The boy used to walk to his great aunt’s house after school and wait for his parents to pick him up after work. He would sit for hours next to his great uncle and draw hand turkeys. He would eat Saltine crackers out of an old tin can and eat turtle soup with a spoonful of ketchup. There were always pickles. Everything was bound and aseptic. A slight warmth pervaded the sterile clean.
When the boy got bored, he would wander amongst the old things in the basement. There was an old refrigerator in the basement with a single handle in the middle of the door. The fridge was rounded and polished like a doorknob. The boy couldn’t resist it. Sometimes he’d sit in the fridge with the door pulled to, a torn leather shaving strap pinched between the door and the jamb. He would light wooden matches inside and listen to the sound of his aunt sweeping upstairs.
He’d count quietly to himself and wait for each match to burn: 1,2, 3, out.
One day the boy had taken his pet mouse to school and brought him to his aunt’s house afterward. The mouse was named Little Abner, but the boy called him “Li’l.” He took Li’l down to the basement to show him the fridge. The boy opened the door and Li’l explored the inside of fridge while the boy looked through an old wardrobe of moth eaten clothes. Hanger after hanger of muted tones and stiff wool jackets. He spied one outfit that was wrapped neatly in a white sheet sitting on the top shelf. Inside there was a small boy’s grey suit.
He took it out and put it on: trousers, white shirt, vest, jacket and a small tie. He figured it was his uncle’s first communion suit. He looked at himself in a long mirror. He smiled and smoothed his suit with the palms of his hand and traced an invisible mustache with his index fingers—long exaggerated strokes forming wispy curly-cues giving the appearance of a handlebar mustache. He found a small red handkerchief and placed it in his front pocket all puckery like a dried apple. He eyed Li’l as he reached in the inside pocket of the suit coat.
He thumbed a corner of a small tattered cardboard placard. He called to him, “Li’l. Li’l. Abe! Abner?” Silence. He heard his aunt’s footsteps and pocket change falling on the aluminum threshold at the top of the stairs. He waited for Abner to appear as he fished a torn corner of the placard from his pocket and could make out just the slightest lettering: In loving
He listened hard but could only hear the washtub sink tip, tap, tip, tap.
