The Summer That Melted Everything(82)

“Grand?”

He looked out at the columns of the Parthenon painted on his walls. His bedroom was Greece, and Mom had made it as classic as Aristotle.

“They’re gonna throw stones at the house, Fielding. Later tonight, they’re going to throw stones. Yellch told me. I saw ’im just now.”

“I thought—”

“That he don’t speak to me no more?” He finished my sentence with a look down. “Yeah. I thought him warnin’ me ’bout the stones, I thought it might mean we could be friends again. But he said he was just tellin’ me ’cause of that time I saved ’im from the stones.”

“Why they gonna throw stones? ’Cause of you?”

I thought for a moment he’d ask me to call him a faggot just one more time. The way he looked at me, it was as if family was the point of collapse and all happiness was going, gone, and impossible.

“No, Fielding, not because of me. Not this time, at least. They’re doin’ it ’cause of Sal.”

“What should we do?”

“Stay away from the windas, I reckon.”

“We will do more than that.”

We turned to Dad’s voice and him standing in the doorway. He told us to follow him outside to the cannas. Along the way, Sal tagged on and I told him about the coming stones. His voice cracked when he apologized.

“It’s because of me.”

Dad said everything would be all right. Then he instructed us to pull up all the cannas. Mom hovered on the porch, yelling at us to stop. Dad said, to my surprise, “Come out and make us.”

She placed her foot on the top porch step. It was the farthest I’d ever seen my mother from the house. “Another,” I whispered. “Come on, Mom, just one more.”

She looked up at the sky, yanked her foot back, and shrugged her shoulders, probably said the word rain. We jerked up the cannas harder, and she looked away. When we returned to the porch with the flowers, she asked for one. Sal handed her an Alaska.

And then we waited. On the front porch we sat. The flowers were so tall, I felt like I was holding another me. We waited in silence for the danger ahead. No longer ahead, coming around the corner. Marching down the lane. Bare feet slapping dirt and led by a short man in white.

Mom lifted the bundle of flowers from Sal and added them to Dad’s.

“Best if they not see ’im.”

With Sal and Mom under the darkness of the porch, me, Dad, and Grand walked to the edge of the yard. First they came fast, determined to use the stones in their hands. Stones that filled their palms and stretched their fingers into scary bends at the knuckles.

They slowed when they saw us, looking around at each other, uncertain of what to do. They had not discussed this situation. They had planned to see only the brick of our house, the windows, the door. It’s easy to throw stones at these things. It is not so easy to throw stones at people they know. People not like the boy and the devil they’d created from that very image.

They met us at the edge of our yard. They were quiet. We were quiet. Somewhere a cricket wasn’t.

Finally, Dad spoke. “Who wants one of my wife’s blue ribbon cannas? Hmm? All they cost is a stone. One stone for a flower. Sounds like a bargain to me.”

He took a step toward them.

“What about you?” He offered a flower to a woman biting her lip and sweating above it. The woman looked down at the stone in her hand, turned it over. She tried to look at the house, but couldn’t get past Dad or the flower.

“All right.” She let go of the stone and took the flower before hastily moving to the back of the group.

“And you?” Dad was making another sale.

Grand was offering his own flowers. Those in the crowd in front of me stared, waiting to see if I too would be something to stop their throwing.

“A flower for your stone?” I stepped forward.

And there we three were, slowly dismantling the mob that had so wanted to tear us apart. We tossed the stones into a big pile in the front yard. Every click of stone against stone made me flinch, made us all flinch behind petals and stems.

As I was handing a flower over, I saw Grand slowly extend a Russian Red to Yellch. Without a word, Yellch gave his stone to Grand. Because their hands lingered for so long in the exchange, you could from afar have thought they were merely friends, or gardeners at the very least, holding hands and talking flowers.

In the back of the crowd, I saw Elohim. No one had given him a flower yet, so I asked him in my best voice, “A flower for your stone, Mr. Elohim?”

He held up his empty hands. And yet wasn’t that whole crowd just one big stone for him?

“Do you remember when you threw stones at me, Fielding? Don’t lower your head like that. Look at me. Do you remember?”

I nodded.

He nodded too. “I hope one day you know what that feels like.”

He took the flower and turned away, the crowd going with him.

Years later, when I was standing on my last roof, the stones finally came for me. They came sudden and from the sky. They hit cars and dinged. They hit the slate roof and broke the tiles I was standing on. Still, while others ran inside, I stayed.

“Hey, buddy, you’re gonna get killed up there in this hail.”

But I stayed and spread my arms out, tilting my face up, the wound before the scar and I, dear Elohim, finally knowing what it feels like.