quickly as he could.
Ray could only shake his head and let out a frustrated sigh – now it was his turn to try and hold his composure. He knew Fletcher was a rat. This wasn’t news. It had been a well-known fact for the past six months. But for Ray to hear that Fletcher had now actually stooped so low as to say what Mustang had just told him? That was more than just the behaviour of a rat – heck, it was even an insult to rats themselves to liken the two.
No, this was something more. Something far worse. For whatever reason, Fletcher had it out for Mustang in a very real and sinister fashion. But going on everything Mustang had told him about their various run-ins at the Walker Cup, Ray, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out how they would have led to Fletcher harbouring this level of a vendetta against Mustang. To be so hellbent on not only pushing his buttons at every available opportunity, but doing so to such an intense and vile level that Mustang would actually go so far as to hit him? It just didn’t make any sense.
“I see …” said Ray, looking to break the silence as he continued to try and come up with the right words to say – if there even were any to be found.
“Are you disappointed in me?” Mustang asked, almost afraid to hear the answer as his eyes remained fixed on the asphalt beneath his feet.
“What? Naw, I’m not disappointed, kid,” Ray answered assuredly, looking to put Mustang’s concerns quickly to bed. “Trust me, from someone who’s punched more people than I’d like to admit – and for a lot less than what Fletcher said – I ain’t no one to be passin’ judgement on the topic of throwin’ hands.”
Mustang quietly nodded his head. From the expression on his face, however, Ray could tell that he, obviously, needed a little more from him.
“What I will say, though …” said Ray, stepping back up to the plate. “Is that it’s never wrong to stand up for yourself. Cause people like Fletcher? They’re everywhere. Not all of ‘em will be as bad as he is, mind, but … well, they’ll come damn close. And if you let ‘em? They’ll walk all over you. They’ll try to make you feel small. Try to make you think that you’re not good enough. Basically, they’ll try to take everythin’ from you that makes you who you are – unless you say ‘no’. And most of the time, just sayin’ that will be enough. But on those rare occasions where words aren’t enough? Well, unfortunately, sometimes a punch in the mouth is the only language some people will understand.” Ray placed his hand encouragingly on Mustang’s shoulder. “So, no, I am not disappointed in you …” Ray reiterated as Mustang, finally, looked up at him.
“You sure?” asked Mustang, starting to look a little less stressed.
“Positive,” confirmed Ray, smiling warmly. “I got your back, remember?” With that, Ray stuck out his hand for a fist bump. “No matter what.”
As opposed to sticking out his right hand to reciprocate Ray’s fist bump like he normally would, Mustang, instead, stuck out his left hand and knocked it against Ray’s knuckles.
This change, however, did not go unnoticed.
“When you punched Fletcher …” said Ray, pondering aloud as his brow furrowed in a mixture of suspicion and slight concern. “Did you hurt your hand?”
“No … I don’t think so …” said Mustang, obviously lying, as he began to not-so-subtly hide his right hand behind his back.
“C’mon, kid,” said Ray, using that frank tone of his that told Mustang he wasn’t fooling anybody.
With the pain in his hand now too distracting for him to even try and sustain the lie, Mustang pulled it from behind his back and held it out gingerly for Ray to examine.
And it didn’t look good.
The knuckles on his ring and little finger were after swelling dramatically. There was a large, tender-looking lump after forming in-between the two bones leading away from those same pair of knuckles. And there was a significant level of bruising already beginning to form in that part of his hand, making his skin cloudy in a sea of black and blue.
“Yeah, we need to get you to the emergency room,” said Ray, keeping noticeably calm as he made his assessment after only a second or two of taking in the damage to Mustang’s hand.
“What?!” said Mustang, the beads of cold sweat already sitting on his forehead being made all the colder at hearing he might possibly have to go to the hospital. “No, we don’t need to go to the hospital! It’s not that bad! Really!”
“Ok, I’ll cut a deal with ya then,” said Ray matter-of-factly. “If you can touch your little finger to your thumb? We won’t go to the hospital. But if you can’t? We go.”
“No problem,” said Mustang brashly, as he set about completing Ray’s challenge. “Cause I’m telling you right now, I just need to put some ice on this and it’ll be fi-aaaarrgggh!”
After barely moving it in the direction of his thumb, a sharp, jarring pain had immediately shot through Mustang’s little finger, spreading right the way throughout his hand and down into his wrist. Perhaps some ice wasn’t going to be enough to cure this particular problem after all.
“So …” said Ray, the amount of pain Mustang was in stopping him from feeling overtly smug about being right. “Hospital?”
“Yeah …” sighed Mustang, still grimacing as the waves of pain began to subside and give way to just a general aching sensation. “Hospital …”
“Alright, then let’s get goin’,” said Ray, putting a reassuring arm around Mustang’s shoulders as he began to lead him across the parking lot while simultaneously pulling his phone from his pocket. “You just pop that hand of yours up onto your shoulder, ok? It’ll help with the pain. I’ll just call Dallas real quick and tell ‘im what’s happenin’ – see if he can’t give us a ride.”
With Ray busily scrolling through his phone in search of Dallas’ number, Mustang quietly piped up. “Ray?” he said, a distinct worried tone now after infiltrating his voice.
“Yeah, kid?” replied Ray, sounding a tad distracted as he struggled to find Dallas’ number on account of the glare hitting his screen.
“What if I can’t play in the Masters because of this?” asked Mustang, the idea alone making his stomach drop.
Ray hesitated for a moment before answering. Suddenly, finding Dallas’ number didn’t seem so important.
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, alright?” he said, trying his best to sound upbeat. “Right now, we just need to focus on one thing at a time, and top of that list is gettin’ that hand looked at. Whatever comes after that? We’ll just cross that bridge when – and if – we get to it, ok?”
“Ok …” said Mustang, quietly nodding his head.
As Ray returned to scrolling through his phone, however, his mind was about as far removed from what he was doing as you could imagine. Because, deep down, he knew full well what bridge was coming down the line for himself and Mustang. There was no ‘if’ about it.
In fact, going on just how seriously hurt Mustang’s hand looked, Ray knew that the only ‘if’ worth thinking about in this situation was that if Mustang somehow managed to tee it up at Augusta the following Thursday, then it would be definitive proof, once and for all, that miracles can, indeed, happen.
Not that Ray was going to tell Mustang that, of course.
Not yet, anyway.
*
Ray brought his paper cup up to his mouth and took a sip of the jet black coffee lying within. It had cooled significantly in the fifteen or so minutes it had been since he’d made the trek back out to the waiting area of the emergency room to get it, but all that really meant was that he was now actually able to taste the coffee itself – and given it brought back distinct memories of the horrific, freeze-dried tar he used to choke down every morning in his army days, that wasn’t exactly a good thing.
Still, as bitter as the coffee was, Ray wasn’t so much concerned with the taste of it as he was with just getting the precious caffeine it contained into his bloodstream as quickly as possible. Because between spending a second consecutive day walking around the Oaks course at TPC San Antonio, to then enduring the bones of a near three and a half-hour-long wait to be seen at the emergency room, Ray was out on his feet – both physically and mentally.
Yet, as exhausted as he was, Ray shuddered to think how much worse he’d be if it hadn’t been for Dallas. From the second he’d managed to get through to him on the phone and told him what had happened between Mustang and Fletcher, Dallas had swung instantly into action. Organizing a car to take Ray and Mustang to a hospital. Calling his insurance company to preemptively cover the costs of the visit. He even called a surgeon friend of his, a well-known orthopedic surgeon by the name of Dr. Grace Miller, to come to the hospital on the off chance Mustang might need a surgical consultant because, as Dallas had said himself, “If you got a problem with a Rolls, you don’t let just any ole’ grease monkey under the hood.”
And, as it turned out, Dallas’ hunch, unfortunately, turned out to be spot-on.
“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” Dr. Miller had said, her voice tinged with the sort of sympathetic note no one ever wants to hear a doctor using once she’d sat down opposite Ray and Mustang inside her office.
“How bad are we talking exactly?” Ray had asked, keeping it together for Mustang’s sake, who he could see was already after tuning out at hearing the diagnosis was as bad as he’d feared it would be.
“Well, what we’re looking at …” Dr. Miller had replied, trying to add some gloss to the bad news as she, too, could feel Mustang’s disappointment radiating across her desk. “Is a fracture to the neck of the fifth metacarpal – that thin, little bone leading away from the knuckle of Oscar’s little finger – and then a smaller, less severe hairline fracture to the fourth metacarpal. Now, the hairline fracture isn’t really anything to worry about, it’s the damage to that fifth metacarpal I’m more focused on. See, what that’s done is caused that part of the bone to angle downwards towards the palm of his hand, which is what that painful lump is right there. In short, it’s what we more commonly refer to as a ‘boxer’s fracture’ – which, given the circumstances surrounding the injury, you can see why.”
“Ok, and is it easy to fix?” Ray had then asked, appreciating Dr. Miller’s attempts to lighten the mood, but he’d been more focused on just getting the full prognosis.
“Well, normally, yes …” Dr. Miller had answered, though her tone had indicated there was a ‘but’ hot on the trail of her response. “I’d just reset the bone, pop a cast on, and then three to four weeks later I’d expect you to be right as rain. But, unfortunately, having looked at the x-ray and the CT, due to the degree of angulation in the fracture to that fifth metacarpal – plus, an eagerness on my part to not make that hairline fracture any worse – I’m afraid the best course of action would be a very minor operation, followed, again, with protective casting to ensure the bones heal correctly.”
“I see …” Ray had said then, his mind already racing at the mention of Mustang actually needing to go under the knife. “And how long would he be out of action after that?”
From the look that had then appeared on Dr. Miller’s face, Ray had known that the answer wasn’t going to be the one he wanted to hear.
“With everything healing exactly as it should do?” she’d replied, sounding as though she was trying her hardest to be optimistic. “The best-case scenario would be to see the cast getting taken off after six weeks. But, realistically, you’re looking at closer to eight … maybe even ten, to make doubly sure that everything is properly healed. And that’s before we even factor in the weakness that’s going to be present in Oscar’s hand after being immobilized for such an extended period of time.”
At that point, Dr. Miller had gone on to explain what the next steps would be in Mustang’s treatment – basically, keeping him in overnight with a view to operating the following day should the swelling be after going down sufficiently. But for as much as Ray was taking in everything he was being told, he was doing so on autopilot. For, try as he did, as soon as he’d heard Dr. Miller mention that it could be eight to ten weeks before Mustang would even so much as get his cast off after the surgery, Ray couldn’t help but try to mentally calculate how close that would bring them to the U.S. Open in June. Because he’d known before they’d even gotten to the hospital that playing in the Masters was going to be a no-go – that was obvious. But the U.S. Open? Torrey Pines? That was still a possibility.
Once they’d finished talking with Dr. Miller, however, and he’d been relieved from duty as Mustang had went about grabbing a shower before having some dinner in the private room Dallas had, of course, insisted on getting for him, Ray had gotten the time needed to grab himself a coffee and actually get some hard numbers to work by.
And, as he’d feared, they hadn’t made for positive reading.
Going by the schedule Dr. Miller had given them, should it take the full ten weeks from the following day for Mustang’s hand to heal, then that would see his cast getting taken off the week of the U.S. Open. Meaning, in layman’s terms, Mustang would have to go from having not played any golf in nearly eight and a half months, to rocking up to the South Course at Torrey Pines with a surgically-repaired right hand that had only been removed from a cast in the preceding few days. In other words, Ray knew that to actually make it to the 1st-tee at Torrey, let alone get through an entire 18-holes at, arguably, the toughest Major of the year, would see them needing to venture into ‘miracle territory’ once again.
“How’s the coffee?”
Having not even noticed that he’d been staring blankly into his cup, his eyes fixated by the reflection of the corridor’s halogen strip lighting bouncing off the surface of his coffee, Ray looked up to see the always noticeably large figure of Dallas standing alongside him.
“Uh, yeah, it’s, uh … uh …” stammered Ray, trying to shift his tired brain into the required gear that would allow him to form a response to Dallas’ question.
“Terrible?” said Dallas, proffering his suggestion with a smile as he lowered himself stiffly down onto the hard, plastic seat alongside Ray’s.
“Yeah, pretty much,” replied Ray, allowing himself the smallest of laughs.
“I mean, you’d think with all the money I’ve donated to this place over the years, they could’ve, at least, used some of it to put in a decent coffee machine …” said Dallas dryly, as he leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. “But what can ya do, huh?!”
This time, a weary Ray just smiled and nodded his head – the caffeine hadn’t sufficiently hit yet to produce another laugh.
“So, did you manage to get through to Mustang’s grandfather?” asked Dallas, himself, too, bearing all the hallmarks of a long day.
“Yeah, eventually,” Ray answered, sitting back from the hunched-over position he’d been in since Dallas had arrived next to him. “A neighbour of his is gonna drive him down here tomorrow. I told him there was no need, that I’d keep him updated, but he was havin’ none of it – I may as well have been tryin’ to tell a bucket of water to stop bein’ wet.”
“He’s just worried,” said Dallas, stifling a yawn. “I’d be the same if any of my grandkids were getting surgery.”
“Yeah, I know …” said Ray, bringing his cup of coffee back up towards his mouth in anticipation of forcing down another mouthful. “It’s just with the age that he is, and the Parkinson’s, I don’t want him to be exertin’ himself needlessly, you know?”
“From what I’ve heard about ‘im, he sounds like a tough old dog, so, I’m sure he’ll be fine – and the same goes for his grandson,” reassured Dallas. “Speaking of which, how’s the man of the hour doing?”
Ray let out a contemplative sigh. “As good as can be expected,” he answered, giving his honest appraisal. “I mean, he’s disappointed about Augusta, obviously. But since Dr. Miller told him that no amount of pain killin’ injections would help him to play, he seems to be acceptin’ it. To be honest, though, he’s mainly thinkin’ about gettin’ right for the U.S. Open – sayin’, ‘If Tiger can win at Torrey Pines with a broken leg, then I can win low amateur with a slightly weak hand.’”
“Yeah … sure …” said Dallas, sounding, for whatever reason, less-than-confident about that particular plan. “How ‘bout the video, though?” he asked, tentatively putting the question forward as though it were, undoubtedly, a delicate topic. “How’s he been handling that?”
“What video?” said Ray, firing back with a question of his own as he went about taking another drink from his coffee.
“Oh … you haven’t seen it, have you?” said Dallas, the realization suddenly dawning on him that both Ray and Mustang were, obviously, still in the dark as to what had transpired over the course of the evening.
Sensing the worried tone in his voice, Ray turned and looked at Dallas. “Seen what?” he asked, almost not wanting to know what the actual answer was.
Recognizing that this was the kind of situation where literally showing Ray the smoking gun would offer far better clarity than describing it ever would, Dallas reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. After a quick few taps and swipes on the screen, he then handed it off to Ray, who, upon seeing that Dallas was after pulling up a video for him, peered at the screen through narrowed, curious eyes as it began to play.
Pretty quickly, though, he figured out exactly what he was looking at – and it almost made his heart stop.
Barely lasting fifteen seconds, the video showed footage of Fletcher’s and Mustang’s run-in, namely, Fletcher turning back around to look at Mustang, only for Mustang to then punch Fletcher straight into the face with a stiff right hook.
“Who shot this?” Ray asked, now feeling a rush of prickly heat climbing up the nape of his neck as he watched Fletcher tumble down onto the practice green and the video then start to play all over again from the beginning.
“Fletcher’s videographer or … whatever he calls himself,” replied Dallas, sighing despairingly. “Basically, he follows Fletcher around and films everything he does for these videos he puts online – including, as it turns out, him getting floored with a right hand.”
Having seen Mustang punch Fletcher for the second straight time, Ray quickly paused the video – he didn’t want to see anymore. With the screen now frozen on the sight of Fletcher just beginning to wheel away post-impact, Ray noticed the view count sitting in the bottom left corner of the video for the first time. “A million views?!” he exclaimed, before quickly remembering he was in a hospital and adjusting the volume of his voice accordingly. “But the kid only hit Fletcher a few hours ago! How’s it gotten that many already?!”
“Well, after it was posted by the videographer, it got picked up by all the networks,” explained Dallas, taking his phone back and returning it to his pocket as Ray dropped his head wearily down into his hands. “ESPN, CBS, FOX, the Golf Channel – everybody. And it’s been doing the rounds ever since. Unfortunately, though, Ray … that’s not the worst part of all this.”
Having heard the grimace in his voice as he’d spoken, Ray, begrudgingly, lifted his head back up out of his hands and looked over at Dallas.
“What could be worse than a million-plus people seein’ Mustang punch Fletcher Rhodes in the mouth, and then sayin’ God knows what about ‘im online because of it?” Ray asked, the mere act of repeating the events that had unfolded since they’d been at the hospital making him feel queasy.
Again, Dallas grimaced. He’d known he’d have to break this news eventually; after all, it had been the reason he’d come to find Ray in the first place. But now that he was actually sitting in front of Ray, knowing full well the kind of stressful day he’d just put down, it was feeling as though he’d drawn the shortest of all short straws.
“The people at Augusta and the USGA have seen the video,” said Dallas, soberly pulling himself together for Ray’s sake. “The online reaction. What the networks are saying. They’ve seen it all … and they aren’t happy.”
Suddenly, Ray was feeling as though Fletcher wasn’t the only one to have sustained a devastating blow that evening. Hearing that the head honchos at Augusta and the USGA weren’t happy with what they’d seen in the video? Of Mustang punching Fletcher? And, seemingly, unprovoked at that?
This couldn’t be good.
Not good at all.
*
After a quick knock on the door, Ray pushed open the door to Mustang’s room.
“How we doin’, kid?” he asked, taking in the sight of Mustang perched up on the large bed sitting in the middle of the room, hungrily working his way through the bowl of food he’d been given.
His hair was still damp after his shower, and he was now wearing a hospital gown as opposed to the jeans and t-shirt he’d had on when he first arrived at the emergency room. The most notable change, though, was the fact his right hand had been placed into a sling to help bring down the swelling ahead of his possible operation the following day.
“Pretty good …” answered Mustang, speaking through the mouthful of food he’d taken just as Ray had come in through the door.
“Sure looks like it,” said Ray, smiling weakly as he grabbed an armchair from the corner of the room and pulled it up alongside Mustang’s bed, itself upholstered in faded blue vinyl from years of being sprayed down with industrial-strength disinfectant every other day. “I thought you said you weren’t hungry?”
“That was before I knew how good hospital ‘Mac & Cheese’ could be,” answered Mustang, as he carefully maneuvered another forkful of steaming hot, cheese-coated pasta towards his mouth. “You want some?”
“Naw, I’m good, kid, thanks,” said Ray, politely waving off Mustang’s offer. “You eat it. I’ll grab somethin’ later.”
Happy enough that he had free reign to continue devouring his dinner, Mustang popped the forkful of pasta into his mouth.
“So, uh …” said Ray, working up the courage to begin broaching the topic he’d come into the room to discuss with Mustang. “You been on your phone by any chance since we got here?”
“No,” replied Mustang, his voice temporarily garbled as he attempted to cool down the particularly molten piece of pasta he’d just eaten. “I forgot to charge it last night, so the battery’s dead. Why so?”
Though unsure as to whether or not he should be relieved that Mustang was still completely unaware that his altercation with Fletcher was currently plastered across the internet, either way, Ray knew it was now or never to tell him about the fallout that had happened because of it.
“Well, uh … the thing is, kid …” he began, internally wishing that he’d taken a second or two before entering the room to nail down exactly what he was going to say. “You punchin’ Fletcher? Well, turns out there’s a video of it after bein’ posted online – we reckon by some videographer employed by Fletcher.”
“What?!” said Mustang, looking as though he couldn’t quite fathom what Ray was saying. “You’re kidding, right?!”
“I wish I was …” replied Ray with a sorry shake of his head. “But it’s everywhere. I saw it for myself – Dallas showed me.”
Mustang dropped his fork back down into his bowl: suddenly, he didn’t have much in the way of an appetite anymore.
“And speakin’ of Dallas …” continued Ray, feeling it best to just keep going despite the fact he could tell Mustang was already shaken up as is. “He told me that a few buddies of his? Some of the higher-ups at Augusta and the USGA? Well, unsurprisingly, they’re after gettin’ wind of the video as well.”
“And …?” said Mustang, now beginning to quietly panic as he could tell by the look on Ray’s face that there was, unfortunately, more to come.
“And, apparently …” said Ray, continuing as prompted. “The general feelin’ is that considerin’ what’s after happenin’ and the public reaction to it, they both need to … ‘address the matter’, is what Dallas was told.”
The panic was now taking full control of Mustang, pushing any and all pain he may have been feeling in his hand completely from his mind.
Because this was bad.
He could tell.
Far worse than any broken bone.
“Address it how?” repeated Mustang, though his gut was already pretty sure it knew the answer.
Ray sighed. It had been painful enough to hear this from Dallas, but to now have to tell Mustang on top of it? That was on another level entirely.
“By rescinding your invitations …” said Ray, the words burning like acid in his throat. “Both for the Masters … and I’m sorry, kid … but for the U.S. Open too.”
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