Waiting for Augusta

by Jessica Lawson

  I pictured May walking past these signs, the way she must have done in Hilltop.

  “Noni!” Dropping the sign, I ran over to her, but she’d already dropped hers, her eyes panning over the other posters’ words, a confusion, then a sickness coming to her face that let me know she felt exactly like me.

  GO HOME, NEGROES!

  CUT THE COLOREDS—WHITES HAVE RIGHTS

  And the worst one of all, the one that had the most hate screaming from it, was a photograph of Martin Luther King and the words, NEGROES WON’T RULE THIS SCHOOL: YOUR KING IS DEAD.

  I knew about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how he got killed for trying to change things. I was in first grade, and Miss Stone told us the day after that it was an awful thing and it was okay to feel sad or angry or scared. I wondered if May had felt that way. I’d never asked.

  “Here, honey,” said Slick Hair’s wife, putting the sign back in Noni’s hand with a smile as the first bus drove away and the second one began unloading. “Can you believe all these Negro children? And to think, they were gonna bus my girls across Augusta to some horrible colored school, in the name of desegregation. It just sickens me to pieces.”

  Noni stared at Slick Hair’s wife, stared at the signs, stared at a colored woman being interviewed. There were four or five other colored parents standing with her, and I found myself thinking of Mrs. Talbot and wondering whether she had stood like this outside Hilltop Primary on the day May started school. The crowd was quiet enough to hear the interviewer ask the woman why she wanted her child to go to school there and for us to hear the answer.

  “As I understand it, this school has books that my son’s school doesn’t,” she said. “They’ve got other things, too. Better things. I just want my son to have the same opportunities. Equal opportunities.”

  Equal.

  A few years back, Mr. James Walter, one of our Pork Heaven customers, started talking about some business that had happened in Birmingham when I was just a baby. He said he didn’t see why things had to change and that keeping things separate but equal was working just fine. Mama told him that it was easy to say that from where he sat and then said she was sorry, but we’d run out of lemon cake, which we hadn’t. We kept being out of food that he wanted most, and eventually he took his appetite elsewhere.

  I’d wondered about Mr. Walter’s chair for months, staring at the spot in the café where he’d sat—a magic chair where it was easy to say things. I thought maybe Daddy and I could sit down and eat one day, and I’d sit in that chair. When I’d finally sucked down enough nerve to ask Mama about it, she’d said there was no magic chair. The thing that man was sitting in was his skin color. She said being white had made things easier for me, too.

  The interviewer turned away from the mother and began talking once again to the camera. Noni had dropped her sign again, and Slick Hair’s wife picked it up, confused. She reached it out again.

  “I’m not your toilet seat,” Noni told her, knocking the sign to the ground.

  The woman blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t try to plop your ugly inside of me.” She glared and then tore a few signs out of shocked adults’ hands, throwing them to the ground before grabbing my hand. “Let’s go.” She was in a fury, her body coiled up, fists tight. She pulled me through the crowd, across the parking lot, and over the street from where the white parents had been having their meeting a moment before. She dropped under a tree, and I sat beside her.

  Noni breathed slowly, her eyes staring at the crowd. “I’m not sorry for what I said to that lady,” Noni said. “They’re nothing but bullies. All of them. I’m glad I never went to school. Their kids are probably just like them. They probably helped make those signs.”

  The buses were almost empty and the television cameras would leave soon. The show would be over and those people would be coming over for refreshments, like they were at some kind of garden party.

  “Bullies,” I agreed, thinking about how Willy Walter had beaten me up on multiple occasions, for no good reason. How he’d stood over me after the big blows and shoved me down every time I’d tried to stand, until I’d been too exhausted to do anything but lie there on the ground and pray he’d go away.

  There’d been one day in the cafeteria when his sister, Ann, had offered May Talbot a birthday cupcake during school lunch and then waited until she’d gotten close to smear it on her dress. The smear made me so angry, but I hadn’t done a thing. I’d been afraid of what might happen if I got angry, so I just stared, feeling shaky, which was maybe as bad as laughing like some boys and girls had done.

  I’d been a coward that day. Anger needs bravery to go with it. But bravery, the part where you try to put your anger and fear and frustration into doing something, into changing something, that was the hard part. Looking at the face of a girl stepping off that bus, her brown eyes as deep and her back as straight as May Talbot’s, I was ashamed of myself. May was brave every single day. She had to be.

  I wanted to be brave, too.

  Maybe May needed a friend as much as I did. Maybe she was sad about Miss Stone leaving, too. Maybe I was less mean than the kids who whispered taunts at school, but I wasn’t showing it. Maybe there was a part of me that still saw her skin color instead of just seeing May.

  Daddy always said that golf was the game that most tested a man’s character, because you had to call penalties on yourself. There were moments when no fellow golfer or official would be there to make sure you followed the rules. You had to admit mistakes and violations your own self, then try your best to play better.

  “Noni?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How do you change a person’s mind about something?”

  She chewed at a piece of her dress. “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t know either. And maybe trying to change people’s minds wasn’t enough. You had to change their eyes and their heart, too.

  The sky above issued a grumble like a hungry man’s belly, and a thought struck me; maybe I couldn’t make the world a fairer place that day, but I could think of one way to make a small change in the life of one man. And maybe that was a good start. I unstrung the bucket from my backpack and handed it to my fellow runaway.

  “Noni,” I said quietly. “On the count of three, I’m gonna get up and grab that big bowl of fruit. I want you to take this bucket and fill it with as many doughnuts as you can. Then run.”

  Noni’s grimace turned into a curious grin. “Where are we running, Benjamin Putter?”

  “We’re going back to the river.”

  HOLE 7

  Doughnuts and Strategy

  It was several minutes before the river man looked up from the fruit bowl. Half the grapes and apple slices had been eaten, the oranges handed back with the explanation that they didn’t suit him much. He hadn’t touched the doughnuts yet, but had them tucked between his legs. Noni and I sat beside him under the big oak, watching the fishing lines dangle in the water. “Thanks,” he finally managed. “My name’s Tom Barry.”

  “Sam Snead,” I said.

  Noni half grinned. “Sally.”

  Tom studied us both. “I know code names when I hear ’em. No harm, though. Where’d you find this grub?”

  I explained and he nodded. “Same folks who give me dirty looks after fighting their war. So what do you want with a golf course?”

  Tom reached for his first doughnut while I showed him Daddy’s urn and explained what we were hoping to do. His lips twisted in thought after I’d finished. “A tough operation. Bad timing with the big tournament going on.”

  “He wants to see it,” I said, then felt myself redden. “I mean, he wanted to be there, at least for a day, and then be scattered by the time they start playing on Sunday. We were thinking we’d sneak onto the property tonight.”

  “Maybe we could just ask someone for their tickets,” Noni said.

  Tom laughed. “There are charitable people out there, but not the kind who would give up their Maste
rs tickets. And the people selling them aren’t likely to even give you a discount, let alone a clean giveaway. No, sneaking in’s the way to go.”

  Noni looked down at a strange bulge in her pocket. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Well,” Tom said, coughing again, “I may not be much to look at, but I know a thing or two about sneaking around bunkers. You got any reconnaissance on this place? Something to tell us about the terrain we’re dealing with?”

  I pulled out the Augusta book. “There are photos of the holes in here. And a basic layout of the course.”

  Tom grabbed it, his face filling with something close to excitement and purpose. “Well, let’s huddle up and talk strategy.” He looked up at the sky and sniffed the air. “We’ll have to factor in the rain. It’s coming tonight.”

  • • •

  A few hours later, Tom had eaten his fill and we had our plan. As he’d told us, ACC’s golf course and property was smashed right up against Augusta National’s, and it wouldn’t have the same issues with guards and security. Our goal was to get onto ACC grounds and then hop the barrier fence between the two golf courses.

  The second shot at hole eleven, all of hole twelve, and the first two shots of hole thirteen on Augusta National are known as Amen Corner, and that’s the place Tom had suggested getting in. Daddy’d once told me that some reporter wanted a fancy name for that section of the course, so he’d named it after a jazz record.

  I didn’t care much about Amen Corner’s history, but I liked the name; if you’re gonna hop a fence and hunker down in a place you don’t belong, it doesn’t hurt if there’s some kind of religious-sounding bent to it. There was the most tree cover there and multiple escape routes, or so Tom said, looking at Daddy’s Augusta book. We could pop out the next morning real casual.

  “Thanks for your help,” I told him. “You can keep that bucket. I wish we could repay you.” I turned to Noni. “We should have taken some of that donation money from the table, too.”

  Noni blushed and pulled out a fistful of bills. “I did.” She held it toward him. “Wasn’t sure the right time to give it to you. Here you go, sir. Take it all.” She turned to me. “I thought maybe we could use it to buy tickets. But I don’t want money from those people. Do you?”

  I stared at her hand. Getting into the Masters was our goal. But the protest we’d seen was fresh in my mind. May Talbot was there, too. That money was probably meant to buy more poster paper and markers, to make more of those signs.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want that money.”

  “I’ll take it.” Tom grinned and snatched the dollars from Noni’s hand. “Thank you, miss. Probably not the cause they intended to fund, but don’t mind if I do.” He began straightening the bills, then suddenly jerked his head toward the water at the sound of faint, high-pitched metal tinkling. “Ho! Look at that!”

  One of his fishing lines was tugged taut and his bobber sank, causing a tiny bell tied to the line to ring. “What do you know,” he said, putting down the empty bucket and picking up his line to see a wiggling fish. “It’s my lucky day. Hope some rubs off on you. Now, go on, like I said, and scout the premises before you make a move to get into ACC. And after you hop that fence between the two properties and get onto Augusta National, make sure you stay low and slow.”

  I nodded. “Like barbecue.”

  “Huh?”

  “You gotta be patient. Cook it low and slow. That’s what my daddy used to say.”

  “He was right. Now, go on and make him happy.” Tom grunted. “And watch out that nobody’s laid a trap for you.”

  HOLE 8

  Fisherman’s Knot

  We walked to Augusta National first, getting there at ten in the morning. I had to get a glimpse of it, and I thought maybe Daddy would perk up and start talking at the sight of his beloved golf heaven. But he didn’t.

  Tom Barry had been right about the Masters ticket scalpers that were lingering in the area. They were there to sell last minute tickets to people who didn’t have them, but there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy among them for two kids who didn’t even have money to bargain with. Since none of the latecomers making their way to the entrance area seemed willing to give up their day at the Masters, the idea of getting in with legitimate passes was definitely out.

  After walking along the perimeter of the neighboring golf club, ACC, we walked over to the river bottoms far north of Tom Barry to change into our decent clothes, having decided that just walking in might do the trick. The only problem was that, although security wasn’t combing the grounds at Augusta National’s less fancy neighbor, the ACC was still private property, and any person walking around would need a reason to be there.

  When I suggested we both go in together to check it out, Noni shook her head.

  “No good,” she said. “What if something bad happens and we get caught?” She pointed to the urn. “This is the best chance we’ve got to scatter your daddy. You can’t let him down. I’ll go alone, to test the waters first.”

  She was right. If we got hauled into some office at ACC, there was no way we’d make it into Augusta National that night. “But what if you get caught? You wanted to get into Augusta National, too. If something happens, then you won’t—”

  “I know.” She stared at the ground for a moment, then raised her head. “I want to do it for you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. If Noni’s daddy had thought she needed lessons in how to be a good friend, I hoped he was watching over her now. She’d proven him wrong. “Thank you.”

  Noni smiled, but I saw just a hint of worry in her eyes before she blinked it away. “I’m a good talker. I’ll be fine.”

  “What if someone asks who you are?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll tell them that I’m John’s niece, then hurry along like I belong there.”

  “Who’s John?”

  Rolling her eyes, Noni picked up a rock and tossed it toward the river. “It’s a country club packed full of men. Chances are, they’ve got a dozen men named John. I’ll walk to the clubhouse and around part of the course, pretending to look for Uncle John, to see if it’s the kind of place that would let a girl do that sort of thing. If it is, we’ll be fine.” She eyed the backpack. “I’ll leave that behind for now, but it might draw attention when we both go.”

  “We’ll say our mama dropped us off so Uncle John can take us camping,” I suggested. “Worked with that protest lady.”

  “Good. I’ll be back.”

  She walked off, whistling her hobo song the way she’d done back at the orchard. The sound reminded me how much she wanted to find a sign from her daddy. There was a part of me that wondered if she’d just run off once we hopped the border fence and got inside Augusta National that night. I had the strangest feeling that she was waiting for the right moment to leave me.

  I picked a yellow flower and plucked off the petals one by one.

  She’ll be back, she won’t be back, she’ll be back, she won’t be . . . I let the flower fall before I could finish taking it to pieces.

  I walked along the river with the backpack on, Daddy sticking out the top for air. A good-size stick presented itself, and I used it like a golf club, whacking small stones and twigs ahead of me and moving where they landed—making my own private riverside round of eighteen holes and wondering if I’d ever play a round of real golf again in my life. Improper grip or not, I wasn’t a bad player.

  “Ben? Did we make it?”

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “We’re in Augusta, Daddy.” I filled him in on our meeting with Tom Barry and what Noni was doing. He wholeheartedly agreed and told me a few stories about miraculous shots that had been made on the twelfth green, where we’d be sneaking in.

  After an hour or so of waiting for Noni, he ran out of golf facts, and the two of us just sat, listening to the birds and being together. I untied the camping ropes from the outside of the backpack and practiced the bowline knot, then tied a clove hitch around my leg the
way Noni’d done around my finger with her shoelace back on the coal train.

  I felt strangely comfortable with Daddy. And with our final goodbye approaching fast, I felt like talking while I could.

  “Daddy?” I said, breaking the quiet.

  “Yeah?”

  “I liked those Abbott Meyers stories you told me. Back in the orchard, I said they were stupid. But I liked them. A lot.” With the other length of rope, I moved on to the fisherman’s knot, used to tie two ropes together so they’d become something longer.

  “You liked Abbott Meyers?” He chuckled. “Yep, he was just a poor boy who never quite made it to the PGA tour. Lots of talent, though. People think golf is only a rich man’s sport, Ben, but Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan? All poor boys who found a way in. I think Abbott took comfort in that while he snuck bites from the rich men’s abandoned sandwiches after they were done eating.”

  I grinned. “I liked the one where he disguised himself, entered a tournament, and beat the pants off that man who never tipped him.”

  Daddy laughed. “I liked that one, too.” He cleared his throat. “You know, Ben, I think golf made Abbott Meyers feel less lonely. I think golf was Abbott’s only friend.”

  I didn’t have any friends at all. I couldn’t get a handle on Noni or where she’d be going after she found her sign. And May felt out of reach. I missed her. I didn’t want to lose her. “Mr. Talbot came to the memorial service Mama had for you at the church,” I said. “There were a few empty seats, but he stood at the back.”

  “Well, that’s nice that he came.”