They Come in All Colors

by Malcolm Hansen

  There were so many placards that it was hard for me to read them all. I weaved my way past the cramped makeshift campsite, stepped over a sleeping bag, hopped over a lantern, ducked around a teapot hanging from a campfire tripod, like I was just going about my business, whistling to myself as I made my way through them like I did this sort of thing every day of the week.

  That single block of sidewalk between Ivey’s and the Laundromat had practically been converted into a shanty town. I stopped right smack in the middle of it and puzzled over the sign leaning on the windowsill behind them. I’d seen it there as long as I could remember and had never really thought about what it meant. Now that I knew it was the cause of so much discord, I was trying to figure out how I felt about it.

  I thought about all the people Mom was always going on about who had left town for greener pastures up north back when she was just a kid. With all her talk, I just figured that what she had said about how difficult life had been back then applied to all of us. I dunno, I guess that between the droughts, hurricanes, miserable heat, and crop infestations, I felt I could understand why most anyone would want to leave a place like Akersburg under those conditions.

  My reflection was transposed over the sign: WHITES ONLY. Which made me uncomfortable. Mom’s buzz cut was fine enough and my ears didn’t stick out quite as much as Dad’s, but otherwise I didn’t like how I looked.

  I pressed my face against the window. It was dark inside. Mister Schaefer was sitting all the way in the back, beside a bucket filled with cleaning supplies. Probably playing solitaire. With one dead wife and three sons in Vietnam, who could blame him? Mister Bigelow was sitting at the counter, playing cribbage with Mister Chandler. From the looks of it, Mister Chandler was ahead. I could tell by his grin. And as I stood there, mouth open, face pressed against the sheet-glass window, I noticed that Tyler wasn’t there. I looked toward the back, but I couldn’t see him. In his place, Mister Chambers was mopping up around the booths. He came to the door and dunked the mop in a bucket and propped the door open. He wrung it out and pointed the handle over my shoulder, as if to get my attention.

  A colored fella behind me was pointing a camera at me. He was squinting into the viewfinder, squatting, moving the camera this way and that. He sure was going to a great deal of trouble to take a stupid picture. Mom and Dad usually just told me to say cheese and snapped it. Pop—a flash of light burst in my face. I hadn’t been expecting it. I opened my eyes to a bunch of bright white dots. Mister Chambers was standing there with that mop dripping in his hands and me beside him, rubbing the afterglow out of my eyes. What kind of idiot takes a goddamned picture of a kid just standing there minding his own beeswax, contemplating some crummy damned sign in a storefront window, with an overweight Mister Chambers standing right beside him with a wet mop in hand?

  Although Third Street is not the biggest street in town, it is the nicest. It’s quiet and tree-lined, with a few long driveways and big houses. Some of the trees must have just been pruned, because there were mounds of clipped branches clustered along the curb. Three blocks up, I passed Missus Hildebrandt’s house. A small pile of crab apples and silver maple flowers sat atop a larger one of cut grass. I kicked at the long, curvy catalpa capsules on my way past her trimmed hedges and considered that maybe I’d been a little quick to judge that fella with the camera. I mean, it wasn’t every day that a perfect stranger just popped up out of nowhere and took my picture with some fancy camera like that. I just wished he’d told me to say cheese.

  I cut up the street with my head in the clouds, right up there with the spires and cupolas, then came back down to earth alongside the balconies and Missus Hildebrandt, who was sitting on a wooden lawn chair wearing sunglasses and holding a sweating glass of sweet tea in front of several gentlemen from the neighborhood who were sharing a sliver of shade with her. They were patting their brows dry with bandanna kerchiefs and squinting as they chatted about those uppity niggers in town who were getting too big for their britches, fanning out like they were every day a little farther from where they started five weeks back.

  Afternoon, Mister Baxter.

  Afternoon, Huey.

  Putnam Street is a quiet, maple-lined street with expertly paved driveways. Everyone’s garbage was sitting curbside, like it did every Tuesday, mid-morning. Scotty was up the street, delivering the afternoon paper. I knew he went to a special parochial school that started a week later than the rest of us. He was slowly working his way down the street. His newspaper bag coiled around his waist every time he swung it. Two doors down, visible through a curtain billowing out of an open window, Miss Stella MacDonald was tapping out the harmony line for “Put On a Happy Face.”

  My mouth was parched. So I crossed over the Hofstetters’ front yard and headed up the flagstone-tiled walkway and up the brick steps stained with Callery pear petals, careful not to knock over the azalea sitting there. I knocked on the door. After a minute, it opened. Missus Hofstetter peeked out. I told her that it was just me.

  She begged pardon. When I just stood there looking at her, she bid me come inside before all the cool air got let out. She begged me to please not track dirt inside. So I stood just inside the now closed door and explained that I was thirsty and how I’d have used the spigot on the side of their house, but the water always comes out so hot this time of year. Of course, I could have let it run a half hour for it to cool, but by that time who knows how muddy the walkway would have gotten. Which she appreciated. Dr. Hofstetter barked out from upstairs, complaining that the afternoon paper was late.

  It’s not Scotty. It’s Buck’s boy. He’s come for water.

  Dr. Hofstetter appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Who?

  Buck’s boy.

  Buck’s boy?

  Yes.

  What for?

  Water.

  Tell him the hose is out on the side of the house.

  Oh, go back to your book.

  Missus Hofstetter glanced upstairs. When her husband left the landing, she went to the kitchen and returned with a big glass of ice water. She handed it to me and asked after Mom. I stopped gulping it down just long enough to explain how Mom was getting along okay, happy to have me out of the house now that school had started up; how excited she was about me starting the third grade; and how our crop was hard going what with Toby being sorely missed and Dad being hard-pressed for a replacement because, as it turns out, good help is very, very hard to find. Missus Hofstetter seemed impatient. She shook her head and held the door open. I just stood there, looking at her.

  Yes?

  I also wanted to say thank you.

  Missus Hofstetter pressed her lips together so hard the color left them. Don’t mention it.

  Not for the water. For helping me that day. With my arm. Remember? I wanted to show Dr. Hofstetter my cast. Thought he might wanna know that it’s healing fine.

  Well, he’s not working today.

  I headed back toward Main Street, this time on the cool side of the street, past Missus LeFranc’s yapping Yorkshire terrier, all the while hopping from one band of shade to the next, trying to convince myself that maybe the summer hadn’t been so terrible after all, and who knows, maybe there are worse things than a lifetime of truancy, before realizing that I was thirsty again.

  Nestor had an industrial-sized fan that he kept on full blast just inside the front door. The fan stood as tall as me, and standing in front of it was like entering one of those wind tunnels NASA uses to train its astronauts. I loved it. I stood there until my ballooning shirt didn’t stick to me anymore, then slid my money off the counter and went to see what was keeping him.

  Nestor’s boy, Ernie, was checking someone’s oil. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped at the windshield. The license plate was from out of town. It was just some tourist on his way to Cape Canaveral. I could spot them a mile away; the binoculars wedged on the dash were a dead giveaway. So I headed between two pickups, a Ford Fairlane, a Dodge Dart, a Ply
mouth, and a rusted-out Chevy sitting up on blocks to the adjacent service bay. He was clanging away on something in the engine compartment and called out, Whaddya want?

  Grape cola.

  Leave ten cent on the counter and help yourself.

  I only got a quarter.

  Nestor made change for me inside. I opened his door, felt a gush of sticky heat envelop me, took two hellacious gulps, and froze. Dad was supposed to be out in the field, trying out a man named Humphrey Moore. That much I knew. He had made arrangements with the penitentiary up the road to get a handful of inmates on loan to help with our threshing, since no one else would. Anyway, he had this pigheaded idea that he needed to see Moore work the thresher before taking him on. Mom thought that ridiculous. Who else was he gonna get? Besides, the dossier or service order or docket or whatever it was that had come in the mail said that on top of a reduced sentence for good behavior, Humphrey Moore was sixty-four years old and strong as a bull, and had been farming peanuts since before Dad could tell a peanut from a pecan. Which I suppose is why Mom had thought a trial run humiliating, even for a common criminal. Didn’t bother Dad, though. Business was business. Of course, all I cared about was what he was in for—but no one would tell me that.

  Anyway, Dad was headed straight for me, with some papers in his hands that he was looking over. I got the impression that he’d just come out of the bank. He hadn’t seen me. I had turned on my heels, set to bolt, when he called out my name.

  He looked happy to see me. He strode up alongside me, took my hand, and led me out of the sunlight and into the cool under the canopy of trees lining the sidewalk. He smiled and asked if it didn’t feel better in the shade.

  I snatched my hand back.

  No, goddamnit, it doesn’t. Okay? I like the sun! Like the way it feels on my face! So there!

  Dad looked at me funny, then changed the subject. How’s Edna?

  Fine!

  She sure let you out awfully early.

  So?

  She like your puzzle?

  Loved it!

  See? What’d I tell ya? Now, whatcha doing out of school this early? I hope she doesn’t make a habit of it. How in the world are you ever going to learn anything if she always dismisses you this early? I swear to God, teachers hardly work anymore. Not like when I was a kid. It’s the trade unions, son. They got everyone by the balls. They get days off for this, half days for that. Some teacher-development program or other excuse that they’re using precious class time for. What? Is it some important person’s birthday I don’t know about? Or was it on account of your arm? You look a little pale. You sure you’re feeling okay?

  Dad took my hand. His was so big it seemed to gobble mine right up. I tugged on it and pointed at the topside of his hand.

  Why am I darker than you, Pop? Answer me that. Why?

  Dad begged pardon, not to me but to the colored man carrying a sandwich board. He was handing out fliers in front of the Rexall. He asked if we wanted one. Dad said, No, thank you, and we entered the store. The doorbell jingled, and Mister Wimple appeared from the back, wiping his hands in a white hand towel.

  Whaddya got for sunstroke?

  For you?

  No, him.

  Feeling dizzy?

  I shook my head no.

  Mister Wimple came around from the counter, stooped to my eye level, and tilted his head back. He was examining me from up close.

  Buck, I hate to break it to you, but your boy don’t have sunstroke.

  Dontcha think I know sunstroke when I see it, Phil? Jesus Christ. Musta had it—what?—twenty-five times since I was his age. If there’s one thing I know, it’s what sunstroke looks like. The boy got real sick from that broken arm, you know. Had to go to the hospital and everything. And now he’s out on a day like this, when it’s so hot I didn’t bother spraying acephate because the cucumber beetles aren’t even troubling to come out of the dirt. And I got news for you, Phil. When it’s too hot for cucumber beetles, it’s too hot! The boy’s got sunstroke, and that’s final.

  Does your face hurt when you smile?

  Uh-uh.

  He doesn’t even look like he burns, Buck.

  Heck, I dunno. Maybe his blood sugar’s low. You got something sweet?

  Mister Wimple handed me a gumdrop, then watched me chew on it. Feel better?

  I shook my head. Then I nodded. I did and didn’t at the same time.

  If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it a million times, Buck. It’s because school’s started, ain’t it? “Paw, my back hurts. Ow ow ow ow ow ow. I can hardly move.” Well, son, you’ll have to do better than that if you wanna outfox me. Can’t say as I blame him, though. Who in Christ’s name wants to sit at a desk all day in weather as beautiful as this? Besides, that Missus Mayapple hasn’t changed a textbook in thirty years, Buckaroo. Can you believe it? Still using the same ones we used. Lord have mercy, she was in here Tuesday stocking up on enough Bufferin to last the entire school year, and she says to me, “How much can change in a few short years?” “A few short years?” Have you seen her lately? A few short years!

  Mister Wimple slapped the countertop and ambled back around it.

  • • •

  I SAT DOWN beside Dad on the bench out front. The sun was a ball of fire balanced atop the Laundromat. The colored man with the fancy camera was pacing in front of S&W. He had on a sandwich board that read I AM A MAN, too. “I Am a Man”? Flashing that fancy camera around like that for all of us to see! It should have said I AM A RICH MAN. I felt like kicking him in the teeth. I just wanted my old life back.

  Mister Gray emerged from the Laundromat with an armload of neatly folded clothes. He watched the man with the sandwich board pace for a minute, then continued to his car. Dad mussed up my hair.

  Aw, don’t listen to Phil. You just tan easily.

  I looked away. What about Mama?

  Huey, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times—people think it’s a piece of cake, but it’s not, being a diamond in the rough in a small backwoods community such as ours. No, sir. Nothing worse than being a beauty in a small town. A few people love you, but most hate you. You’ve seen it, right? I know you have. The men want her and can’t have her, and the women wanna be like her, but can’t. In many respects, you’re better off being born ugly, I say. The mean-spirited housewives who make it their life’s work to make sure one person can never enjoy her God-given beauty—trust me, they leave the ugly women alone. And the sooner we accept it as a matter of course, the better. Okay?

  Enough of that nonsense! I’m sick of it!

  Dad paused. He looked startled. He recomposed himself. Fine. What about Mama?

  Does she just tan easily?

  What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

  You know what it means. Go on. You can tell me—I can handle it. What is she, then? I wanna know what she is.

  She’s your mother, for crying out loud.

  So it’s true?

  If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, and I’ll tell you again—no one knows. Not even her. Besides, what difference does it make?

  It matters to me!

  Why?

  It just does!

  Did someone tell you that?

  They don’t need to! You don’t think I have eyes and ears?

  Huey, listen to me. Your mother’s what’s known in the scientific community as a phenotypic anomaly. Okay? Someone of unknown morphology. A racial enigma—something so new they don’t have a name for it yet. You watch Wild Kingdom, right? Well, it’s like a newly discovered animal that they haven’t figured out where to put it in the classification system yet. Okay? So it’s pointless to even bother asking. Because—well—the truth is that if people can’t agree, we might never know. Now, I could make something up if that would make you happy. But I doubt it would make you happy, because you want the truth. And the truth is that no one knows. Pure and simple. So there’s nothing more that I can say. At the end of the day, you’r
e just going to have to accept that even if she is what you think she might be—which she isn’t—her being one wouldn’t make you one. Okay? You’re just going to have to accept that you’re different. That’s all there is to it.

  Different, different, different! That’s all you ever say. Well, I’m sick of being different!

  Being different isn’t a bad thing, Huey. It just means you’re an exception. And the world’s filled with exceptions. Now take me, for example. Heck. My skin’s a little tan, too. But that don’t make me colored, now does it?

  I don’t care if the kids at school ain’t nice to me, Pop. I don’t want to go to no colored school. Please, God, don’t make me!

  Someone said that to you?

  And what about her family?

  Someone said something, didn’t they?

  How come you never talk about them?

  Because they’re not around anymore.

  Where’d they go?

  They’re dead.

  Which war?

  Gallstones, or something like that. None of them seemed to last very long.

  How come?

  They just weren’t cut out for this world, I guess. Who knows?

  I tried to say something, but Dad slapped the bench. Goddamnit, son. Gallstones are things in your stomach that can kill you. And no, I don’t have none. And neither does your mother.

  I closed my mouth.

  Any more questions?

  What about Grampa Hicks? Was he a nigger?

  For God’s sake, son, dontcha you see those people across the street? That’s exactly the kind of talk that brought them here. Now hush with that talk.