The Tin Can Tree (7 page)

“I’m thinking,” he told her.

“That’s what it looked like,” she said. Her name was Maisie Hammond, and she lived across town from here and sometimes came visiting Ansel. She thought Ansel was wonderful. James was just considering this when she said, “How’s that brother of yours?” and he smiled at her.

“Just fine,” he said. “He’s home reading magazines.”

“Well, say hello to him.” She moved up a space in line, still facing in James’s direction and walking backwards. Standing out in the sunlight like this she was pretty, with her towhead shining and her white skin nearly transparent, but Ansel had always said she was homely and only out to catch a good husband (it was rumored James and Ansel came from an old family). Whenever she came visiting, Ansel turned his face to the wall and played sicker than he was. That was how he planned to scare her off, but Maisie only stayed longer
then and fussed around his couch. She liked taking care of people. She would fetch pillows and ice-water, and Ansel would wave them away. When she was gone, James would say, “Ansel, what you want to treat her like that for?” But by that time Ansel had fooled even himself, and only tossed his head on the pillow and worried about how faint he felt. To make it up to Maisie now (although she wasn’t aware there
was
anything to be made up), James stepped closer to her in the line and said, “Maisie, it’s been a good two weeks since you’ve been by.”

“Two
days,
” said Maisie. “Day before yesterday I was there.”

“I never heard about it.”

“You were off somewhere. Taking care of some arrangements for the Pikes.”

The man ahead of her left with his Dixie cup of ice cream, and Maisie turned forward again and took two cups from the stack on the table. “Here,” she said. She passed him a fudge ripple, with a little paper spoon lying across the top of it. “The children got to the strawberry before us.”

“That’s all right,” said James. “I don’t like strawberry.”

He followed her back across the lawn, preferring to stick with her rather than interrupt the little individual reunions that were going on among the others. When she settled on the porch steps, fluffing her skirt out around her, he said, “You mind if I sit with you?” She shook her head, intent on opening her ice cream. “I’m going to take a picture of your great-aunt,” he said.

“Oh, her.”

“Do you like sitting out in the sun like this?”

“Yes,” she said. But she looked hot; she was too
thin and bird-boned, and being the slightest bit uncomfortable made her seem about to topple over. James was used to Joan, who was unbreakable and built of solid flesh.

When he had pried the lid off his own ice cream, and dipped into it with his paper spoon, he said, “It’s sort of melty-looking.” Maisie didn’t answer. She was staring off across the yard. “Better eat yours before it turns to milk,” he told her.

But Maisie said, “Ansel was laying down, when I went to see him.”

“He does that,” said James.

“I mean laying still. Not doing anything.”

“Well, it was nice of you to come,” he said.

She shrugged impatiently, as if he hadn’t understood her. “You were out doing something,” she told him. She seemed to be starting all over again now, telling the story a second time. “You weren’t around.”

“I was helping Mr. Pike with some arrangements,” said James.

“That’s what Ansel said.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around.”

“Well. When I came in I said, ‘Hey, Ansel,’ and Ansel didn’t even hear me. He was just laying there. I said, ‘Hey!’ and he jumped a foot, near about. He was a million miles away.”

James was making soup out of his ice cream. He had it down to a sort of pulpy mess now, the way he liked it, and then he looked up and saw Maisie wrinkling her nose at it. He stopped stirring and took his first bite. “Ansel’s a great one for daydreaming,” he said with his mouth full.

“He wasn’t daydreaming.”

“Oh.”

“He was crying, near about.”

“
Ansel?
”

“Well, almost,” said Maisie. She sat forward, with the ice cream still untasted in her hand. “I said, ‘Ansel,
what’s
the matter?’ But he never did say. His eyes were all blurry.”

“You got to remember Janie Rose,” James said. “It was only three days ago.”

“Well, I thought of that. But then I thought, no, Janie wasn’t all that much to him. She was right bothersome, as a matter of fact. We had her over for supper just a month ago, her and her family; we gave them chicken. Mama forgot about Janie being vegetarian. Janie said, ‘This chicken’s
dead,’
and her daddy said, ‘Well, I
hope
so,’ and everybody laughed, but Mama’s feelings were a little hurt. Though she went to the funeral and all, just like anyone else. I said, ‘Ansel, is that what’s bothering you? Janie Rose Pike being taken?’ But the way he was acting, I don’t think that was the real reason.”

“His feet hurt him sometimes,” said James.

“This is
serious
, James.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Anyway,” Maisie sighed, and she took the first mouthful of her ice cream. It bothered him, the way she ate it; she chewed, slowly and carefully, even though the ice cream was nothing but liquid now. When she had swallowed, she said, “All he would talk about was dying. He said he could see how it would all turn out; they would mourn him like they mourn Janie Rose, not sad he died but sorry they hadn’t liked him more. He’d rather they be sad he died, he said.”

“Oh, now,” said James. “He’s been on that for days. It’ll pass.”

“Will you listen? I can’t hardly sleep nights, for thinking about it. I keep wondering if he’s all right.”

“Of course he’s all right,” James said.

But Maisie was still hunching over, frowning into space. Her ice cream was forgotten. A child ran by, chased by another child, grabbing Maisie’s knee for support as he pivoted past her, and Maisie only brushed his hand away absentmindedly. “Those times he goes away,” she said finally, “those times he starts to get better and then goes off drinking for a night and can’t be found till morning. He’ll die of it.”

“He won’t die,” said James. “He could lead a life like any other man, if he wasn’t so scared of needles.”

“He
might
die,” Maisie said. “What if one of those nights of his, he don’t come back?”

But James was getting tired of this. “Look,” he said firmly. He swallowed the last of his ice cream and said, “Ansel only goes so far, you notice. Only enough to worry people. You ever thought of that?”

“What? Well, if that isn’t the
coldest
thing. How do you know how far he’ll go?”

“I just do,” James said. “I been through this.”

“Can you say for
sure
how far he’ll go?”

“I been through it
hundreds
of times.”

“I believe you don’t even give it a thought,” said Maisie. “That’s what Ansel said. He said, ‘What does
James
care—’ ”

“Well, we’ve got to be clearheaded about this,” James said.

“You’re clearheaded, all right.” She jabbed her spoon into her ice cream and left it there, standing straight up in the middle of the cup. “ ‘What does James care,’ he said, and then just lay there with his eyes all blurry—”

“I do everything I can think of,” said James.

“Oh, foot.”

“I try everything I know.”

“Then tell me this, if you do so much all-fired good. Can you say that never, never once in all your life, have you thought about Ansel’s going off and letting you be someday?”

“Well, for—”

“Never thought how nice it would be to live on your own for a change, just one little old TV dinner to pop into the—”

“I try
every
thing I
know!
” James shouted, and then noticed how loud his voice was and lowered it. “I mean—”

But Maisie just folded in the rim of her Dixie cup with all her concentration, as if her mind was made up. Then she rose and said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you.” Her skirt was rumpled in back, but she didn’t bother smoothing it down. When she walked away James stood up, from force of habit, and waited until she was halfway across the yard before he sat down again. Inside he felt slow and heavy; he was chewing on his lower lip, the way he did when he didn’t know what to say. All the way across the yard he watched her, and turned his empty ice cream cup around and around in his hands.

In front of him some children were playing statues. An out-of-town boy was flinging the others by one arm and then crying, “Hold!” so that they had to freeze there, and when he came to Janice Hammond, who was the littlest, he swung her around so hard that she spun halfway across the lawn and landed against Mrs. Hammond, who was heading over toward James. “Hold!” the boy said. Mrs. Hammond looked down at Janice,
who was clutching her around the middle. She said, “
Oh
, Janice,” tiredly, and was about to pull away, but the other children stopped her. “No, Janice has got to stay that way,” said the out-of-town boy, and Mrs. Hammond seemed too tired to argue. She stood still, rising above Janice’s circled arms like the figure of someone passively drowning, and called out, “James, we’re ready with Aunt Hattie.”

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Over there. Standing up. We wanted her to sit but she says no, she’ll do it standing. Die with her boots on. She doesn’t like cameras.” She came to life suddenly and disentangled herself from Janice, ignoring the other children’s protests. “She’s fading,” she said. James looked over at Janice, surprised, and Mrs. Hammond caught his look and shook her head. “Aunt Hattie, I mean,” she said. “Just fading away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said James. He gathered up his equipment and came after her. “She looked all right to me.”

“Well, she fades out and then in again.”

They circled a little group of women, all standing in identical positions with folded arms while they watched the children playing statues. “I don’t like doing this if she don’t want me to,” James called. “Some people just have an allergy to cameras.”

But Mrs. Hammond smiled brightly at him over her shoulder and kept walking. Out here on the grass the sun was still hot, and the back of Mrs. Hammond’s powdered neck glistened faintly. She had the same brittle little bones as her niece Maisie, only covered now with a solid layer of flesh. James looked away from her and shifted his equipment to the other shoulder. “Right here would be a good place,” he said. He hadn’t really
looked around; he just wanted to stop and not do anything any more. The heaviness inside was weighing him down. He set the camera on its tripod and then leaned on it, with his chin propped on his hand, and Mrs. Hammond said, “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” James said.

“You look kind of tired.”

He straightened up and tucked his shirt in. There was Great-Aunt Hattie, only a few yards away now, being led gingerly by Mrs. Hammond. Aunt Hattie looked neither to the right nor to the left; she seemed to be pretending Mrs. Hammond wasn’t there. The closer they got to the camera, the farther away her eyes grew.

“Right here would be a good place,” said Mrs. Hammond. “Don’t you think so, James? In front of the roses?”

“Fine,” James said. He had started adjusting his camera and wasn’t really looking now. But when he raised his eyes again he saw that the old woman had been placed directly in front of a circular flower bed; she seemed to be rising from the middle of it, like an intricately sculptured garden decoration. James smiled. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I don’t think she should have those flowers behind her.”

“They’re so pretty, though,” Mrs. Hammond said sadly.

“Well. But I think she should have just grass behind her. You mind moving over, Miss Hattie?”

“I have just one thing to say,” Miss Hattie said suddenly.

“Ma’am?”

“Don’t push me. You can tell me where to go, but don’t push me around.”

“Oh, I won’t,” said James.

“The
last
time I had my picture taken—”

“I think he wants you to move over,” Mrs. Hammond said. “Could you step this way, dear?”

The aunt stepped stiffly, jerking her chin up. “I was saying, Connie,” she said, “the
last
man that took my picture was in need of an anatomy lesson. I told him so. He came right up to me and pushed my face sideways but my shoulders full-front, and my knees sideways but my feet full-front, so I swear, I felt like something on an Egyptian wall. You should have seen the photograph. Well, I don’t have to tell you how it looked. I said—”

“If I were you I’d let my beads show,” said Mrs. Hammond. “They’re such nice ones.”

“Well, just for that I won’t,” snapped Aunt Hattie. She raised her hands, heavy with old rings, and fumbled at the neck of her crepe dress until she had closed it high around her throat, hiding the beads from sight. “Now
no
one can see them,” she said, and Connie Hammond sighed and turned to James with her hands spread hopelessly.

“I try and I try,” she told him, and he looked up from fiddling with his camera and smiled.

“Why don’t you go on and see to the others,” he said, “and I’ll call you when I’m through. I bet you haven’t even had your ice cream yet.”

“No. No, I’ve been so busy. Well, I might for just a minute, maybe—” She trailed off across the yard, looking relieved, and the last part of her to fade away was her voice, which still flowed on and on.

“She’s putting on weight, don’t you think?” Aunt Hattie asked.

James had the camera ready now, but he was waiting because he wanted the picture to be just right. He bent
down and cleared away a dandelion from one of the tripod legs, and then over his shoulder he called, “You comfortable like that? Don’t want to sit down?”

“No. I’ll stand.”

Connie Hammond wouldn’t like that, but James was glad. To him Aunt Hattie looked just right this way—standing against a background of bare grass, holding her shoulders high to hide the beads and jutting her chin out at him. She had terrified high school students for forty years that way, back when she taught Latin I. People still told tales about her. She had declined her nouns in a deafening roar and slammed her yardstick against her desk on the ending of every verb. While students could lead other teachers off their subjects just by asking how they’d met their husbands, Miss Hattie had only strayed from Latin once a year, at Christmastime, when she read aloud from a condensed version of
Ben Hur
. James could picture that. He wished he had her in a classroom right now, to photograph her the way she stood in his mind. But all he had was this wide lawn, and he would have to make do with that. He stood there, pressing a dandelion between his fingers and squinting across at her. “That’s right,” he told her. “That’s what I want.”