“I hope this is just on your way too, Sal. We’ve got to keep movin’, don’t we? Sometimes things happen, bad things, on the way, but we’ve got to keep movin’. If we don’t, we won’t get to the next thing, and it could really be somethin’. It could be the best something of our lives.”
The room smelled like vinegar long after she left. When Grand came in, he remarked about the smell.
He stood at the edge of the pillows and cushions.
“I bet Dad was ramblin’ off about cases.” He glanced down at the cushions, at the slight movement under them. “He used to do that to me when I was in Little League and lost a game. Here he’d come and start talkin’ about So-and-So v. So-and-So. I guess he don’t know what else to do for loss. Whether it’s a ball game or a girl. A girl.”
He laid his sweating hands on the pane. “Sometimes I wanna break this winda out, don’t you? Just break it out. It’s the only winda in the whole house that don’t open. Just a big square of glass. Out. Out.” He pressed on the glass. The cushions moved again and Grand dropped his hands. “Get better, Sal. You can help me break it out one day.”
He patted the pillows. They didn’t move again. On his way out, he looked down, his blue eyes seeming to be the only color for miles around that dark room. He’d been the only one to notice me. He kneeled and squeezed my shoulder. I wanted desperately to wrap my arms around him, but he stood before I got the nerve.
After he left, I went to the window bed. I reached in under the pillows and cushions until I found Sal’s arm, which wasn’t as thin as when he’d first arrived. The same could be said for the rest of him. Mom’s meals had done him good, though he never seemed to eat the meat. I think maybe he was the only true vegetarian.
“Stop, Fielding.” He pulled back, but I didn’t let go.
“C’mon, Sal. Come out now.”
“I said stop it.”
I pulled harder. His face was out of the cushions and pillows now — so close to mine, I could feel his hot breath. “Fielding, let go or I’ll burn the house down while you’re all sleeping.”
I let go. He slowly lay back down as he gathered the pillows and cushions in a great heap, burying himself once more.
That night I lay in bed and watched the pillows and cushions heave up and down with his breathing. I thought of fire and the house burning. I fell asleep into a nightmare of this. At the part in the nightmare when everyone was burning, their skin oozing off like some sort of goop, I woke out of breath and into the middle of the night.
I used a T-shirt to wipe the sweat off my face as I stared at the pillows and cushions scattered on the floor and leading from the window like a trail. Big cushions, little cushions, big pillows, the little fringed ones, all leading me downstairs. I heard a faint sound, one I thought splattered quite a bit.
I went toward the sound and the dark kitchen, where I found Sal crawling on his hands and knees across the linoleum. All around him were circles of yellow. I saw the emptied mustard bottles piled on top of the table.
As he crawled, he slammed his hand down onto each circle he came upon, causing the mustard to pop and splatter.
“Whatcha doin’, Sal?” I quietly asked.
“Popping all the yellow balloons,” he answered without stopping. “All the yellow balloons in the world so no more will get caught in trees. And no more girls will die because of it.”
“You know it wasn’t your fault, Sal.”
“Wasn’t it?” Pop and splatter. “I stepped on the branch.”
“No, you didn’t.”
What more could I do but lie. What more could I give him but the shortest way to the light.
“I was watchin’ you, and you didn’t even touch that branch. It fell on its own, Sal. Sometimes branches just do that.”
He slapped his hand down on the circle before him, the mustard splashing onto his face. He turned to me with yellow freckles.
“Go to bed, Fielding. You’ve got the funeral in the morning.”
* * *
By morning, the only thing remaining of the mustard balloons were the empty bottles in the trash can. The linoleum smelled of Pine-Sol. The mop still wet in the bucket. Sal didn’t leave the kitchen all night.
I was already in my black suit when Dad walked into my room, saying it was time to get up and go.
“How’s it fit?” he asked of the suit. He’d been the one to buy it for the occasion.
“Fine.” My feet shifted under the weight of it.
“You look … grown.” He felt his tucked tie. “Where’s yours?”
I pointed to the black tie draped over the back of my desk chair. “I didn’t know how to put it on.”
He went over and picked it up.
“Dad?” Grand was in the doorway. “The sheriff’s downstairs. He wants you.”
“Here.” Dad handed Grand the tie. “Help your brother with this.”
Long after he heard Dad go down the steps, Grand stayed leaned into the doorframe, the tie loose in his hand.
“You don’t know how to put it on?”
I shook my lowered head.
The floor creaked under his steps, and I closed my eyes in broken joy as I felt his fingers come gently under my collar. They lightly brushed my neck, and though his skin was hot, I felt the cold disaster of the wound we called being brothers.
“Inside out. Cross. Over and under.” His hands followed his instructions. “Are you listenin’, little man?”
I nodded.
“Pull. Tighten. Take this end here and another pull. Behind this loop. Bring it through the knot. Like this. Then just tighten. Gentle, though. There you have it.”
His hands stayed on the knot before following the tie down to straighten it.
“Fielding, look at me.”
I slowly raised my eyes, but could get no further than his chin.
“What?” Was that my voice that had come out so thin, so vanished in its presence?
He sighed and tilted his chin up, leaving me his neck, glistening with small drops of sweat. “Nothin’.”
The room echoed of this as he left. I could hear him softly close his door. He wouldn’t be going to the funeral. Neither would Mom, for the obvious reason.
I looked down at my tie and picked up its end, smelling my brother. I laid my lips against the silk and said what I couldn’t say to him. I love you.
I straightened it back and went downstairs. The sheriff was gone, and Dad was asking if I was ready. I nodded before following him out to the freshly washed Lincoln.
“What’d the sheriff want, Dad?”
“To make sure we wouldn’t be taking Sal along with us to the funeral. I told him we already sat him down and explained to him why it wouldn’t be wise for him to go.”
“Dad? I don’t know if I wanna go.”
“She was your friend, wasn’t she?”
“She was Sal’s. I was just … someone she knew.”
“Look, son, I wish he could go as much as you. As much as him. But emotions are very high at the moment. No one wants a scene at a funeral. Do we?”
Mom watched us from the window as we drove away. The handkerchief she gave me, folded in my pocket.
“By the way, do you know who used all the mustard?” Dad turned the car’s air conditioner on high. “Your mother was upset. Someone’s used it all. She puts it on her burns.”
“What burns?”
“Burns she hasn’t gotten yet. If she touches a hot pan handle or something like that. Just kitchen burns. Yellow mustard takes the sting out.”
“Dad, look.” I pointed to the field, where Sal was running toward the woods. “Stop the car.”
“The funeral, Fielding.” His hands were sweating on the steering wheel.
“Please, Dad, stop. I wanna see where he’s goin’. I’ll meet ya at the cemetery.”