The Tin Can Tree

10

That afternoon, Joan had a telephone call from her mother. She was upstairs when it came, getting Mrs Pike out of bed for the second time and finding it a little easier now than it had been in the morning. 'What do you want to wear?' she asked, and her aunt actually answered, with only a slight pause beforehand. 'The beige, I guess,' she said. She waited while Joan lifted it off the hanger. 'Can I wear the abalone pin with that?'

'Of course,' Joan said. She would have agreed if her aunt had wanted to wear the kitchen curtains. She picked the pin out of the bureau drawer and laid it beside the dress, and then the phone rang. Both of them stopped to listen.

'Hey, Joan!' Simon called.

'I'm up here.'

'Someone wants you on the telephone.'

'Well, I'll be back,' Joan told her aunt, and she went down the stairs very fast, two steps at a time. She didn't know who she was expecting, but when she heard only the ice-cold, nasal voice of the operator she was disappointed.

'Miss Joan Pike?' the operator asked.

'Yes.'

'Are you Miss Joan Pike?'

'Yes.'

'Long distance calling.'

'All right,' Joan said.

There was a pause, and then her mother said, 'Is that Joan?', formally, and waited for Joan to go through the whole business of identifying herself again.

'It's me,' said Joan. 'Hello, Mother.'

'Hello,' her mother said. 'I called to see how Lou was. Your father said to ask.'

'She's getting better,' said Joan. She heard her mother turn and murmur to her father, probably relaying Joan's answer. In normal speech her mother had a very soft voice, held in as if there was somebody sick in the next room. But when she returned to the phone her tea-party voice came back, louder and more distinct, the voice of a plump woman who stood very straight and placed the points of her shoes outward when she walked.

'Your father feels bad we couldn't make it to the funeral,' she was saying. 'He says it's only a sniffle he has, but I don't like the sound of it. Is there anything we can do for Lou?'

'Not that I can think of. The flowers were very nice -Uncle Roy said to tell you.'

'Well. We weren't quite sure. Some people have a dislike of gladioli.'

'No, they were fine,' said Joan.

"That's good. How's Simon?'

'He's all right, I guess.'

‘Tell him hello for us, now. Tell him -'

Her voice had grown almost as soft as it normally was. Joan could picture her, sitting on the edge of that rocker with the needlework seat, with Joan's father standing behind her and bending cautiously forward to hear what was going on. He was a little afraid of telephones himself; he treated them as though they might explode. She saw how her mother would be smoothing down that little crease between her eyebrows with her index finger, and then letting the crease come back the minute she dropped her hand. The thought of that made Joan miss her; she said suddenly, 'I'm tired.'

'What?'

'I'm just tired. I want to come home. I don't want to stay here any more.'

'Why, Joan -' her mother said, and then let her voice trail off. Finally she said, 'Don't you think you should be with Lou now?'

'I'm not helping,' said Joan. 'She just sits. Every place I look, Janie Rose is there, and I don't feel like staying here. Nothing is right.'

'Doesn't Simon need you?'

'Well -' Joan said, and then stopped because her father must have asked to know what was going on. The two of them murmured together a while, her mother's voice sounding faintly impatient. Joan's father was growing deaf; he had to be told twice. When her mother finally returned to Joan she was sighing, and her voice was loud again.

'You know we'd love to have you,' she said. 'As soon as you can come. When were you planning on?'

'I don't know. A day or two, maybe. By bus.'

'Or maybe James could drive you,' said her mother. 'We'd love to have him.'

'He won't be coming.'

'Your father's been asking about him.'

'He won't be coming,' Joan said firmly.

There was another pause, and then her mother said, 'Is something wrong?'

'What would be wrong?'

'Well, I don't know. Shall we expect you when we see you, then?'

'All right. Don't go to any trouble.'

'It'll be no trouble. Goodbye, now.'

'Goodbye. And thank you for calling.'

She hung up, but she stayed in the same position, her hand on the receiver. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Simon. He was leaning against the frame of the kitchen door, eating another peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. 'Hey,' she said, but he only bit off a hunk of sandwich and chewed steadily, keeping his eyes on her face. 'That was your Aunt Abby,' she told him.

'I know.'

'She called to see how everyone is.'

He straightened up from the doorframe and came over to her, planting his feet very carefully and straight in front of him. When he had reached her he said, 'I hear how you're going there,' and waited, with the sandwich raised halfway to his mouth.

'We'll see,' said Joan.

'You going by bus?'

'I might not go at all. I don't know yet.'

'How long would you go for?'

'Look,' said Joan. 'I don't know that I'm going. I just think it might be good to get away. So don't tell anyone, all right?'

'Well, all right.'

'Not even James.'

'All right,' said Simon. He was good at keeping secrets; it was an insult to suggest he might tell somebody. 'If you do go -' he said.

'I might not.'

'But if you do go, can I go with you?'

'Oh, Simon,' Joan began, and stopped there because she didn't know what else to say. 'Your parents need you here,' she said finally.

They won't notice.'

'Your daddy will. So will your mother, pretty soon.'

'No.'

'Yes. See, she's coming downtstairs now.'

He turned and looked toward the stairs. Mrs Pike was coming down of her own accord, taking each step uncertainly but not asking for help. She had pinned the abalone pin at the neck of her dress, and it was bunching up the material a little. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she looked from Joan to Simon and back again, as if she were expecting them to tell her what to do next. Joan went over to her.

'I could fix you a bite to eat,' she said.

'I came to sew.'

To sew?'

'I came to sew Connie's dress together.'

'Oh,' Joan said. She looked around at the sewing machine, and was glad to see that the dress still lay there. (Mrs Hammond had gone away all helter-skelter, talking to herself, leaving everything behind her.) 'It's all here,' Joan told her. 'Is there anything else you need?'

'No. I just want to sew.'

'Shall we sit here and keep you company?'

'I just want to sew.'

'All right,' said Joan, but she waited a minute anyway, and so did Simon. Mrs Pike didn't look their way again. She went over to the chair at the sewing machine and lowered herself stiffly into it, and then she picked up the material and began sewing on it. She did it just that suddenly, without examining what she was about to do first or even looking at it – just jammed two pieces of cloth beneath the needle of the sewing machine and stepped hard on the treadle. Finally Joan turned away, because there was nothing more she could do. 'Let's go to the kitchen,' she told Simon. She steered him gently by one shoulder and he went, but he kept looking back over his shoulder at his mother. When they reached the kitchen he said, 'See?' but she said, 'Hush,' without even asking what he meant. 'Maybe we could go for a walk,' she said.

'I found my ball.'

'What ball?'

"The one I lost. I found it.'

'Well, I'm glad to hear it,' said Joan. 'Is it all beat up?'

'It's fine. You want to play catch?'

'Not really.'

'Aw, come on, Joan.'

She frowned at him. 'We should have taken you to a barber,' she said finally.

'Just for fifteen minutes or so? I won't throw hard.'

'Oh, all right, 'she said.

Simon went over to the door and picked up the baseball that lay beside it. It was greyer than before, and grass-stained, but lying out in the field for two weeks hadn't hurt it any. He began throwing it up in the air and catching it, while he led the way through the kitchen and out the back door.

'If we had a big mowed lawn, we could play roll-a-bat,' Joan said.

‘Roll-a-bat's a baby game.'

They cut through the tall grass behind the house, parting the weeds ahead of them with swimming motions and advancing beyond the garbage cans and the rusted junk to a place where the grass was shorter. Janie Rose had set fire to this spot not a year ago, while trailing through here in her mother's treasured wedding dress and holding a lighted cigarette high in front of her with her little finger stuck out. James and Mr Pike and Mr Terry had had to fight the fire with their own shirts, their faces glistening with sweat and their voices hoarse from smoke, while Ansel leaned out the back window calling 'Shame! Shame!' and Janie Rose sat perched in the tin can tree, crying and cleaning her glasses with the lace hem of the wedding dress. Now the weeds had grown up again, but they were shorter and sparser, with black scorched earth showing around them, Joan and Simon took up their positions, one at each end of the burned patch, and Simon scraped a standing-place for himself by kicking down the brittle weeds and scuffing at the charred surface of the soil 'Here goes,' he said, and wound up his arm so hard that Joan raised both hands in front of her to ward it off before he had even let go of the ball. Simon stopped winding up and pounded the ball into the palm of his other hand.

'Hey, now,' he said. 'You going to play like a girl?' 'Not if you throw easy like you promised.' He squinted across at her a minute, and then nodded and raised his throwing arm again. This time the ball came without any windup, cutting in a straight clean arc through the blue of the sky. Joan caught it neatly, remembering not to close her eyes, and threw it back to him underhanded. 'Overhand,' said Simon. 'Sorry.'

Little prickles of sweat came out on her forehead. She tugged her blouse out of her bermudas, so as to make herself cooler, and almost missed the next ball when it whizzed low and straight toward her stomach. 'Watch it,' Simon said. 'You watch it. That one burned my hands.' She threw it overhand this time, and it fell a little short, so that Simon had to run forward to catch it. While he was walking back to his place a screen door slammed behind them, and Joan automatically turned her head and listened to find out what end of the house it had come from. 'Coming,' said Simon, and just then Joan saw, in the corner of her eye, someone tall in James's plaid shirt, untangling his way through the field and toward Joan. She turned all the way. 'Watch _!' Simon said, and something slammed into the side of her head and made everything green and smarting. She sat down, not because she had been knocked down but because she was so startled her knees were weak. Beside her, nestled in a clump of grass, was the baseball, looking whiter than she remembered. Her temple began throbbing and she lay all the way down on her back, with the scorched ground underneath her making little crisp brittle sounds. 'Joan!' Simon was shouting, and whoever wore James's plaid shirt was thudding closer and closer. It was Ansel. She saw that and closed her eyes. In the same moment Simon arrived, with his breath coming fast and loud. He thumped down beside her and said, 'Joan, oh, shit, Joan,' which made her suddenly grin, even with her eyes closed and her head aching. She looked up at him and said, 'Simon Pike -'and tried to sit up, but someone yanked her back by the shoulders. Where did you – 'she began, but then Ansel clapped his hand over her mouth. His hand smelled of Noxzema.

'You lie still,' he said. 'Don't you sit and don't you talk. I'll call an ambulance.'

'An ambulance?' And this time she out and out laughed, and sat up even with Ansel trying to press her back down again. 'Ansel,' she said, 'I really don't need an ambulance. I just got surprised.'

'I warned you,' Simon said. 'Oh Lord, people break so easy.' He settled back on his haunches, clutching his knees, and for a minute it looked as if he would cry.

'Oh, hey, now,' Joan told him. She struggled all the way up, letting Ansel keep hold of one of her elbows, and then reached down to give Simon a hand up. When she stood her head hurt more; it was throbbing. She patted Simon's shoulder. 'It was my doing,' she said. 'I turned to see who was coming.'

Ansel kept hanging on to her elbow, too tightly. She tried to pull away but he only tightened his grasp and bent closer over her, looking long and pale and worried with his light eyes blinking anxiously in the strong sunlight. 'You're coming inside,' he told her. 'I'll call a doctor.'

'I don't need a doctor, Ansel.'

'Terrible things can happen.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake,' she said. 'I'm not about to die on you.'

'You never know. You never can -'

She pulled away from him, this time so hard that he had to let her go, and reached out for Simon's hand instead, in case she got dizzier. Simon accepted her hand like a grave responsibility and led her soberly, toward the house. Ansel followed, panting from all this unexpected exercise.

'We'll go to my house,' he said, 'where I have iced tea.'

'No, thank you.'

'I want you to go to my house. I feel responsible. And anyway, I'm lonely. James has gone off to Dan Thompson's.'

'Oh, all right,' Joan said. It was true that she didn't want to go back to that parlour again. They veered toward the Greens' end of the house, with Ansel parting weeds ahead of them and kicking aside bits of rusted car parts so that Joan could have a clear passage. When they reached the back door he held it open for them and ushered them in with a bow, though neither Simon or Joan paid any attention to him.

'Head on to the front room,' he said. ‘I’ll tell you what, Joan: you can lie on my couch.'

'Oh, well, Ansel, I don't need -'

'It's not often I let someone do that.'

'All right,' she said, and went on toward the couch, feeling too aching to argue. The house smelled like James -a mixture of darkroom chemicals and shaving soap and sunshine – and there was a little of that medicine smell of Ansel's there too. She lay back on the couch and closed her eyes.

Ansel brought iced tea, with the ice cubes tinkling in the glasses and a sprig of fresh mint floating on top. It surprised her, because Ansel was used to being waited on himself. She had thought he wouldn't even know where the glasses were. He set the tray down on the coffee table and handed a glass to both Simon and Joan. Then he picked up his own glass and carried it over to the easy chair, where he sat down a little uncertainly, as if he had never sat there before. Maybe he hadn't. 'Cheers,' he said, and held his glass up high. 'In reference to this doctor business, Joan -'

'I feel fine.'

'But maybe you should see one anyway,' said Simon. 'You just don't know what might have happened.'

'Nothing happened. Will you hush?'

She took a sip of iced tea and closed her eyes. It felt good to be cool again. The room was dim and quiet, and the couch was comfortable, and the heat of outdoors had made her feel relaxed and sleepy.

'What else is good,' Ansel was telling Simon, 'is to drink iced tea with peppermint candy on it. You ever tried that?' His voice was far away and faint, because Joan was half-asleep. She heard him shift his position in the creaky old chair. 'You ever tried it?' he asked again.

'No,' said Simon. He was still being cautious with Ansel, although Joan couldn't figure out why.

'You ought to have your mother make it for you,' Ansel told him.

'She won't care.'

'Sure she will. Sure she will.'

'We drink mainly Cokes,' said Simon.

"This is better.'

There was a long silence. Joan reached over to set her glass on the floor, and then she lay down again and put the back of her hand across her eyes to shut the light out.

'James is at Dan Thompson's,' Ansel said.

'You told me that,' said Simon.

'He just walked out and left me here, alone.'

'I don't care.'

'If I drop dead today, he'll forget what name to put on the headstone.'

'I don't care.'

'Ah, well,' Ansel sighed, and there was the sound of his stretching in the chair. "There is a collection, in this world,' he said, 'of people who could die and be mourned approximately a week. If they're lucky. Then that's the end of it. You think I'm one?'

'I don't know,' said Simon. 'I'm not listening.'

'Oh.'

There was another pause, and someone's ice tinkled. Ansel's, probably. Ansel said, 'I'm going to go away from here.'

'Everyone is,' said Simon.

'What?'

'Grown-ups can go and not even let on they're going. I wish I could.’

'You can come with me,' Ansel said.

'Where's that?'

‘This town of mine. This place I come from.'

'Is it north?' Simon asked.

'North of what?'

'North north. Is it?'

'It's south,' said Ansel.

'Oh. I want to go north.'

'It's all the same. Who you kidding? This town has got a cop that acts like a night watchman. He goes through the town on foggy nights crying out the hours, singing "Sunshine on the Mountain" and all other sunny songs, middle of the night. Ain't that a thing to wake in the night to, boy.'

'Yeah, 'said Simon.

'To wake up after a nightmare to.'

'Yeah.'

The throbbing in Joan's head kept time to Ansel's words. She wanted to leave now, and stop listening to that thin voice of his going on and on, but the throbbing made a weight on her head that kept her down. She listened dreamily, without interrupting.

'Lately I've been thinking about home,' Ansel said. 'It was the funeral that did it, somehow.'

'You didn't go to the funeral.'

'It did it anyway. The only problem is, it's hard to know what way to think about it. No telling how it's changed, and I get no letters from there. James does, from our sisters. He writes them once a month, letters all full of facts, but when he gets an answer he pretends he doesn't. I don't know why. I mean he goes on writing but never mentions what their letters to him have said, never comments on them. Why do you think he does that?'

'I don't know,' Simon said. 'This cop, does he sing every night?'

'Just about. And there's a feed store that gives away free hats. Big straw hats, with red plumes curling down like Sir Walter Raleigh's. Walk down Sedad Street and it's just an acre of people wearing hats, red plumes bobbing up and down. Merchants wearing hats, farmers wearing hats, everyone but little old ladies wearing hats. Old ladies don't like them hats. You go down to Harper's River and find little boys and coloured men fishing in leaky boats, wearing red-plumed hats. Why, you can tell when you're coming home again. You look out the bus window into those country fields and find farmers plowing, wearing hats with red plumes, and the mules wearing them too but with holes cut in them for the ears to stick out. That's how you know you're nearing home.'

'How about me?' asked Simon.

'How about you.'

'If I was to ask, would they give me one too?'

'Why, surely.'

'I'll ask, then.'

'You do that.'

More ice tinkled. Joan's hand had stuck to her damp forehead and she took it away, making a tearing sound, and sighed and turned over on her side.

'What exactly is the name of this town?' Simon asked.

'Caraway, N.C.'

'Is there buses to it?'

'Six a day.'

'Is there people my age?'

'Is there?' Ansel asked, and he laughed suddenly, a chuckle deep in his throat so that he sounded a little like James, 'Is there, boy. Well, lots. I ought to know. Another thing. This is something I've never seen in any other town, now: the boys wear one gold ring in their ear.'

'Earrings?'

'Oh, no. No, this is like pirates wear. Pierce their ears and put one gold hoop through. Everyone did it.'

'Did you?'

'My family didn't want me to. Well, I wasn't actually “in" that particular group, anyway. But James was. He had a hoop, but he took it off finally. Only got one because the family told him not to. Eventually everyone takes them off, when they've grown up and settled down. You'll hear someone say, "So-and-so's engaged now. He's got a steady job, and there's no more gold in his ear." But I never had gold in my ear to begin with.'

'Does it hurt?' Simon asked.

'Does what hurt?'

'When they pierce your ears.'

'Oh, no. At least, I don't think so. Not for long.'

'If I went there, would I wear a earring?'

'Sure you would.'

'How long is it by bus?'

Joan felt herself drifting off. The house seemed to be spinning around her, making streaky yellow shimmers of sunshine through her eyelids, but when she found that she wasn't even hearing the others' voices now she pulled herself sharply awake. She opened her eyes and found that she was looking at one of Ansel's shoes, tapping lazily on the floor. 'Have I been asleep?' she asked. Simon and Ansel looked over at her. 'What time is it?'

'Not yet three,' said Ansel. 'How's your head?'

'It's fine.'

'You sure?'

‘Yes. Sorry to disappoint you.' She sat up and tucked her blouse in. 'Simon, we got to get going,' she said.

‘Aw, I was just hearing something interesting.'

'It can wait.'

She let him go through the door first, and then she turned to Ansel and smiled at him. 'Thank you for the use of the couch,' she said.

'Nothing to it.' He poked his head out the door, past Joan, and looked at Simon. 'You be making your plans, now,' he said.

'All right.'

'Plans for what?' Joan asked.

'Nothing,' said Simon.

Joan yawned, and followed him down the porch toward home.