The Tin Can Tree

4

That Sunday, Joan began thinking about Simon's hair. She started out by saying, 'Simon, tomorrow morning first thing I want to find you in that barber's chair,' but Simon said, 'Aw, Joan, I don't want to go downtown.' Since that movie yesterday he had changed his mind about town; he hadn't even asked to eat in a restaurant today, and Joan could see his point. Going downtown meant people murmuring over him and patting his head, asking Joan in whispers, 'How is he taking it? Is his mother coming out of it?' while Simon stood right next to them, his chin tilted defiantly and his eyes on their faces. Little boys who were usually his friends circled him widely, looking back over their shoulders in curious, half-scared glances. They had never seen someone that close to funerals before, not someone their own age. When Simon and Joan were coming out of the movie theatre a member of Mrs Pike's church had stopped smack in front of them and said to her friend, 'Oh, that poor little boy!' Her voice had rung out clearly and hung in the air above them, making other people stop and stare while Simon pulled on Joan's hand to rush her home. She could understand it if he never went downtown again.

So instead of insisting, she said, 'Well, all right. But we've got to cut your hair at home then. Today.'

'It's not so long,' he said.

'Curls down over your ears.'

'Well, we've got nothing to cut it with.'

'Scissors,' Joan reminded him. 'Your mother's sewing scissors. Anything.'

'Okay. Tomorrow, then,' said Simon. 'Bright and early.'

'Tomorrow's a tobacco day; I won't be here. You know that.'

'Other boys have hair lots longer.'

. 'Orphans do,' said Joan. 'Will you fetch the scissors?'

He slid off the couch, grumbling a little, and went for his mother's sewing basket. It sat in one corner of the living room, gathering dust, odds and ends of other people's clothing poking out of it every which-way. (Mrs Pike was a seamstress; she made clothes for most of the women in Larksville.) The materials on the top Simon threw to the floor, making a huge untidy pile beside the basket, and he rummaged along the bottom until he brought up a large pair of scissors. 'These them?' he asked, and walked away from the basket with that heap of material still lying beside it. Joan let the mess stay there. She followed Simon into the kitchen, a few steps behind him, with her eyes on the back of his head. Where it had been pressed against the couch his hair was as matted as a bird's nest. It would take a sickle to cut all that off.

In the kitchen she found an apron and tied it around his neck, to keep the hair from tickling, and then she had him sit on the high wooden stool beside the kitchen table. He revolved on it slowly, making the seat of it squeak, while Joan looked him over and debated where to start. 'I don't know where you got all that hair,' she told him. 'When was the last time you went to the barber's?'

'I don't know.'

'It couldn't have been all that long ago.'

'You sure you know how to cut hair?' Simon asked.

'Of course I do.'

'Whose have you cut?'

'Well, my own,' Joan said.

He stopped revolving and looked at her hairdo. 'It's a little choppy at the ends,' he told her.

'It's supposed to be.'

'Will mine come out like that?'

'I surely hope not.'

'If it does, what will we -'

'Now, Simon,' Joan said, 'I don't want to hear any more about it. Let's just get it over with.'

He sighed then and gave in, but with his shoulders squinched up and his neck drawn into itself as if he thought she might slip and cut his head off. His hair grew in layers, lapping downwards like hay on a haystack. When Joan cut too much from one of the sun-yellowed upper layers it sprang straight up, choppy and jagged-edged, and she quickly pressed it down again and shot a look at Simon to see if he had noticed. He hadn't. He sat slumped on the stool, idly swinging one boot and gazing out of the window. The only sound now was the steady snipping of scissors.

Out in the back yard Joan could see her uncle – just his head and his crumpled blue shirt. He was tilting back on an old kitchen chair in the sunshine, with one hand resting absently on Nellie's neck. That was the way he had been sitting all day. When Joan called him for his meals he came in docilely and ate everything set before him, and then he went out back again. Twice he had gone upstairs to see his wife, but that had taken only a minute; he must have given up trying to talk to her. Even Joan had given up. When she went to her aunt's bedroom, to where she was lying on her back with the covers pulled up around her, and asked her to come down for a bite to eat, her aunt only said, 'No,' and closed her eyes. Saying that one word seemed to take all the strength she could muster; Joan didn't dare argue with her. In the back of her mind she kept trying to think up little plots, planning ways to get her aunt interested in something, but she wasn't the kind of person who could do that.

The most she could do was try and take care of the house for a while, and feed Mr Pike and Simon. Even that was hard; she had never learned how to keep house.

The top part of Simon's hair was cut now. She squinted at it, not sure if this was how it was supposed to be or not. It seemed a little homemade-looking. But then she shrugged and began on the shaggy part along the back of his neck. She could always even it up later on.

Outside, Ansel called, 'Is anybody home?' His voice was thin and wavered in the wind. Simon gave a sudden start and turned his head, so that Joan nearly gouged him in the neck. 'Hold still, Simon,' she said, and Ansel called again, 'Is anybody home?'

'It's him, 'Simon said.

'Who do you mean? It's Ansel.'

'I know. It's him.'

'Just stop wiggling,' said Joan. She raised her voice and called out, 'We're out here, Ansel.'

'Out where?'

'Out here.'

'Well, is someone going to come and let me in?'

'It's not locked,' Joan said, and returned to her cutting. She didn't like Ansel and had never pretended to; he could open his own doors. When he came ambling out to the kitchen, walking in that shuffling way of his and stooping to get through the doorway, she didn't even turn around to look at him. 'How are you,' she said, making it a statement.

'Oh, not so bad, I guess.'

Turn a little to the left, Simon.'

'Hey, Simon,' Ansel said.

Simon frowned at his boots.

'Hey, boy.'

'He's having his hair cut,' said Joan.

'Ah, I see. That makes it impossible for him to speak.'

'Will you have a seat?'

'I might,' he said. He pulled out one of the chairs from the table and sat down, facing Joan and Simon. He was looking better than usual today. The yellowish pallor of his face had faded and he sat nearly erect, with his arms folded across his chest. When he saw Simon frowning at him he smiled his dippy smile and said, 'What's the matter with the barber, boy?'

'What?'

'Barber sick?'

But Simon only shrugged and didn't answer. Joan said, 'I'm cutting his hair myself this time.'

'I see that.'

'I'm using the sewing scissors.'

'I see.'

That seemed to leave nothing more to be said. Joan hesitated a minute, with the scissors in mid air, and then she said, Turn around, Simon.'

'Are we done?' Simon asked.

'Almost. I want to think what to do about the front part of it.'

'Where's Mr and Mrs Pike?' said Ansel.

'Uncle Roy's out back.'

'Where's Mrs Pike?'

Joan was frowning at Simon's hair, trying to figure out how to begin on that front shock. Any way she managed it, it was almost sure to end up looking like bangs. She snipped gingerly at one piece and held what she had cut off up to the light to examine it. Then she said, 'Ansel, what're you here for?'

'Who, me?'

'Didn't James tell you not to bother her? Where is James?'

'He's taking pictures of the Hammonds.'

'Didn't he tell you not to come around here?'

'Well, yes, he did,' Ansel said. 'He suggested that I not. But I was sitting reading on the couch and it occurred to me: I thought I might just wander over and see how you all are doing.'

'We're doing fine,' said Joan. She snipped off another piece of hair.

'Joan, you're ruining that boy.'

'It'll turn out all right.'

'Well. I was sitting reading a Guideposts,' Ansel said, 'and after that two outdoor-type magazines, and then I read them again. I would've read them a third time, if I hadn't come on over here. I read even the smallest inch-long ads for worm farms; I read the list of editors at the front and the entire information about the subscriptions. Then I thought I might come and see you.'

'Simon, maybe you better get a mirror,' Joan said. 'I'm not sure what you're going to think of this.'

'Aw, I don't care,' said Simon. 'Is it done?'

'You go look in a mirror and see if it is.'

Simon stood up and little rags of hair fell around him, spilling off the apron around his neck. When he walked out of the room he trailed fuzz in a long path behind him.

'He won't thank you for this,' Ansel said.

'I don't think it's so bad.'

Twice before, I started to come,' Ansel said. 'I got up and headed for the door and then I thought, "No." I cut my fingernails. I cleaned out my wallet. Then I thought I might as well come over. I thought -'

When he talked he had a way of leaning slightly forward and placing his fingertips together, as if words came hard to him and he had to consider. Yet in reality the words came flooding from him; it always made her feel swept away and drowned, with so many useless words spilling around her. Sometimes she could even get interested in what he said, but she never lost that drowned feeling. While he talked she stood silently by the stool, keeping her face blank and idly snipping at thin air with her scissors, but inside she was thinking. I wish you would go. The pale thinness of his face irritated her. She thought about all the long evenings of three long years, with James sitting next to her on the porch and never taking one step forward, never asking for more than tonight's kiss and tomorrow's date and never mentioning marriage or a family or any of those other things she was sitting there waiting to hear. And the reason for it all was Ansel, who hung limp and heavy in his brother's living room and expected to die any day, although actually he was stronger than any of them. He had that flood of words, after all, and that sad dippy smile, and that way of placing his fingers together as if asking people to be patient while he fumbled for what to say. 'I thought I would come offer sympathy and then leave again,' he was saying, and Joan snapped, 'Well, you've offered it. Are you leaving?'

'Huh?' Ansel said. He looked up, bewildered. 'Joan, I ain't even seen your Aunt Lou yet -'

Simon came in, with his hair plastered down by water. 'It looks kind of like I expected it to,' he said.

'You don't like it?'

'Well, yes. It'll grow out.'

'I could trim it around the edges a little more,' Joan said.

'No, that's all right. Thank you anyway.'

'Or maybe tomorrow you could -'

'Hush!' Ansel said. He sat up straight, listening, and when the other two turned toward him he pointed at the ceiling. 'Footsteps,' he said.

It was the slow, clapping sound of Mrs Pike's mules, crossing the upstairs hallway. 'She's only going over to the bedroom,' Joan said, but then the sound continued to the stairs, and Ansel said, 'She's coming down.' He stood up, preparing to meet her. Joan reached out and touched his arm. 'Let her be,' she said. 'Why don't you go home?'

'I wanted to say hello.'

'Do it some other time.'

'No, I want-'

The footsteps descended slowly, like a child's – both feet meeting on the same step, then another hesitant step downwards. Joan left the kitchen, with a wave of her hand toward Ansel to show that he should stay there. He did, which surprised her a little. She crossed through the parlour alone and came to stand at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Her aunt had just barely reached the halfway point. She was holding on to the railing and gazing steadily at Joan, her face blank without its makeup, her dark yellow hair straggly and uncurled, and her plump body wrapped in a chenille bathrobe. The greyness of her made her blend into the dark stairwell. She said, 'Joan,' and her voice came out blurred and grey also, without expression.

'What?' Joan said.

But her aunt didn't answer. She continued down the stairs laboriously, and when she reached the bottom she would have gone straight into the kitchen except that Joan took hold of her by one arm.

'Don't you want to sit in the parlour a while?' she asked. 'I'll bring coffee.'

'No.'

'Ansel's out there in the kitchen.'

'No.'

Mrs Pike went on walking, not pulling away from Joan but just walking off, so that Joan had to drop her arm or follow her. She dropped it. Her aunt said, 'No,' again, as if some new question had been raised, but Joan was trailing behind her now in silence, frowning at Mrs Pike's back. Her back was soft and shapeless, and folded in upon itself at the waist where her sash was tightened. When she walked the hem of her robe fluttered out and Joan could see the dinginess where it had dragged across the floor.

Ansel was standing, ready to greet her. He said, 'Mrs Pike, I been waiting to see you,' and Mrs Pike said, 'Ansel,' and crossed to one of the kitchen chairs. Over by the window Simon stood with his back to her, his hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets and his chopped-at, straggly head wearing a stiff and listening look.

'I only came to tell you how I feel,' Ansel said gently. Then I'll leave.'

'Where is Roy?' asked Mrs Pike.

'Out back. You want I should get him?'

'No.'

Mrs Pike was sitting craned forward a little, with her hands on her stomach as if it hurt her. After a minute Ansel sat down opposite her, but Joan remained standing and Simon stayed by the window. Mrs Pike didn't look at any of them. 'I thought I would come downstairs a little,' she said.

'That's the way,' said Ansel. 'You shouldn't sit alone.'

'I wasn't sitting.'

'What I actually came to say,' Ansel said, 'was how bad I feel about all this. That's all I wanted to tell you. I told James, I said, "It's like the tragedy has struck at our own lives. I know just how she feels," I said. I said -'

'No, 'said Mrs Pike.

'Ma'am?'

But Mrs Pike only looked away then, toward the screen door. Behind her, Simon picked up the cord of the paper window shade and began tying knots in it, small tight knots running up and down the length of the cord.

'What was you saying no for?' Ansel asked.

Mrs Pike didn't answer.

'Was you saying I don't know how you feel? Mrs Pike, I know how you feel better than you do yourself. I been through this before.'

'Ansel,' Joan said. 'You've offered your sympathy now. I think you'd better leave.'

'But I've got so much I want to say to her -'

'I came down to eat,' said Mrs Pike, 'but I don't think I will.'

Joan turned away from Ansel and looked down at Mrs Pike. She said, 'Why, Aunt Lou, there's all kinds of things to eat in the icebox. Everyone's been bringing things.'

'No,' her aunt said.

'I know that when my mother died,' said Ansel, 'everyone kept trying to snap me out of it. They said that mourning has never brought the dead back. But it's only right to mourn; it's only natural. People have their faults but when they're dead you mourn them, and you expect to be mourned yourself someday.'

'Janie Rose didn't have no faults,' said Mrs Pike.

'No, ma'am, of course she didn't. When my-'

'We don't know how it might have turned out. She was a little chubby but not, you know, really fat. She might have slimmed down some later on. I never said to her she was fat. I don't know what she thought I said but really I didn't. Never a word.'

'When my mother died,' said Ansel, 'I thought of all the bad things I ever said about her. I got in a real swivet about it. She was a fine woman, but scared of everything. Wouldn't stand up against my father for us. When some sort of crisis was going on she had a way of sort of humming underneath her breath, slow and steady with no tune, and sewing away at someone's overalls without looking up. My father was -'

Joan came over and stood between Ansel and Mrs Pike, bending down low so as to make her aunt look into her face. 'I want you to eat something, now,' she said. 'There's a stew. Would you like that?'

'No.'

'There's a whole icebox of things.'

'No.'

'My father was not what you'd call a man of heart,' said Ansel, placing his fingertips together. 'Very strict. We always kept two goats around the place, to eat off the underbrush -'

'Isn't it funny,' Mrs Pike said, 'that no one sent roses. Roses are a very normal flower, yet nobody sent them. Everything but, in fact.'

'It's a little hot for good roses,' Joan said.

'In the spring, when the goats had kids,' said Ansel, 'we would fatten them up for eating. Only by the time they were fat they'd be good pets, and we would beg for my father not to kill them. We would cry and make promises. But my mother sat humming (though she loved those goats the best of all and had names for every one of them) and my father always killed them. Only there was one thing that made up for that -'

'Ansel,' Joan said, 'Will you go home?'

'Wait a minute. When my mother brought a roasted kid in, or any part of it, holding it high on a wooden platter with potatoes around it, she always dropped it just in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. It never failed. The meat on the floor, and the potatoes rolling about like marbles and leaving little buttery paths behind them. "Pick it up," my father always said, but she would begin talking about germs and never let us eat it. I haven't yet tasted a piece of roasted goat. I think about that often now; it makes up for that humming, almost. I'm sorry I ever -'

Someone knocked on the front door. Joan said, 'Ansel, will you go see who that is?'

'Why, Joan it's your house.'

'I don't care; just go.'

'I'm not well enough to go bobbing up and down for people,' said Ansel. But he rose anyway, moving slowly like an old man and holding his chest. 'Who is it?' he called.

'Is that you, Ansel?'

It was James, with his voice sounding loud and steady even though he was still outside the house. Hearing him made Joan straighten up and feel suddenly more cheerful, and Simon turned around and let the window-shade cord slip out of his hand. 'Ansel, what are you doing here?' James called.

'What're you doing here?'

'I'm looking for you. I been looking all over.'

James had let himself in now, seeing that Ansel wasn't advancing to the door very quickly. He crossed the parlour in long strides, and appeared in the kitchen entrance with his hands on his hips.'

'I'm taking you home for supper,' he told Ansel. 'I'm sorry about this, Mrs Pike.'

Mrs Pike only gazed at him unblinkingly, without appearing to hear him. Joan said, 'I wish you would, James.'

'Come on, Ansel.'

'Supper in the afternoon?' asked Ansel.

'It's getting on towards sunset.'

'Well, I don't feel so good, James. I'm not hungry.'

'What's the matter with you?' James asked.

'My head is swimming.'

'You been resting enough?'

'Well, yes. But after lunch this blackness started floating in, and then a little later this, um -'

Joan leaned back against the table, watching. She had never seen James actually listen to all this before; it seemed strange, and she couldn't figure out why he was doing it. The more James listened, the more Ansel's symptoms expanded and grew in detail; even his face looked paler. But James kept on nodding, saying 'Hmmm,' every now and then. Finally he said, 'I'll put you in bed. You can have your supper on a tray, if you want.'

'Oh, I think I'll just stay here and -'

'It's time to go, Ansel.'

Ansel sighed and let himself be led toward the doorway by one elbow. To Mrs Pike he called, 'I hope you're feeling better, ma'am. I'll be back tomorrow, maybe, or the next day-'

'Come on,' James said.

They stopped trying to be graceful about it. James gave Ansel's arm a good tug and Joan followed close behind, almost on Ansel's heels, to hurry him out. After her came Simon, with his face looking small and curious under his ragged haircut. Mrs Pike didn't go with them. She sat quietly in her chair, with her hands still pressed to her stomach, and it wasn't until the others were all the way into the parlour that she spoke.

Nobody knows,' she said distinctly.

Ansel wheeled around, fighting off Joan's and James's hands, and shouted, 'What's that?'

Mrs Pike didn't answer.

'Let's go,' James said.

'I just want to tell you,' Ansel shouted toward the kitchen, 'I know better than you can imagine, Mrs Pike. You're just sorry now you weren't nicer to her, but I know how it feels to really miss someone. I remember -'

Both James and Joan stopped then, looking first at Ansel and then back toward the kitchen. But all they heard was the creaking of a chair, as if Mrs Pike had changed positions. And that seemed to show Ansel what they had been trying to tell him all along: that Mrs Pike wasn't listening right now, and that nothing he could say would do her any good or any harm. So he shrugged and let himself be led the rest of the way out. When Joan stepped back a pace, indicating that he should go first and that she was staying in the house, he nodded good-bye to her gravely.

'One thing I'd like to make clear, Joan,' he said. He was facing her squarely, acting very formal and dignified. 'I do know,' he told her.

'All right,' Joan said absentmindedly.

'I remember how it feels. My memory's excellent.'

'I believe you.'

'Clutters my mind at night, it's so excellent.'

James pulled him gently.

'When I want to sleep, it does. Clutters my mind.'

'All right, Ansel,' James said.

He led him on out to the porch. When he passed Joan she could smell the smoky, outdoors smell of James and he bent closer to her and said, 'If you need anything, I want you to tell me.'

'I will.'

'And when you can get away, come over and see us.'

'I will.'

She stood in the doorway with her hand on Simon's shoulder and watched after them – Ansel tall and thin and leaning against James, who was solider and could bear his weight. She heard Ansel say, 'Right through my temples it is, James. A sort of spindle of dizzy-feeling, right through my temples.

James said, 'We'll lie you down. You feel tired?'

'Naw. I was thinking-'

'You sure now,' James said.

'Huh?'

'I want you to tell me.'

‘Tell you what?' Ansel asked.

But James didn't answer that. And Joan, listening with a frown because it was so strange to her, felt suddenly lost and uncertain. She retreated into the parlour again, letting the screen door swing slowly shut behind her. But there was no one to listen to what was bothering her. Only Mrs Pike, staring at the wall in the kitchen, and Simon beside her with his funny new haircut.