Waiting for Augusta (18 page)

A fire spark hit my cheek, and I struggled to make sense of everything. It was like the world was moving too slow and too fast, the journey to Augusta going too slow and too fast, so slow and so fast that I couldn't stop it, only watch, I couldn't ever stop it, I couldn't ever stop Daddy from dying, from leaving, I could only take a breath of air and get water instead.

It was Augusta that had started this. Augusta National Golf Club. Augusta had been pulling on me since Hilltop, teasing with obstacles while drawing me closer, letting me know exactly who was in charge of this journey.

Augusta had brought Noni and her strange bruise to Pork Heaven.

Augusta made that bus crash into a pig.

Augusta blew enough wind behind me as I ran that I caught up to a moving train.

Augusta yanked me into a peach orchard, then urged
me down the road in the used truck that belonged to a boy whose father was proud of him.

Augusta pushed me past the town of Feather only to be blocked by a truck pulling a load of chickens.

Augusta was pulling and shoving me toward it the whole time, poking gentle, then hard, tugging and pushing and dragging me toward the greatest golf course in the world, where Daddy wanted me to crack open his urn, see his ashes, and say the hardest goodbye I'd ever have to say.

I didn't know how to stop any of it.

Some things were impossible to fight. Some things you didn't have any control over. Some things just happened to you and it took everything you had to whisper to the world that you'd keep trying.

I added a black rock to the very, very end of the river scene and hoped the boy would catch it before he was rushed off the side of the painting into the real world, where he didn't belong.

I'd just set that painting aside to dry and started on another when Daddy's waking-up sounds broke me from the picture. I stifled the urge to hide my art supplies when he stretched out his throat with grumbles and low coughs. And then he spoke.

“Hey, Ben. Whatcha doing?”

His voice was hesitant and weak, but the relief I felt was so intense, it was almost painful.

Thank God!
was my first thought.

You don't want to know what I'm doing,
was the second.

“Ben? Are you there?” He didn't sound mad at all. Maybe he wanted to forget that I'd yelled at him.

“I'm here.” I felt both wary and bold with him. I didn't want to drive him away again, but if screaming at him like I'd done in the orchard didn't do the trick, I figured not much would. “I'm . . . I'm painting, Daddy.”

“Huh. What are you painting?”

“A sunset.” I took a chance. “It's one of the things that works best with watercolors because everything melts together just like the sky does.”

“Well, you always did like to make pictures. You're pretty good, if I recall.”

I smiled to myself. “I've won a few prizes.”

“That right? How come this is the first I'm hearing about it?”

“I never brought them home.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Why not?”

“You never seemed to care about stuff like that. So I stopped showing you.”

“Oh,” he said again. “Well, I'm not all that smart, Benjamin.” His voice winked. “All God's work went into my good looks. I probably wouldn't have said the right thing, anyway.”

Maybe I hadn't said the right things either. Maybe I should have said more. Tried harder. Mrs. Marino showed
up in my brain.
It's harder to be proud of something you don't understand.

I rubbed my neck. “Before my art teacher, Miss Stone, left, she gave me her phone number and said if I wanted extra lessons, she would help me. She said that there were schools for people who get really good at drawing and painting, and there were competitions I could enter. She said she'd write me recommendations. She's called, but I haven't called back.” I paused and waited for him to snort or say I'd better keep up the barbecue business, or worse, say nothing, letting the silence fill with words anyway.

Instead, Daddy whistled. “You don't say. That's something. So you're that good, huh?”

The day Miss Stone had told me she'd never seen such talent as she saw in my watercolor paintings had been the best day of my life. The glow I'd felt was like ten of Daddy's “good boy”s. But I didn't want to hurt his feelings, him wanting me to get my glows from barbecue and golf. “I'm getting better. Each one still takes me time. You know, Bobby Jones had a quote that makes me think of painting.”

Now he snorted. “You don't say. Well?”

“He said, ‘It's nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it.' Drawing and painting is kind of the same way for me.”

“Wise man, that Mr. Jones.” I saw Daddy nod to himself.
“Lots of things are like that, you know, Ben. Being a father is like that.”

“Oh.” There was something changed in Daddy. Like he'd softened up in a way that I'd only ever heard in his voice when he was telling me those few Abbott Meyers stories. This talk we were having felt real, like it was the right time to ask a question that had been weighing on me since his death.

“Daddy, did you know you were gonna die?”

A heavy sigh was followed by a heavy cough. “I guess nobody knows for sure. The odds of me coming out of that operating room alive weren't good.” Another sigh, a slightly shaking one, like his urn was close to overflowing with whatever he was feeling. “I told your mother to stay hopeful. It wasn't a lie. It was the right thing to say.” He paused, and I saw his eyes squint together. I saw him reach out a finger and thumb, squeezing the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was apologizing to Mama. “Those were the last words I said to her before they knocked me out. I held her hand and told her to stay hopeful.”

It was almost too much, hearing that. I felt nearly overflowing with something myself.

“Nobody lives forever, Ben. You know what Walter Hagen said. You're only—”

“—here for a short visit,” I supplied. “Don't hurry, don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

“Smart boy. So, are we back in Hilltop yet?”

“Huh?” Wait. Daddy thought we were still going back to Hilltop. He thought I'd given up on him. He didn't know that I'd changed my mind.

And he still sat there and asked you about your painting,
the fire said.
And he answered one of the questions you've been wanting to ask him. Without expecting anything in return.

He sure did
, said my throat lump.
Now, isn't that something?

It
was
something. It was something powerful enough to sway me into a decision on whether or not I'd be turning around after getting Noni to Augusta.

“No. We're not in Hilltop,” I told him. “We're one long walk away from Abbott Meyer's hometown. We missed the first day of the Masters, but I'm gonna do my best to get you in there and get you settled by tee time on Sunday.”

Daddy sputtered and hooted and perked up like I'd poured a pot of extra strong coffee on his ashes. “Hot dog! I mean, hot
dog
! Do you mean it?” He whooped a few more times, and I saw the victory dance he'd done the summer he'd driven to Birmingham for a pitmaster contest at the state fair and won a prize for the king of contests, roasting a whole hog on a pit made of cinder blocks. He'd celebrated with a double round of golf at PJ Hewett Municipal the next day and came home glowing from a hole-in-one and his lowest score ever.

I couldn't help laughing, looking into the past and seeing
him twirl Mama around with one hand, picking me up in his free arm and swinging us all around in the kitchen. “Yep, Daddy, I mean it.”

For the next few minutes, I listened to him talk excitedly about the beauty of the course, the sacred space it was, the talent it took to play the Masters, and his hopes for Hobart Crane. I let him talk. I'd heard it all before, but for maybe the first time, I really listened.

Then I let our talk fade out and listened to the night sounds, feeling a renewed sense of purpose. I would get Daddy to Augusta, and I would find a way onto that golf course, even if I had to battle all the pigs and peaches and chickens in Georgia to get there.

When the fire died out, I shook Noni awake and we started walking.

T
here's nothing like giving your father a piggyback ride to his dream destination to make you feel like your life has gotten a little mixed up. As we approached the outskirts of town, Friday morning air flowed through the open fingers of my free hand, thick and humid and heavy with coming rain. I waved against it, and the wind answered my hello with a gentle pressure that had me standing my whole self straighter to feel and breathe in how the world was different here on the edge of Augusta, Georgia.

We stuck along the riverside, where warm breezes perfumed with blossoms and earth and all sorts of other smells drifted around as we got closer to town. Gasoline and growing things. Concrete heating up with the day's sun and potatoes frying. I wanted to swallow those smells, catch them in a jar to sniff at later. I nearly made myself lightheaded, trying to suck Augusta inside me. I almost
expected to see an eleven-year-old Abbott Meyers walking toward us, tipping his hat my way.

Instead, we came upon a thin man, sunburned and shaggy-looking, his stringy blond-brown hair and chin stubble in need of a haircut and shave. He crouched against a tree, watching over a set of five or six fishing lines. He stood at the sight of us, straightening a threadbare army jacket and pants.

He smiled a happy, helpful, innocent smile filled with yellowish teeth. “Nice backpack,” he told me. “New to Augusta? Need some information and a map?” Holding up a finger for us to wait, he limped over to the tree and rummaged through a garbage bag next to it, coming up with a stack of pamphlets.

He wasn't the best-looking of welcoming committees, but seemed friendly enough. “Actually, yes,” I told him. “A map would be great.”

“Five dollars,” the man declared, his smile straightening out as he changed from welcome crew to businessman.

“That's crazy,” Noni said. “And we don't—”

“Crazy's crazy.” He shrugged, waving the pamphlet. “And a boy in need of a map is a boy in need of a map,” the man said. “Oh, fine, three dollars.”

“I'm sorry,” I told him. “We don't have any money.”

The man plopped to the ground with a disappointed grunt, scattering the pamphlets with a casual fling of the arm. “Of course you don't. That would've been too lucky for
me. Just take one,” he said, eyeing our appearance, which after miles of walking wasn't much better than his. “You look a little rough, and we got to take care of our own, don't we? Besides,” he said, laying a finger on one nostril and blowing out the contents of the other. “They're free at the visitor center. Got any food?”

I shook my head.

“Darn. Haven't eaten since Wednesday. The VFW does grub on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and there's a church in town that does Sundays. Park Street, if you need it. Wednesday noon to Friday nights are always hard on the belly, though.” He pounded on his absent belly and coughed like Daddy used to.

I picked up one of the fallen maps, wanting to move along but not wanting to be rude, especially not to a man who'd probably killed people during the war. “How's the fishing around here?”

He picked up the fallen pamphlets, wiping and stacking them neatly and placing them back in the bag. “I come here every week and I never catch a thing.” With a swift hand movement, he took a short comb from his back pocket and tried running it through his long hair. Tangles soon had him grooming face hair instead. “Where ya headed?”

“Um . . . a golf course. Augusta National. Is it on the map?”

His eyes twinkled. “The big one, huh?”

“I guess so.” He stepped over to me, and I was surprised to smell soap. Now that I got a closer look, he wasn't dirty after all. I was just seeing his clothes and hair. Well, and the teeth stains, but even Daddy had some of those.

“There.” He jabbed a clean fingernail near the top of the map, where two wavy-edged ovals of light green bumped each other. “It jams right up against a whole 'nother golf club—Augusta Country Club, see? ACC's course and clubhouse and property aren't quite as nice as Augusta National's, but then again, not much is.” He sniffed at me and backed away. “I do hate to be the one to tell you this, but I don't think you'd get into either place dressed like that. Fancy
gentlemen
over there, most of them never seen the backside of Vietnam. If you're thinking of getting in without a ticket, you'd best wait until nightfall. Three morons got kicked out earlier this week, and there was a big hoo-ha. Not that you're morons. Well, you might be, for all I know. Anyhow, both courses are all the way on the north side.” He pointed upriver. “Follow the water a ways, and then you can walk through town. Begging's bad this time of year, though, I'll warn you that.”

“Thanks, sir,” Noni said. “Why do you keep fishing here if you don't catch anything?”

“Oh, something'll take to my worms one of these days.” He winked. “I got to be here if I want to catch it, don't I?” He turned his attention back to the fishing lines. “Stay and talk, if you want.”

Noni nudged me, her elbow saying,
Time to go.

“Good luck with the fishing sir,” I told him. “We've got to be moving on. Thanks for the map.”

The river man raised his hand in answer, not looking up as we left him.

•  •  •

There was more to see in Augusta than in Hilltop. Sidewalks and cement roads and houses, buildings and businesses. Restaurants, offices. Even a fancy-looking arts and crafts store. More people, too, both white and colored, young and old. It was still early, but we saw folks walking to work, folks sipping coffee at diner windows, folks trimming bushes and mowing grass before it got too hot, kids walking to school together. Hilltop's neighborhoods were more separated, and though signs banning people from stores were gone now, I noticed that I'd never seen May in town. When I'd asked Daddy about that, he'd said the west side of town had other places for groceries and goods that were closer to the Talbots. It made sense that they'd go to those stores, he'd said.