They Come in All Colors

by Malcolm Hansen

  Dad looked doubtful. When Mom asked if he’d had the decency to help, on account of Toby’s busted-up leg and how hard it was to dig postholes after such a long dry spell, Dad stood yawning before a half-empty fridge and said that that’s what he paid Toby to do, and that Toby had to have been the laziest damned no-good son of a bitch in all of Akersburg.

  No wonder he’s broke all the time. The nerve of him, complaining about not having enough money.

  Well, did you lend a hand?

  What do I look like?

  For the next several days, the spectacle of that afternoon was all Dad talked about. Toby sloughing off on the job soon became Toby picking a fight, which soon became Toby menacing him with a sledgehammer. Either way, one thing was clear in Dad’s mind: Toby was a hothead who was not to be trusted. There was no telling what he might do next.

  • • •

  I WAS DESPERATE to talk to Derrick, because here it had been over a week since Mister Abrams’s pool had been shuttered and I was no wiser than I was then. Mom’s old Green Book was useless; none of the places around town were listed in it. When I asked why, Mom said it was because Akersburg had become practically a sundown town after Reconstruction—whatever that meant. All I knew was that I was back at square one. I sneaked out the next morning before the sun had crept over the pine trees lining Cordele Road and waited for Derrick to appear from around the bend. When I saw him, he was munching away on a peach, with Pip strutting gleefully alongside him, licking up the juice drippings from the ground.

  I ran over. Where the hell have you been?

  I could ask you the same thing!

  We headed off down the road together and didn’t look back until we crossed the thick yellow paint of the center line at the sight of Mister Abrams’s Pontiac sitting all by itself in his empty parking lot.

  Derrick sank against the slatted chain-link fence surrounding the terrace. Are you sure it’s okay to be doing this?

  Sure I’m sure.

  Derrick was the littlest kid in school, shorter than our classmate Darla, who was so short she had thick risers mounted to the soles of her shoes to make her taller. Derrick wore glasses that he was always cleaning on his shirttail because he had the bad habit of pressing his glasses up so close to his face that they got sweaty and dusty until he could hardly see through them. He wasn’t exactly the perfect angel, but he looked so studious that no one ever guessed the stuff that came out of his mouth when grown-ups weren’t around. Anyway, he was in the middle of wiping off his glasses when I told him to stand up. I climbed atop his shoulders and struggled to balance myself against the pipe-fitted rail at the top of the fence. I peeked over it.

  Empty deck chairs were scattered around the fenced-in terrace, and the kidney bean–shaped pool was as still as backwater. The glare from the sunlight dancing over the surface of the water was so bright it hurt my eyes.

  What a waste.

  Is there water in it?

  Yeah. But Danny’s not here.

  I teetered atop Derrick’s shoulders and clutched onto the fence. The yellow cordon draped around a pool so clean it sparkled was mesmerizing. Something creaked, and all of a sudden, the bottom fell out. The next thing I knew, I was holding onto that fence, kicking out my feet, screaming.

  Goddamnit! What the hell did you do that for?

  I hit the ground with a thud and scampered to my feet. I’d almost landed on Pip. Mister Abrams’s wash lady, Aurelia, was standing there with her head cocked and her arms crossed. She’d been coming out poolside with extra towels and fresh drinks from the tiki bar for as long as I could remember.

  Can I help you boys?

  I clapped my hands clean and brushed off the dirt.

  Yes, ma’am. We were wondering if this was the spot where those fellas broke in. Because. Well. You see. I just thought that since the sheriff can’t seem to catch them—well, I got a pretty good idea about how to keep them from doing it again.

  Aurelia stiffened. And what might that be?

  I pulled out my notepad and pencil from my back pocket.

  Afraid I’m not free to say, ma’am, pending a background check. This is all very hush-hush, as you can imagine. We’re dealing with security-clearance issues and the like—all very sensitive stuff.

  I waited for her to say something. Instead, she pushed her wobbly linen cart across the gravel lot, propped open the door of one of the ground-floor guest rooms, and disappeared inside with a short stack of towels and sheets in her arms. There was something starchy about Aurelia. I think it had to do with all the clothes she washed.

  Derrick walked off.

  Where are you going?

  You’re a crazy boy, Hubert Fairchild. If you think I’m going to hold you up again so you can climb over that fence, you’ve got another think coming. Bad enough that I got your footprints all over my shirt. Lookit—this was clean when I left my house this morning. You’re the reason my mom says I can’t keep anything clean. Not me—you. And now, to top it off, I’m in trouble with Aurelia, too. Goddamnit, you just know my mom’s gonna find out sooner or later. And then what? I’ll tell you what. I’m in hot water, that’s what. You hear that, Hubert Fairchild? She’s gonna have my ass. And you know why? I’ll tell you why. Because I’m not even supposed to be here, that’s why!

  Don’t be ridiculous. If anyone knows how to keep a secret, it’s Aurelia. Trust me, her job calls for a great deal of discretion. I get an earful every Thursday night when my mama gets home from Bible study and then again on Saturday when she does her hair before church.

  I took Derrick by the hand and tugged him back toward the arched front door on the promise of a free cola if we could make it past the lobby undetected. It was one of those medieval-style jobbies with a big brass knocker and required all the strength we had to tug it open. I stood in the cool shade of the air-conditioned lobby with Derrick so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. We stood there listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the flapping window blinds. The reception desk was unmanned. The coast was clear.

  I crept forward, not sure what my plan was until we were standing right up alongside the pot-bellied coffee urn and the inverted stack of Styrofoam cups sitting atop the reception desk. I thought I heard something, but it was just a young couple, wrapped in white bathrobes, walking past in flip-flops. After a minute of standing as still as a statue, I signaled to Derrick and tiptoed past the reception desk. I signaled again, and we continued to the backside of a sofa, then to the plastic ficus standing beside an issue of Popular Mechanics splayed out atop an end table. At last I had the cool handle of the patio door in hand. I gave it a tug, and it screeched.

  Huey? Mister Abrams was craning his neck over the reception desk, behind me. He was pouring a cupful of water into the coffee urn while holding the lid in his other hand. What are you doing here?

  Just a quick dip, Mister Abrams?

  Mister Abrams came around from behind the counter and gestured to the front door. I went over and stood beneath the thick stock of the yellow notice stapled to the inside of it. My eyes lingered on the oversized seal stamped over the heading “Cause for Closure.” Beneath it a checked box read, “Unsanitary.”

  Derrick came up beside me, and the two of us just stood there. The reality of everything knocked me over the head like a billy club.

  I looked up at Mister Abrams. How bad can it be?

  Mister Abrams pulled the door open. He said for us to do ourselves a favor and let the grown-ups sort out this mess. I stepped out and squinted in the bright light. The gravel passed slowly underfoot. The parking lot let out to the main road. Pip was taking a leak. It wasn’t until we stepped onto hot pavement that we heard the heavy door click shut behind us. The defeat felt worse for the genuine belief that my investigation could have ended otherwise.

  VII

  IF YOU THINK I SKIPPED out of Mister McGovern’s office happy to have gotten a second chance, you’re dead wrong. As soon as that bastard lapsed back into som
ething that sounded like a recording, I begged pardon and excused myself on the pretense of having to use the restroom. I headed down the hall and peeked into Mister Needleman’s social studies class. Mister Needleman had been wearing the same exact sweater vest every day for two and a half weeks. Zuk and I had been keeping track. His brogues were kicked up atop his walnut desk, and he was sipping coffee from a Harvard Club mug while holding up a magnifying glass to a back issue of the New Yorker. His students were all listening to an audio recording of a JFK speech. I tried to get Zuk’s attention, but he was too busy taking notes. So I continued down the stairwell lined with portraits of our founders, through the dining hall, and past a bunch of third graders eating with their mouths open and slipped out between two food-service employees smoking a cigarette.

  I tossed my blazer into the nearest trash can I could find and vowed never to return. I was pissed. I mean, half the time that Mister McGovern was bawling me out, I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut, knowing full well that Mom would interpret any defense I mounted as back talk, indisposed as she was to draw a meaningful distinction between a sham excuse and a heartfelt one. The other half, I was worrying myself sick about how the heck I was going to get out of the building without anyone seeing me and Mom together. Fact is, rumors of her being a housekeeper had spread like wildfire, and the fact that she insisted on dressing that way everywhere she went wasn’t helping.

  On the northwest corner of Madison and Ninety-Third Street there was a bank of phone booths that started in front of the corner bodega and stretched nearly halfway down the block. I stopped and slid a dime into a phone and made a discreet call to the local NBC affiliate, informing them of a suspicious package in the second-floor bathroom at Claremont Prep. When the switchboard operator hacked into the receiver and said, What makes it suspicious, toots? I said that I could hear the damned thing ticking.

  Claremont?

  You know, the place where Rutherford B. Hayes went to school? Jesus, and here I thought I was the dumb ass.

  When she put me through to the police, I blurted out, Free Bobby Seale! and split. I popped into the corner bodega and bought myself a Coke and Devil Dogs, then stood in the doorway and peeled back the wrapper amid the wail of sirens roaring past. There were several bicycles leaning against the side of the bodega’s brick facade, right beside me. One of them was unlocked. I did a double take. You wouldn’t see a bike like that lying around unlocked in my neighborhood in a million years. It had a green fade paint job, chopper forks, chrome fenders, and a banana seat. It was brand new. I mean, who does that? It was bad enough that these jerks had dough coming out of their ears, but did they have to leave their expensive stuff lying around unlocked right under my nose? I looked both ways and hopped on. I tested the brakes—they were squishy. Good enough. I rode off like a bat out of hell around the block. I crossed Fifth Avenue in a virtual speed wobble and tore ass through Central Park, and on the way it dawned on me that you can’t go a block in this city without seeing some bumper sticker slapped across a stop sign.

  VIII

  I SPENT FOUR MORE DAYS digging those goddamned stack pole holes alongside Toby. I didn’t have to, but I felt the need to help because of his busted-up leg. Anyway, I was sick of seeing those holes two and a half feet down and eight inches in diameter. They resemble gopher holes. I was sick of trudging back and forth between the house and the field, sick of the dirt, and sick of the heat. I was practically seeing those holes in my sleep. Sleep sheep were supposed to jump over a fence, but mine fell into stack pole holes. So when I saw Toby out on the tractor, tearing hell-for-leather around our field with the digging blades scooping, sifting, and flipping a mess of roots, stems, and vines, I jumped for joy. I ran and climbed up behind him and took hold of the back of his overalls and yelled out, Giddyup!

  I’ve warned you about holding me like I’m a bronco!

  Fine, then lemme work the gas!

  Toby goosed it so hard I fell off the back and landed on my ass in a puddle of dirt as hard as concrete. Dad was sitting on the bumper of his truck, munching on a sandwich, pretending like he hadn’t seen a thing. I limped over and complained. He stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth.

  The boy was up nearly half the night getting the wheel bearings filed down just right. Leave him alone.

  Leave him alone? One minute he was a lazy, no-good drunk who didn’t know how deep a post hole should be and the next he was worth his weight in gold. I wished Dad would make up his mind, because just when I was starting to see how selfish Toby was, Dad would shift course and take his side for no reason at all. Poof—just like that, all was forgiven.

  Then came the day that I wandered into the kitchen and slid out the newspaper from beneath a glass of lemonade and started reading an op-ed piece by a Mister Ryan P. Nichols, chamber of commerce board member and citizens’ council trustee, about how Mister Abrams had permitted a professional “association” to slip into his pool on the sly for a free trim of his hedges.

  I sat down and took a swig of lemonade so cold my teeth hurt, smacked my lips to get the sour out, and double-checked the masthead to make sure it was the Blakely Register I was reading. Talk about ridiculous. Why on earth would Mister Abrams do something as silly as that? Everyone knows that coloreds work for pretty much damned near nothing.

  Then the very next paragraph said something about Mister Abrams running an integrated pool by virtue of permitting coloreds entry after hours for a small fee. I reread it, thinking I’d misread it because the wet ring from the lemonade glass had blurred some of the words. A shadow fell over me, and Mom snatched the newspaper out of my hands. Actually, she tugged at it, trying not to rip it, until she did. I was reluctant to let go. Why would I, when no one would tell me what the heck was going on, and here even the newspaper was saying stuff that made no sense?

  They got it backward, Mama. Coloreds fish the leaves out every morning. They don’t swim in it.

  I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d seen it countless times with my own two eyes. That would have been a touch bold, even for me. Anyway, Mom was surprised—even though my elbows were so bony they bored holes in my shirt sleeves, I was pretty damned strong. I wasn’t letting go of my biggest clue in weeks. Then she was angry. She grumbled something about not knowing I could read that well, then accused me of pulling the wool over her eyes every time she’d sat down to read with me. Which was only half true. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read; I didn’t want to. The Gospels of Mark, John, Luke, and whatshisface—Matthew—bored me to tears.

  She doubled up the newspaper and tucked it under her arm and told me not to believe every single thing I read. When I asked if that applied to the Gospel of Matthew, she slapped me upside my head with the paper and said that God could be wrathful every bit as much as he could be forgiving. I told her that was Zeus she was talking about, not God. What did God have to be wrathful about? He created us single-handedly. Did it in seven days—which some people think is amazing, but I thought curious. What was his rush? If things weren’t going right, it was no wonder. He should have just slowed the hell down and taken his time. Rush jobs never end well.

  The more I scratched at the surface, the less sense things made. I asked Dad to explain how the pool filter broke, and if it broke by coincidence after the break-in or if it was just old or if someone had done it on purpose or if the burglars had broken it, and why on earth the sheriff was focusing so much attention on the pool instead of the actual burglars. Not to mention that in all this time, no one had mentioned anything having been stolen. Even Mister Nussbaum’s mysterious break-in netted the loss of one blue-ribbon heifer named Mollie. And if nothing had been stolen, why not? And now there was all the crazy talk in the paper. Dad always just said It’s complicated or I’ll tell you later, but later usually never came, and the few times it did he spread the malarkey so thick even I could see through it. Which was saying something. Truth be told, I still half believed in the tooth fairy. Or at least wanted to believe. Bec
ause I kinda did and kinda didn’t. What I mean to say is, I didn’t see how it was possible, but at the same time, I wasn’t quite ready to turn down the free nickel.

  I dug out my basketball from the shed and slammed it against the backboard, more in frustration than an attempt at shooting baskets. Mom came out and told me to stop. When I asked why, she said because I mostly missed. All the noise the ball made when it banged against the door scared the hens.

  Mom went into her vegetable garden and checked after her tomatoes, then disappeared into the henhouse by way of the man door on the side. The two-tiered board-and-batten door creaked open, first the upper half, then the lower. Mom emerged with an egg-filled stewpot and a bunch of hens squawking at her feet.

  Now look what you’ve done.

  She shooed them away and closed the door.

  If they broke into that pool and didn’t steal nothing, wouldn’t that be like someone breaking into our house to take a bath? Which, unless you’ve got a heart of stone, seems harmless enough. And speaking of colored kids, do they have their own tooth fairy?

  There was a moment of quiet. Mom made her way across the yard and up the steps. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me. I just stood there beneath the chicken-wire hoop mounted above the henhouse door, holding the ball in both hands. The spring-loaded arm of the storm door hiccuped shut behind her. All I heard was her dismissive voice coming from down the hallway.

  Don’t go poking your nose in other people’s business.

  Other people’s business? It’s all anyone talks about anymore! And it’s just as much my business as theirs!

  • • •

  THINGS DIED DOWN between me and Derrick after our run-in with Aurelia and Mister Abrams. He said playing detective wasn’t fun anymore and wanted to stop. Who was playing? I think he just didn’t like being Dr. Watson to my Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, just when you think you know someone, they surprise you. Two days later, something smacked against my window. I got out of bed and went over expecting to find a bluebottle flailing about on the dusty sill. My hamster, Snowflake, attracted them. Instead, I found Derrick standing outside with an acorn in hand and a big grin on his face. He gestured for me to come out.