Written by Stephen F. Moloney
“And you’re sure she said it was down this way?” asked Travis, skeptically, raising his voice enough to be heard over the whine of the golf cart’s electric motor as he tightened his grip on the handle set into the roof above where he was sitting.
“For the third time: yes, I’m sure she said the range was down here,” replied Ray, a hair frustratedly, as he navigated the cart over a mini speed bump on the path. “So, let’s just try and avoid a repeat of the ‘Tallahassee Incident’, shall we?”.
“Well, I think referrin’ to that as an ‘incident’ is just a tad over-the-top, don’t ya think?” rebuffed Travis, using his spare hand to steady his cane which had begun to roll slightly as they hit a downhill slope on the path.
“Oh, really?!” laughed Ray, taking his eyes off the path in front of him for just a second in order to glance over at Travis. “Then what word would you use to describe someone reachin’ over and tryna’ grab the steerin’ wheel when you’re drivin’ on the highway ‘cause they, incorrectly, think you need to take an exit?!”.
“I think …” began Travis, himself half-smiling as he knew he was merely buying time to try and come up with some nonsensical answer. “That a … minor ‘snafu’ would be a fair way to describe what happened.”
“A minor snafu?!” repeated a smiling Ray, continuing to glance back and forth between Travis and where he was driving. “That’s how you’d describe buyin’ the wrong kinda milk or … I dunno … callin’ one of your exes when you’re drunk – not attempted murder!”
“Oh, well now you’re just bein’ dramatic!” scoffed Travis, smiling brazenly out of the corner of his mouth as he lifted his hand and gestured out through the clouded plexiglass windshield of the golf cart. “Anyway, turns out you were right, there’s a sign for the range up ahead – next left, apparently.”
“Ah, so there is …” replied Ray, lifting up one of his hands to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun that was now just low enough to sneak under the peak of his baseball cap. He turned and looked back at Travis whilst simultaneously lifting his other hand off the steering wheel of the golf cart. “Do you want to make the turn or shall I?” he asked, tongue firmly planted into his cheek.
“Well, how nice of you to offer …” said Travis, grinning devilishly.
“Huh?” muttered a confused-sounding Ray – he hadn’t been expecting to hear that particular response.
Before he could do anything to stop him, Travis quickly reached out his hand and grabbed the side of the steering wheel, causing the front axle of the golf cart to jerk just enough to make it wobble erratically on the path.
“Woah!” cried Ray in a panic, as he snapped his two hands back onto the steering wheel and slammed his foot on the brake.
The golf cart came shuddering to a halt on the smooth surface of the path, the momentum causing both Ray and Travis to lurch forward in their seats as the tyres suddenly dug in their toes. Once the cart had skidded to a complete standstill, the same momentum that had seen them nearly thrown out through the windshield then sent Ray and Travis crashing right back into their seats; the minimal padding and cracked leather covering them, unsurprisingly, not making for the most forgiving of crash pads.
“Well, that was a lot more fun than I thought it was gonna be,” said a smiling Travis, breaking the silence first.
“Fun?!” barked a still-in-shock Ray, turning to glare at Travis. “Are you insane?! You could have flipped us!”
“Oh we’d have been fine!” replied Travis, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand. “Now, drivin’ a tank blindfolded? That’s dangerous – still fun, mind – but a heck of a lot more dangerous than what I just did, so …”.
“That’s not an argument!” snapped Ray, half-laughing at how preposterous the situation he suddenly found himself in was. “It’s like stabbin’ someone in the leg, but instead of apologizin’, you say, ‘well, it coulda’ been worse, I coulda’ shot ya in the leg’!”.
Just as it looked like he was about to come back with a retort of his own, Travis paused for a moment and cast his attention back out through the windshield of the cart – he was contemplating Ray’s remark.
“You know what? … You’re right,” he said, matter-of-factly, before turning to look back at Ray. “Point to you.” As quickly as he’d turned to look at him, however, Travis, just as rapidly, shifted his gaze back out through the front of the golf cart so that the entirety of his face was, once again, cast in the warm orange glow of the sun.
“Now …” he continued, as he retightened his grip on the roof handle above him and pulled himself further up in his seat. “Let’s get this show back on the road, huh? After all, we did promise Louise we’d have this back to the pro-shop before six, now didn’t we?”
With a mildly bewildered shake of his head, a smiling Ray, like Travis, repositioned himself in his seat before throwing his hand back up onto the steering wheel and dropping his boot down onto the gas pedal. The front of the golf cart bucked into life and they promptly returned to zipping down the path in search of the driving range – with Ray being a lot more protective over the steering wheel this time around.
*
The tyres on the golf cart glided smoothly across the grass covering the range as Ray navigated it past the long row of neatly laid out hitting bays. From everything he’d seen up until that point, Wild Cat Oak up had most definitely lived up to the billing Mustang had given it of being ‘a fancy country club’. The big, imposing entrance on your way in. The tricked-out pro-shop filled with all the latest designer clothes and golf clubs. The perfectly manicured course which, from the glimpses he’d seen of a few holes, was enough of a challenge to require your full attention, but not so difficult that it would see your run-of-the-mill recreational golfer needing to burn through two or three sleeves of balls just to get a full 18 in.
And then, to cap it all off, was the range Ray was currently cruising along.
The complimentary golf balls neatly stacked in attractive-looking pyramids with small buckets filled with white wooden tees sitting alongside them. The pristine, white tee markers which set out the boundaries of each particular hitting bay, that were these hyper-realistic 3-D models of the club crest; that being a magnificent, gnarled oak tree with a sprawling canopy and a regal-looking bobcat sitting beneath it. And then further out into the actual hitting ground itself, as well as the usual metal distance markers that graced any range – though the ones here did happen to be particularly nice looking – there were small ‘mini-greens’ adorned with flags dotted right the way around the expanse of green, carpet-like grass all the way out as far as the very large net sitting at the outermost edge of the range, some 350+ yards away.
What was puzzling Ray, however, was that on the Friday of a Memorial Day weekend, this idyllic postcard of a driving range … was completely empty. There was no late afternoon grinding with people working their way through one or more of the pyramids of balls under the watchful eye of a blinking Trackman. No post-round session to attempt to lock in a newly arisen ‘swing feel’ that had helped someone shoot their lowest round ever or, conversely, eradicate a case of the shanks which had snuck in on the back 9 and turned a potential sub-80 round into a 94. Not even an ongoing lesson being delivered by an exasperated Head Professional to some hapless beginner with a horrific over-the-top move in their swing, who was getting more and more frustrated with each passing sliced drive because they’d just dropped five-hundred bucks on the latest driver which claimed to have a setting that would make such a result a nigh-on impossibility.
There was no one.
And worryingly for Ray and Travis, no Mustang either.
Having nearly driven the entire length of the range, Ray eased his foot onto the brake and brought the golf cart to a gentle stop.
“Where is he?” asked Travis, giving voice to the question the pair of them were both thinking.
“I dunno,” answered Ray, his eyes continuing to dart around the range for a glimpse of Mustang. “I mean, he’s not in any of the hittin’ bays.”
“Maybe he left early?” suggested Travis, the slightest air of concern already beginning to seep into his voice. “Went back to Tess’ place?”
“Nah, I doubt it,” replied Ray, casting his eyes up to the small rearview mirror just up to the left of where he was sitting and checking to see, more out of hope than anything else, if he’d somehow driven past Mustang unbeknownst to himself. “Tess had warned him to make sure and wait for her to pick him up when she was finished work, so I don’t think he’d go against that.”
“I guess …” said Travis, his concern not abating. “Then again … when I gave Maisie to Lori I didn’t think he’d end up drivin’ halfway across the country in it and wind up near-living in a swamp … but here we are.”
“Well, as true as that may be,” said Ray, trying to temper the seriousness of the situation. “I don’t think we have to start worryin’ that he’s gone on the run again just yet.”
“And I agree,” replied Travis, reaching down and grabbing the handle of his cane. “What I am sayin’, though, is that what all that showed? Well … when it comes to Oscar? Anythin’ is -…”
BRRRRRNNNGGGGG!!!!
“Possible …” said Travis distractedly, finishing the sentence the sound of something metallic being hit with something else had interrupted. “What the heck was that?”
Ray, however, already knew the answer. Because he’d heard that exact same sound before. On a rapidly darkening evening two weeks previously on the range at the Creek. The metallic clank of a golf ball smashing into a metal distance marker, but doing so only after the purest of pure strikes -meaning it could only be one person.
“That …” said Ray, his furrowed brow and concentrated glare, now replaced with a beaming smile and glinting eyes. “Was your grandson.”
“What?!” replied Travis, immediately perking up at the mention of Mustang and looking around to see if he’d suddenly emerged out into the open. “Where?!”
“Well, I don’t know just yet …” answered Ray, now tuning in both his eyes and ears out over the range. “But he is here -…”
BRRRRRNNNGGGGG!!!!
Again, another ball clattered into some unknown distance marker out on the range. From the direction the sound came from, though, Ray could tell it had come from somewhere off behind them.
“All we have to do is find him …” he continued, eyes once again shooting up to the rearview mirror before looking across at Travis. “Hold on.”
Knowing what was coming, Travis readjusted his grip on the roof handle and braced himself as Ray stepped on the gas, whipped the golf cart around, and sped off back down in the range in the direction they’d just come from. With the gas pedal pressed all the way down to the floor, Ray pushed the cart as fast as it could go and, as a result, covered the distance between where he and Travis had stopped and the entrance into the range in record time. Once again, Ray brought the cart to a stop and listened.
BRRRRRNNNGGGGG!!!!
“Down there!” said Travis, pointing animatedly off towards a large outbuilding in the far corner of the range, right down beyond the designated spots where people were supposed to hit from.
“You sure?” asked Ray, not sounding all that convinced.
“Hundred percent,” replied Travis, confidently. “I might be old, but you spend three years as a scout down in ‘Nam? The sharpenin’ that gives your senses never dulls – he’s down there … I know he is.”
“Well, far be it from me to question intel from a seasoned Trooper,” said Ray, already moving his foot back down onto the gas pedal. “Let’s roll-out.”
For the next 200 or so yards, the sound of ball after ball clattering into various different distance markers out on the range grew louder and clearer the closer Ray and Travis got towards the outbuilding; guiding them like a homing beacon to Mustang’s, still undisclosed, location. When they finally reached the outbuilding – itself a simple block structure with corrugated sheeting for a roof – Ray pulled the golf cart into the side of it and brought it to a stop. As soon as the electric hum of the golf cart’s motor fell silent, Travis’ senses were immediately vindicated as the crisp, velvety sound of an iron connecting solidly with a golf ball came ringing out from the opposite side of the outbuilding.
THHHHWWWIIIPPP!!!!
“See?” said Travis, gesturing proudly at his ear. “Still got it.”
As the sound of Mustang sending another ball rifling off into the sky rang out on the mild Florida air, Ray suddenly had an idea. “Hey, you wanna see somethin’ cool?” he whispered excitedly, turning and looking at Travis.
“Sure …” answered Travis, immediately copying Ray’s hushed tone, but not quite understanding the sudden need for such secrecy. “What is it?”.
“Just follow me,” replied Ray, continuing to whisper as he began to skirt along the edge of the wall towards the rear of the outbuilding. “And be quiet!”
Though unclear as to just how stealthy he could actually be shuffling around with a cane, Travis, undeterred, readjusted his ever-present cowboy hat and set off to follow Ray.
When he finally caught up to him – as longish grass and a cane don’t exactly make for the most ideal conditions to partake in a ‘hot pursuit’ – Travis found Ray clung to the back left corner of the outbuilding and peering so carefully around it he reminded him of how he and his buddies in the army used to try and sneak a glance out of cover if they were being pinned down by some craftily hidden sniper. Hearing him approaching – because it was hard not to – Ray turned around from his post and beckoned at Travis to come join him. “Over here,” he whispered. “Take a look.”
Heeding his instructions, Travis landed next to Ray and, after some minor maneuvering to get himself into the most comfortable position, looked around the corner.
And that’s when he saw him.
Oscar.
Having spent so long only seeing him through the screen of a tablet, to now see him in person was oddly overwhelming for Travis. Seeing all the changes he’d gone through. How he’d gotten a little taller. How his hair had gotten longer; resembling the same mop of thick, brown, wavy hair his mother used to have when she was around the same age. And how his face had even leaned out a bit; making him look that touch older and, though it pained him to admit it, uncannily like his father. All these changes that he wished he could have been seeing all along back in Texas – at Hartstone Farm where his mother would have wanted him to be. But Travis knew that just couldn’t happen; not in the condition that he was.
“Just watch him …” whispered Ray, leaning his head over towards Travis, unaware of the thoughts racing through his mind.
Thinking the distraction might be useful, Travis nodded his head at Ray and really focused his attention on what Oscar was doing as opposed to letting his emotions get the better of him. He had the headphones on he’d chipped in to help Lori get him for his birthday the previous year, Travis noticed, so he was completely unaware of the audience he suddenly had scrutinizing his every move. He reached out the head of the club in his hand, dragged one of the golf balls from the small pile heaped on the grass alongside him, and carefully positioned it at the edge of one of three ruler-straight strips of dirt he’d, obviously, exposed in the time he’d been hitting balls. He then set the club confidently down behind the ball. Settled himself in his stance like a batter stepping up to the plate. Took one quick look out at his target before dropping his gaze straight back down onto the ball.
And then swung.
Having long thought he was more interested in watching sports as opposed to actually playing them, for Travis to suddenly see Oscar completing such an athletic-looking move was more than just a little bit mind-blowing. The rotation of his torso which saw his spine coil up like a spring whilst, all the while, his legs remained rooted solidly to the ground, seemingly in direct contradiction to the laws of human anatomy. The way he then dropped the club from the very top of his swing just enough so that as he began to sweep it back around his body the shaft passed just underneath his right shoulder and wound up near-on perpendicular to his right elbow which was jammed hard into his right side. The squat into the ground as he, simultaneously, opened up his hips and fired them to the left of where he was hitting; using the momentum of his uncoiling spine to then whip the head of the club into the back of the ball with all the speed of a car racing past you on the highway. And then, once the ball had been sent rocketing off into the sky with a ‘swish’ and a ‘thwip’ – splitting the air like a fighter jet taking off from an aircraft carrier – he remained, inexplicably, in perfect balance at the end of his swing; the club nestled gently up against the nape of his neck as he examined the flight of his ball against the increasingly blood-orange sky.
All of that in the space of less than two seconds.
And then he just kept on repeating it.
He’d pull a ball out from the pile. Position it. Set himself. Look at the target. And swing.
Pull a ball out from the pile. Position it. Set himself. Look at the target. Swing.
Ball. Position. Set. Target. Swing.
That same pattern on repeat like a metronome. Same order. Same tempo. Everything. And it was mesmerizing to witness. So much so that for however long it took Oscar to work his way through another fifteen balls, Travis and Ray just stood back in awed silence and enjoyed the show. Sweeping draws and tight, baby fades. Towering moon balls and low, raking stingers. Full-bore passes and sawn-off bullets. Oscar ran through his entire repertoire of what he could do with an iron in hand; a stripeshow like only so few people on this planet could produce – and all coming from a kid who still hadn’t played a full 18 holes from start to finish.
“I can’t believe that’s my grandson,” whispered Travis, finally allowing himself to speak as Mustang loaded up another ball.
“It’s crazy, ain’t it?” replied Ray, his eyes never leaving Mustang.
“And, look, I don’t know much about golf – I mean, the last time I watched it on TV Jack Nicklaus was winnin’ the Masters in ‘86 – but he is good, right? Like, it’s not just my ‘Grandpa Goggles’ playin’ tricks on me?”
“No, it ain’t a case of ‘Grandpa Goggles’,” answered Ray, smiling, as he turned his attention onto Travis. “He’s good – like … really good.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’ then,” said Travis, unable to stymie the sense of pride which had been swelling up inside him since seeing Mustang hit for the very first time any longer. “I do have one other question, though ..”
“Yeah, shoot.”
“How do we get his attention without scarin’ the absolute livin’ daylights outta him?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that …” said Ray extremely confidently. “Already have it covered.”
With that, Ray bent down and grabbed a small rock from off the grate set into the ground underneath the drainpipe attached to the corner of the outbuilding. He then stood back up and locked his sights on Mustang, who still hadn’t hit the ball he’d loaded up a little earlier as he’d been busy scrolling through the small MP3 player his headphones were plugged into. Knowing now was the perfect time to strike, Ray pulled back his arm like a darts player before shooting his hand forward and sending the rock hurtling off in Mustang’s direction, landing it perfectly right down next to the ball he’d lined up to hit next.
With a puzzled expression on his face, Mustang pulled his headphones down around his neck and peered down at the rock before turning his head in the direction of where it had come from. When his eyes eventually fell on Ray and Travis standing at the corner of the outbuilding, however, Mustang proceeded to run through about four different emotions in the space of three seconds. There was the initial shock of suddenly seeing two people standing there; then the cogs slowly clicking into place and putting together who he was actually seeing; next came the feeling of surprise riding close on the heels of that; and then, finally, closing the show was the feeling of sheer and utter delight.
“GRANDPA!” he shouted, unable to contain his excitement as he let his club drop to the ground and began to run over to where Travis and Ray were standing.
“There he is!” said Travis excitedly, a beaming smile now plastered across his face as he tossed his cane off to the side, held out his two arms wide, and braced himself for impact.
After covering the short distance between them in no time at all, Mustang clattered into Travis and wrapped him up in a huge hug.
“Oooohhhff!” grunted Travis, jokingly, as Mustang did his best impression of a boa constrictor on his ribcage. “Should I take it then that this means you missed me too?!”
“Yeah!” answered Mustang, his voice slightly muffled as he was still in the process of squeezing Travis; it was almost as if he was wanting to make sure he was actually there – that he wasn’t just imagining things because he’d been hitting balls for too long without taking a break.
Eventually releasing him from his grasp – and thus allowing Travis’ lungs to fully expand with air once again – Mustang stood back and cast his gaze between his grandfather and Ray. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his initial delight now subsiding into slight confusion. “Together?”
Ray and Travis both looked at one another. In all the time they’d been together, from their first meeting at Hartstone Farm to then driving through the night in order to get to Florida, not once had they thought to discuss how to bring up the reason why they were coming to see Mustang – so Ray, as he did in so many instances, decided to just go for the blunt approach.
“Well …” he said, after getting nothing but a blank expression of ‘I have no idea’ back from Travis. “We heard things hadn’t worked out with Louis and Rachel; and that … you know … you were gonna be headin’ into a residential facility for a while until they could find another foster family for ya.”
“Yeah …” said Mustang, a flicker of hope suddenly sparking into life deep inside his stomach, but trying his best to dampen it – he’d learned ‘hope’ was a dangerous thing if left unfettered.
“Well, when I heard that …” continued Ray, surprised at how difficult he was finding it to come up with fully-formed sentences. “It kinda got me thinkin’ – after speakin’ with Jeanie, actually – that … you know … maybe … you’d like to come live with m-…”
“YES!” said Mustang enthusiastically, cutting across Ray before he could finish speaking.
“Now, hold on a second,” said Ray, wanting to try and keep a lid on things. “I need you to take a second and think about this, alright? Like, really think about it.”
“No need! I’m in!” replied Mustang, his excitement levels growing exponentially with each passing second. He looked over at Travis. “You’re cool with this, right Grandpa?!”
“Absolutely,” smiled Travis.
“Then we’re good to go!” said Mustang, now so full of energy he looked as though he could power a small neighbourhood if hooked up to the grid. “So, what’s next?! Do we go talk to Tess or …?!”
“Well, funnily enough …” interjected Ray, now finding it difficult to hold back his own excitement. “Everythin’s already been taken care of.”
“Seriously?!” asked Mustang, eagerly looking between Ray and Travis for confirmation. “Like … ‘everything’ everything?! It’s all done?!”
“Yep, signed and sealed everythin’ just before we came here,” confirmed Travis. “All that was left to do was ask you how you felt about it.” His face suddenly set into a faux-serious expression. “And just to be clear, you’re still on the fence, right?” he joked.
“No! Of course, I wanna go!” said Mustang, not willing to take any chances even though he knew Travis was only kidding.
“Well, that’s all I need to hear,” said Ray, now giving in to the smile that had been aching to spread across his face for the last minute or so. “Now, how ‘bout you go grab your stuff and we’ll go get somethin’ to eat; I said we’d meet up with Tess after we picked you up.”
“Can we get pizza?!” asked Mustang, chancing his arm.
“Do you have money for pizza?” replied Ray, firing back with a question of his own.
“I don’t need to have money ‘cause you’re taking care of me now,” replied Mustang, quick as a flash and smiling cheekily.
“Oh that’s how it’s gon’ be, huh?!” laughed Ray, reaching out and playfully batting at Mustang with his shovel of a hand. “You get a bed and suddenly you think you can just start sassin’ me?! Huh?! Go get your stuff before I change my mind, man!”
Finally managing to get out of range of Ray’s swatting arm, a laughing Mustang turned and began to jog back over to where his club, hoodie, and backpack were lying on the ground.
“That’s the happiest I’ve seen him in months,” said Travis quietly, not wanting to be overheard by Mustang. He looked at Ray, a sincere expression on his face. “You’re a good man, Ray Thackett,” he said, genuinely.
“Thank you, Travis,” replied Ray, matching his quiet, genuine tone, before breaking out in another smile. “Though, let’s just wait and see how happy he is after a few months of sleepin’ in a trailer, shall we?!”