James Brown's daughter and one of his former assistants rolled through the streets of his hometown Thursday, worried about Masters traffic. They mostly focused on Deanna Brown-Thomas's little Maltese, named Sweetie, currently at the vet's office, awaiting emergency transport to an animal hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Thomas had accidentally backed over the dog, and her voice lowered when the phone rang, bracing for bad news. That reminded her of the time her dad had done the same thing to a family pet, which brought on a run of stories, including the one that's got them laughing now, interrupting each other. It's about the time James Brown went to the Masters. Or, rather, past it.

Five or so years before he died in 2006, Brown was driving home from dinner at Michael's on Washington Road during Masters week. This was James Brown, who had a full hair salon in his country estate, so the car he drove down Washington Road was a gleaming, sky blue Rolls-Royce. When he arrived near Magnolia Lane, he slowed down, and the fans leaving the grounds found themselves face-to-face with the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, with that luxurious mane of hair he kept in place with white cans of generic hair spray.

"People went crazy," the former assistant, Elif Crawford, said.

He hammed, loving the attention, then sped off. That's about as close as he wanted to get to the circus around the National during Masters week.

The tens of thousands of people who pack the hotels and suburban neighborhoods each spring don't ever go to the Augusta where James Brown grew up. A downtown tavern called The Soul Bar, decorated in late Godfather, was as close as I'd ever been to James Brown's Augusta, even though I've been coming to this city for 10 straight years. On Thursday morning, I met Deanna. We walked through the Augusta Museum of History, stared at a picture of her with her dad on Soul Train. They wore matching suits. She was 3.

"That's me," she said.

The executive director told me James Brown was the first African American musician to insist his face be on album covers. The museum she runs follows his life. The broken family, shining shoes on Ninth Street, his Aunt Honey's brothel. That's where he learned to dance. The customers threw pennies at his feet. Dimes if he got lucky.

His rise is all there: dropping out of school — unable to afford the education that would lift him out of this poverty — armed robbery, prison, then music. We climbed into Deanna's SUV and headed across town. "The Augusta that James Brown came up in" — she stopped and laughed — "is worlds away from what they see on TV. He came up poor. No clothes. No shoes. He had to stop at seventh grade because he had to work."

She drove down James Brown Boulevard, which is what they renamed Ninth Street. There's a Church's Chicken at the corner of James Brown and Laney Walker. James Brown loved to go in and eat there. Folks called this The Terry. The Territory.

"This was the hood," she said. "Still is."

Boards covered up windows, and an old house was the color of smoke, the paint decades into a peeling. People gathered on corners. She turned onto Twiggs Street, going the wrong way at first, trying to see if the numbers were rising or falling. Where was 944?

"What I come through the hood for?" she said, laughing.

She turned around and found the old brothel. It's a church now. A cross marked the door. The walls looked concrete, like it was a bomb shelter. It seemed abandoned.

She headed west, to the house where she lived as a little girl. It's on Walton Way, tucked into a row of mansions. She said the Browns were the first black family ever to live on The Hill. The homes are white and look built for "plantations." Some seemed rented for the Masters. A lot had Masters flags flying in the yard.

"Old money," she said. "This is old money up here. You got to be somebody — or at least be friends with some good ol' boy. Or be James Brown."

A doctor lives in their old house now, but she pulled into the driveway anyway. She said she'd play lost if someone came out. The little guardhouse Brown built is still tucked into the front left corner by the drive. The house, a brick split level, is hidden behind the leafy front yard. Brown used to decorate it for Christmas. The kids came from The Hill to see, and they came the five and a half miles from The Terry, too.

"It was the first time Southern black kids saw a black Santa Claus," Deanna said. "To see that in James Brown's yard, they saw another 'I'm Black and I'm Proud' moment."

There was a cloud over this week, as there has been every week since he died.

When James Brown's heart stopped on Christmas Day 2006, his vast fortune, much of it in still-unearned royalties, went into a trust to pay for education for poor kids — kids who'd grown up rough like him. That's what his will stipulated, and that's what he wanted, according to his longtime attorney Buddy Dallas. But when Brown died, everyone sued everyone. A gripping GQ story by Sean Flynn from three years ago chronicled every twist and turn. But basically, to use some official legal jargon, the thing turned into an unholy shitshow.

There are now four dozen (or more) lawyers fighting over James Brown's money, with his six children wanting part of the fortune, with other kids popping out of the woodwork, claiming paternity. Deanna Brown-Thomas is part of the group contesting her father's will.

Five years and four months after he died, no money has been given to education. The case is before the South Carolina Supreme Court, and a decision is expected in a few months. It seems likely that Brown's desires — the will clearly stated the money should go to uneducated and needy children — will be ignored. "For five years I have been saying, what in the hell is wrong here?" Dallas says. "What more could have Mr. Brown done to make his wishes clear?"

Simply put — certainly too simply, in the opinion of the litigants — the legal system in South Carolina seems to be siding with the family instead of with Brown's will. People on both sides have strong opinions, and family relationships, especially when money is involved, are much too complicated for quick judgment.

It almost doesn't matter who's right, as long as you're not a poor kid who wants an education, because while many facts can be disputed, one cannot: There are men in suits cutting deals, rolling up hundreds — thousands? — of billable hours. There are 50 lawyers counting their time. James Brown lived in a whorehouse as a child, and, in some ways, he never really escaped.

If the nostalgic, conservative, tinkling pianos on the Masters television promos tell a story about the club and the men who run it — about...