“Next time,” I said, “I'll enjoy who I golf with, and I'll hit the fairway.”
“As if you could,” he said.
“No problem,” I said.
His snarl became a smile. Like he was a cat discovering a crippled mouse. “Really? Care to put your money where your mouth is?”
Conversations at the other tables had stopped. Everyone was watching us.
Mercedes tugged on my sleeve. I was wearing my Hitmen jersey. Number seventeen.
“Don't fall for it,” she whispered. “Just sit down.”
I made the mistake of looking into her brown eyes. They were as beautiful as her smile. I also made the mistake of looking over at Sheila. Her shoulders were hunched. She was still crying.
“Tell you what,” I said to Jones. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I would find a way. “Any time you want, I'll play that hole and prove it.”
“Really,” he said. His eyes gleamed. “How about for the thousand dollars? As soon as the banquet is finished?”
This guy was a bully. I knew what he was trying to do. Shove me around using money
instead of muscles. He had a lot of money. I didn't. He thought it would make me back down. He didn't know I hate bullies so much I was not going to let him do it, even if it cost me a thousand dollars I didn't have.
“Sure,” I said. “I'll put a thousand dollars on it.”
That's when I knew I had eaten an extra bowl of stupid for breakfast.
On the tee box, my club came down and made solid contact with the golf ball. It had that satisfying feel of ripping a great slap shot.
I can pound slap shots. And golf balls. In hockey, the slap shot usually goes where I want it to go. In golf, not so often.
The golf ball instantly disappeared into the black of night. I sure hoped it had gone straight. I wondered if there would be a splash. Not that I'd really be able to hear it that well.
But my implant did bring me most sounds, even if the sounds weren't very clear.
“Yeah, buddy!” my brother Nate yelled. “You go, Radar!”
He whistled and cheered. If there had been a splash, there was no way to tell above the noise he was making.
Had the ball landed on the fairway?
Only one way to find out. Walk and look. And hope.
Nate led the way with his flashlight. I followed close behind. The rest of the crowd stayed with us.
“Nate,” I said in a low voice, “this is crazy. Why did you bet another fifteen hundred dollars? You can't afford to lose it.”
“Got twenty C-notes in my wallet,” he said. “That will cover it.”
“C-notes?”
“Hundred dollar bills,” he said. “Cash takes up less room if you keep hundreds instead of twenties.”
I walked a few steps down the grass of the fairway as what he had said sank into my mind. Nate had two thousand dollars cash?
“Did you rob a bank?” I asked, only half joking.
“Didn't need to,” he answered. He flicked his flashlight back and forth across the fairway. “While you were playing for the Warriors, I learned a thing or two about making money.”
I thought about it, but kept my questions to myself. I'd spent my first season in the WHL on the Moosejaw Warriors while Nate had played his rookie year in Calgary for the Hitmen. I wondered what else he'd been doing during the hockey season to make that kind of cash.
Right now though, I had something more important to worry about: making sure I didn't lose a thousand dollars of my own.
“Hey!” Nate said. “Look!”
His flashlight beam found a golf ball, sitting nicely on top of the mowed grass.
“Are you sure the ball is his?” came a voice from the crowd. Bob Jones, Mr. Car Dealer.
Nate walked closer. The flashlight beam clearly showed the Nike swoosh and a blue circle around it.
“Mine,” I said. One shot down without going into the water. But could I hit another one straight enough to stay dry?
I pulled a fairway wood from my bag.
“What are you doing?” Nate asked.
“I saw the yardage to the green on a sprinkler head,” I answered. “I think I can get on the green from here. If I miss and go in the water, I'll still have a chance at a par if I can get it up and down after taking my penalty stroke.”
“No,” he said, “play it safe. Hit two shots from here to get on the green. Then you'll have two putts to knock it in the hole to make par.”
“I'm not a good putter,” I said. “If I can knock it on the green with this shot, I can take three putts for a five.”
“No,” he said, “play it safe.”
“No,” I said, “all I need is one straight shot.”
Nate put his hand on my shoulder. “I've got another thousand in the car. Do it my way, and I'll cover your bet if you lose.”
He had another thousand dollars?
“The kid will never hit the green from here,” Bob Jones said. “He's too afraid.”
Yes, I was afraid. But I guessed Jones was trying to get me to go for the green. And if that's what he wanted, it was exactly what I didn't want.
“I'll play it safe,” I told Nate.
So I took a shorter club from my bag. I stood over the ball. I swallowed to try to get some moisture in my dry mouth. I took another swing. Again, the ball disappeared into the darkness.
Would this one hit water?
“Go, buddy!” Nate yelled. “Yahoo! You show 'em! Radar! That's my boy!”
Again, with all the noise he made, nobody was able to hear if my ball splashed.
Again, all I could do was walk and look. And hope.
Less than a minute later, we found the ball in the center of the fairway. Right beside a sprinkler head that showed it was only a hundred yards to the green.
The crowd was buzzing. To me, the words weren't clear; it truly did sound like buzzing.
“Great shot,” Nate said. “Think you can hit the green from here?”
“Going to have to,” I said.
Nate yelled at Bob Jones, “Hey, buddy, I got another five hundred that says he'll hit the ball closer to the hole than you can from here. Want to take the bet and try a shot after he hits his?”
Nate shone the flashlight on Bob Jones's face. Bob put up his hand to shield his eyes. It got very quiet as everyone waited for his answer.
“Nah,” Jones finally said. “I'm already going to take enough of your money.”
People around him laughed.
“Nice try,” someone hollered. “Now who's a chicken?”
“Just hit the ball,” Jones snapped.
So I did.
It was a terrible swing. It didn't feel right. As if I had hit the ball off the toe of the clubface instead of square in the center.
“Go, buddy!” Nate yelled, slapping my back. “Great swing, Radar! You got him now! Yahoo!”
I didn't feel as excited. I was sure, by the way it felt, that I'd knocked the ball into the water by the green. I should have known something was wrong, but I was too worried to think about it.
Nate marched forward to the green. We all followed, like he was the Pied Piper.
And sure enough, six feet from the pin was my Nike golf ball, with the blue circle around the swoosh. Somehow, my bad swing had worked.
Nate slapped my back again.
There was applause from the crowd. I gave a fist pump. I'd hit three shots to get there. If I sank the putt for a birdie, I'd win. If I missed from that close, all I would have to do was tap it in for a par and a tie. Things were looking good.
Until Mercedes joined me and Nate at my golf bag.
“Hey,” Mercedes said to me softly. “I found your golf ball.”
“What?” I said just as quietly. “It's right there. On the green.”
“I have one in my pocket that looks just like it,” she whispered. “A blue circle around the Nike swoosh. You better hope no one finds another one too.”
“Please,” Nate said to Mercedes. “Keep it to yourself. I'll give you half the money.”
I finally understood what had happened. I understood why Nate had yelled every time I'd hit the ball so that no one could hear if it splashed. Why he'd told me to play a shorter club instead of going for the green in two. Why the ball that I thought I'd hit off the toe of my club had landed so close to the hole instead of dropping into the water beside the green.
“Give me the ball,” I said to Mercedes. If Nate had been setting this up to rip people off, I wasn't going to let him do it. “Trust me on this.”
She dug it out of her pocket and handed it to me. I grabbed the putter and marched toward the ball on the green.
I was mad. Very mad.
So mad that I knew I was going to sink the putt.
Nate shone the flashlight on the ball. I didn't take any time over it. The ball clicked off the face of my putter and rolled into the center of the cup. Four strokesâ birdie. We had won the bet. All twenty-five hundred dollars.
Everybody roared.
I put up my hand to silence them.
“Guys,” I said. “It was fun tricking all of you.”
The quiet got even quieter, if that was possible. A few frogs croaked from the pond to break that silence.
“Nobody has to pay out their bets,” I said. “But in the spirit of the fun we just had, Nate and I would like to ask you to donate half of what you would have lost to the Special Olympics.”
I turned to Nate. “Isn't that right, Nate?”
He was smiling through gritted teeth and spoke so that only I could hear him. “Nolan, I set this up for a good reason. Just let me explain.”
Sure. Explain that he wanted to steal. All along, I'd thought he was trying to protect me.
“So,” I said to the crowd, “if we can make you laugh about this, how many of you want to donate instead of paying out?”
“What's the deal?” someone in the crowd yelled out.
I reached into the cup and pulled out the ball. Then I took the ball that Mercedes had found. I held both of them out for people to see.
“Matching golf balls,” I said. I knew my words sounded funny to them, but I'd long ago decided not to let that stop me. “While we were still in the clubhouse, my brother ran out ahead and planted matching golf balls on the fairway and on the green. Then he ran back to meet me on the tee-box and hold the flashlight for me. All I had to do was hit a shot, then go to the next ball and hit another shot. Same with the third shot. All along there was a ball on the green, right by the pin, waiting for me to get there.”
It took a few seconds for people to understand. Then they started laughing.
Bob Jones stomped up to me, and the laughter stopped.
“You cheated,” he said to me. “You didn't win the bet. You owe me a thousand dollars.”
“Everybody thinks it's funny that we fooled you,” I said quietly. “Want to look
like a sore loser? But if everybody sees you shake my hand and you put that thousand dollars back into the charity, they'll think you're a good guy and talk about it for years. How much is that worth in advertising?”
Jones took a deep breath. Then he smiled. I could see it hurt him to put that smile on his face.
He turned around and faced the crowd.
“I'm in for donating my bet to the Special Olympics,” he said loudly. He put his arm around my shoulder while he spoke. Like we were best of friends. “Let's have another big round of applause for these two smart young men and the entertainment they gave us tonight.”
Some people like the fall when it looks like a postcard. Trees with brilliant orange and red leaves. Blue sky in the background. No clouds. No wind.
Me, I hate the postcard look. It was on a day like that in grade five when I was called to the principal's office. I got there ahead of Nate, who was in the other grade five classroom. All through school, they put us in different classrooms. Easier on the teachers. The only way to tell us apart back then was the
way I speak. I don't hear clearly and I speak slowly, like someone who's learning a foreign language.
The minister of our church was waiting for us on that postcard-perfect fall day. He was tall and bald and had a serious look on his face. Our principal, a short woman with gray hair, didn't know where to look and kept rubbing her hands together. Even before Nate got there, I could tell something was wrong. My hearing is bad, not my brain.
On that beautiful fall day, when Nate finally arrived in the principal's office, the minister spoke slowly and told us that a big truck had gone through a stop sign and crashed into our car just as our mother and father were driving through the intersection.
The minister had talked to us as if we were five years old, not boys in grade five. He had tried to make us feel better by telling us our parents would not have felt any pain when the cement truck hit them. He told us that they had gone to a better place. Nate didn'tâor wouldn'tâunderstand. I had walked out of the office and out of the school and down the
street underneath trees with brilliant orange and red leaves, looking up at the clear blue sky and trying not to think about anything. I walked for five miles. I slept under a bridge that night. I didn't go home for a day. When I got back, it wasn't home anyway. Not without Mom and Dad. I didn't care that the cops had been looking for me for twenty-four hours.
So you can understand why beautiful fall days put me in a bad mood.
It was that kind of day when I walked through the parking lot from my carâan old green Toyota Camryâto the Saddledome for our first game of the season, against the Red Deer Rebels.
A month had passed since the charity golf tournament. Before the tournament, pre-season had gone well. Exhibition games too. I was left winger on the line with Nate, and he was center. He'd scored a bunch of goals, and I'd had plenty of assists. We're twins. I can't explain how, but I know where he's going before he gets there. It was almost like passing to myselfâexcept I rarely got
passes back. Nate liked scoring goals. I liked winning games. I didn't need the spotlight. He did.