The Tin Can Tree

'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.

11

'There's not much difference between one person and the next,' Ansel said. 'I've found that to be true. Would you agree with me?' He raised himself up from a prone position on the couch to look at James, who was sitting nearby with the paper. 'Would you?' he asked.

'Well, more or less,' said James, and turned to the sports section.

'Course you do. You have to. Is that the Larksville paper?'

'Larksville paper's not out till tomorrow.'

'Oh. I thought today was Wednesday.'

'It is,' said James. 'The paper comes on Thursday.'

'Oh.'

Ansel lay down again and stared thoughtfully upwards, lacing his fingers across his chest. He had been flat on his back all morning, complaining of dizzy spells, and James had been sitting here keeping him company. It was easier that way. Otherwise Ansel would continually think up reasons to call him into the room and things to ask him for. 'James,' he would call, 'what was the name of that old woman who gave sermons on the street corner?' Or, 'Whatever happened to that seersucker suit I used to have?' And in the long run James would have to spend just as much time in this room as if he'd been sitting there all along. He yawned now and turned another page of his newspaper, and Ansel switched his eyes back over to him.

'It's a fact, James,' he said. 'People don't vary a heck of a lot, one from the other.'

'You told me that,' said James.

'Well, yes, I did. Because it's true. If you will hark your mind back to that Edwards boy, that bucktoothed one that joined the Army – what was his name?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh, sure you know. Sure you know. What was his name?'

'Ansel,' said James, 'I just don't make a point of remembering all these things.'

'Well, I wouldn't brag about it. Clarence, that was it. Or Clayton; I don't know which. Now, Clarence, he went almost around the world with that Army outfit of his. Almost everywhere. And you know what he said when he got back? He said that every single country he'd been in, one thing always held true: when mothers and children climb into a car to go visiting, the first act a mother undertakes is spitting on a hanky and scrubbing her children's faces with it. Always. Canada, France, Germany – always. If that doesn't prove my point, what does?'

James ran his eyes down the baseball scores. He frowned over them, absentmindedly making a little tch sound under his breath when he came upon a score he didn't like. After a while he became aware of the silence, and he looked up to see Ansel watching him with his eyes wide and hurt. 'You weren't even listening,' Ansel said, and James sighed and folded his paper up.

'I was listening and reading both,' he said.

'No. What's it take to make a man listen?'

'Well, I'm sorry. You can tell it to me again, if you want.'

'No.'

Ansel turned slightly, so that his cheek was resting on the sofa cushion, and closed his eyes. 'I've noticed more and more,' he said, 'that no one listens when I talk. I don't know why. Usually I think about a thing before I say it, making sure it's worthwhile. I plan it in my mind, like. When I am dead, what will they remember but the things I talked about? Not the way I looked, or moved; I didn't look like much and I hardly moved at all. But only the things I talked about, and what is that to remember when you never even listened?'

'I listen,' said James.

'No. Sometimes in one of those quiet periods after I've said something, when no one's saying anything back because they didn't hear me, I look at myself and think, well, my goodness. Am I here? Do I even exist?'