“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 and silently, 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 parlor 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 nor 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 in 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 colored 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’re 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 an 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 front 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 over 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?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said James. He opened the paper again.
“When I am dead, I wonder what people will miss me. You? Simon? Mrs. Pike will wish she’d brought more hot soup. Joan won’t notice I’m gone. Will you miss me?”
James read on. He learned all about a boy named Ralph Combs, who was planning to be Raleigh’s contribution to the major leagues. He read Blondie and Dick Tracy and Part 22 of the serialized adventure story, and then he noticed the silence again and he lowered his paper to look at Ansel. Ansel was asleep, with one arm flung over his head and his fingers curling in around the sofa arm. His eyelids were translucent and faintly shining, and over his forehead his hair hung rumpled, making him look the way he had when he was twelve. Seeing him that way made James feel sad. He rose and came over to the couch, standing at Ansel’s head and looking down at his long pale face tipped back against the cushions. If he hadn’t known better, he would have tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Now I’ll listen.” But then Ansel would wake up and be twenty-six years old again, nervously testing himself for new symptoms, beginning some long monologue that he had begun before, changed forever from that scared small brother who could sit a whole evening without saying a word or raising his eyes from the floor. That twelve-year-old would vanish without a trace, leaving not even an echo of himself in the way Ansel smiled or said a certain word. James moved away from the couch and went over to the window.
Because of the way he felt, the view from the window took on a sad, deserted look. Everything was bowed low under the breeze, straightening up for a second only to bow again. Simon’s bicycle lay on its side with a drooping buttercup tangled in its spokes. At the edge of the yard the Potters’ insuran
ce man was just climbing out of his Volkswagen. (He came every week, because the Potters had to be constantly reassured that their policy really was all right.) He looked tired and sad. While he was crossing the yard he mopped his face and straightened the plastic carnation in his buttonhole, and then on the first porch step he snapped his head erect and put a bright look on his face. After that James lost sight of him. But he could hear the knocking, and the sound of the Potters’ door cautiously opening and the bolts being slid back after the insurance man was taken inside. They slid easily in their little oiled tracks. The quickness of them made James smile, and he could picture Miss Lucy’s eager fingers fumbling rapidly at the locks, shutting little Mr. Harding in and the loneliness out for as long as she and Miss Faye could manage. He stopped smiling and moved away from the window.
Back in the kitchen it was even worse. There was one daisy on the counter, a stray one from the field in back, and it was dead and collapsed against Ansel’s untouched lunch tray. (“I’m not eating today,” Ansel had said. “Do you care?” “Suit yourself,” said James.) Out the back window was the half-mowed field, looking bald and straggly. Simon Pike was leaning against an incinerator staring at it all, and while James watched, Simon straightened slowly and began wandering in small thoughtful circles around the incinerator. With the toes of his leather boots he kicked at things occasionally, and he had his shoulders hunched up again so that he looked small and worried. James stuck his head out the window.
“Hey, Simon,” he said, “why don’t you come in?”
Simon raised his head and looked at him. “What for?” he asked.
“Well, you look kind of lonely out there.”
“Aw, no.”
“Well, anyway,” said James, “I want to take a picture of you.”
That made Simon think twice. He stood still for a moment to consider it, with his chin stuck out and his eyes gazing away from James and across the field. Then he said, “What kind of picture?”
“The kind you like. A portrait.”
“Well, then, I reckon I might. I’ll come in and think about it.”