The Tin Can Tree Read Free

and let his shoulders sag. There were tired dark marks underneath his eyes; he hadn’t slept well. “You’re on my couch,” he said automatically. “Do I have to tell you, James? Sitting like that makes the springs go wrong.”
    “Simon’s folks are still on the hill,” said James. “We’ve got to keep him here; I promised Joan he wouldn’t sit in that house alone.”
    “Ah, sitting alone,” Ansel said. He sighed. “That’s no good.”
    “No. Will you help keep him busy?”
    “The couch, James.”
    James stood up, and Ansel swung his feet around and slid down until he was lying prone. “I don’t see how he can eat,” he said.
    “He’s hungry.”
    “I
wonder
about this world.”
    “People handle things their own ways,” James said. “Don’t go talking to him about dying, Ansel.”
    “Well.”
    “Will you?”
    “Well.”
    There was a crash of cans out in the kitchen. A cupboard door slammed, and Simon called, “Hey, James. I’ve decided.”
    “Which one?”
    “The sausage. There was only just the two of them.” He came into the living room, carrying the box of pizza mix, and Ansel raised his head to look over at him and then grunted and lay back and stared at the ceiling. Fora minute Simon hesitated. Then he walked over to him and said, “
You’re
the pizza-maker.”
    “Who said?” Ansel asked.
    “Well, back there on the hill James said—”
    “All right.” Ansel sat up slowly, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s always something,” he said.
    “Well, maybe—”
    “No, no. I don’t mind.”
    And then Ansel smiled, using his widest smile that dipped in the middle and turned up at the corners like a child’s drawing of a happy man. When he did that his long thin face turned suddenly wide at the cheekbones, and his chin became shiny. “We’ll make my speciality,” he said. “It’s called an icebox pizza. On refrigerator-defrosting days that’s the way we clean the icebox; we load it all on a pizza crust and serve it up for lunch. You want to see how I make it?”
    He was standing now, smoothing down his Sunday jacket and straightening his slumped shoulders. When he reached for the pizza mix Simon walked forward and gave it to him, not hanging back now but looking more at ease. Ansel said, “This is something every man should know. Even if he’s married. He can cook it when his wife is sick and serve her lunch in bed. Do you want an apron?”
    “No,” said Simon.
    “Don’t blame you. Don’t blame you at all. Well—” and he was heading for the kitchen now, reading the directions as he walked. His walk was slow, but not enough to cause James any worry. James could judge the way Ansel felt just by glancing at him, most of the time. He had to; Ansel would never tell himself. When he felt his best he was likely to call for meals on a tray, and when he was really sick he might decide to wallpaperthe bedroom. He was a backward kind of person. James had a habit of looking at him as someone a whole generation removed from him, although in reality he was twenty-six, only two years younger than James himself. He was thinking that way now, watching with narrow, almost paternal eyes as Ansel made his way into the kitchen.
    “Naturally there are really no
rules,
” Ansel was saying, “since you never know what might be in the icebox.” And Simon’s voice came floating back: “Fruit, even? Lettuce?” “
Well
, now …” Ansel said.
    James smiled and went over to the easy chair to sit down, stretching his legs out in front of him. It felt good to be home again. The house was a dingy place, with yellow peeling walls and sunken furniture. And it was so rickety that whenever James had some photography job that required a long time-exposure he had to run around warning everyone. “Just
sit
a minute,” he would say, and he would pull up chairs for everybody in this house and then go dashing off to take his picture before people started shaking the floors again. But