Waiting for Augusta

by Jessica Lawson

  “My Jimmy,” she answered. “He’ll be here on the eight o’clock from Branson, Missouri. Ya’ll are welcome to keep me company.” She patted the bench beside her.

  “Thanks. We’re going back to my parents in Atlanta. We’ve been visiting my grandmother. You sure look like her.”

  “Oh?” The woman patted her hair. “What’s her name? I know just about everyone in the area.”

  “Mrs. Jones,” Noni answered. “You wouldn’t know her. She lives alone in a shack way back in the woods. Likes to live off the land. Doesn’t trust the government. Eats a lot of squirrel.” She rapped a hand on my shoulder. “This is my brother. He doesn’t talk.”

  Doesn’t talk? I opened my mouth to correct her, but she pinched my shoulder so hard that I forgot what I was going to say.

  “At all. Not a word,” Noni continued, her big eyes making it clear that there were more pinches where the first one came from.

  The woman eyed me with sympathy. “Is that right?”

  Noni nodded. “Sure is. Hasn’t said a word since he got run down by a wildcat in the woods. Right near Granny’s place, matter of fact. We found him curled up with slashes on his back the size of a ruler. It was one of God’s honest miracles that he’s alive.”

  The woman swallowed a look of horror and patted my knee. “Aren’t you sweet?” she said, reaching a shaky hand out to pinch my cheek.

  She smelled kinda funny, but looked nice enough. Part of me hated to admit it, but Noni’s quick thinking might have helped us out. We had ourselves a ticket granny.

  “ ’Scuse me, ma’am. I just have to go buy our tickets. I’ll be right back,” Noni said, leaving me to squirm.

  At the ticket counter Noni studied the departure times, and I saw her frown and talk to the ticket seller. She handed over all of our cash and then pointed to the old woman and me and waved at us. I nudged the woman’s side and waved back at Noni.

  “Yes, dear. That’s your sister.” The woman smiled and waved at Noni, who had turned back and was making clawing motions in the air and then shaking her head in apparent sorrow.

  I’m silent. I’m not dumb, I wanted to tell Granny, but couldn’t for obvious reasons. I stood a little and saw the ticket seller raise a hand to her mouth and shake her head a few times. Then she nodded, and Noni came back with a big grin.

  “Six hour trip with stops, leaves at ten o’clock.” She saw the question in my eye and said, “Get out your paint box, brother. That nice ticket seller said she’d spot us the five dollars if you’ll make her one of your famous paintings.” She smiled at the old woman. “My nonspeaking brother sells his paintings for charity, and all the money goes to research how to cure people from wanting to give up talking and only listen.” She shuddered a little at the thought.

  Good Lord, Daddy was right. This girl was full of tricks. I swallowed a Daddy word and gave Noni my best “what should I paint” expression. She ran over to the ticket office, peered inside, and jogged back. Then she glanced over at the ticket seller, and her eyes grew soft, her lips pursing out like she was thinking real hard. More than a minute passed before I poked her and she turned back to me.

  “Mountains,” she said. “That woman needs a picture of mountains.”

  I raised my eyebrows. How do you know?

  She winked. “Magic. Magical, mystical, mysterious powers.” Laughing at my expression, she kicked my shoe. “She’s got about five photos pasted to the wall in there, all of them with mountains in them.”

  Inwardly, I sighed with relief. Mountains were one of my specialties. While I painted and Noni looked at Daddy’s Augusta book, our adopted granny spread the word to other bus waiters about the sweet little silent boy and his special pictures. There were two colored women sitting on the next bench over, but I noticed that Ticket Granny didn’t talk to them.

  I sank into the landscape on my paper and lost myself for a moment. When I finally did look over, the old woman was holding Daddy on her lap. I’d taken him out when I got my paint box, and she’d gone and picked him up.

  I must have inhaled pretty loud, because she looked over at me and smiled. “This is real pretty, dear. Is it for your painting supplies?”

  Noni looked up from the book. “What’s going on? You need more paint supplies?”

  Mrs. Jones started to play with the top, and I lunged over and snatched the urn out of her hands just as she was about to try twisting the lid open. I almost shouted at her, but managed to let out a closemouthed moan, checking the clasp and hugging Daddy to me.

  She gave me one of those dirty looks that grandma types sometimes will, like you passed gas real loud in church.

  Noni reached over and smacked me. “Bobby Jones, you stop being rude.” She clucked her tongue. “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” she said, sweet as Mrs. Grady’s walnut bars. “That’s just got Granny’s cookie mix in it, and my parents will cook our gooses if it doesn’t get back in one piece. My mama still loves her mama’s baking, you see. Says she can’t make cookies as good as Granny’s for nothing.”

  Well, the old lady ate that up. She nodded at the urn. “I can understand that. I certainly can. My Jimmy comes to visit four times a year and says that his wife’s cooking has got nothing on mine.” The smug look on her face shifted to concern. “Why’re you grabbing your throat like that?” she asked me, scooting away. “You sick, honey? Need a lozenge? I got a lozenge. Oh!” She stood. “There’s my Jimmy.”

  She dug in her purse, and I accepted a cherry-flavored cough drop. We said goodbye to Ticket Granny and Noni carried my painting to the ticket seller, who took one glance and looked like she’d just walked in her home door after a long, long trip. She met my eye and waved, then put her waving hand on her heart as Noni plopped back down beside me with two tickets.

  “Can’t believe that worked,” I whispered, covering my face with one hand. “By the way, that was a good story about our Grandma Jones you told. I liked the squirrel part.”

  Noni leaned over and retied a loose shoelace. “That wasn’t a story. My grandma, rest her soul, was backwoods and superstitious as anything. She had three life rules for avoiding bad luck. My daddy believed them, too. He even made me memorize them so I could recite them when we visited her.” Noni sat up, cleared her throat, and shook a finger at me. “It’s bad luck to trust the government,” she said in a high-pitched, shaky granny voice. “It’s bad luck to ignore a child in need. And it’s bad luck to turn down a meal made with squirrel.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. Nobody’d ever offered me squirrel meat. “The only time my daddy got superstitious was on the golf course. He had lucky tees and ball markers, and he said it was bad luck to get into an argument before starting a round of golf. But I think he said that just so my mama wouldn’t fuss about him skipping church.”

  While we waited for the bus, a few more people, mostly old ladies and old men, chatted with me after overhearing that I didn’t talk at all. They filled in my silence with whatever they expected to hear and seemed pleased with my responses. I wondered how they learned to do that and why the words my mind filled Daddy’s silences in with weren’t so nice.

  When our bus arrived, Noni told the driver in a loud voice how her brother didn’t talk and not to be offended that I didn’t say hello or thanks. Both of us took seats about three-quarters of the way back, ready to go home to our fake parents if anyone asked.

  I let Noni have the aisle seat. We sat across from a very pregnant woman who kept rubbing her belly the way I rubbed at my throat, and I wondered if her baby was moving around in there, the same way my lump moved. She caught me staring at her belly and gave me a small smile. She was the only colored woman on the bus. Was it hard to be the only colored person on a bus, the way it was hard for May to go to my school? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ask.

  As we pulled away from the station, raindrops splattered on the window beside me but stopped within a few minutes. Whatever clouds had set them free weren’t quite ready to let
a storm pour down yet. I wondered what they were waiting for.

  HOLE 10

  A Matter of Trust

  I stared out the window as the bus drove along, taking me away from my first and only home and toward Daddy’s final one. Flashes of planted fields, corn and soybeans, thick-trunked brown oaks, swaying branches feathered in new leaves, hanging gray moss, fading red roadside restaurants in need of fresh paint and new customers, old towns, white-chipped porch swings and rocking chairs, kids running-playing-pushing-staring, burn piles smoking, gas stations. We moved by it all fast, the window painting changing every time I blinked.

  “Where’d you come from?” I whispered to Noni, not sure how long I’d have to pretend to be a non-talker.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, pumping the skirt of her dress up and down. “Man, it’s hot.”

  “But why were you in Hilltop? There’s nothing there.”

  “There’s good pork. I followed the tracks behind my house and ended up there. Good enough? You ask too many questions.” Her mouth went wide in a yawn. “There are rules, you know.”

  “Rules for what? Being a . . .” Being a runaway? Being an orphan?

  “I’m a wanderer and lucky to be one,” she said firmly. “But there are rules. I’m not generally a fan of rules, but wandering rules are more like guidelines for living by.” She reached down into her sock and pulled out a scrap of paper. “Here. I wrote ’em down so I wouldn’t forget.”

  “Where’d you learn them?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Maybe you just made them up.” When her glowering began to make me uncomfortable, I swallowed hard. “What are these guidelines?”

  She squinted at the paper. “Number one, always keep your focus on the next step ahead. Number two, don’t ever be telling anybody the whole truth. Little truths are okay if you find someone to trust.”

  “And you trust me?”

  Her eyes drifted up to the bus’s ceiling. “Yep, I trust you.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at the backpack. “Because I miss my daddy, too. Why do you trust me?”

  I didn’t trust her yet. I couldn’t. There were too many blanks and whys surrounding her. Why was she so willing to come with me? Was she running from someone? How could I trust her when she’d given away a good chunk of our traveling money and then had taken over at the bus station? Sure, I felt bad that she had no parents left, and sure, it was nice to have someone to share a seat with, but she was a bossy thing, and there was no getting around that. I had the feeling I’d have to stand up for myself at some point or things wouldn’t change.

  Ignoring the seatback in front of me, which was pleading for me to tell a white lie, I looked Noni straight in the face. “I don’t think I do trust you. Sorry,” I added for cushion.

  Her low-pitched laugh was followed by a snort and a nod of approval. “That’s fair. You don’t have as much faith as I do. But I think you’re wrong. You’re trusting me right now, and I appreciate that, even if you can’t admit it.” She kept shifting around, trying to get comfortable. “Know why you’re trusting me? It’s better than being alone. Same for me. And I’ve lost two parents, not just one, so you probably feel sorry for me, which is fine.” Her head nodded a little as she yawned again, fighting sleep. “Sympathy can come in handy.”

  She smoothed out the paper scrap, which had crumpled in her fist. “Back to my guidelines—number three, don’t talk to people you shouldn’t be talking to, or your wandering time will be up for sure. That’s all I could remember to write down. Now, stop talking my ears off and let me get some rest. Wandering’s more tiring than it sounds.” Wiggling her legs up to the seat, she wrapped both arms around herself and turned away, tucking her head into her body like a baby bird.

  My paint box poked my leg through the backpack’s fabric, so I took out my sketchbook and flipped to the third-to-last page. Most of the face was blank from the eyes down, but I’d drawn light outlines that could be erased and changed later on. Miss Stone told me that mistakes in art were okay. They were lessons in disguise, she told me. Clues to help you go about things a better way next time. From memory I drew a nose, then erased it, then tried again. Better. Ears and jawline came next, then the top lip line.

  Daddy wasn’t speaking, not even when I reached in the backpack and shook him around a little, so I stretched my arms high, then low, then leaned against the window and used the backpack as a pillow. When I closed my eyes, I drifted in a soft dream fog before recognizing our front porch. The fog parted, and I saw that it was a late-summer afternoon in August. Mama and a younger version of me were waiting for the day to cool and for Daddy to get home from the golf course, and I was floating above the scene.

  An ache filled me when I realized what would happen to the Ben Putter crouched over a bunch of papers. I tried to yell a warning to myself, but I’d floated too high for the little boy to hear and my words were coming out as silence anyway.

  Can’t change something that’s already happened, the golf ball in my neck sang out in a mocking sort of voice. I slapped it quiet.

  Then I watched the younger me, knowing exactly what would happen.

  HOLE 11

  A Gift for Daddy

  I was eight years old, just days away from getting the pounding of my life from twelve-year-old Willy Walter, the beating given because I’d won the second grade art prize for my drawing Pregnant Pig in Yard over his sister’s drawing Portrait of My Brother Willy.

  All day through, with only one break for lemonade and a cold ham sandwich, I had sketched and planned a project for Daddy. I figured that maybe he didn’t like me drawing and painting things like flowers and trees and Mrs. Grady snoozing and drooling on her porch, but he couldn’t help but like a comic strip. Daddy always chuckled at the Sunday funny papers, and I knew that a special comic was just the thing to make him smile.

  I’d thought long and hard before making up and drawing a five-page Abbott Meyers comic strip, based on the golfer character from the good-night stories he told me on rare, golden occasions. I drew forty-five frames of comics, and even Mama thought I was working too hard. The outlines were in navy blue ink, and I was so proud that I snuck into Mama’s room and nabbed the set of colored pencils she’d already bought me for the upcoming school year so I could fill up the empty white space.

  In my dream, I felt the same excitement I had that day when he pulled into the driveway, leaving a trail of disappearing dirt smoke. Running to the car, I pointed to my superhero and his weapon.

  “Huh,” said Daddy, glancing at the first frame. He reached into the trunk and pulled out his clubs. “Who’s that supposed to be?”

  “Abbott Meyers, Daddy. I made him a real superhero and wrote you a comic. See, it’s called Abbott Meyers Swings for Freedom Against the Hateful Wart Droid Assassins. Look what he’s got—it’s a golf club that doubles as a Tommy gun. See? And the golf ball is a delayed-action tear gas bomb.”

  Daddy snatched a paper from me and studied it as we walked to the porch. I leaped up the three stairs and watched. Waiting.

  He wrinkled his nose. “You’ve got the grip all wrong. Good Lord, Ben, weren’t you paying attention last week, or was I wrong to think eight was old enough for the golf course?”

  He grabbed the other sheets and studied them briefly. “Nope, not one good club grip in here.” He waved the pages in the breeze like they were nothing at all. “Tell you what, I’ll grab us some lemonade. You come on around back and hit a few into the net with me. We can have us some man talk and I’ll give you a few tips on that grip. That sound fun?” He reached down, handed my gift back, and walked into the house, humming a tune.

  I dropped the pages.

  Mama leaned over me on the porch and made a neat pile of the papers. I waited until she went inside, too. Then I tore my gift to pieces and shoved the mess into the rain pipe.

  • • •

  I woke up as the Atlanta-bound bus was driving through a small town. Just as
I blinked awake, the driver let out a word that not even Daddy used to say, hit the brakes, smacked into something in the road, and went spinning out of control. Even as my head banged against the seat in front of me, I could see out my window to a lake that said We’ve got fish! and a wall with painted yellow bricks that shouted Hello! and a café sign that said Come on in for a spell! and that’s exactly what we did, blasting right through the front windows like we were extra hungry for pie.

  HOLE 12

  Breaking a Heart

  A pig caused the accident. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see a boy sitting on the side of the road, crying and looking at the mangled mess while the driver ran out there, I guess to make sure it was really a pig he’d hit and not a piggy-looking person. I joined the line of wobbly people and stepped out of the bus with my backpack on, into shattered tables and chairs, broken glass, and several exploded ketchup bottles that made the scene look worse than it was.

  A woman stood behind the café’s counter, her face full of grit and worry as she reached across the service slab and rubbed the back of a colored customer who was holding a newspaper in one hand and a forkful of pie in the other, his wrinkled face dotted with lemon crème and Cool Whip. A lit cigarette rested in an ashtray beside him, and a heavyset white man in overalls was tapping his own cigarette in there, blinking at us like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Three more counter stools and a few tables held mostly older folks. Except for the counter, coloreds and whites were sitting at separate tables like in our school cafeteria, but all of them looked pretty much the same, holding shaking coffee cups and staring. They’d probably come in for the day’s gossip. Now they’d gotten it.

  I looked through the disarray for Noni, who’d scooted off the bus fast while I checked the backpack to make sure nothing had fallen out when we crashed.

  The driver made sure we all were accounted for, holding a shaky paper and checking us off his list before asking for a telephone and reporting our location. Which was just north of Montgomery, but nowhere near Atlanta. We weren’t even in Georgia yet.