“That day I came to the hospital, before your mom saw me in the hallway there, she was talking to this cop, and I overheard what he was saying. The van’s been here ever since.”
The windshield was tinted. I couldn’t tell if anyone was in the van.
“Why didn’t they tell me?” I wondered.
“Probably they didn’t want to scare you. I don’t care about scaring you.”
“I don’t scare that easy anymore.”
“That’s why I don’t care about scaring you.”
Maybe Mom intuited that I didn’t want Malcolm to see the piano just yet. She brought us a small cooler with four Cokes on ice and a plate of cookies.
We sat for a while, watching, and no one got in or out of the van.
Eventually Malcolm said, “They can’t have a toilet in there.”
“Maybe they’re catheterized like I was in the hospital.”
“Cops aren’t that dedicated.”
“They might be if they came from Manzanar.”
“What’s Manzanar?”
I told him everything I knew about it from what I’d read in the library.
He said, “Sometimes I think it’s good to be white.”
“Sometimes?”
“Most of the time, I’d rather be Samoan. You know, from Samoa.”
“Why?”
“Those guys are like six-four, weigh like three hundred pounds, but they have such smooth moves, you’d think they were dancers in another life. I’d like to be huge and strong, but graceful.”
“Maybe you’ll be a Clydesdale in your next life. Anyway, Samoans look white to me.”
“Everybody looks white to you. What do you think those cops in the van are saying about us?”
“ ‘What a couple of geeks.’ ”
“I do believe you’re psychic.”
We remained on the porch for quite a
while, and when Malcolm got up to go home, I said, “Don’t come back till Monday, and then bring your axe.”
“Why not till Monday?”
“I’m spending all weekend at the keyboard getting back into shape.”
“Bring my saxophone, huh?”
“Bring your axe.”
“You say potato, I say po-tah-to.”