Written by Stephen F. Moloney
“And if you need anything – and I mean anything – you call me, alright?” insisted Tess, as she continued to squeeze Mustang in a big bear hug. “I mean it, day or night.”
“I will …” replied Mustang, using what little oxygen remained in his lungs to expel the words from his mouth. “Any chance you can let me go now?”
“Are you getting light-headed?” asked Tess.
“No.”
“Seeing flecks of light?”
“Well … no.”
“Then we have time,” smiled Tess, squeezing Mustang even tighter.
Realizing there was no point fighting it, a half-laughing Mustang just rolled his eyes and relented to letting Tess have her way.
“I’d make the most of it, kid,” said Ray, through a mouthful of cheesecake. “Cause I’ll tell ya right now, I ain’t much of a hugger.”
“That’s ok,” replied Mustang, his words still sounding strained due to the pressure being exerted on his ribcage. “I’m pretty sure any and all hugs will be out of the question for a good six months after this one anyway.”
“Go ahead and make your jokes …” said Tess, finally releasing Mustang from her clutches. “But I give it about a week before you start to miss my hugs – that’s usually when the withdrawals start to kick in.”
“And that comes from your extensive research on the topic, does it?” asked Ray, smiling brazenly at Tess as he guided his final piece of cheesecake into his mouth.
“As a matter of fact …” replied Tess, dryly, as she reached down and quickly nabbed one of the mini cookies which had come with Ray’s cheesecake from off the side of his plate and popped it into her mouth. “Yeah …” she smiled, crunching through the cookie at the same time. “It does.”
“I was savin’ those!” snapped Ray, sounding genuinely irritated as he preemptively slid his plate closer to where he was sitting in an effort to guard against any further raids.
“Well, see it as a lesson, Mr. Thackett,” said Tess, swallowing what remained of the cookie she’d pilfered. “You’re a guardian now: only getting to think about yourself is a luxury no longer afforded to you – so you might as well start getting used to it.”
“Is that just your way of tryna’ guilt another cookie outta me?” asked Ray, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Of course not!” replied Tess, rejecting the notion, but clearly doing so in a faux-offended manner. “And, frankly, the fact that you would even suggest such a thing, makes me seriously question whether or not I’ve made the correct decision in letting you take care o-…”
“Alright! Alright!” interjected a laughing Ray, sliding his plate out towards the edge of the varnished, though heavily scratched, wooden table. “Here! Just take one! Man!”
“If you insist,” said Tess, smiling daringly at how well her plan had worked as she reached out and grabbed another of the three remaining cookies.
“Well, if you’re just giving them away …” added Mustang, spying an opportunity to nip in like an opportunistic magpie and snaffle a cookie for himself.
Ray could only smile and shake his head as he pulled his plate back in front of him; the one remaining cookie sitting on it making for a lonely sight.
“Yep … that seems about right,” he lamented, jokingly, before picking it up and tossing it into the safety of his mouth before it, too, was pinched away by yet another greedy hand.
“Anyway …” said Tess, as she happily polished off her second cookie. “Given there’s no more food for me to steal I better get going.” She looked down at Ray. “Tell Travis I said ‘goodbye’ for me?” she asked.
“Will do,” replied Ray, confirming with a nod of his head. “Though that is, of course, if he ever actually comes back from the bathroom.”
Tess smiled as she turned her attention back onto Mustang. “Well, I guess this is it, mister …” she said, a hint of genuine emotion creeping into her voice. “Now, you remember what I said, ok?”
“If I need anything, give you a call,” answered Mustang, flatly repeating the instructions Tess had drilled into him. “Yes, I remember. I’ll be fine, though – really. Don’t worry.”
“Well, unfortunately, I’m always going to worry about you,” said Tess, reaching out and, much to his annoyance, tousling Mustang’s hair. “But I’m glad to hear it – now, come here …”.
With that, Tess grabbed Mustang and pulled him in for another hug.
“Just one more and I’ll be good,” she bargained, as she set about squeezing the life out of life Mustang once again.
“Alright, but just one!” argued a laughing Mustang. “I’m only going to Louisiana, not off to war!”
“Ok, ok, I’m done!” said Tess, forcing herself to let him go after getting one final squeeze in. “And I know you were only exaggerating for effect, but, just so clear, no wars …”. She glanced down at Ray. “Understood?!”
“Gosh darnit!” exclaimed Ray, sarcastically snapping his fingers. “And here was me all set to bring him to the nearest recruiting office in the mornin’ and get him signed up.” He looked over at Mustang. “Well, we had a good run, kid …” he joked. “But you’re on your own.”
At that, Ray grabbed his hat from down alongside where he was sitting in the booth and began to make a big production as if he were genuinely leaving the restaurant.
“Haw-haw, very funny,” sneered Tess, recognizing what Ray was doing as she readjusted the strap of the handbag slung over her shoulder.
Having garnered the reaction he was looking for, a smiling Ray stopped what he was doing, peeked over at an equally smiling Mustang, and shot him a wink.
“Well, with the sobering thought that I may just be handing you over into the care of an overgrown child now front and centre in my mind, I think that’s my cue to leave,” continued Tess, dryly. “Mr. Thackett …”.
“Ms. Kershaw,” replied Ray, smiling and slightly bowing his head.
“And you …” she said, her tone softening as she looked at Mustang. “You just be good, alright?”
“I won’t let you down,” said Mustang sincerely. “I promise.”
“Good,” whispered Tess, smiling warmly and choking up just a touch. “Now, however, as I seem to have suddenly developed an allergy to the smell of pepperoni, I’m gonna go.”
With one more watery smile at Mustang – and even aiming it down at Ray as well – Tess turned on her heels and began to walk speedily across the crowded restaurant in the direction of the door, lifting her hand up to catch the one or two tears which had, obviously, begun to cascade down her cheeks in the process.
“You ok, kid?” asked Ray gently, seeing that Mustang was still watching Tess head for the door.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he replied, a tad quietly. “Just seeing her leave makes everything … you know …”.
“Real?” suggested Ray, seeing Mustang was searching for the best word to describe how he was feeling.
“Yeah …” he said, nodding his head as he watched Tess disappear out through the door and down past one of the two large windows fronting the restaurant. “Really real.”
“In a good or a bad way?” asked Ray, forcing himself to utter the question.
Mustang paused for a second as he mulled over how best to respond, leaving the sounds of the ‘Italian Folk Music’ playing on a loop over the restaurant stereo and the cries of ‘ORDER UP!’ coming from the staff in the chaotic-sounding kitchen to fill the agonizing moments between Ray asking his question and actually getting an answer.
“I think …” he, eventually, said, just as Ray noticed the couple who’d looked as though they’d been on the brink of having an argument since they entered the restaurant had finally succumbed to the temptation and begun to exchange pointed barbs in hushed tones over their shared Margherita pizza a few tables over. “It’s probably … 99% good … and 1% bad.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, I guess,” replied Ray, playing it cool on the outside in order to mask just how relieved he actually was. “Though, at the risk of sparkin’ a recount, I have to ask – what’s the ‘bad’ making up that 1%?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” said Mustang, as he stepped over his duffel bag of stuff which Tess had brought to the restaurant for him and plonked himself back down into the booth across the table from Ray. “Just the thought of having to spend every single night from now on listening to you snoring is all.”
“Woah, woah, woah!” cried Ray, dramatically rebuking such an accusation. “I do not snore!”
“Yeah, you do!” argued Mustang, beaming in disbelief across the table. “And like a tranquilized bear at that!”
Before Ray could try and mount his case to defend himself from such slander, their waiter who’d been serving them all night landed back at their table.
“How’d those desserts work out, gentlemen?” he asked chirpily, casting his eyes over the four empty plates.
“Yeah, really good, thank you,” replied Ray, fulfilling his role as the adult whilst Mustang smiled daringly at him from outside of the waiter’s eye line.
“Well, great; I’m delighted to hear that,” said the waiter, already sounding as though he was eyeing up what table he had to visit next. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“A coffee would be good, please,” answered Ray, looking to further delay the inevitable crash which was headed his way after getting such little sleep over the past 24 hours. “Black – as big as you make ‘em.”
“One extra-large, black coffee …” said the waiter, scribbling the order down into his notepad before looking at Mustang. “And for you?”
“No, nothing for me, I’m good, thanks,” he answered, holding up his two hands.
“Alrighty then …” said the waiter, flipping his notepad shut. “I’ll be back with your coffee then, sir, and I’ll get these plates cleared as soon as I can too – as you can probably tell, we’re a little slammed in here tonight, so apologies for the delay.”
“You’re fine, don’t worry about it,” replied Ray with a relaxed wave of his hand. “We ain’t in no rush, so take your time.”
“Thank you, sir,” smiled the waiter, genuinely. “I’ll be right back.”
No sooner had the waiter left the table to go about filling Ray’s order than Travis, who’d disappeared off to the bathroom not long after polishing off the plate of cannolis he’d gotten for dessert, re-emerged from the opposite direction.
“Well, look who it is!” announced Ray as Travis lowered himself back down into the booth alongside Mustang, who shuffled further in towards the wall to make sufficient room. “We were just about to send out a search party.”
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” said Travis, sounding a touch bothered as he popped his cellphone onto the table and tried to get himself comfortably situated in the leatherette-covered booth. “I got a call from that neighbour of mine back home – you know, the one I asked to check on the steers while I was gone?”
“Yeah …” answered Ray, immediately dropping his light-hearted tone as he could sense now wasn’t the time for joking around.
“Well, he went and checked on ‘em like he said he would …” continued Travis, sounding as though he was still trying to work out all the details of the story as he was telling it. “But there was one missin’.”
“Really?” asked Ray, a puzzled expression carving its way into his face. “Does he think he got out somewhere or …?”
“Well, see, that’s the strange thing,” replied Travis, the story, clearly, not making any more sense the more he thought about it. “He looked around the pasture where I had ‘em and he couldn’t find anywhere where one of ‘em could’ve gotten out – which ain’t a surprise ‘cause I was only in that pasture myself yesterday and everythin’ was fine.”
“Plus, if one was able to get out …” added Ray contemplatively. “Then, realistically, the rest of them should missin’ too, right? Or, at least, more than just the one, at any rate?”
“I mean, yeah, that would make sense, I guess …” agreed Travis, the cogs inside his head still whirring away in an effort to consider every possible outcome for what might have happened to the steer. “And for there to be no sign of him either? Like, I’ve had steers get out before – it happens – but, generally, they don’t go all that far when they do; and they sure as hell don’t just vanish into thin air.”
As he’d been speaking, Mustang noticed a message pop in on Travis’ phone unbeknownst to him. With the way it was orientated on the table making it fall directly into his eye line, Mustang’s eyes were, naturally, drawn to the screen and he read the message notification. Oddly, it was from someone he’d never heard his grandfather mention before.
For instance, he knew the neighbour who he was talking about, the one who’d raised the alarm about the missing steer, that was Eddie Dercksen – a mountain of a man who moved to the States from the Netherlands in the late ‘70s and who, without fail, would always give Mustang a dollar whenever he saw him. Then, of course, there was Chip Willis – affectionately known as ‘Chop’ – who was the long-retired manager of the local abattoir; he used to buy a lot of cattle off of Travis when he was a far larger rancher in his younger days, but the two had stayed friends even after their business dealings had come to an end. And then, finally, there was Chip’s wife, Barbara; a formidable woman who routinely whooped Eddie, Chip, and Travis in their weekly poker game and took them for all the nickels and dimes that they had.
So that was Travis’ social circle. It wasn’t a big one, but it was a consistent one – which made the name Mustang was presently looking at seem all the more like an outlier.
“Who’s ‘Mr. Greely’?” he asked curiously, eyes still locked on the screen.
As soon as they heard him mention that name, a wide-eyed Travis and Ray – after exchanging a worried glance at one another – quickly turned their attention onto Mustang; something which didn’t go unnoticed by him.
“What?” he asked, unsure as to what he’d said which, going on the expressions on Ray’s and Travis’ faces, seemed to have drawn the same reaction as that to him just suddenly shouting out a string of swear words at the top of his lungs would have.
“Where did you hear that name, kid?” asked Ray, his voice deathly serious.
“I just saw it on Grandpa’s phone …” he answered, not seeing what the big deal was as he spun the phone around on the smooth wooden surface of the table so that it was facing Travis. “Here – look for yourself.”
Travis plucked his phone from off the table and stared intensely at the screen. From the way his jaw set after only a few seconds, however, Ray didn’t need him to confirm whether or not Mustang had been correct.
“It was him …” growled Travis quietly, clearly trying to keep his temper in check.
“What was?” asked Ray, himself now, too, preemptively monitoring his own temper which, just the sheer mention of Greely’s name, had stoked the flames of.
Without saying a word, Travis placed his phone back down onto the table and slid it towards Ray, who, immediately, snatched it up and peered down at the screen. The message from Greely was already open. It was a picture of Travis’ missing steer, with the message, ‘Consider this a down payment’ written underneath it.
“That son of a …” muttered Ray, cutting himself off before he could finish the sentence – after all, as Tess had said, he was a guardian now.
“So, is someone gonna tell me what’s going on or what?” asked a concerned-sounding Mustang, casting his gaze back and forth across the table between Travis and Ray like he was watching an invisible tennis match.
“Ah, it’s nothin’ for you to worry about,” said Ray, attempting to sufficiently quell the anger he was feeling in order to sound as normal and relaxed as possible.
“Yeah, kiddo,” added Travis, painting a rather unconvincing smile across his face as he followed Ray’s lead. “It’s just borin’ grown-up stuff.”
“No! Don’t do that!” snapped Mustang frustratedly.
“Do what?” asked Ray, taken aback by this sudden outburst.
“Brush me off just ‘cause I’m a kid and you don’t think I handle it!” argued Mustang, before looking over at Travis. “Mom used to do the same thing …” he said, his voice softening ever-so-slightly at the mention of Lori. “Even when I knew we were short on the rent again or she was going to have to pick between buying groceries or paying the electricity bill; she’d just say, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s fine’, when things, clearly, weren’t.”
Though he was already well-versed in the struggles Lori used to have to face in order to keep her and Oscar’s heads above water despite his best efforts to send her as much money as he could afford – something he’d tried to increase in the last few years by getting back into raising handfuls of cattle here and there – it still pained Travis to hear Oscar speaking so frankly about things that, right being right, he should have no experience of whatsoever; like struggling to find money for rent and having to decide between having lights that turn on or going to bed hungry when it was time to turn them off.
Those were the kinds of things that belonged in the realm of adulthood – and a particularly stressful version of it, at that – not in someone’s childhood.
“It’s why I got that job picking balls at Wild Cat Oak, so I could actually help out,” continued Mustang, pleading his case. “So if there’s a problem, just tell me what it is and maybe I can do the same here.” He looked over at Ray, an earnest expression straining his face. “Please …” he said quietly. “Don’t leave me out.”
Ray looked across the table at Travis, who, in return, looked up at him. Though neither of them spoke, the expressions they exchanged were enough to let the other know that they were, indeed, on the same page as to how best to proceed.
“Alright, Oscar…” began Travis, feeling it best that he take the lead, even though he sounded a touch embarrassed at the idea of admitting what the problem was. “You’re right. You’ve shown yourself capable of handling things far beyond someone of your age should be able to handle, so here it is: Mr. Greely is someone I borrowed money from in order to pay off some medical bills I wound up havin’ a little while ago … and now he wants that money back.”
“And you, obviously, don’t have it,” said Mustang, again showing maturity beyond his mere fourteen years to piece everything together.
“Well, no …” replied Travis, his embarrassment growing. “No, I don’t.”
“And that’s why he took one of your steers, right?” asked Mustang, already knowing the answer, but wanting to ensure he had all the details square in his head.
“Yeah – he said it’s a ‘down payment’,” answered Travis. “Really, though, I think he’s just tryna’ intimidate me after Ray here, essentially, put the run on ‘im last night; you know … ‘regain the upper hand’ or whatever.”
“But, hey, the most important thing for you to understand …” said Ray, deciding now was the best time to interject. “Is that this whole problem? Greely? The money? It’s all gonna be taken care of.”
“How, though?” replied Mustang. “I mean, if Grandpa owes money that he doesn’t have, how’s he gonna pay this ‘Greely’ guy back?”
“Because I’m gonna pay Greely,” answered Ray, reassuredly.
“And how much is that gonna cost you?” asked Mustang, not sounding all that happy at the prospect of Ray shelling out his own money in order to help Travis.
“Aw, well, look … ‘how much’ doesn’t matter,” said Ray, looking to sidestep that particular detail. “The important thing is that come next week, Greely will get his money and we can just put all this behind us.”
Knowing he’d hit a dead end with Ray, Mustang looked over at Travis. “How much, Grandpa?” he asked, flatly. “And don’t lie to me.”
“Ten grand …” sighed Travis.
“Ten grand?!” exclaimed Mustang so loudly that even the arguing couple a few tables over took a break from quietly launching passive-aggressive comments at one another and glanced over at their booth.
“Ok, first and foremost …” said Ray, leaning in against the edge of their table and lowering his voice as he looked sternly at Mustang. “Shouting out ‘Ten grand!’ anywhere, let alone in the middle of a crowded restaurant? Never a smart move – consider that lesson number one from living with me. And, secondly …” He turned his attention onto Travis. “Come on, man!” he said, exasperated. “I mean, clearly, I was tryna’ avoid tellin’ the kid how much money was involved, but then you just go and spit it out like that?”
“Well, we’ve practically told him the guts of the entire story as is,” replied Travis, dismissing Ray’s consternation as he reached out and idly grabbed the end of the fork sitting on the plate his cannolis had come on earlier. “What difference does it make if he knows how much money we’re talkin’ about?”.
“Quite a big difference, actually,” said Mustang, nipping in and getting his sentence out ahead of Ray, who’d just been about to fire back his retort at Travis. “Cause there’s no way you can give that much money to this guy, Ray! I mean, do you even have ten grand?!”
“Well, it’ll eat up a pretty big chunk of my savings, I’m not gonna lie,” answered Ray, honestly. “But I do have it.”
“And when you say a ‘pretty big chunk’, how big a chunk are we actually talking?” asked Mustang, pressing hard for more exact details.
A hesitant Ray began to make a series of noises as if he were working out the math in his head, even though he already knew exactly how much he’d have left after paying off Greely, right down to the last cent.
“I guess … when it’d be all said and done …” he said, reluctantly, once he’d squeezed all the time that he could out of humming and hawing. “I’d have about … a hundred bucks left.”
Though he’d mumbled the end of his sentence in an, ultimately, futile last-ditch effort to avoid the question, Mustang and Travis both heard Ray say he’d only have a hundred dollars left after paying off Greely – and, needless to say, they weren’t happy to hear it.
“What?!” they both cried in unison, sounding equally horrified as each other.
“Ray, you can’t do this!” protested Mustang.
“Oscar’s right,” agreed Travis, now looking earnestly across the table at Ray. “If I’d known you’d be takin’ that much of a hit on this I’d never have agreed to it. We’ll just come up with somethin’ else – it’s fine.”
“But that’s the problem, Travis,” said Ray, frankly. “There is no other way. I mean, we’ve talked about this: even if you went and gave Greely the other two steers to sell, you still wouldn’t come close to makin’ ten grand. And you know as well as I do, that if we don’t come up with that money next Friday, he’s gonna start jackin’ up the interest and the hole we’re in will only start gettin’ deeper – that’s how these dudes work. But if I pay him off next week? Then he’s done and out of the picture. Now, does that mean I’ll take a hit financially? Yeah, sure. But the way I look at it? It’s gonna be the lesser of two evils.”
From the somewhat defeated-looking expression now plastered across his face, it was clear Travis knew deep down that, no matter how much he wished the opposite was true, Ray was, indeed, correct. People like Greely had a knack of weaseling their way into your life and embedding themselves in every facet of it until they’d snatched up every last dollar and ounce of dignity they could get their grubby little hands on; therefore, if you were desperate enough to actually get involved with them, you had to get in and out before that ‘weaseling’ could begin in the form of exorbitant interest payments that serve only to get you further into debt.
“So, we may not like it,” continued Ray, looking to hammer home his point because he could see Travis was coming back around to his way of thinking. “But trust me … this is the only way it can go down.”
Travis just pursed his lips and nodded his head as he felt that all-too-familiar pang of guilt burning a hole through his stomach. How he wished things were different; but he knew this is just the way things had to be.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said quietly. “It’s the only way.”
“How ‘bout you, kid?” asked Ray, looking over at Mustang, who’d just been sitting quietly and staring intently down at the surface of the table. “What ya say?”.
“I say …” said Mustang, his eyes still burning a hole through the table and sounding as if his brain was busy going a million miles an hour. “There might be one other way outta this …”.
“That bein’?” questioned Ray, sounding a touch worried at the prospect of hearing what scheme Mustang had concocted.
“The Memorial …” he answered, finally looking up from the table and turning his now excitedly glinting eyes onto Ray. “It’s tomorrow, right?! The Matchplay?!”
“Yeah …” replied a confused Ray, unsure as to what exactly Mustang was trying to get at. “It starts tomorrow, but how’s that gonna help us?”
“Because I could play in it!” declared Mustang, his excitement levels growing rapidly with each passing second. “The winner gets a load of money, right?! Like, over a hundred grand?!”
“Well, yeah …” said Ray, answering the question, but eager to get a handle on the firework-waiting-to-blow that now was Mustang. “But it’s not as sim-…”.
“Plus!” interrupted Mustang, his mouth almost struggling to keep up with the barrage of thoughts and ideas his brain was now churning out at an industrial rate. “You already have the ten grand to pay the entrance fee! That way, instead of you using up all of your savings to pay Greely, you use it to enter me into the Memorial, use the winnings to pay him off, and then split the rest! It’s perfect!”
“Well, it’s only perfect if you actually manage to win, kid,” said Ray, looking to be the dampening voice of reason on the wildfire this conversation had morphed into.
At that, Mustang, out of nowhere, turned in his seat and fixed Ray with an unyielding, steely glare.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t think I can do it,” he said determinedly, not even the slightest hint of a quiver in his voice.
“Well … look, kid,” replied Ray, trying to dodge the question. “I mean … that’s not really the point.” Knowing he couldn’t just keep on floundering aimlessly, Ray – in a ‘Hail Mary’ move – turned to Travis. “Come on, man, help me out here, huh? Tell him this would be crazy.”
“Well, while I’d love to help ya out, Ray,” said Travis, measuring his words. “I gotta be honest … I kinda wanna hear ya answer the question. I mean, after all, you were the one who told me only two hours ago that he was really good, right?”
Having seen his ‘Hail Mary’ picked off in the end-zone, Ray knew there was no getting out of this now – he was going to have to answer Mustang’s question. And this wasn’t a problem because he didn’t know how to answer it – far from it. As soon as the words had fallen from Mustang’s mouth and he’d seen the look in his eyes, the answer had come to Ray with all the subtlety of a kick into the face, his gut screaming the answer at him in an effort to force the words out of his mouth. No, the only problem Ray was really having, was questioning whether or not he was brave enough to actually listen to himself.
“Alright … you want an answer?” he began, laying his two hands out flat on the table. “Here it is. I think tha-…”.
“Hey! Sorry about the wait!” said the waiter, appearing out of nowhere just in time to perfectly interrupt Ray mid-sentence. “We had a big party come in that said they had a booking, but when we went to check their booking, it wasn’t showing up in the computer, and … basically, it was a huge mess!”
After failing miserably to read the atmosphere at the table, the waiter, unperturbed, continued to chirpily speak as he went about collecting the empty plates sitting on the table.
“Now, just to refresh my memory,” he said, as he hurriedly stacked the plates on top of one another, causing the porcelain they were made of to noisily clink and clank. “It was one extra-large, black coffee, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” replied Ray, politely. “Though, by any chance, could you make it ‘to go’, please? I’ve got a bit of a long drive ahead of me.”
“Oooh, of course …” cooed the waiter, sounding genuinely intrigued as he snapped his hand around the table grabbing up the used cutlery. “Going anywhere particularly exciting?”
“As a matter of fact, we are,” replied Ray, before looking over at Mustang, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “My man here has a golf tournament he needs to get to.”
“Oh, well that sounds nice,” replied the waiter, again, oblivious to the grander context of what his small talk had blundered him into.
“Are you serious, Ray?!” asked Mustang, struggling to believe that he’d actually heard what he thought he just had. “You mean it?!”
“Yeah, kid …” replied Ray confidently, as he reached his hand across the table and placed it on Mustang’s shoulder. “Let’s go show everyone what you can do.”