Waiting for Augusta

by Jessica Lawson

  If he called Mama, the trip might be over. No, there had to be a way to stay in Augusta. There had to be. When the solution came, I weighed the betrayal of going against Daddy’s orders against the certainty of failure. I shook my head. “We’re staying with our uncle. Luke Putter. I don’t know his phone number, but he lives here in Augusta. You can look it up.” I pointed to the trees. “I need my backpack.”

  His voice softened. “All right. Let’s grab it and get moving. I imagine your uncle has rules against sneaking out of the house and won’t be too happy to hear from me. You’ve broken a lot of rules tonight. If your uncle is anything like my daddy was, boy, I don’t envy your backside.”

  My backside was the least of my concerns. There were only a handful of hours until the second-to-last day of the Masters started. I could only hope that Uncle Luke would help us find a way to make a miracle happen and get us back on Augusta’s grounds.

  “Sir, I mean no disrespect to adults in general or you in particular,” I said, “but I think maybe the people who make the rules don’t always know what’s best.”

  He considered me. “You may be right, son, but this golf club’s rules aren’t meant to be challenged. Not tonight, anyway.” He chuckled. “I mean, Good Lord, you’d have better luck getting into this course during the Masters by hopping a ride with one of the players.” Shaking his head at his joke, he blew out air. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”

  • • •

  Twenty minutes later, at eleven o’clock at night, the door to the security office opened. A short man casting a long shadow walked inside, and his resemblance to Daddy was enough to make me lurch against Noni. I straightened the pack on my shoulder, not sure what to expect from a relative I’d rarely seen.

  “Hello, nephew. I dozed off and didn’t realize you’d run off until I got an unpleasant phone call, you rascal.” Uncle Luke nodded at Noni. “And hello, my dear niece.”

  Was that a wink he’d thrown my way? It was. He was playing along.

  He tipped his hat to the security man we’d been passed along to. “Much obliged, sir.” After a few minutes spent talking about his days on the PGA tour, Uncle Luke knuckled my head and assured Augusta’s head of security that I’d be properly punished. Then he placed a hand on the back of Daddy’s pack and pushed me toward the door. “Come on, you two.”

  I held up Daddy’s urn. “There’s three of us.”

  Uncle Luke stopped. He stared at the urn. One hand went up to rub his chin. To scratch his head. To flop against his side. “Well,” he said, blowing out a deep breath and walking out the door, “come on, you three.”

  Mr. Bobby Jones said that you swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about. Of all the Big Five quotes Daddy’d hammered into me, that one bothered me the most. Every time I’d been on a golf course with my daddy, I had about a million things running through my mind. And right then I had a million and one things, starting with not knowing if my uncle was on my side and Daddy’s side. Not knowing if he was going to drive us to his place or straight back to Hilltop.

  As Noni and I got in the car and drove through the entrance separating us from the golf paradise Bobby Jones had founded, I stared out the window. Thoughts, circling like vultures, reminded me that whether or not Uncle Luke decided to help us, this journey would end the same way. With Daddy being gone forever. Augusta’s raindrops had left my shirt soaked, but it was my mind that felt flooded, spilling over with echoes of the same word:

  Goodbye

  Goodbye

  Goodbye

  Goodbye

  Goodbye.

  HOLE 10

  Family, Understanding

  My uncle came into the world six years after Daddy, but they look almost the same. Same one-eighth inch regulation golf green haircut, same Putter ears, and same nose long enough to be able to sit on the couch and smell when barbecue outside the house is just about done. From my view in the passenger seat, I might have been driving alongside my father again, other than the silence. Daddy always had something to say about golf or meat or life or what a man should be, but it was only when we pulled in the driveway of a shingle-sided house at eleven thirty that Uncle Luke managed another word.

  “Explain,” he said, not leaving the car.

  “Yes, sir.” Just like you feel before puke comes spewing out of your mouth, I had a nervous feeling that a big mess was about to be made. Trying to hold it back just made me look crazier, so I spilled my guts about everything that’d happened in the last several days, praying that he didn’t call the local loony truck to pick me up.

  “So, am I to understand,” he said slowly, “that you were trying to sneak into Augusta National Golf Club because . . . Bogey told you to do it?” His face was sober, fingers still clutching the steering wheel tight.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  “I see,” Uncle Luke said, turning off the engine. He turned to face Noni. “And who’s this?”

  “Wait, whose voice is that?” Daddy said, groggy-voiced and slow. “That’s not—”

  Noni stuck a hand over the backseat. “This is Noni. I’m helping,” she said.

  “I see,” Uncle Luke said again, covering his face with both palms, then rubbing his eyes. “Helping to do what? Oh, God, that’s right. Look, everybody out.” He got out of the car and marched up the walkway to his quiet house on his well-groomed street, which had more cement on its sidewalks than Hilltop had altogether.

  “Benjamin!” Daddy’s voice boomed. “Tell me I didn’t just hear—”

  “We didn’t have a choice, Daddy. Just hush. He might help us. Good to hear you sounding stronger.”

  “Hmph,” Daddy said. “You just let me be in charge, you hear me?”

  I dug him out of the backpack. “Okay, Daddy. You’re in charge.”

  Noni and I got out of the car and followed Uncle Luke inside the house. He tapped something beside the door. It was a hand-size metal box with a bunch of black buttons along the bottom.

  “It’s an alarm system,” Uncle Luke said. “If I have it turned on and someone opens the door and doesn’t know how to turn it off quick, it puts out a heck of a shrieking noise. If they press the wrong button, same thing happens. The neighbors called the police when I tested it out. Would give a deaf man a headache, so don’t touch it.”

  “Why do you need an alarm?” I asked.

  “I run a side business doing regrips and angle adjustments on clubs. Got about twenty thousand bucks’ worth of golf equipment in the house that folks wouldn’t appreciate being stolen.” He pointed down a narrow hallway. “Stay outta my workshop.”

  We passed a sitting room that had about a million books scattered around and a beautiful framed watercolor of Augusta National Golf Club hanging on the far wall. If I squinted my eyes, the eighteen holes and surrounding trees blurred together, the sand bunkers becoming beige lily pads in a sea of green. It was almost like a version of the poster in Miss Stone’s art room that made me fall in love with painting back in first grade. I felt my spirits lift a little. Maybe we’d come to the right place. I hoped so.

  “Have a seat, kids.”

  The kitchen was big and open with another Augusta wall painting, a large table covered in bright yellow clothes and sewing stuff, and a small television sitting on the counter. There was a single club leaning against a kitchen chair. Sliding glass doors opened to a patio and backyard that was bigger than the house. I saw a putting green and a driving net.

  There was a big bowl of oranges on the table, the normal big ones and little ones, too. Uncle Luke motioned for me to take a seat, moving a glue gun, scissors, a dress and a sweater, a frilly hat with a huge cloth daisy in the center, a bunch of cloth, shoes, spools of thread, and about ten key chains off the table and onto a chair by the patio door with an embarrassed look on his face.

  “That’s my girlfriend Trisha’s sewing, not mine. She brought over some kind of frock she’s making for her niece.” He opened a cabinet and reached for the
highest shelf. There must have been twenty plastic bottles up there. He popped the lid on a blue one and shook it into his hand, then noticed me looking. “I seem to have developed a headache,” he said. “Imagine that.” Looking down at the three pills in his hand, he glanced at the bottle, shrugged, and threw them all back. “These things make me a little sleepy, so let’s get to talking.”

  “What are the key chains from?” Noni asked, picking one up.

  “Trish and her sister took a road trip.” He turned back to us and rolled his eyes. “She got me a key chain from every gas station they stopped at. I hate key chains.” He wrinkled his nose at the pile.

  “I hate frocks,” Noni said.

  He eyed the backpack and the urn. “Put your stuff down.”

  He turned and shoved several papers next to his sink into a drawer, gripped the counter, and looked into the backyard. “So, that’s him?” he asked, not turning around. “That’s his urn?”

  “Yes, sir.” Instead of traveling to Hilltop for Daddy’s service, Uncle Luke had sent a bunch of azaleas and a note that was glued shut. On the outside he’d written instructions to burn it, so it’d meet up with his brother’s ashes. I’d forgotten about that note until just now.

  “You mad at me for not coming to the memorial service?”

  I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to, me or Daddy, so I didn’t say anything.

  He nodded to himself, reached for a cookie jar and pulled out a golf ball. He turned and tossed it high in the air, catching it neatly before throwing it to me. “You know your daddy could have gone pro. He could beat the pants off me back when we were kids. He was a better caddie, too, and brought the tips home to our mother to prove it. But he quit playing and caddying and school at fifteen and got a solid job to help out. Made enough that I could keep playing and enter tournaments. He should’ve been on the PGA tour with me. But he traded his dream for us like that.” He snapped his fingers. “He didn’t have a choice, really. You knew that about your daddy, right?”

  I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that at all. Daddy’d always kept quiet about his growing-up years, and I’d never asked.

  “Son,” Daddy said a little quietly. He coughed again. “You don’t need to hear this.”

  Uncle Luke stared at the urn. “Bogey always hated part of me, I think. He had to take the place of a husband and a father when he was nothing but a kid himself.”

  Back in the orchard, Daddy’d talked about responsibility getting shoved on him. Was it possible that he meant Uncle Luke, not me?

  That’s right, Uncle Luke stole his life, answered a phone number marked TRISHA taped to the refrigerator. Lived his dream.

  “Never mind that,” Daddy said. “Don’t listen to that, Ben. The reason we fought was something he said, not what I had to do back then.” Grit made his voice gravelly, like sandpaper rubbing against my ears. “In my home, he had the nerve to say something that I should have beat him solid for.”

  “Please help us get back in, Uncle Luke,” I said. “Please.”

  Grim-faced, Uncle Luke gave me a nod. He turned to the refrigerator and reached inside for a bottle of Coca-Cola. “Ya’ll want one?” At our silence, he reached in a drawer for an opener and yanked off the lid. “Suit yourself.” He lifted the bottle toward the words on Noni’s T-shirt. “Cheers. I know it’s late, Ben, but we need to have a serious talk.” He opened the sliding glass door. “Let’s have a fireside chat.”

  “Is this a planning session?” Noni asked. “Are you gonna help us?”

  “I’m going to help the situation, yes.” He tipped his head toward the glass sliding doors. “There’s a fire pit out back. Just you and me, Ben.”

  “Noni can hear anything you want to tell me.”

  “Fine. Say, Bogey,” he said, patting Daddy’s urn, “mind if we leave you inside while I have a chat with this painter boy of yours?”

  Out of nowhere, the walls felt closer and the lump rotated in my throat. I tried to swallow. Daddy stayed quiet and Uncle Luke hummed something that sounded a lot like “You Are My Sunshine.” It didn’t sound anything like Noni’s hobo song.

  Uncle Luke scratched at his ears as he walked outside, and something prickled along my neck. A warning of some kind. Like a golf course sand trap was about to appear out of nowhere.

  Watch out, said the glue gun.

  Might want to have a backup plan, said the hat.

  This could be a tricky hole, said the dark sky out the window.

  HOLE 11

  Hush Now

  It was close to midnight as Noni sat on the edge of a lounge chair that she’d moved near the fire pit, the backpack resting on the ground beside her along with a fallen nine-iron club and a putter. She was curved over a stick, poking a marshmallow onto the tip she’d sharpened with her pocketknife. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said to Uncle Luke. “The bag was just sitting out here.”

  “Not at all. I’ll take one myself. Bought those for my girlfriend’s kid when she came to visit. I don’t eat marshmallows much, so have at it.” He picked up a stick and reached for the half-full bag.

  “She will,” I warned him. “She does magic, and her specialty is disappearing acts. This whole bag’ll vanish right before your eyes.”

  Noni grinned and handed me a stick from beside her. I stuck a marshmallow on it. We sat around the low fire with stars overhead and, except for the neighbor’s yard being just over his back fence, it felt like we were in the woods again, only with better provisions.

  “Ben . . .” Uncle Luke opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he was trying to figure out what exactly he wanted to say to me.

  Daddy, the fire poker said. He looks just like your daddy when he . . . You remember.

  One time in third grade, Daddy came home three hours late from an afternoon on the course. It was nearly eight o’clock at night and Mama and I had finally started eating the chicken and mashed potatoes she’d reheated for the fourth time. The lump of potatoes on my plate had developed a film on the top, and I was busy tapping the crust with my spoon, making little maps from the cracks, when he came in. Mama said nothing at first, and I thought maybe we’d just have a nice meal together, but then he came over and kissed her on the head.

  “Sorry, honey,” he said.

  “Sorry?” she’d said back, in a whisper louder than any shout I’d ever heard from her. “You should be apologizing to your son there.”

  They started shouting at each other, one of the few times I’d heard them do that. When I tried to interrupt, they ignored me and kept yelling and yelling and yelling, about things that happened last week, last month, last year. It was getting to be my worst birthday ever, so I did what any boy looking for the attention to get back on him would do: I gently tipped the half-eaten chicken carcass off the table, followed by the dish of green bean casserole, and, last of all, my birthday cake.

  Both of their heads snapped over to me, but I remember Daddy in particular. The look painted on his face was a blend of surprise, panic, and guilt.

  That same look was on Uncle Luke’s face. Like he’d messed with something important but couldn’t do anything about it except feel bad and wait to see how much he’d be hated for it.

  “Hey.” Noni stood and waved her gooey stick in Uncle Luke’s face. “Why don’t you say something?”

  Uncle Luke eyed her stick and leaned back. “Do you know that Ben here was named for a golfer?”

  Bringing the stick back into less dangerous territory, Noni sat back down. “He already told me th—”

  He tossed her the marshmallow bag again. “Hush, now. Eat your marshmallows. William Ben Hogan was one of the world’s greatest golfers when he was in a terrible car accident. Threw his body over his wife and saved her life. Saved his own life by doing it, since the driver’s side was destroyed. Nobody thought he’d walk again, let alone play golf. But two years after that accident, in 1951, he won the Masters.”

  Uncle Luke smiled at the fire. “That day in 1951 w
as imprinted on all golf lovers’ minds, whether they were old enough to see it happen or just to hear about it later. Miracles and second chances were never laid out so clear.”

  “Hear that, Benjamin Putter,” Noni said, a satisfied look on her face as she reloaded her stick. “Miracles happen there. So are we heading back there now, or what? What’s the plan?”

  “Years later, this Ben was born on April 8th, the same day as that 1951 win.” He glanced at Noni. “Bogey probably wished his boy would fall in love with golf and be as good as Ben Hogan.” His eyes swept over me. “But you can’t force a passion on people any more than you can force them to give one up.”

  “Here,” Noni said, passing him my paint box. “Here’s what Benjamin Putter’s passion is.”

  Uncle Luke opened it and flipped through my sketchbook, arriving at the unfinished one. I’d made progress, but it needed “polish,” as Miss Stone said. He held it up in the firelight, looking surprised and pleased. “This is real good, Ben. I mean real good.”

  “It’s amazing,” Noni said, her voice soft.

  Uncle Luke ignored her. “Ben, your daddy would’ve loved to see this. Is this who I think it is?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. I was going to give it to him for his birthday, but then . . .” I didn’t need to finish the sentence. Daddy’d died two weeks before his birthday, so there was no need to complete the drawing.

  “Well, it’s nice. He would’ve loved it.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. When I asked if I could draw him something, he just looked at me funny. Then he said, ‘Okay. Out of all the people alive in this world, who do you think I’d most like to spend a day with? You think on it, then draw me that person.’ So I did.”

  Uncle Luke’s face pinched together like he was going to sneeze. He turned away, but no sneeze came. “Well, it’s nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  Luke stood. “Listen, Ben.” The hand he put on my shoulder was the same size as Daddy’s, but softer, even with his golf calluses. Daddy’s hands were rough, dotted with old burns and colored in places like his spice rub had become part of him. I liked Daddy’s hands better.