Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

'No. Not a thing, not a person, Mr Green. Take your picture.'

He gave up. Through the frame of his view-finder he saw her standing just the way he wanted her, old-fashioned-looking and symmetrical, with her hands across her stomach and her mouth tight. Her face was like a turtle's face, long and droopy. It had the same hooded eyes and the same tenacious expression, as if she had lived for centuries and was certain of living much longer. Yet just in that instant, just as his hand tightened on the camera and his eyes relaxed at seeing the picture the way he had planned it, something else swam into his mind. He thought of Miss Hattie coughing, in the centre of that family reunion – not defiant then but very soft and mumbling, telling them all she was sorry. He frowned and raised his head.

'Well?' said Miss Hattie.

'Nothing,' James said.

He bent down again, and sighted up the haughty old turtle-face before him and snapped the picture. For a minute he stayed in that position; then he straightened up. 'I'm done,' he said.

'I should hope so.'

'I'll get one copy made, for Mrs Hammond.'

'I'm going in then. I'm tired.'

'All right,' he said. 'Goodbye, Miss Hattie.'

'Goodbye.'

She nodded once, sharply, and turned to go, and James watched after her as long as she was in sight. Then he stared down at his camera. Just to his right Connie Hammond materialized – he caught a fold of lace out of the corner of his eye – but he didn't look at her.

'Well, now!' Mrs Hammond said brightly. She was out of breath and looked anxious. She came around in front of him and went to stand where Miss Hattie had stood, with her eyes intent on the ground, as if by tracking down the print of Miss Hattie's Wedgies she could suddenly come to some understanding of her. 'I'm sure it'll come out good,' she called over her shoulder.

'Well’

'What's that?'

'Yes, I'm sure it will,' James said. He folded up his tripod and gathered the rest of his equipment together. 'I'm leaving now,' he told her.

'Oh, are you?'

'I'll have the pictures ready in a day or two.'

'That'll be fine,' said Mrs Hammond. But she was still staring at the ground and looking anxious; she didn't turn around to say goodbye.

James's pickup truck was parked on the road at the edge of the lawn. He circled around the children, being careful to stay clear of the ones playing statues. Their game was growing rougher now. Little Janice Hammond was frozen in the exact stance of a baseball pitcher, her right arm drawn back nearly out of joint, and even her face was frozen – she was grimacing wildly, showing an entire set of braces on her teeth. But she unfroze just as James passed her; she shook out her arms and smiled at him and he smiled back.

'I want to come out pretty in them pictures,' she said. 'You see what you can do about it.'

'I'll see.'

He placed the camera on the leather seat of the pickup and then went around to the driver's side and climbed in. It was like an oven inside. First he started up the motor and then he rolled down his window, and while he was doing that he caught sight of Maisie Hammond. She was standing high up on the lawn, waving hard to him and smiling. He waved back. This time when the heavy feeling hit his stomach he didn't shrug it off; he sat turning it over in his mind, letting the motor idle. As long as he sat there, Maisie went on waving. And when he had shifted into first and rolled on down to the bottom of the hill, he looked in the rear-view mirror and saw her still waving after him. He thought suddenly that she must be having two feelings at once – half one way and half another. Half angry at him, and half sorry because she had told him so. And now she had to keep on waving.

He looked down beside him at the camera, where Miss Hattie was so securely boxed now in her single stance. But the fields he drove through shimmered uncertainly in the sunlight; the road was misted with dust, and he was driving home now not knowing if he wanted to go there or not, not knowing for sure what he thought about anyone. All he could do was put the heavy feeling out of his mind, and let only the road and the fields alongside it occupy his thoughts.

That Sunday, Joan began thinking about Simon's hair. She started out by saying, 'Simon, tomorrow morning first thing I want to find you in that barber's chair,' but Simon said, 'Aw, Joan, I don't want to go downtown.' Since that movie yesterday he had changed his mind about town; he hadn't even asked to eat in a restaurant today, and Joan could see his point. Going downtown meant people murmuring over him and patting his head, asking Joan in whispers, 'How is he taking it? Is his mother coming out of it?' while Simon stood right next to them, his chin tilted defiantly and his eyes on their faces. Little boys who were usually his friends circled him widely, looking back over their shoulders in curious, half-scared glances. They had never seen someone that close to funerals before, not someone their own age. When Simon and Joan were coming out of the movie theatre a member of Mrs Pike's church had stopped smack in front of them and said to her friend, 'Oh, that poor little boy!' Her voice had rung out clearly and hung in the air above them, making other people stop and stare while Simon pulled on Joan's hand to rush her home. She could understand it if he never went downtown again.

So instead of insisting, she said, 'Well, all right. But we've got to cut your hair at home then. Today.'

'It's not so long,' he said.

'Curls down over your ears.'

'Well, we've got nothing to cut it with.'

'Scissors,' Joan reminded him. 'Your mother's sewing scissors. Anything.'

'Okay. Tomorrow, then,' said Simon. 'Bright and early.'

'Tomorrow's a tobacco day; I won't be here. You know that.'

'Other boys have hair lots longer.'

. 'Orphans do,' said Joan. 'Will you fetch the scissors?'

He slid off the couch, grumbling a little, and went for his mother's sewing basket. It sat in one corner of the living room, gathering dust, odds and ends of other people's clothing poking out of it every which-way. (Mrs Pike was a seamstress; she made clothes for most of the women in Larksville.) The materials on the top Simon threw to the floor, making a huge untidy pile beside the basket, and he rummaged along the bottom until he brought up a large pair of scissors. 'These them?' he asked, and walked away from the basket with that heap of material still lying beside it. Joan let the mess stay there. She followed Simon into the kitchen, a few steps behind him, with her eyes on the back of his head. Where it had been pressed against the couch his hair was as matted as a bird's nest. It would take a sickle to cut all that off.

In the kitchen she found an apron and tied it around his neck, to keep the hair from tickling, and then she had him sit on the high wooden stool beside the kitchen table. He revolved on it slowly, making the seat of it squeak, while Joan looked him over and debated where to start. 'I don't know where you got all that hair,' she told him. 'When was the last time you went to the barber's?'

'I don't know.'

'It couldn't have been all that long ago.'

'You sure you know how to cut hair?' Simon asked.

'Of course I do.'

'Whose have you cut?'

'Well, my own,' Joan said.

He stopped revolving and looked at her hairdo. 'It's a little choppy at the ends,' he told her.

'It's supposed to be.'

'Will mine come out like that?'

'I surely hope not.'

'If it does, what will we -'

'Now, Simon,' Joan said, 'I don't want to hear any more about it. Let's just get it over with.'

He sighed then and gave in, but with his shoulders squinched up and his neck drawn into itself as if he thought she might slip and cut his head off. His hair grew in layers, lapping downwards like hay on a haystack. When Joan cut too much from one of the sun-yellowed upper layers it sprang straight up, choppy and jagged-edged, and she quickly pressed it down again and shot a look at Simon to see if he had noticed. He hadn't. He sat slumped on the stool, idly swinging one boot and gazing out of the window. The only sound now was the steady snipping of scissors.