Written by Stephen F. Moloney
Maggie could feel her mouth getting drier and drier the closer she and Mr. Duggart got to reaching Mr. Thackett’s cabin. To his credit, Mr. Duggart had attempted to keep things light as they walked by talking about how the driving range used to be laid out and where the old entrance he and Mr. Thackett had filled in with trees used to be, but Maggie’s mind was elsewhere entirely – predominantly, on trying to produce some modicum of saliva to make sure she could actually speak once they reached the cabin.
As they got to within thirty yards of it, Maggie watched as Mr. Thackett pushed himself stiffly up out of the wooden rocking chair he’d been sitting on and began to walk measuredly towards the set of steps which led down off the porch fronting his cabin. He was wearing a loose fitting, grubby looking t-shirt that, at one point, may have been white, but years of wear and hard work had left it faded and grey. The pair of jeans he was wearing, like his t-shirt, also looked as though years of extended wear had taken its toll, with deep-set-in oil stains littered across the particularly hard-wearing looking denim that, regardless of its durability, had faded to a light blue colour and begun to fray in places. And though the pair of sturdy, tan-coloured work boots he was wearing looked as though they were particularly heavy to walk in, from how well broken-in they appeared, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that they had been a permanent fixture on his feet for several years.
What really caught Maggie’s attention, however, was how old Mr. Thackett appeared to have gotten. Now, granted, she knew he was fast approaching sixty, so she took that into consideration, of course; but, still, to compare the man she was seeing now to the one she’d seen in the countless photographs and hours of old footage from his time out on tour … well, the difference was quite stark.
He’d lost weight and therefore a lot of the bulk he’d cultivated in his younger days with the U.S. Army – and subsequently maintained after becoming a looper – so, though he still had the same tall, wide frame as before, he now appeared more lean and rangy, as opposed to the barrel-chested man-mountain he used to be. Though he’d always sported a clean-shaven head and face, two things which added significantly to his ‘badass aesthetic’, he’d let his hair grow out ever so slightly and now had a well established beard framing his chiselled jawline, both of which were silvery grey in colour. And, in what was the most worrying thing Maggie noticed, as he descended the set of steps down off the porch to come greet them he moved very gingerly – as in, with the kind of limited mobility you’d see on someone far older than what he was and possibly suffering with some form of arthritis.
“Hey there, Ray.” said Mr. Duggart, the suddenness of his greeting pulling Maggie out of her visual dissection of Mr. Thackett and back into the reality of the driving range.
“Bill” replied Mr. Thackett, his raspy voice mirroring the same deep Louisiana drawl as that of Mr. Duggart.
Maggie and Mr. Duggart came to a stop in front of Mr. Thackett. In spite of everything she’d initially thought about how he looked compared to her memories of him, to actually be stood in front of Mr. Thackett, no more than a few feet away from him, Maggie could understand why, when he was looping full-time, he was often noted as having this inimitable “presence” about him that just radiated a calm, unyielding confidence – another product of his army days, she reckoned.
“And you must be Maggie” said Mr. Thackett, his tone noticeably softer as he turned his attention onto her.
“Uh … yes, sir,” she replied, sounding annoyingly more nervous than what she would have liked as she stuck out her hand for a handshake. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
Mr. Thackett reached out his hand and gently took a hold of Maggie’s. It felt as though she was shaking hands with someone wearing a baseball glove, such was the size and leathery feel of his hand.
“Of course,” said Mr. Thackett, as if the idea he somehow wouldn’t want to see Maggie was preposterous. “I’m glad you came.”
His voice and overall demeanour suddenly became a touch more serious.
“How’s your mother?” he asked, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Oh, let me guess!” interjected a smiling Mr. Duggart, clearly not reading Mr. Thackett’s tone. “Another member of the ‘Ray Thackett Broken Hearts Club’, huh?!”
Both Maggie and Mr. Thackett just looked at Mr. Duggart. He quickly realised he had severely misread the situation. After an awkward moment of silence, Mr. Duggart looked at Maggie.
“Hey, did I happen to mention that sometimes I’m really bad in social situations?” he asked dryly.
“As a matter of fact you didn’t, no” replied a smiling Maggie.
“And yet, somehow …” quipped Mr. Thackett, almost despairingly. “I reckon she was still able to figure that out – ain’t that somethin’?”
“Wow … the world sure does move in mysterious ways, don’t it?” said Mr. Duggart, painting a sarcastically ‘awe-struck’ expression across his face.
“Don’t it just” replied Mr. Thackett, reaching out and taking the bag of groceries out of a, now smiling, Mr. Duggart’s hands. “Perhaps you can think about that a little more when you’re headin’ back to your truck.”
Having been, essentially, ‘given his leave’, Mr. Duggart looked back at Maggie.
“A little ‘heads up’?” he said quietly, though not so quietly that Mr. Thackett wouldn’t be able to hear him. “I know you’ve come all the way down here to talk to him, but he has a tendency to get a little … ‘cranky’, shall we say. So just bear that in mind.”
After throwing a daring, though playful, smirk in Mr. Thackett’s direction, Mr. Duggart turned and set off walking back across the range away from where Maggie and Mr. Thackett were standing.
“And you wonder why I get cranky!” called out Mr. Thackett as he examined the inside of the grocery bag. “And hey! You forgot my ice-cream sandwiches! AGAIN!”
“I didn’t forget!” replied Mr. Duggart, now far enough away that his voice was echoing slightly. “You gotta watch your cholesterol, remember?! Doctor said!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah …” muttered Mr. Thackett, flapping his free arm dismissively at the now steadily retreating Mr. Duggart. “I’m tellin’ ya, I’m startin’ to think that doctor’s sole mission in life is to make sure my fridge is filled with nothin’ but vegetables …”
At that, Mr. Thackett suddenly took his eyes off the inside of the grocery bag and looked at Maggie.
“If only he knew that I’ve been hoarding ice-cream sandwiches for months” he said, his deep, brown eyes glinting mischievously. “Can I interest you? Unless, of course, you think it’s too early for one?”
“Is it ever really too early for an ice-cream sandwich?” replied Maggie.
“Test passed” smiled Mr. Thackett. “Come on, let’s go inside – I figure we got a lot to talk about.”
*
As she listened to Mr. Thackett pottering around the small kitchen at the rear of the cabin as he put away his groceries – and grumbled to himself at seeing more of the things he’d actually wanted had been replaced with healthy alternatives – Maggie busied herself by looking around the main living area of the cabin.
Now, in her time as a writer, Maggie had been to a lot of homes owned by golfers and people “in the industry” to conduct interviews. Of course, all of those homes generally followed the same pattern of being large, cavernous buildings in either Arizona or Florida with a swimming pool most water parks would be jealous of and the all-important close proximity to an exclusive private golf club. Yet the one common thing they all had in common – aside from their needlessly large size – was the presence of, what you could best describe as, ‘golf paraphernalia’. Signed and framed flags from tournaments they might have won. Special staff bags from Majors and other big tournaments that were filled with enough golf clubs to open a pro-shop with. Signed pictures. Memorable scorecards. Trophies. Basically, the kind of things that would very quickly let someone know that they were in the house of someone with more than just a passing interest in the game of golf.
But as Maggie walked around Mr. Thackett’s cabin … there was none of that. There were no pictures. No scorecards. No flags. No golf clubs. No bibs from his time as a caddie. Nothing. There was just the T.V. in the corner; the relatively large open fireplace; a small, homemade-looking coffee table in front of it with a collection of non-golf related books tossed underneath it; and a sofa and armchair placed either side of that which looked so faded and old they gave off the impression they’d turn to dust if you even so much as breathed on them, let alone actually sat down.
As much as this initially puzzled Maggie, however, the more she pieced it together with how and where Mr. Thackett was living, the more it made perfect sense. This was a man who, in Mr. Duggart’s own words, had shut himself off from the world because he didn’t want to face it anymore after what happened to Mustang. So was it really all that difficult to imagine that, in looking to avoid dealing with everything, that would also mean not having anything in his home that would remind him of the game that made the pair of them famous?
“Alright, here we are …” said Mr. Thackett, his voice catching Maggie somewhat by surprise as he suddenly entered the living area.
Maggie turned around and took in the sight of Mr. Thackett carefully shuffling towards the coffee table with a tray in his hands that was laden down with a veritable smorgasbord of the kind of things which would see his doctor needing to sit down. The, as promised, ice-cream sandwiches were there, but Mr. Thackett had also conjured up a pitcher of juice, two glasses and a plate of cookies, in case, Maggie assumed, the ice-cream sandwiches and juice didn’t quite fully provide the required sugar rush.
“Looks great.” said Maggie, moving towards the coffee table where Mr. Thackett was busy serving up. “Though there was no need to go to so much trouble on my account.”
“Aw, it was no trouble.” replied a slightly distracted sounding Mr. Thackett, carefully putting one of the ice-cream sandwiches onto a plate. “Anyway, it makes a nice change to have some company – take a seat.”
Having seen him gesture towards the sofa, Maggie sat down on the outer edge of it and propped her elbow up on the armrest.
“Well, going on what Mr. Duggart was saying,” said Maggie, watching Mr. Thackett fill up one of the glasses with juice. “There’s been quite a few writers show up here who I’m sure would have been more than happy to sit down like this, but you turned them away.”
“True …” answered Mr. Thackett, handing the plate with the ice-cream sandwich on it to Maggie. “The difference, though, is that they weren’t writers who also happened to be Frank Lawson’s daughter – there you go.”
“Thank you.” replied Maggie, taking the plate and letting it rest down her lap. “So does this mean you don’t think I’m … ‘brazen’ – for want of a better word – for just showing up here unannounced?”
“Oh no, I do.” answered Mr. Thackett bluntly, grabbing the one remaining ice-cream sandwich. “But ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ a little brazen – after all …”
He looked at Maggie, a mischievous grin curling the corner of his mouth.
“It gets ya into the best kinda trouble.”
As the mischievous grin transformed into a full-blown smile, Mr. Thackett, with his ice-cream sandwich in tow, moved stiffly towards his armchair and gently lowered himself down into it.
“So …” he sighed, once comfortably seated and after he’d taken a bite from his sandwich. “Given you were interrupted earlier by Bill … well, ‘being Bill’ … tell me, how’s your mom? She good?”
“Uh, yeah, she’s good,” said Maggie, trying her best to speak politely whilst negotiating the rather large bite she’d taken from her own ice-cream sandwich in the interim. “Still living in Brooklyn, still teaching -…”
“Still the one person you most definitely don’t want to get on the wrong side of?” interjected Mr. Thackett, his eyes lighting up playfully.
“Oh for sure!” smiled Maggie. “I mean, I thought when she hit fifty that she’d mellow out a bit, but no – if anything, she got worse!”
“Yeah, that sounds like Ruby.” said Mr. Thackett wistfully. “Did she know you were coming down here to see me?”
“She did.”
“And did she …” began Mr. Thackett before trailing off in an effort to find the right words. “Did she tell you about the … uh … uh …”
Knowing what he was referring to, but struggling to say out loud, Maggie decided to step in.
“The money you sent us?” she said quietly. “Yeah, she did; truthfully, that’s part of the reason why I wanted to meet you – so I could say thank you.”
“Aw, there’s no need to thank me.” scoffed Mr. Thackett, looking embarrassed at even the idea of Maggie doing such a thing.
“No, there is a need.” she insisted, putting her plate and ice-cream sandwich back down on the coffee table. “Because of what you did and the money you gave us after dad died, the bank didn’t take our house, mom could keep her job, I was able to go to college, get a degree; basically, the entire reason I’m sitting here at all right now and getting to call myself a writer is down to you – so thank you.”
“Well … you’re welcome.” muttered Mr. Thackett before lifting his gaze off of his ice-cream sandwich and forcing himself to look at Maggie. “But I just did what I knew Frank would have done for me if the roles had been reversed, so …”.
Knowing there was nothing she could say to make Mr. Thackett feel any less awkward and embarrassed than he currently was, Maggie fell silent and took another bite from her ice-cream sandwich while she waited for the moment to naturally pass.
“So … uh … what kind of writer are you?” asked Mr. Thackett, eventually breaking the silence after the time it had taken for him to practically finish the rest of his ice-cream sandwich. “Books?”
“No, no books yet, unfortunately – though I would like to try and do one some day.” answered Maggie, having been caught somewhat off-guard by Mr. Thackett’s question as she was taking a drink from her juice. “For now, though, I write for ‘Golf Digest’.”
“Wow, they’re still going?” replied Mr. Thackett, his eyes widening a tad in surprise.
“Yep, still there. I mean, they’ve mostly moved online now, but every now and then they run special print issues when they’ve got a big interview or story they’ll know people will be interested in.”
That wide smile of his once again creased Mr. Thackett’s face. He’d heard the heavily suggestive tone in Maggie’s voice and knew exactly what she was implying.
“And let me guess …” he said, the smile not getting any narrower. “They want one of those special issues to be about Mustang?”
“And you.” confirmed Maggie. “But, yeah – about Mustang. The wins, the losses, the ups, downs … everything.”
Maggie watched as a contemplative expression carved its way across Mr. Thackett’s face. In a way, she almost felt a little bad about putting him on the spot like this, because she knew what she was doing wasn’t as simple as just asking him to rattle off some stories about Mustang. No. She knew she was asking Mr. Thackett to open himself up to remembering moments from his past that he’d probably locked away and not allowed himself to think about for the last ten years. So if he needed to think about his answer, she completely understood – but secretly hoped he’d trust her enough to say ‘yes’.
“And you’d be the one writing it?” he asked quietly, his eyes never leaving the fireplace he’d been staring at as he thought.
“Every word.”
“And I’d get to check it? You know … before it went out?”
“It wouldn’t go next nor near a printer until you’d given it the all clear.” confirmed Maggie strongly.
Mr. Thackett took a deep breath in and pursed his lips slightly. Maggie could tell his decision was close.
“Alright …” he said, shifting his eyes off of the fireplace and onto Maggie. “Let’s do it – where do you want to start?”