They Come in All Colors

by Malcolm Hansen

  I screwed off the top of the paint thinner and poured it out. I hadn’t even wanted to look in that casket, but Mom had taken me by the hand and dragged me down the nave to the flower-draped corpse anyway. I’d never seen so many of those stupid little purple wildflowers in one place. God only knows how long it took Evan to collect them all. I spilled some paint thinner on my hands and was concerned that Mom might be able to smell it. I pulled out the matches anyway. Striking them with a broken arm was easier said than done; the whole box flew out of my hand and tumbled down the stack like it was happy to be free. I screwed the top back on the jar, and on my way back down after them, I told myself how it wasn’t going to be so much a pyre as a distress call. I was sick of feeling isolated. After Derrick, Toby had practically been my best friend, but I’d gone from feeling that I’d always known him to feeling like I’d never known him at all.

  I was halfway down that rat’s nest of dried sweet gum when Mom hollered out for me to come in. I froze. The piled creaked. The matchbox had wedged itself among several stack poles. I stuck my arm in after it as Mom barked out again, wanting to know what I was doing. She said for me to change out of my brand-new sneakers because they weren’t for wearing outside before school had started.

  I looked up. The backyard don’t count! It’s hardly considered outside! And if you’d get out of this stinking house more often, you’d know that!

  Mom stepped down from the stoop. She climbed atop the pile of stack poles in her house shoes and bathrobe, after me. She snatched me by the wrist and hauled me down alongside her, teetering the whole way.

  What do you think you’re doing, Mister? It’s not enough you have a broken arm? You want to break your neck, too?

  She paused. What’s that smell?

  What smell?

  On your hands. Christ almighty, you been drinking moonshine again? Let me smell your breath.

  I stormed off to my room and tossed myself atop my bed and curled up with my favorite comic book. When I looked up from Sea Devils, Snowflake was dashing around erratically in her cage. She had always been a source of comfort for me in times of family strife. Just holding her relaxed me—something about the softness of her fur, the reassurance of her heartbeat. She was anxious about something. I lifted her out and took her over to the window. I held her over the ledge and gave her a peck on the fluffy scruff of her neck and told her that I was sorry for being her oppressor. But I was a changed man now. I was finally ready to do the right thing. I leaned over the ledge and let her go. Mom’s petunia bed sat beneath my window. Snowflake bounced once, but otherwise landed fine. She only took out a few flowers.

  You’re free! Now go!

  Snowflake scampered over to the railroad tie upon which our house sat. She clawed at it.

  Not up here, you idiot! That way, damn it! Go!

  She looked up at me with those beady little eyes of hers and continued clawing at the railroad tie.

  Goddamnit, you stupid little beanbag! Don’t you get it? You’re free! Now go!

  A hawk carving broad circles high up in the brightly lit sky screeched. Snowflake looked confused and darted off. She had the whole open field, acres upon acres of food so good you couldn’t buy it in a pet store—all the yummy dried peanuts and hay that an animal like her could possibly dream of. And where did she go? Dumb shit scurried under the house. I leaned farther out the window, the better for her to hear me.

  You want me to lock you back up, is that it? Well, I’m not doing it! It ain’t right!

  I went into the den and sat down in front of the TV, disillusioned. All I had wanted was for her to see her newfound freedom for the peace offering that it was. Toby had always said that when something was broke, you fixed it. Here I had tried to honor his memory and done just that, and it only seemed to turn out worse.

  I flipped through the channels. The only thing on was Governor Vandiver standing at a podium, saying something about having to call in the National Guard. There were lots of flashes of light bursting in his face. Cameras clicked and snapped, and flashbulbs were popping all around him. The last press conference I’d seen, General Harkins was hogging all three channels, bragging about a coming troop buildup. Dad had said for me to pay attention because the man on TV was talking about important stuff. Turner Airfield was up the road, and half of the airmen they’d need were bound to come through town on their way to training. I’d come across a few of them enjoying a little R&R at Mister Abrams’s pool once or twice. Others bought half-pound bags of boiled peanuts from me on their way through town. They loved ’em. So I kind of knew them. Those were the things Dad worried about—real problems. The kind that required soldiers.

  Anyway, Harkins was a real dumb shit if you ask me. Here Dad had been watching so much news yapping about the coming offensive for the last six months, I probably knew more about it than the general. The only surprise to me was that Ho Chi Minh and those damned Vietcong didn’t know who the hell Walter Cronkite was.

  I turned the volume down at the mention of Toby—not on TV but in the kitchen. Mom and Dad were at it again. Why did it seem that peace and harmony were only ever a highly contingent state of affairs in our house? Dad was in the kitchen rummaging through the drawers, looking for the insurance papers for the truck, all the while grilling Mom about whether she’d sent out the last payment on time.

  The twenty-seventh, damn it! The premium was due on the twenty-seventh! You’re supposed to know that!

  Mom was holed up in the bathroom, shouting from behind the door. Of course I know that! Keep looking. It’s in there somewhere!

  I peeked in to see what she was doing and caught a glimpse of her sitting atop the toilet, secretively unclumping bills from the coffee tin. Mom slammed the door in my face and told me to mind my own business. The lock clicked. I went to the kitchen doorway. It was still hard for me to look at Dad without staring at his busted-up nose, the stitches above his eye, and the scab on his fat lower lip.

  Here. Now leave her alone. She paid it, okay? It was in the bureau, mixed in with the unpaid bills.

  Dad snatched it out of my hand and left for the front door. He opened it and looked around, then called me to his side. He said for me to forget about the sorting for now and told me instead to get the hammer from the shed. And nails. Said for me to bring the whole box.

  I plopped myself back in front of the TV and announced that I wasn’t moving a muscle—at least not until he told me what he was making. I was starting to suspect that it was a coffin, which I didn’t want any part of. At least not until I knew who it was for. Besides, the governor was on the tube, saying something important—about what, I couldn’t say just yet.

  Dad cracked a grin and gave me an aw-shucks look. He said that he was happy to have me back to my old self.

  Say, Pop, why do they have two dozen photographers there taking the exact same picture? Wouldn’t it be smarter just to have one? I mean, he could share it around with the others instead of having fifty guys taking the same photo of the same man at the exact same time. Doesn’t make sense to me.

  Why did Pickett’s Charge fail at Gettysburg? Why’d the Red Sox let Ruth go? Why is Ford holding out on fuel injection? Huey, a lot of things don’t make any sense. That’s just the way the world is. Might as well get used to it.

  No wonder the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.

  Without a doubt. Huey, the world just lacks basic rudimentary skills of coordination and cooperation.

  But I thought that’s what kindergarten was for?

  Dad nodded. He was outside, setting up the ladder beneath the front picture window. The sofa sat directly beneath it. From where I was sitting, in his easy chair, he appeared framed like in a portrait in the window. He teetered atop the ladder, fumbling around with Toby’s tool belt slung over his shoulder and a board in his hands, hammering. I couldn’t hear a thing Governor Vandiver was saying. Dad couldn’t have picked a worse time to be putting up siding. I got up from the TV, went over to the sofa, and knoc
ked on the window.

  I can’t hear the TV!

  Dad had four nails poking out of his mouth. He couldn’t hear me over his hammering. He wasn’t interested in listening to what I had to say, and didn’t seem to care about the governor’s statement, either. He didn’t have time for press conferences. This was a time for action. The bathroom door burst open. Mom appeared in the doorway with her coffee tin in one hand and a wad of lumpy bills in the other.

  Twenty years, and this is what Toby has to show for it? That’s not right, Buck—and you know it. And what the hell has all this got to do with swimming in a damned pool anyway? I really hope those swim lessons were worth it, Buck Fairchild. Because now you got people back there crying over a damned white man’s swimming pool. And you know who I blame? Stanley for building that stupid damned pool and you for taking Huey to swim in it. I don’t care what people say, the law’s the law. And swimming in a damned pool isn’t going to change a goddamned thing but where white folks go to swim!

  Mom couldn’t let go of that damned pool to save her life. Dad stopped hammering and pulled a nail from his mouth. He mumbled something through the glass about how first it was all about how she was going to take me there herself, and now she wouldn’t let me near the place if it was the last thing she did, and to just make up her damned mind because it was confusing him. He was having a hard time keeping up with her constantly changing opinions. Said they were like clothes she was trying on to see how they fit, and when was she going to understand that they weren’t going to fit her at all because they were cheap thrift-shop clothes that you buy by the pound, not the inch?

  It was impossible to hear Vandiver fielding a bunch of reporter’s questions. Mom began to sob. It was a strange mix of sounds: Mom crying and the TV droning and Dad mumbling with nails poking out of his mouth behind the window.

  I swear on my grandmother’s grave that I meant to let Toby have a go at it on his own. I just needed a little more time. A little more time, that’s all! A man has got to be able to do things in his own time!

  Twenty godforsaken years! And his father worked for your father for forty more—as did his father before him. And he’s got absolutely nothing to show for it but this and a four-by-six plot out behind Mount Jacob! It was long overdue that you put a stop to it—and you wouldn’t have ever put a stop to it. And that’s on you!

  I know that! You don’t think I know that? I just hadn’t known what I’d do without him. Okay? I don’t have a problem admitting that. What’s fair is fair. Of course he could have done a fine job on his own. I know that. Hell, there’s no question that he knew what he was doing.

  Mom sat down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. I went over and sat beside her and stroked her back as she cried into the coffee tin. I took her hands in mine and steadied them. Dad was hammering directly behind us. It wasn’t until the light started to fade in the living room that I realized what he was doing. I turned around and asked Dad if there was a hurricane coming. He said maybe, but hopefully not. Mom got up and turned on the overhead light. Dad’s hammering stopped. He peeked beneath the last board yet to cover the window before his hurricane shutters cut out the last of the light coming through it.

  Listen—it doesn’t even matter if he did it or not. Okay? People just had it out for him. There. I said it. Happy?

  XXI

  MOM AND DAD’S CHECKERED PAST got dragged into everything that night. Eventually they exhausted each other’s sense of outrage, the cash got put back into the coffee tin, the coffee tin got returned to the cupboard, and a tenuous quiet overtook the house. Dad was in the kitchen, sipping Mister Nelson’s moonshine from a short glass. He was staring into space with a tired expression on his face. I’d come in for a glass of milk, glanced at him, then went back to my room and my Sea Devils. When I returned a half hour later for a refill, he was still sitting there with the same look on his face.

  Dad looked down into the half-empty glass sitting in front of him, emptied it, and left the room. He mussed up my hair on his way past, reclaimed his easy chair, and flipped through the TV channels. I closed the door to the fridge and took a seat. Mom was quietly knitting at the kitchen table. She asked to see my arm. I stretched my cast out over the table and asked how she was doing. She took my fingers into hers and said that she was fine. She just wished there was more humor in our lives.

  Dad was watching TV with the volume turned low and the light off in the den. The dark doorway was intermittently lit by flashes of light from the TV. Mom pressed her lips into a grin and asked if I’d read her one of my poems.

  Mom always liked it when I read to her. So I dug out my notebook from my bedroom, returned to the kitchen, and leaned in the open doorway in a pair of her big Jackie Kennedy–style sunglasses. I’d gotten them from atop her bureau. Mom thought that my poems were a good way to lighten the mood. She was probably in the mood for something like Jack Benny. Unfortunately, I was intent on serving up something a little more Prufrock. I flipped through my notebook until I found something appropriate.

  Here. We’ll start with this one. It’s short. You like the short ones, right? Good. It’s dedicated to you, Mama. I hope you like it.

  Mom sat up, pleased. I remained silent until I had her undivided attention, then began.

  A barnacled oyster marks the spot

  where my dreams like carrion rot.

  The pearl it drifted not away

  like sea foam lifted from the bay

  but was surrendered to Old Saint Peat

  slain tiller at my feet

  where scattered pearls like dead seed lie

  ravenous birds try feed, then fly . . .

  Why saint of straw for seed did burn?

  In blood red battlefield upturned

  an empty shell marks the spot

  where I, his pearl, in darkness rot.

  Mom snatched my notebook out of my hand, flipped through its pages disapprovingly, then tossed it atop the table and led me into the bathroom.

  You’re starting to look like one of those damned renegades. Write like one, too.

  Mom cut up two plastic bags and tied them around my cast without so much as looking at me.

  It wasn’t funny, Huey. Not one bit. Poems are supposed to be funny and light. You know? Breezy. The rhymes were okay, but everything else was terrible. Terrible.

  I knew it wasn’t what she’d expected, but I thought that the idea was for me to write down my feelings. I’d spent two days trying to do exactly what she’d told me. Followed her instructions to a T. Maybe a little too well. Only Mom could get that upset for something not being funny enough.

  I undressed and got in the bath. Mom draped a towel over my shoulders and combed my hair back. She said that it didn’t matter that Dad had Missus Mayapple when he was my age. My first day of third grade was going to be a different affair entirely. It was to be the start of a brand-new chapter.

  Hot water was coming out of the cold spigot and vice versa. At least it wasn’t leaking. I made the adjustment, and it felt good. I leaned back and poured some over my face. I dunked my head, careful to keep my cast out of the water, then kept still for Mom.

  Why did the pastor insist that Toby was murdered when we all know he fell from Mister Buford’s ladder?

  You heard Pastor Meade. He said it was conjecture.

  What’s that?

  When something sounds like it could be true but isn’t. It’s just like when people talk about crazy stuff like evolution, dear—we say that’s conjecture. There’s no accounting for what some people will believe. Mom smiled primly and kept snipping.

  Well, who are we going to get to replace him?

  It’s still too soon to be thinking about that, dear. But I’ll tell you this much—no matter who we end up with, or how hardworking and reliable and trustworthy the person, there is and will only ever be one Toby.

  I splashed at the water. Part of me just wanted to shout out, But what about me? I knew it required a leap of faith, not to ment
ion a great deal of imagination, but I was sure that I could be as good as Toby one day. When I asked about the people making ape noises outside the church, she went quiet. When she finally spoke, her voice was low.

  Jesus only assigns each of us the burdens in life that we can bear, dear. It’s important that you remember that. No matter how difficult life’s challenges, you must never forget that. Besides, I’m not even sure that they were mocking apes so much as just acting like apes themselves.

  Mom kept snipping.

  Am I a bad person if I don’t like everybody, Mama? Does that make me a bad person? I mean, I don’t have to like everybody, do I?

  It’s not a requirement that you do. But it’d be nice if you tried.

  Are you just saying that because people think you’re colored?

  The scissors went still. What on earth do you mean by that?

  Because of your hair. You’ve got colored people’s hair. I know that’s why people were calling you names. Being mean to you. Saying those things to you.

  Mom stood up straight. Why, yes. Yes, I suppose some do.

  And you’re sure Toby fell from a ladder?

  Be still, Huey. I’d hate to snip your ear.

  It must have been a really tall one. To die like that. Whammo! Smack against the ground.

  A very tall one indeed. It had to be, to reach all the way up to the roof of Mister Buford’s barn. He was probably just going too fast, trying to get the last of the roofing shingles up before the weather turns cold.

  You said he was fixing the weather vane.

  What difference does it make?

  I had to think about that. Maybe she was right. I asked whether the Toby that we knew was the same Toby that all those people gathered outside the church were protesting.