The Tin Can Tree

7

At night, when everyone was in bed, the house seemed to belong to one family instead of three. The separate sleeping-sounds mingled and penetrated through all the thin walls, and by now James could identify each sound exactly and where it came from. He knew Miss Faye's snore, as curlicued and lacy as she herself was, and the loud, honking sound that Mr Pike made. He knew Miss Lucy's rat-a-tat on the walls, first on Mr Pike's wall when the snoring grew too noisy and then on his own wall if he talked in his sleep. He thought it must be a thimble she tapped with. Because there was a big room's width between his end of the house and the Pikes' end, he wasn't sure of the softer sounds there – Simon's snoring, for instance, or Mrs Pike's. And he had always wondered if Joan snored. But he had heard Janie Rose's nightmares often enough. They came through loud and clear, drifting up from the open window of her tacked-on bedroom downstairs. "That's not something you should be doing,' she would say reasonably. And then, 'Daddy, would you come quick?' and the floundering thuds across the floor as Mr Pike began groping his way toward her voice in the dark. But if Simon talked in his sleep, he must have talked quietly. All James heard of him was in the morning, when they tried to wake him and he bellowed out, 'Oh, fine, I'll be right there! I already got my socks on. Ain't this some day?' -yet all the while sound asleep, and just trying to fool people. Sometimes Mr Pike shouted too. He would have too many beers on a Saturday night and throw all the pillows out the window. 'Ninety-nine point two per cent of all the people in the southern states die of smothering,' he would roar to the night, and then Miss Lucy would rap on the wall. Miss Lucy never slept at all; James was convinced of that. She spent her time policing the area. On nights when Ansel was restless, when he tossed around on his old wooden bed across the room from James (he wouldn't sleep in the other bedroom, for fear of waking alone and finding his feet numb), and when he kept calling, 'James, how long has the night been going on?' Miss Lucy would tap very gently and ask if Ansel wanted her hot water bottle. 'No, ma'am,' James always said, and Miss Lucy would go back to her quiet, patient pacing. Sometimes James had a great urge to go see what she was wearing. He pictured her in a twenty-pound quilted robe with lead weights at the bottom, like the ones sewn into curtains, because it dragged so loudly across the floor at every step she took. But once he had had a horrible nightmare, right after eating two pizzas. He had shouted out, 'My God!' and awakened shaking, with the terrible sound of his own shout still ringing in his ears. Then Miss Lucy had tapped and called, 'Why, it's going to be all right,' and the horror vanished. He had lain back down, feeling comforted and at home, and now it never annoyed him to hear Miss Lucy's bathrobe dragging.

In the Potters' bedroom the clock struck four, whirring and choking before each clang. James lay tensed, counting the strokes, although he already knew how many there would be. He had slept only in patches all night, and even in his dreams he was searching streets full of people for the thin stooped figure of his brother. In the last dream it had been a year ago – that time they had called from ten miles away to tell him Ansel had been run over, but neglected to add it was only a bicycle that had done it. After that he couldn't sleep at all. He thought of all the things that had happened to Ansel in the past, the really serious things, and all the things that might be happening to him tonight. When the clock had stopped whirring he found that he was frowning into the darkness so hard that the muscles of his forehead hurt. Then, as if that clock had been some sort of musical introduction, a faraway voice began singing outside:

There's sunshine on the mountains,

And spring has come again…

James sat up and pulled back the curtain. Outside it was pitch black, with a handful of small stars scattered like sand across the blue-black sky. The trees beyond the field were only hulking dark shapes, and not one light glimmered from the town behind them.

My true love said she'd meet me,

But forgot to tell me when.

He climbed out of bed and untwisted the legs of his pyjamas. At his bedroom wall there was one sharp tap, questioning (he had learned to read Miss Lucy's thimble language), and he called, 'It's all right, Miss Lucy.' She resumed her pacing again, with her robe trailing her footsteps like a murmuring companion. James shot out of his room, still buttoning his pyjama top, and went downstairs in the dark. The voice was nearer now.

I was walking down the track, Lord,

With a letter in my hand,

A-reading how she'd left me

For that sunny Jordan land.

The front door was open but the screen was hooked shut. James pushed the hook up, jabbing his finger, and swung the screen door open. Then he walked across the porch barefoot, with the cold rough grain of the wooden floorboards stinging the soles of his feet. Around his ankles the cuffs of his pyjamas fluttered and ballooned and nearly tripped him (they were Ansel's, and too long); he bent to roll them up. Then he descended the steps, scowling into the dark as he tried to see. He was halfway down the path before he stopped, more by sensing someone in front of him than by seeing him. Ahead of him was a long tall shape, swaying gently, smelling of bourbon. The voice was so close now that James could feel its breath.

Oh, there's sunshine on the hills, Lord,

And the grass is all of gold…

His reedy voice was piercing, but the thinness of it made it seem still far away. James stepped closer. 'Ansel,' he said.

My love has gone and left me,

And I'll cry until I'm old.

'Ansel,' James said again.

'I'm singing, please.'

'Come on in.'

He took Ansel by the arm. It was stone cold; he could feel the bone underneath. When he pulled Ansel toward the porch Ansel came, but lifelessly and with the shadow that was his face still averted. 'People keep asking you in nowadays,' he told the dark. 'They got a thing about it.'

'Careful,' said James. 'We're coming to the steps.'

'The Potters downright lock you in. Slide little bits of machinery around. You mind if I finish my song?'

'I certainly do.'

'I might just finish it anyway. Where you taking me, James?'

'In,' said James, and half lifted him up the first step. Ansel was as limp as a rag doll. His limpness made James realize suddenly how angry he was at Ansel, after all this worrying and waiting; instead of guiding him so carefully, he felt like giving him a good shove into the house and having done with it. 'Get on in,' he said, and took his hand away from Ansel's arm. Ansel gave him a deep lopsided bow and entered first.

'Certainly nice of you to ask me,' he told James. 'Certainly are a hospitable man.'

'If you're hungry, Ansel -'

'I'm starved.'

'Cook up some eggs,' said James, and began making his way across the dark living room toward the stairs. Behind him Ansel said, 'Hey, now -' but James paid no attention. The way he felt, he couldn't even make a cup of coffee for Ansel; he had been worrying for too long, and all he wanted now was sleep. Already he was unbuttoning the tops of his pyjamas, preparing to go back to his bed.

'Don't you have food waiting?' Ansel asked.

'Nope.'

'Don't you even care if I come back?'

'You know how to fry an egg.'

'Well, I'll be,' said Ansel, and sat down suddenly on something that creaked. 'I take it back, James. What's so hospitable about you?'

The stairs were narrow, and James kept stubbing his toes against them. He touched the wall to guide himself, feeling the ripples and bubbles of the wallpaper as he slid his fingers along it. Behind him Ansel said, 'You mad at me, James?' but James didn't answer. He could already hear the tapping sound that was coming from upstairs. Miss Lucy must be worried.

'I reckon you're wondering where I was at,' Ansel said, and there was another creak when he stood up again. 'You always do wonder.' He banged into something, and then his footsteps wavered uncertainly toward the stairs. 'You're taking all my places from me. Once I tell you, I can't go back no more. How long you guess it'll be before I've used up every place there is?' He was climbing the steps behind James now. His voice rang hollowly through the stairwell. For a minute James paused, listening to him coming, and then he continued on up and reached the top, with his hand still on the wall so that he could find his room. 'It's all a question of time,' Ansel said sadly. 'Time and geography.'

'If you're coming to sleep in my room,' James told him, 'you'd better shut up that talking.'

'Well, I only want to explain.'

'I'm sleepy, Ansel.'

'I only want to explain.'

James kept going, heading in the direction of Miss Lucy's tapping thimble. He could hear Ansel's hands sliding along behind his now on the wall, and then the sliding sound stopped and there was a click as Ansel snapped the hall light on. For a minute the light was blinding. James screwed his eyes up and said, 'Oh, Lord -'and Ansel turned the light off again, quickly and guiltily. 'I just thought,' he said, 'as long as we had electricity -'

'It's four a.m., Ansel.'

'What're you, wearing my pyjamas?'

'Go to hell, will you?'

'I never,' said Ansel, but James was past listening. He was in the bedroom now, and on his way to bed he reached out and knocked on Miss Lucy's wall for her to stop that tapping. She did. He eased himself down between the sheets, which were cold already and messy-feeling. When he was lying flat he closed his eyes and wished away the figure of Ansel, standing like a long black stick and swaying in the bedroom doorway.

'I wisht I knew what was wrong with you,' Ansel said. 'You angry with me, James?'

'Yep.'

'I only went out for a walk.'

'You usually end up half dead after those walks. It's me that's got to nurse you back.'

'Well, wait now,' Ansel said. 'I can explain. All you need to do is listen.'

‘Can I listen when I'm asleep?' asked James, and turned over on his side with his face to the window. He could hear Ansel's feet shuffling into the room, and he knew by the soft thumping noise that he had reached the other bed and was sitting on it.

'I tried and I tried,' Ansel told him. 'I went to the Pikes' first off, but Simon don't like me any more. I went to the Potters', and they locked me in and requested news of my hemoglobin. What could I do? At the tavern I said, "Charlie," I said, "I got a problem." But all Charlie did was sell me hard liquor under the counter; he didn't listen to no problem.'

Ansel's shoes were dropped on the floor, first one and then the other. There was a small whipping sound as he flung his tie around a bedpost. Even with his eyes shut James could picture his brother, how he would be leaning toward James with his shoulders hunched and his hands flung out as he talked, even though he knew he couldn't be seen. 'Go to sleep, Ansel," he muttered, but Ansel only sighed and began unbuttoning his shirt with tiny popping sounds.

'This all has to do with Janie Rose,' he told James. 'Are you listening?'

'No.'

'Just about everything has to do with Janie Rose these days. I don't know why. Looks like she just kind of tipped everything over with her passing on. Janie don't like gladioli, James.'

James didn't answer. A button flew to the floor and then circled there for an endless length of time, and Ansel stamped one stocking foot over it and shook the whole house. James could feel the floorboards jar beneath his bed. There was a long silence; then Ansel bent, with a small puff of held-in breath, and scrapped his fingers across the floor in search of the button.

'Got it,' he said finally. 'All today, I was so sick and tired. I had looked at that picture of the Model A too long. I don't know why I do things like that. Then I thought, well, I'll just go up the hill and pay my respects to Janie Rose. I'll go slow, so as not to get overtired. And I did. I stopped a plenty on the way. But when I got close I saw her flowers, how they had got all wilted. I thought: I wisht I'd brought some flowers. I thought: I wisht I'd brought some bluets. You listening, James?'

James gritted his teeth and stayed quiet.

'There's four names for bluets I know of. Bluets, Quaker-ladies, pea-in-the-paths, and wet-the-beds. You can count on Janie Rose; she called them wet-the-beds. Well, she had problems herself in that line. But what I thought was: I wisht I'd brought some bluets. I didn't think: I wisht I'd brought some wet-the-beds.'

'Oh, Lord,' James said tiredly. He turned his pillow to the cool side and lay back down on it.

'Now, bluets are not good funeral flowers. Too teeny. But Janie Rose is not a funeral person. Usually it's only the good die young. Consequently I thought: I wish I'd-'

James raised his head and shouted, 'Ansel, will you hush?' and on his wall there was the sudden sound of frantic tapping. 'I don't want to hear,' he told Ansel more quietly, and then lay back down and forced his mind far away.

'I'll just get to the point,' Ansel said. 'I have to tell you this. James, there are gladioli on Janie's grave.'

James heard a zipper slide down, and after a minute a pair of trousers was tossed shuffingly across the floor. Then Ansel's socks dropped one after the other beside his bed, in soft crumpled balls, and James heard them fall and winced because his ears seemed raw tonight.

'Janie Rose despises gladioli,' said Ansel.

James said nothing.

'She hates and despises them. Believes they're witches' wands, all frilled up. She told me so.'

James opened his eyes and rolled over. 'Funerals are for parents,' he said. 'Ansel, Janie Rose is dead.'

He waited, frowning. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the white blur that was Ansel in his underwear, standing before the bureau with his skinny arms folded across his chest. Finally Ansel said, 'I know.'

'She's dead.'

'I know all about it. Nevertheless, she despises gladioli.'

‘The funeral is not really for her,' James said, and rolled over again to face the wall. 'It don't make any difference to her about those gladioli.'

'Oh now,' said Ansel. 'Oh now.' He crossed to his bed, heavily. 'It's hard to bury people, Jamie. Harder than digging a hole in the ground.' '

'Will you go to bed?'

'They keep popping up again, in a manner of speaking.'

James dug his head into his pillow.

'I remember Janie Rose's religious period,' Ansel went on comfortably. 'It was a right short one, wouldn't you know. But she took this tree out back, this scrubby one she was always drawing flattering pictures of. Dedicated it to God, I believe; hung it with tin cans and popcorn strings. Didn't last but a week; then she was on to something new. The birds ate the popcorn. But those tin cans are still rattling at the ends of the branches when a wind passes through, and Mr Pike sits out back all day staring at them. Though he had placed every last bit of her in a hole in the ground. Ha.'

James reached behind him for the sheet and pulled it up over his head, making a hood of it. The rustling of the sheet drowned out everything else, and then when he was still again the sounds couldn't come through to him so clearly. The creaking of Ansel's bedsprings when he sat down was muffled and distant, and his voice was thin-sounding.

'I ought to studied botany,' he was saying. 'Don't you think? All I know about flowers, I ought to studied botany.'

James lay still, and stared at the dark vines running up the wallpaper until his eyes ached.

'With Mama it was lilies,' said Ansel. 'Lord, she hated lilies. All she wanted, she said, was just a cross of-'

'We won't go into that,' James told the wallpaper.

'We don't go into nothing. Getting so the only safe topic around here is the weather. Well, I was saying. Just a cross of white roses, she wanted. No lilies. And you know what they sent? You know what?'

He waited. The silence stretched on and on. James's arm, pressed beneath his body, began to go to sleep, but he didn't switch positions for fear of breaking the silence. He wiggled his fingers gently, without making a sound.

'Well, they sent lilies,' Ansel said finally. 'I thought you would have guessed. If you'd been there, I wouldn't have to be telling you all this. But I called you. I called you on the phone and said, "James," I said, "will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" I called you long distance and person-to-person, Caraway to Larksville. But you never answered me. Just hung up the telephone, neat and quiet. If I was the persistent type, I'd be asking still. I'd ask it today: "James, will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" Because you never have answered, never once, not once in all these years. I'll ask it now. James, will you kindly -'

'No, I won't,' said James.

Across the room there was a little intake of breath, quick and sharp, and over behind the Potters' wall the measured pacing suddenly began again, with the weighted bathrobe sighing behind it. Ansel lay down on his bed.

'There's two kinds of sin,' he said after a minute. His voice was directed toward the ceiling now, and sounded dreamy. 'There's general sin and there's private sin. General sin there's commandments against, or laws, or rules. Private sin's an individual matter. It's hurting somebody, personally. You hear me? Listen close now; this is essential. What I chose was a general sin, that they'll be a long time forgiving. I did all that drinking, and ran around with that girl that everyone knew was no good. But what you chose was a private sin, that they'll never forgive. They got hurt personally by it – you forever running away, and telling them finally what you thought of them and leaving home altogether. Then not coming to the funeral. Think they'll forgive that? No, sir. Me they will cry over in church and finally forgive, someday. But not you. I'm a very wise man, every so often.'

James didn't say anything. Ansel raised himself up on one elbow to look over at him, but he stayed within his hood of sheets. 'James?' Ansel said.

'What?'

'You don't care what I say, do you?'

'Yes, 'James said.

'Don't it bother you sometimes? Don't you ever think about it? Here we are. You walked off from them without a backward wave of your hand, and I got thrown out like an old paper bag. Don't it -'

'Got what? James asked.

'What?'

'You got what?'

'Got thrown out, I said, like an old -'

'You never got thrown out,' said James.

'I did. Daddy said I was an alcoholic; he said I was-'

'He never said that.'

'Well, almost he did. He said, "Leave this house," he said. "You and your drinking and that girl in red pedal pushers, I never want to see you again." That's what he told me.'

James raised himself slightly from beneath the hood of the sheet. He peered across the dark room toward Ansel and said, 'Don't you give me that, Ansel.'

'What?'

'You left. You left, I left. Tell it that way.'

'Well, what difference does it make? Who cares?'

'I care,' said James. 'Do I make excuses for leaving? Run out on him or don't run, but don't make it easy on yourself; don't tell me he kicked you out.'

'Well,' Ansel said after a minute, 'I was drinking all that-'

'You don't even like the taste of it,' said James.

'I do too.'

James lay back down and pulled his sheet closer over him, and Ansel's voice rose louder. 'It was a wonderful taste,' he said. And then, 'Well, maybe he didn't exactly throw me out, but anyhow-'

Up on the tin roof, rain began. It started very gently, pattering in little sharp exclamation points that left spaces for Ansel's voice. 'James?' Ansel said

'Hmm.'

'There's one thing I don't get, James. It was you they liked best. The others weren't nothing special, and I was so runny-nosed. I had a runny nose from the moment I was born, I think, and pinkish eyes. One time I heard Daddy say, "Well, if there's ever a prize for sheer sniveliness given, he'll take it," and Mama said, "Hush now. Maybe he'll grow out of it." They didn't think I heard, but I did.'

'They didn't mean that,' said James.

'You know they did. But you they liked; why did you leave? Why didn't you come to the funeral? I said, "Daddy," I said, "you want I should ask James to Mama's funeral?" "Which James is that?" he asks. "James your son," I tell him. And he says, "Oh. Oh, why, anything you want to, Ansel." This was when I was still home and they had hopes I would change my ways; they let me do some things I wanted. I called and said, "James, will you kindly come to Mama's funeral?" Then he asked what happened. "Ansel," he said, "did you invite that person you had mentioned previously?" And I said no, figuring it was better that way. Daddy said, "He wouldn't have come. He was born that way," he said, "lacking our religion. There was no sense asking him."'

The rain grew louder. Now it was one steady booming against the sheets of tin, and all of Ansel that could be heard was his words; the quality of his voice was drowned out.

'I'm going back there sometime,' he was saying. 'They'll forget, and I'll go back. I crave a religious atmosphere.' He lay back down and James nodded to himself, thinking maybe he would be sleepy now. 'Churches here are somewhat lacking, I think,' Ansel went on. 'Quiet-like. At home it was better. Mrs Crowley spoke in tongues. There was things that bound you there. A red glass on the windowsill in the choir loft, with something brown rising above it like the head of a beer. I think now it was wax, and the glass was a sort of candle. But before I thought it was a sort of brown fungus, some kind of mold just growing and growing. Do you remember, James?' He waited a minute. 'James?' he said, and now his voice rose even above the roaring of the rain.

'No, I don't, James said.

'Sometimes I think your mind is just a clean, clean slate, James.'

'I keep it that way,' said James.

'You do. I bet when I go back you won't even miss me. I'll go and bring presents. A natural-bristle hairbrush for each sister and a table game for Claude, and a French briar pipe for Daddy. Flowers for the grave and a set of them new, unbreakable dishes to go in the kitchen. A conch shell with the crucifixion inside to make up for that one you dropped, and a crane-necked reading lamp…'

The rain roared on, and James listened to that with all his mind. He thought it was the best sound he had heard all day. The heavy feeling was beginning to fade away, and the rain was lulling him to sleep.

'… a new swing,' Ansel was saying, 'though none of us would use it now, I reckon. Before, it was a tyre we swung on. It was all right and it went high enough, but there wasn't no Comfortable way to sit in it. Inside it, your legs got pinched. Straddled above it, you'd be dizzy in no time what with all that spinning. "Stop!" you'd say, and cling like a monkey on a palm tree while everybody laughed…'