The wind blew harder, the tops of large creek oaks changing their dance from delicate to wild. Noni was right. If I didn’t try to talk to Daddy, I’d regret it later. There were probably only so many times in life that a dead person came back for you to save them from an eternity in purgatory.
There was only one big thing that I could think of to ask him. To ask of him.
I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer.
HOLE 17
The Biggest Sucker in Alabama
Thunder rumbled from somewhere in the distance, the night’s darkness hiding clouds that were there even if they didn’t make noise or do anything but grow thicker in silence. My side ached, and every one of my muscles felt ready for rest, but the sky seemed wide awake, stealthy and alert. Crouching above, ready to spring something on me. It was that same unfinished storm, following me from Hilltop and waiting for the right moment to strike.
I piled more wood on the fire, wishing it would tell me how to ask Daddy to stay, but all it did was crackle and pop, murmuring something about me already having the words. If I did, they’d gone somewhere to hide from the coming storm, because I wasn’t even sure how to start, other than clearing my throat.
“Hey, Daddy?” I tapped the urn’s side until I heard sputtering waking-up noises followed by a yawn. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“Sure, okay. Go ahead and talk.”
“Do you remember that day we played two rounds of golf together?”
“Golf?” I saw him brighten, sitting up with a grin. “You bet I remember that day. I shot a 70 on the first round, then double-bogeyed two holes on the second and still landed a 74. That was a heckuva time.”
“I remember that day, too.” I dug out the photograph. “You were happy. You were happy to be with me, at least until I started having trouble with my golf grip.”
“That’s right, you were holding your clubs wrong again. Nothing that practice can’t weed out as you get older, though. Gotta work on your stance, too. Yep, that was a fine day, son. Wish we’d gotten to do that more.”
“You mean you wish we’d gotten to spend more time together?”
“Why, sure. Sure.”
I swallowed hard, my hand reaching up to rest on my neck lump. My entire body felt heavy with something, like I was nothing but a big barrel, filling up fast and running out of room. I had to try before it was too late. I pulled him into my lap. “Then maybe you don’t have to go so soon.”
“What?”
“You could stay, Daddy. I won’t tell anyone about you, but you could stick around for another month or a year or—”
“Ben, I have to go.” He sounded annoyed or confused or both.
“No, you don’t.” I stood up. “You don’t need me to scatter you this week, or this year, even. I’ll take you back to Hilltop with me. You can stay with me forever. We’ll be fine. We’ll hop another train, going the opposite way.” I looked in the direction of the train tracks. “We’ll find a—”
“I don’t think you understand, son. That’s not the way it works. If you don’t get me scattered in the right place soon, that’s it for me. I’ll sink back into the waiting place forever. We’ve got one chance, and we don’t have much time.”
“Oh.” Feeling like I might fall over, I sat back down, leaned over, and set him by the fire, the heat’s nearness making something flare up inside me. “I understand. You have enough time to see the Masters tournament, but not a week more. Not even a day more.”
“Now, Ben.” His voice was dangerously soft. Warning me that I better back off. Sit down. Be a quiet little Putter. “I didn’t raise you to take that tone with me.”
I was surprised to hear an angry laugh tapping at me to get out and even more surprised when I let it hit the air. “No, sir, you didn’t. You didn’t raise me much at all. That was Mama’s job.”
Did you hear that? the fire flames said, rising up in a blast of fierce wind, trying to get closer to us.
I did, I did, said the wind. Who-eee, that boy’s asking for it.
Well, he’s gonna get it, the flames crowed back.
“Boy, you better watch it,” Daddy growled.
“Or what?” I stood again, and another huge gust blew Daddy’s hat off my head. “You’ll fetch a switch and teach me a lesson? You weren’t even daddy enough to whip me now and then for being a disappointment. You didn’t bother. I guess I wasn’t worth it.” Good Lord, did that just come out of my mouth? I waited for the shame to soak through me, but it didn’t. It felt good to finally say my thoughts out loud.
He stood up in his urn to match my height. “You’re talking crazy. Is that the kind of father you wanted me to be? You wanted a whipping?”
“I wanted something,” I said, a mean blood running through me. “I wanted something more than a stupid, made-up story about a stupid, made-up kid golfer once a year.”
“Oh yeah?” Daddy was pacing now, his eyes getting fiery. “What did you want?”
“I wanted . . . I wanted . . .” I stopped talking, suddenly not sure what it was that I wanted.
“Well, what about what I wanted?” Daddy’s urn hadn’t moved an inch, but I felt him step closer, saw him stare into my eyes with intensity, with a harsh pain that I’d never seen while he was alive. “You have no idea what I gave up, what kind of responsibility got shoved on me without my permission. You don’t get to choose in life, Benjamin. You got stuck with me as a father and I—”
“Got stuck with a boy like me,” I finished for him.
“Hey!” One of his urn-bound pointer fingers was right in my face. “Don’t you put words in my mouth. You don’t know everything you think you know.” He was breathing too fast, and a coughing fit sprang from his ashy throat. “I wasn’t talking about you,” he said between hacking. “I was talking about . . .” He trailed off and breathed heavy, the way he did after getting burned bad at the smoker. “Look. I wish I had more time. But you have to let me go.”
I didn’t care what he wanted. He couldn’t leave me if I didn’t let him. “You stay. You stay, Daddy,” I ordered.
“Let me go, son.”
I think deep down I knew that a talking urn couldn’t replace my father any more than Noni could replace May Talbot. There were too many differences, and the world wasn’t a painting where I could just add in the parts I wanted most to see. But I didn’t care about that, and I didn’t want to go to a golf course, and I didn’t want to scatter my father’s ashes, and I didn’t want to be forced to say the goodbye I’d missed out on a month back.
“No,” I said, low and firm. “If you can show up in the kitchen as a bunch of talking ashes, you can choose to stay. So choose to stay.”
“Listen to me, Benjamin. When I was a boy—” He said something else, his voice shaking, breaking, so choked that I couldn’t make out the words. “I have to go,” Daddy said, sounding clearer. “We talked about this, son, and you told me you’d get me to Augusta. You promised. You need to keep that promise.”
“Keep my promise?” The whirling gusts weren’t choosing a direction, so my voice carried all over and nowhere. I could barely hear myself. “You’re telling me to keep my promise?” I said louder. “All the promises you broke, and now I’m the one who’s supposed to keep my promise?”
“Ben, just calm down.”
But I couldn’t calm down. I saw myself sitting on the front porch, waiting for Daddy to get home. I saw me and Mama eating dinner, the third place setting empty for the fourth time in a week. Saw myself sitting half-up in bed, stomach muscles cramped from going up and down each time the house creaked, thinking he was home and might poke his head into the room. Not even to say goodnight. Just to see that I was there.
I saw all those things, and pain twisted my insides, then left me hollow, then filled me with the color red, and all that red started to heat up, becoming a hot, hot furnace, a blazing barbecue pit of lonely that had been stoked for years.
“You left me,” I yelled into the night, but a
battling wind blew my words right back at me. “I would have gone anywhere with you, but you always left me behind!” I kicked dirt dust into his side. “Do you hear me, Daddy? Are you listening now? I hated you for that!”
“Ben.” His voice cracked. “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to tell you that there’s a reason I’m not—”
“You could have taken me with you!” My mind raced all over the past. “I hid my drawing stuff in the couch and under my pillow, and I tried to have a golf grip you’d like, and, and . . . and I made you a comic strip! And I cut up pigs and I got arm burns!”
“Hey, nobody ever said—”
“And I can play sports, and I hit a triple on the dirt field once and I shot an 80 one day at the golf course once when you brought me with you, but you went off to play with your buddies.”
“Hey, those buddies and I have been through more than you’ll ever know, and—wait a minute. Hold on, did you say 80? Who-eee, Ben, that’s incredible!”
“I threw out my score card,” I said, my voice coming out hoarse, all the loudness yelled out of it. I looked into the fire, seeing May and Daddy and school and the Talbots’ barbecue place and our café. I looked into the fire and everything was burning.
“You threw out the score card? Why on earth would you do that?”
My heart couldn’t say it, but my body was in charge and the words poured out, they poured out like river water, like rinsing water, like the tears I couldn’t cry because I’d been too busy trying not to turn into even less to him and blowing away. “I knew you’d be proud of me for it,” I said. “And I wanted you to . . .” My heart was somewhere on the ground, and the golf ball lump sank with it, down to my belly, then back up to my throat. “I wanted to be enough for you without it.”
“Ben.” Daddy opened his urn mouth to say more, then didn’t. After a long pause, he let out a big Daddy sigh. “I’m sorry.”
He was sorry. My anger fizzled out at those words, like a firework dying in the sky. And the smoke left behind wasn’t anything you could light up for another round. That was it. Show was over. My daddy was sorry that he couldn’t love me enough. He was sorry that he couldn’t love me the way that he loved golf. And here I was, mixing around with a mouthy runaway and risking my life jumping on and off trains to get him to a golf course.
Well, if that didn’t make me the biggest sucker in Alabama, I don’t know what did.
“I’m sorry, too, Daddy,” I whispered. “I’m sorry about what I have to do.”
HOLE 18
We Both Lost
Daddy’s urn and its shadow looked smaller in the firelight. He didn’t say another word, not even to ask what it was that I had to do. He was done talking to me. Maybe he’d given up on me for good. Those thoughts made my next words feel stronger and flow easier. Made me know I was making the right decision—the only decision that made any sense.
“I’m not letting you leave me again,” I told him. “I’ll be doing the leaving this time. We’re going back to Hilltop, and I’ll leave you right on your shelf.” I turned away. “Let’s see you get to Augusta yourself.”
“Hey.” A tight grip squeezed my arm. “What are you talking about, Benjamin Putter?” Noni pulled me around to face her, then grabbed her bruised elbow, holding it like it hurt. “We’re all going to Augusta.”
“We’re not,” I said. “Trip’s off.” I pointed to Daddy. “I know it and he knows it. He’s not even fighting back.” I leaned down to the urn. “Round’s over, Daddy. We both lost.” I put on the backpack, scooped up the urn with one hand, picked up my fallen hat with the other, and started walking toward the farmhouse light in the distance.
“No!” Noni hurried ahead of me, then turned, blocking my path. “Where are you going?”
I pointed to the farmhouse. “I’m going to knock on that door, ask to call my mama to come get me tomorrow, and see if I can’t spend the night inside. I don’t feel like camping.”
Noni’s lips fell open and her heart leaped to her eyes, broken-looking. Then she narrowed those same sad eyes and shook her head. “We’re going to Augusta, Benjamin Putter. And we’re going to that tournament. Both of us.”
I pushed her aside and kept going, ignoring the way she caught up and kept pace beside me. “It’s over,” I said calmly. “You’re not in charge of me, got it? You think you can use me, the way he tried to. You still haven’t told me anything about who you really are or why you’re running. And you know what? I don’t care. You can get to Augusta yourself, too.”
“No.” Banging against my shoulder, she stuck her face right in mine. “I don’t know what story you plan on telling those farmhouse people, but you better beat me there if you want whoever’s inside to believe you over me. Got it, crazy?” With that, she pulled Daddy from my arms and sprinted through the orchard.
Well, look at that, she did it again, a tree told me. That’s twice she’s taken your daddy.
And she stole the money that first night, one of its peaches added.
Oh, that’s right! That makes three times that girl has taken off with your goods. Either she’s a master thief, or you’re just a—
“Oh, shut up,” I said.
You shut up, the tree said back. And run, boy. Run.
I sprinted through the peach trees, branches hitting me as I skipped rows, weaving in and out, trying to find the best space to move. Faster, faster, a big branch said, whipping me like it thought smacking with words and wood could change what I was. Make me something both more and less human than Benjamin Putter.
“I’m done trying!” I yelled. “I’m going home!”
Go, go, the next ones said, like they hadn’t heard me at all, hadn’t heard me say right out loud that I was done trying, even though it was clearer than clear to me. My running was so wild that I fell twice. I looked up from the ground after the second fall, and Noni was nowhere in sight. As I cut around the side of another tree, a cluster of young peaches collided with my left eye and I slipped again. A glance up revealed Noni’s silhouette leaping up porch steps and banging on a door.
She won, said the nearest peach trunk.
I agreed, and stayed down, catching my breath and wondering what exactly I’d lost. After a minute, maybe two or three, I rose and walked until I came to a row that lined up with the farmhouse light ahead. Furious thunder blasted far behind and above me, and I saw the booming sounds claw at the sky, get a grip on the wind, and get blown straight to me, where they echoed in my ears along with my heartbeat.
To the pounding beat of my blood pumping in a peach orchard, I scraped together a quick story. Then I forced myself to run the last hundred yards to reclaim what remained of my father: bone dust, ash, and a voice that I had finally spoken my mind to. He wasn’t going to change, and even if he did, it was too late for us. Because talking to me or not, my daddy was dead.
And it was time to go home.
ROUND 2
HOLE 1
It’s Me, Walter Hagen
Just before knocking on the door, I forced worry and brotherly concern into my expression, which was a big accomplishment considering my current feelings toward the girl who’d kidnapped my father. The farmhouse door opened to a woman in a bathrobe, and for a moment I forgot what I’d planned to say. Green foam rollers covered her head, and her tiny frame was smothered in a fluffy pale blue robe. I couldn’t help thinking of Mama, who’d put her hair up like that the night before Daddy’s memorial. Except instead of smelling like Mama’s gardenia perfume, this woman smelled like butter and cooking spices. I shook off the memory and scent and plunged into my story, hoping I sounded sane but sufficiently desperate.
“Hello, ma’am, I’m Walter, and my sister Wendy just ran in here like some kind of maniac, didn’t she?”
“Why, yes. In fact—”
“Anyway,” I cut her off before I could forget my lines, “our daddy died and she ran away with his urn and I went after her and then she jumped off the train like a darn lunatic and I had to jum
p off to save her and then she came running here and I came running too and you can’t trust a thing she says and we need to get home!” I finished out of breath, proud of what I felt was a solid performance.
“Oh, sweetheart.” With dry, gentle hands, the woman pulled me into a short front hall. “You come on in. I’m Joy Marino. Your sister was just telling me about you poor things.” She stepped aside, revealing a lip-chewing Noni, who stopped her gnawing and rushed toward me.
I flinched, thinking she was about to smack me, but soon felt her arms squeezing me in a firm . . . hug?
“Oh, Walter,” she wailed in a worried voice, “I told you to stay at the campsite and I’d come back for you.”
“What?” I hated to admit it, but her pretend concern was a little stronger than mine.
Her chin lifted off my shoulder. “Mrs. Marino, ma’am, he was sucking his thumb and crying so badly, I didn’t think he’d pull it together enough to follow me.”
I pushed her away. “What do you think you’re doing?” I spotted Daddy’s urn, sitting on the hall table next to a clay peach full of plastic flowers. “See?” I said to Mrs. Marino. “She took it!”
Noni stepped back, and the two of them stood there, looking at me like I’d wet my pants and they felt real bad for me. They clucked together like two gossipy hens, and it hit me.
“You told her I’m crazy, didn’t you?”
Noni shook her head mournfully and reached out to hold Mrs. Marino’s hand. “I told you,” she whispered loudly. “Mama says he’s not quite right. He’s so full of anger.”
“You got that right.” It took all I had not to find a whole pie in Mrs. Marino’s kitchen and cram it in Noni’s mouth to shut her up.
Knowing that another attempted hug would most likely get her a knee to the stomach, the traitor kept her distance but locked eyes with me. “I told her the truth, Walter. That you stole Daddy’s urn and ran away. I could not believe it when you hopped on that train, but I had to protect you from yourself.”
Waiting for Augusta Page 10
