Waiting for Augusta (27 page)

When I whispered a question to him about it, Daddy said Augusta National had a Negro-caddie-only policy, and while other professional tournaments allowed players to bring in their own caddies, this club required use of Augusta
National caddies during the Masters. Though Daddy only made saints out of golfers, he had a special spot for caddies, and I'd heard enough here and there from Daddy to know that some of Augusta's caddies were becoming legendary in their own right.

Mr. Crane's caddie cleared his throat. Hobart broke out of whatever spell had grabbed him and stepped to the man, exchanged a few low words, nodded, and accepted a four iron.

“But why not have white caddies, too?”

I saw Daddy's shoulders rise and fall. “It's tradition here. White club members, colored caddies. Just the way things are, Ben. The caddies are well respected here. Some of them form real close relationships with their Masters players.”

So colored men were good enough to give advice to Masters players and club members, good enough to carry equipment, but not good enough that the people running Augusta National would ever let them join their club. Something wasn't right about that.

“Augusta National is a private club,” Daddy said. “They've got the right to do whatever they want.”

It reminded me of the school protests. “Like in Hilltop,” I said.

“How's that?” he asked.

When our school integrated, the parents who took their kids out said it was their right to do that. They said they
weren't going against the law by building a private school that shut out colored students. I looked down at Daddy. “Just because something's allowed and it doesn't break any laws, I don't know if that makes it right.” I didn't expect him to answer and I didn't need his opinion. I just wanted to tell him mine.

A crowd roared approval of some shot at the golf green ahead of us.

“What was that?” Daddy stood on his ashy tiptoes, looking this way and that. “Who shot what?”

“Must have been a good putt, Daddy.”

“Well, get over there and tell me what's going on.”

He listened while I narrated our path, then told me background on holes and great shots that happened there long ago. But part of my mind drifted, not sure if I felt heavier or lighter.

Just concentrate on your daddy
, the lump in my throat said.
For as long as he's here.

•  •  •

Noni seemed to have settled into a quiet daze. We followed Hobart Crane for much of the day, and I kept hoping he'd look our way and wave, but he was all business. Daddy loved his swing, and when I stopped to really look and could see it right there in person, it was a beautiful thing. Easy and effortless.

“They seem confident, Ben, but even professional golfers
constantly question their swing. They're on a quest.”

“For what?”

“For the one swing that defines them. A swing that comes easy and natural and fits them perfectly. One they can be proud of.” He paused, then cleared his throat. “The best I can say is that I tried, son. I didn't find my swing in the time I had. I don't know that I'd ever have found it. But I tried.”

He'd spent more time at the golf course than at home. His hands always seemed to be full of either clubs or barbecue equipment. I thought back and couldn't remember a time when his hand had held mine. He'd been on a quest to find his swing. “I know you tried, Daddy.”

“Do you understand what I'm saying, son?” He coughed. “I'm not talking about golf anymore. I'm talking about . . . being your father. I never quite got there. I know that. Do you see what I'm saying?” His voice was soft and faint, like a golf ball hit high in the sky that you tried to follow, lost in the sun, then found again.

I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I could glimpse it, like an abstract watercolor where you couldn't define the picture, only know that it made you feel something. I saw how some parts of his life had gotten tangled around him like Spanish moss, beautiful and strangling at the same time. And I saw how he was like the Spanish moss, too. It wasn't his fault; he just didn't know how else to grow.

I
t wasn't until four o'clock or so that I remembered that we needed to figure out where we'd wait while Augusta shut down for the night. The golf ball stuck in my throat pressed against its prison, rolling around like it was getting ready to make a break for it.

“I need a solid meal before we decide where to hide,” Noni told me. “Let's eat in the clubhouse.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“My son, eating in Augusta National's clubhouse,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “Man alive, of all the inconvenient times to be stuck in a cremation urn.”

We ordered fried chicken in the clubhouse restaurant and were the only children in the whole place. I put Daddy's urn on the table as an authority figure, right by the window view. I could picture his face perfectly while I gave him every detail of the room, the server, the menu.

Halfway through her plate of chicken, Noni reached out
and clutched my hands, a worried look on her face. “Wait,” she said. “Something's wrong.”

“What?”

She pointed to a man across the room, eating a piece of cake. “We forgot to get you a birthday dessert.” And with that, Noni grinned and ordered the biggest ice cream sundae the kitchen would make.

When it arrived, she sang me a soft happy birthday with her beautiful, low voice. And after she'd polished off most of the dessert like it was the last ice cream she'd ever get, we got serious about figuring out where to wait for nightfall.

After getting soaked the night before, having a roof over our heads would be nice. The clubhouse closets and bathrooms were out. Too much security and chance of getting caught. The maintenance sheds were out since they'd have people going in and out long after the crowds left. We were running out of options, and I can't say that a piece of me wasn't thinking maybe we should just go back to Uncle Luke's with Daddy and see what happened. Maybe Daddy was wrong about being out of time.

No
.

It was a more forceful
no
than most objects would give me.

Don't go.

I couldn't be certain, but I think that voice was coming from outside the window. From Augusta National itself.

If I squinted my eyes, the grass, the trees, the flowers, the
hills, the water . . . it was all breathing. What better place to hide on Augusta National than to become part of it? What better floor and roof than Augusta itself? It wasn't going to rain again. That storm had already come and tested us. No, Augusta was calling to me, letting me know that it would keep us safe this time.

Earlier, the course had looked like a painting I could step inside. I scanned the possibilities, then remembered the perfect spot. I pushed a finger against the window, pointing far across the land and sky, past a crowd that watched a caddie hand a club to a player putting on the eighteenth, past all the people who loved golf and straight to a spot where it couldn't be played at all. “Abbott Meyers,” I said.

Noni held a hand over her eyes and looked in the direction I'd pointed. “What? Where are we hiding?”

“The boy from my daddy's goodnight stories. He used to hide out in trees after caddying so he could sneak down and play golf courses at night. We're gonna pull an Abbott Meyers.”

Beyond the window were acres of the most beautiful ground in Georgia, divided into yardages and challenges, tee boxes and holes, hills and hazards. Most of the big trees on the grounds had tall trunks and pine needles, but there was one that might work. An oak with low enough first branches and plenty of leaves. “That one,” I said.

N
oni sat in a branch opposite mine. She looked out over Augusta with a blank expression. The temperature on the course had dropped steadily since sundown, and it was chilly. I'd put on a pair of pants and two extra shirts, but she'd refused the extra clothes of mine from the backpack and had her jeans and Coca-Cola shirt back on, like she wanted to feel as much of the world as she could, even if that meant being uncomfortable.

That bruise of hers was the worst I'd seen it. Whenever I'd bumped her left side throughout the day, she'd clearly been in pain. The rest of her was pale, like the more that bruise hurt, the closer she was to fading away. I had a horrible feeling that she'd disappear on me. She'd been so quiet. Thinking about her daddy, I guess.

“Did you hear that?” Noni turned in her perch, glancing beyond Augusta National's property.

“Hear what?”

She frowned and held her elbow bruise. “Maybe nothing. I thought I heard a train. Are there any rail yards or tracks around here?”

“I don't know. You thinking of stealing my backpack and hopping another train?” I felt my smile fall when her face didn't change.

“Noni, where are you from?”

“Alabama,” she replied. “You need more?”

My fingers traced a leaf. I was about to pluck it, but didn't. Looked nicer there on the tree than in my hand. “Don't need more. I'm glad you came to Hilltop.”

“Me too.” Her leg reached out to tap my shoe. “And just because you don't
need
more doesn't mean you don't
want
more. Or deserve more. You've been a good friend.”

“Did you find your sign?”

“Not yet. I feel like time's just about up.” She closed her eyes. “I thought I'd find it by now.”

“We can look somewhere else,” I said. “Where are you going after this?”

Her big eyes stared right into me, the way May's did. “I'm not sure.”

I hoped whatever happened in the next hours, she would come home with me. Noni'd said she didn't want to, but I couldn't believe that was true. I was sure I could convince Mama to keep her. We'd been pretending to be brother and sister for just a few days, but it felt like it was
meant to be. We fit together somehow, I was certain.

As for what was about to happen with me and Daddy, I felt the opposite of certain. I'd had seconds and thirds and fourths of both happiness and heartache that day, and now I had the happiness-heartache meat sweats.

“Did you have a good birthday?” Daddy asked.

“The best,” I told him, which was true. But it was a shadowed best, with What-I-Have-To-Do-Next standing over it and blocking a good part of the light. I didn't want to say goodbye. I didn't see how I could.

“You need anything else from me?” he asked. “Words of wisdom for your future, like why it's a bad idea to drink a lot of beer or reasons not to get a tattoo on April Fools' Day? You want some advice about girls? How to throw a right hook without breaking your hand?”

I hugged him close. “I guess I'll figure that stuff out. But thank you for asking.”

Daddy didn't talk much more as we sat up there, keeping track of time on a watch we'd borrowed from Uncle Luke, waiting for Saturday to become Sunday. That was okay. We'd had more talking and listening between us in the last week than in my life altogether. Any idea I had about keeping Daddy for myself seemed nothing more than selfish now.

I had so many memories of my father. The good ones were there, but the painful ones outweighed them, and for a moment I wondered if that's what made the golf ball in my
throat so heavy. The lump in my throat was the heaviest it'd been. If only I could find a way to let the dark, heavy memories go. Watch them drift away like colored balloons that would fade and disappear into the midnight sky.

It was one o'clock in the morning when we hopped down. Noni buttoned her father's shirt around her and we stayed among the trees as much as possible. The air was moist, and clumps of fog drifted here and there along the course. I nearly stopped myself once, my feet not wanting to walk forward, choosing instead to trip me so I landed straight on top of the urn.

It knocked the breath out of me, and I felt like I'd gotten sucker-punched in the belly at the school yard. Rolling onto my side, I pushed Noni's hand away. “I'm fine,” I told her, trying not to let my voice tremble. “Daddy's just nervous, I think.”

She moved to let me stand by myself. “I'll bet he is.”

Hurrying between pockets of cover, islands of brush and trees that dotted the course, we made our way to the length of trees along the right side of the eighteenth fairway and tucked ourselves far within, walking north to the final hole. The plan was for me to walk out of the masked area and take care of Daddy while Noni stayed in the trees, ready to scream and provide a distraction in case anyone tried to stop me.

“Okay,” Noni said. “If I have to hide and you come to
find me, walk around and whisper the password and I'll pop out. Password will be—”

“ ‘It's a fine night for trespassing,' ” I supplied.

“That's not a word.”

I squeezed her hand. “No, it's not.”

Underneath dropped pine needles, a small group of flowers still had their purple blooms opened to the moonlight. They weren't four inches high, but stood thin-stemmed and straight. Other blossoms around the course had closed up when nighttime approached, but these tiny things looked good and awake.

Noni plucked two and held them out to me. “For your father.”

I picked two for her. “For yours.”

She took the ones from my hand and twisted the four together, knotting them loosely near the flower base and the ends. “Whenever my daddy and I got in fights, I'd always make him a flower wreath like this,” she told me softly. “He'd say ‘I forgive you,' and then I'd say, ‘No, I forgive
you
,' and then he'd say, ‘Are we okay?' and I'd say, ‘We're okay.' ” She set the little wreath on the ground next to a tree root, then stood, looking at it for a moment. “Leave it there.” Digging in her pocket, she came up with a wrinkled newspaper article. She tucked it in my pocket.