Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

In the Potters' bedroom the clock struck four, whirring and choking before each clang. James lay tensed, counting the strokes, although he already knew how many there would be. He had slept only in patches all night, and even in his dreams he was searching streets full of people for the thin stooped figure of his brother. In the last dream it had been a year ago – that time they had called from ten miles away to tell him Ansel had been run over, but neglected to add it was only a bicycle that had done it. After that he couldn't sleep at all. He thought of all the things that had happened to Ansel in the past, the really serious things, and all the things that might be happening to him tonight. When the clock had stopped whirring he found that he was frowning into the darkness so hard that the muscles of his forehead hurt. Then, as if that clock had been some sort of musical introduction, a faraway voice began singing outside:

There's sunshine on the mountains,

And spring has come again…

James sat up and pulled back the curtain. Outside it was pitch black, with a handful of small stars scattered like sand across the blue-black sky. The trees beyond the field were only hulking dark shapes, and not one light glimmered from the town behind them.

My true love said she'd meet me,

But forgot to tell me when.

He climbed out of bed and untwisted the legs of his pyjamas. At his bedroom wall there was one sharp tap, questioning (he had learned to read Miss Lucy's thimble language), and he called, 'It's all right, Miss Lucy.' She resumed her pacing again, with her robe trailing her footsteps like a murmuring companion. James shot out of his room, still buttoning his pyjama top, and went downstairs in the dark. The voice was nearer now.

I was walking down the track, Lord,

With a letter in my hand,

A-reading how she'd left me

For that sunny Jordan land.

The front door was open but the screen was hooked shut. James pushed the hook up, jabbing his finger, and swung the screen door open. Then he walked across the porch barefoot, with the cold rough grain of the wooden floorboards stinging the soles of his feet. Around his ankles the cuffs of his pyjamas fluttered and ballooned and nearly tripped him (they were Ansel's, and too long); he bent to roll them up. Then he descended the steps, scowling into the dark as he tried to see. He was halfway down the path before he stopped, more by sensing someone in front of him than by seeing him. Ahead of him was a long tall shape, swaying gently, smelling of bourbon. The voice was so close now that James could feel its breath.

Oh, there's sunshine on the hills, Lord,

And the grass is all of gold…

His reedy voice was piercing, but the thinness of it made it seem still far away. James stepped closer. 'Ansel,' he said.

My love has gone and left me,

And I'll cry until I'm old.

'Ansel,' James said again.

'I'm singing, please.'

'Come on in.'

He took Ansel by the arm. It was stone cold; he could feel the bone underneath. When he pulled Ansel toward the porch Ansel came, but lifelessly and with the shadow that was his face still averted. 'People keep asking you in nowadays,' he told the dark. 'They got a thing about it.'

'Careful,' said James. 'We're coming to the steps.'

'The Potters downright lock you in. Slide little bits of machinery around. You mind if I finish my song?'

'I certainly do.'

'I might just finish it anyway. Where you taking me, James?'

'In,' said James, and half lifted him up the first step. Ansel was as limp as a rag doll. His limpness made James realize suddenly how angry he was at Ansel, after all this worrying and waiting; instead of guiding him so carefully, he felt like giving him a good shove into the house and having done with it. 'Get on in,' he said, and took his hand away from Ansel's arm. Ansel gave him a deep lopsided bow and entered first.

'Certainly nice of you to ask me,' he told James. 'Certainly are a hospitable man.'

'If you're hungry, Ansel -'

'I'm starved.'

'Cook up some eggs,' said James, and began making his way across the dark living room toward the stairs. Behind him Ansel said, 'Hey, now -' but James paid no attention. The way he felt, he couldn't even make a cup of coffee for Ansel; he had been worrying for too long, and all he wanted now was sleep. Already he was unbuttoning the tops of his pyjamas, preparing to go back to his bed.

'Don't you have food waiting?' Ansel asked.

'Nope.'

'Don't you even care if I come back?'

'You know how to fry an egg.'

'Well, I'll be,' said Ansel, and sat down suddenly on something that creaked. 'I take it back, James. What's so hospitable about you?'

The stairs were narrow, and James kept stubbing his toes against them. He touched the wall to guide himself, feeling the ripples and bubbles of the wallpaper as he slid his fingers along it. Behind him Ansel said, 'You mad at me, James?' but James didn't answer. He could already hear the tapping sound that was coming from upstairs. Miss Lucy must be worried.

'I reckon you're wondering where I was at,' Ansel said, and there was another creak when he stood up again. 'You always do wonder.' He banged into something, and then his footsteps wavered uncertainly toward the stairs. 'You're taking all my places from me. Once I tell you, I can't go back no more. How long you guess it'll be before I've used up every place there is?' He was climbing the steps behind James now. His voice rang hollowly through the stairwell. For a minute James paused, listening to him coming, and then he continued on up and reached the top, with his hand still on the wall so that he could find his room. 'It's all a question of time,' Ansel said sadly. 'Time and geography.'

'If you're coming to sleep in my room,' James told him, 'you'd better shut up that talking.'

'Well, I only want to explain.'

'I'm sleepy, Ansel.'

'I only want to explain.'

James kept going, heading in the direction of Miss Lucy's tapping thimble. He could hear Ansel's hands sliding along behind his now on the wall, and then the sliding sound stopped and there was a click as Ansel snapped the hall light on. For a minute the light was blinding. James screwed his eyes up and said, 'Oh, Lord -'and Ansel turned the light off again, quickly and guiltily. 'I just thought,' he said, 'as long as we had electricity -'

'It's four a.m., Ansel.'

'What're you, wearing my pyjamas?'

'Go to hell, will you?'

'I never,' said Ansel, but James was past listening. He was in the bedroom now, and on his way to bed he reached out and knocked on Miss Lucy's wall for her to stop that tapping. She did. He eased himself down between the sheets, which were cold already and messy-feeling. When he was lying flat he closed his eyes and wished away the figure of Ansel, standing like a long black stick and swaying in the bedroom doorway.

'I wisht I knew what was wrong with you,' Ansel said. 'You angry with me, James?'

'Yep.'

'I only went out for a walk.'

'You usually end up half dead after those walks. It's me that's got to nurse you back.'

'Well, wait now,' Ansel said. 'I can explain. All you need to do is listen.'

‘Can I listen when I'm asleep?' asked James, and turned over on his side with his face to the window. He could hear Ansel's feet shuffling into the room, and he knew by the soft thumping noise that he had reached the other bed and was sitting on it.

'I tried and I tried,' Ansel told him. 'I went to the Pikes' first off, but Simon don't like me any more. I went to the Potters', and they locked me in and requested news of my hemoglobin. What could I do? At the tavern I said, "Charlie," I said, "I got a problem." But all Charlie did was sell me hard liquor under the counter; he didn't listen to no problem.'