Yellow Paint

The sunflowers on our kitchen table were two months dead. Their shriveled heads drooped over the lip of the vase, bowing towards the floor like veteran soldiers that could no longer find a reason to smile. There were about a dozen of them, standing grimly in a pool of clouded water, and mold had crept up their stems, into the folds of their crinkled leaves like ancient cobwebs on a long lost watchtower.

They’d looked like that a long time, withered and putrid and darker than sunflowers ever deserved to be, and yet nobody had wanted to throw them out. It was almost like we were holding onto them for any last bit of life they might still have, even after all this time. Like maybe one day we’d come down to the kitchen and they’d be perfect again, their petals bright and golden and fully alive. Even though they really weren’t alive at all.

It was some Friday afternoon in the middle of summer. At least I thought so. I wasn’t quite sure what day it was really, but it felt like a Friday if anything. It sure wasn’t a Sunday, since my mother hadn’t dragged me out the house for church that morning, just to listen to the same old sermon I’d always heard about how we oughta pray for the people in Vietnam and how kids these days smoke too much for their own good, and to see the pastor keep looking at me like it was all my fault, even though I hadn’t caused the War and I’d sure never touched a cigarette before in my life. It wasn’t a Saturday either, since I knew my mother had left for work and had been gone for a long time.

She’d left mighty early this morning, some two hours before the crack of dawn. I’d heard her drive off real fast, zipping down the winding roads of our neighborhood, as if she were in a hurry to get to work before even the sun knew she was awake.

“Mornin’, Colton.”

The voice sent frost through my bones. I cut my gaze from the dead sunflowers to look up at the familiar boy standing across the kitchen table. He stared at me with weathered gray eyes, a half-smile sprawled across his lips. His ginger hair sat in a tangled mass like it always had, crowning a face peppered with freckles. I hadn’t even heard him come inside.

“You good?” he asked and then frowned at me like I’d said something wrong, even though I hadn’t spoken at all. “I ain’t seen you in a minute.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. It was the only thing I could say.

He pulled out a chair, scraping its iron legs across the floor, and sat down. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Just stared at me intently. Like people stare at a painting that they’re trying hard to understand but just can’t. I gazed back at the sunflowers, wilted and lifeless, trying to avoid his confrontation. Feeling his scrutinizing stare against my face.

“You look depressed,” he finally said, matter-of-factly, as if that were news to me. I didn’t answer. “Let’s go mess around town. Go fishin’ or somethin’.”

I stared back at him, hard. His gray eyes were dim and overcast, almost like he’d been awake for hours yet was still asleep. “I don’t know, Henry.”

“C’mon man, you’ve been in this house all week. You used to get out all the time.”

I sighed reluctantly, unwilling to argue with him. “Fine.”

“Sweet. It’ll be good for you.” He pounded a fist on the table and sprang up from the seat. “The weather ain’t all that bad today either.”

He was about to walk off when he suddenly stopped, his attention caught by the vase of wilted flowers. The smile dropped from his face, and he just stood and stared at them for what seemed like forever. It was so quiet I could hear the sound of him breathing as he watched them, softly and slowly, like the faint whisper of wind when it blows against the trees. I didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed them before.

After a while he said, “I bet Van Gogh would’ve loved those.”

I forced a smile just to show him I wasn’t all that depressed. “Maybe,” I said. But I didn’t think so.

* * *

It was a hot day out, the hottest it had been in weeks. Not that I could’ve known for sure, but I figured as much. The sun beat against my face as we biked to the lake, sweat running down my shoulders. Our fishing gear was in a tackle box that dangled from Henry’s rusted handlebars. He cruised several feet ahead of me, and I had to pedal hard to keep up with him.

He was a tall guy, some six and a half feet, with fast legs that had chased cars down the street just for kicks. He’d always been the one to climb the trees whenever someone had gotten a kite stuck in them, always the first one to make it to the bus stop when the two of us were racing from the schoolyard. He was a whole year older than me, seventeen going on eighteen, and it showed sometimes in the way he thought about life. But even still, there was a part of him that was almost more youthful than I’d ever be. As if he saw the world like a little kid, untouched by the worries of this life. I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. It was just… the way he was.

The lake wasn’t so far from my house, but Henry had insisted we take the long way there. I didn’t object. It had been a while since I’d biked down the back roads of our little town, where the bulbous oak trees grew in pairs and the dried yellow grass shot up so high until you couldn’t see much past it, and the streets were flanked by fenced-in chickens that straddled across the pastures, and the lonely streetlights stood like watchmen posted at every other block.

“Now ain’t that a sight?” Henry said, when we’d finally made it to the lake.

I stopped beside him and kicked down my bike stand. “Yeah,” I agreed, but I said it so quietly he didn’t hear me.

For a long moment, the two of us stood there without saying a word, just taking it all in. Staring at the shaggy willows that swept across the ground, the curly moss that floated near the rocks, the reeds that bent in the breeze like giant corndogs, and the flowering lily pads that clustered along the far edge of the water. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been here, me and Henry, but it felt like forever.

We set up near a thick pocket of bulrush, the same place we usually did. It didn’t take long for us to bait up and sling our fishing lines out into the water. Far off, the yellow bobbers floated like stagnant rubber ducks, waiting for someone to notice them.

Neither of us caught anything for the first half hour. A couple of mallards flew into the other side of the lake and paddled around the waterlilies. Henry said he bet they were best friends, and I agreed. The sunlight stretched across the water, making the tangled clusters of algae glow scarlet, and the sycamores cooled us down as we stood in their looming shadows.

I was about to ask if we should try casting near the reeds when something tugged harshly on my line and my bobber plunged into the water.

Henry pointed out at the traveling ripples. “You got somethin’! You got somethin’!” he shouted ecstatically.

I fought hard to reel it in, my fingers gripping the rod as if it were life itself I was holding onto, and Henry cheered as I dragged the bowing line through the water to pull out a whopping largemouth bass. I knelt on the bank and arrested the fish, taking hold of its bottom lip with the silver hook poking through it. A pungent odor stank from its succulent body, and the fish squirmed around violently, its bronze scales shimmering in the sunlight like tin foil.

Henry rushed over and gaped at it like he hadn’t seen a fish that big in years. “That’s a huge one.”

“Sure is.”

The fish twisted in my hands for a good minute before it finally gave up trying. Soon as it stopped moving, I drew the hook from its mouth and gave it a good look. Across its scales were several dark spots that reminded me of a cobra’s pattern, almost like freckles that darkened in the sun. Its eyes were a yellowish gray, with huge black abysses for pupils, and they stared back at me like a pair of lost marbles that had been left to dust. It was almost like they weren’t seeing anything, even though they were wide open.

Henry gave a high whistle that rang across the lake. “Sweet catch,” he said.

“Thanks.” I slid the fish back into the water, and it flopped around clumsily before wriggling away from the rocks.

Henry walked back over to where he’d been standing. “Speaking of a catch, you found yourself a girl yet?”

“Nah. Don’t need one.”

He scoffed. “I didn’t say you needed one.”

I re-baited my hook and threw out my fishing line.

“You gotta get out and talk to people, Colt.”

I smirked. “What do you think I’m doin’ now?”

There was a long silence before he said, “I won’t always be around, y’ know.”

I didn’t say anything to that. The nearby reeds rustled in the breeze, and my bobber danced back and forth.

Henry picked up a pebble and threw it across the water. It skipped along the surface a few times before sinking under, landing just inches away from his drooping line.

Once we left the lake, we biked to the old ice cream parlor on the corner of Reid St. I hopped off my bike and headed towards the shop door, but Henry didn’t follow.

“You ain’t comin’?” I asked.

“Nah, don’t want anything.” He leaned against the brick wall of the parlor and gestured to our fishing poles. “I’ma watch our stuff.”

“Okay,” I said and went inside, even though I didn’t want to go alone.

I ordered myself two scoops of chocolate in a waffle cone. It was stacked up real high, almost as high as the hills people said were all throughout Vietnam. I sprinkled on chopped pecans and a lone cherry like I always did. Except this time, the cherry tasted a little less sweet, the pecans a little more bitter.

On my way out, I met eyes with a girl I recognized who was standing in line. She had coffee brown hair and wore a sweeping dress covered in milk-white daisies. She barely wore a smile.

“Afternoon,” I said, nodding at her. She gave me a timid wave, seeming hesitant to speak.

“Hi Colton,” she said slowly. “How’s it going?”

I could feel the knot twisting in my stomach as her dark eyes stared back at me, studying my face. “Fine. Yourself?”

“Alright.” She glanced at the floor, like she was scared to say anything else. “Nice to see you.”

“You too,” I said, but it came out sounding solemn and fake, although I’d really meant it. I walked away before she could lose what was left of her smile.

The strong smell of fish rose from the tacklebox as I neared the bikes, and I told Henry we should get a move on before the shop owners kicked us off the sidewalk. We biked up to a nearby field littered with a vanilla army of dandelions, my chocolate ice cream melting down my fingers. After forcing down what was left of my cone, I wiped my sticky hand in the powdered grass, and we left our bikes and fishing gear behind to climb up the only oak tree in sight.

Henry scaled the thick branches effortlessly, like he’d been doing it all his life. He came to a cradling bough and sat on it, resting his back against the trunk. I hoisted myself up onto a smaller branch opposite him and nestled between two knobs.

“Not so bad out here, ain’t it?” he asked, staring at the open sky.

I looked at the field beneath us, so white it could’ve been snow. “Guess not.” A squirrel dashed among the branches, sprinting down the trunk with ease.

We sat for a while, watching the world as it crawled by. A flock of birds coasted towards the horizon like sentinels in the cotton sky, and a trio of yellow butterflies twirled around the oak leaves. Every now and then, a whistling breeze would kick the dandelion puffs up into the air, scattering hundreds of wishes before they had even been made.

The two of us had been silent for a long time before Henry finally spoke, his gentle voice floating off into the coming sunset. “Ah sunflower, weary of time, who countest the steps of the sun. Seeking after that sweet golden clime, where the traveler’s journey is done. Where the youth pined away with desire, and the pale virgin shrouded in snow, arise from their graves and aspire, where my sunflower wishes to go.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A poem by William Blake.”

“Sounds like somethin’ you’d write.”

He shrugged. “Could see that.”

I stripped a piece of bark off the tree and scratched my thumb against it, listening.

“Reminds me a lot of Van Gogh.”

“Yeah,” I said, even though I hadn’t really thought it myself.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head onto the tree. For a while, he didn’t say anything. Just let his mouth curl up into that same old half-smile, like he was dreaming of something real good but didn’t want to tell. “You know rumor says Van Gogh used to eat yellow paint?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I didn’t know if I believed him.

He looked at me contemplatively, and the blood in my stomach rose as his eyes cut into my own like shattered glass. It was the first time I noticed that one of them was a little more sunken than the other. “People said he did it to find happiness, but I think he was just lookin’ for a way out.”

I wanted to know what he meant by a way out, but something stopped me from asking. A slender cloud that looked like a battle horse floated across the blue, and the wind tossed more dandelions towards the sky.

Henry pulled a box of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, slowly. He took a long drag before turning to me. “Y’ know, you really should throw out those flowers you got on your table,” he advised, staring at the smoke willowing through his fingers.

“Maybe,” I said.

* * *

The sky was mostly pink as we biked the long way back to my neighborhood. I was sure Mom was home by now, heating leftovers for dinner. Henry and I flew down the winding roads, past the fields with the clucking chickens and the firelit lampposts and the hollowed oaks. This time, I rode in front, just a few paces ahead of him.

As we turned onto the street that led to my house, an old veteran cemetery emerged on our left, and Henry hollered up at me. “Hey, you mind if we walk through here a minute?”

I didn’t want to, but I rolled to a stop, dragging my feet along the ground. Henry was already getting off his bike, whistling to some tune I recognized but couldn’t place.

The cemetery was a sobering sight to take in. Just rows and rows of white marble headstones, spread out uniformly across the waving grass. Every one of them, the same. It was as if whoever had designed it wanted all those who slept here to blend in. To be forgotten.

The only difference was the flowers. Some had little bouquets in front, and some didn’t.

Henry began to amble down the rows like a stray dog, looking at every headstone he walked by. I trailed him slowly, carefully watching every movement he made. Every step he took that made the crickets jump from the grass. Every tilt of his head as he paused to look up at the blushing sunset. Every curl of his fingers when he passed another headstone without a bouquet.

It felt like forever that we walked through that cemetery, on and on as the sky grew darker, until Henry suddenly stopped, his attention caught by one of the markers. I could almost hear him holding his breath as he stood there, staring down at it.

A long moment passed before he said, “Van Gogh would’ve loved this one, don’t you think?”

But I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to think. Instead, I just stood there, staring at him like he was an old painting I was still trying to figure out. One I couldn’t look away from.

“Don’t you think, Colt?” he asked again, as if I hadn’t heard him. But I couldn’t say anything. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a bag of dandelions.

He looked up at me and frowned, his gray eyes cutting into mine again. “It ain’t anything to be afraid of,” he said.

“I know,” I answered. And I tried to believe him. I really did. But I couldn’t.

Not when I was standing there, waiting for him to smile again but he wouldn’t. Not when I was standing there, drowning in a field of people who should’ve still been alive but they weren’t.

Not when I was standing there, alone, weeping over my brother’s bouquet of sunflowers that someone had gotten up early to refresh.