The tiles are three unspectacular colors and they are brown, tan, and yellow. None of these colors are my favorite or my worst. Those are orange or brick red, the best, and the ones that are repugnant are peach and aqua green. The tiles are small, not more than two little inches in size and they're all over the entire floor. I lean over far and my legs dangle above the tiles from my throne. The throne is what my brother Michael likes to call the toilet. The view to the tiles sometimes gets blocked by one of my blue-starred bicentennial shoes swinging off my tingling leg. Mother says I have to give my bicentennial shoes to the poor children because now they're way too little for me.

There are many situations with the tiles. I'm always having to negotiate pathways between them. Touching the brown can kill. Skipping every second tile will keep me safely in touch with tans. Or I pit one against the other-the poor yellows plot the overthrow of the sinister tans; or the barbarian browns conquer all tans and yellows. All in all, the issues with the tiles are never resolved. A rap at the door or a strict parent call always ends these occasions. Begrudging, I lift my Billy the Kid pants above my waist and slink out. Criticism and crossness await from Mother. It's this type of thing:

"Have you really been in there for the past two hours?"

"A seven-year old should know better than to pass all that time in a dark, smelly room!"

"I didn't hear a flush, young man."

It is during one of the tile sessions that God first puts the idea into my head. The browns force the yellows to force me to make a difficult decision. If I do not make a choice, all of the poor yellows will perish. All of the yellows. I try to choose but I cannot. My dog Tucker or my bear Willard. Willard Bear or Tucker Dog.

I know my best friend Willard Bear is only a stuffed animal. I know that he doesn't speak out loud and that he's not an able swimmer. I understand that I am the only one in my class who still brings a stuffed creature to school every day. But Willard is special. I pulled off his plastic black eyes so he could see. I even take him in sometimes to help with my problems with the tiles. I asked Grandpa to build Willard a cradle, even though that's something more for girls. Willard doesn't use the cradle much. Willard and I prefer that he sleeps on the bed with me. Anyway, Grandpa built my bed too. Mother says I made Grandpa use up a lot of his elderly time and energy for nothing.

Tucker was Cousin Katie's dog first. They moved away so we got to keep him. Everybody talks about what a gentleman Tucker is. He is a collie which means he has loads of fur. But not like Lassie. Tucker is all black and white with gold eyebrows. In the summer he gets too hot. Last time, Mother took him to the groomers and they shaved off all his fur on accident. Mother just wanted them to get rid of his snarls. Proud Tucker looked like a big weasel. His head was bigger than his whole body. Mother said Tucker was embarrassed by having his hair cut. She said Tucker was real unhappy and that's why he slunk 'round the house looking all skinny and horrified. When I touched him, Tucker felt like warm dough, not like a collie is supposed to feel. Anyway, Mother told Michael and me to stop shrieking "Weasel!" because how would we like it if somebody made fun of our hair cut and called us rodent names.

So I thought on the choice for days and days. I talked to Michael about it because he's older and gets the best grades in his class. He was practicing his trombone and so he didn't care too much about what I was saying. I said, "If you had to choose between Tucker and Garfunkel, who would you choose?" Garfunkel was Michael's favorite stuffed animal. He was a beat up old polar bear that was twice smaller than Willard. Michael hadn't torn out Garfunkel's eyes because he said that I was retarded for saying that Willard's vision was obstructed. Michael didn't play with Garfunkel too much anymore so it wasn't a perfect comparison by any means. But as I said, Michael is the smartest kid in the fifth grade and he knows about Egyptians and Copernicus and Ty Cobb.

He said, "Why would I choose?"

This was a bad question for him to ask because I didn't want to explain about the tiles. So I just pulled on the bottom of my shirt until he gave me an answer.

"It's no question. Tucker. He's alive. Garfunkel is just a toy." I thought on this for a couple of hours. Definitely Michael was right. Tucker was alive. And even though Tucker had a bad haircut and was embarrassed and hid under the back porch, he was more alive than Willard. Tucker breathed and pooped and was alive to every sort of person. Whereas Willard was only alive for me so it would have been wrong for me to take Tucker away from Father, Mother and Michael. Plus, Cousin Katie just gave us Tucker a year ago, and if we'd already let him have a terrible hair cut and be dead, she'd think we were squirrelly when it came to taking care of her gentleman black collie.

I climbed up on the throne and got comfortable and did my business. After a time I spoke in my mind to the browns who were forcing the yellows to force me to make a decision. I told them that I chose Willard as the one that wouldn't be around anymore. Then I got involved in certain negotiations with the tans and the yellows. This took a lot of time because I was also trying to ascertain a route from one corner to the other without touching the browns. Before too long, Father rattled the door knob and I knew I had to get out.

Father held a baseball outside of the bathroom. I watched him turn it round and round in his hand. The red stitches made a deep dotted mark on his palm. He said, lets go outside and I nodded, fine.

It was hot out in the backyard and the lawn had been mowed so it smelled like chives had been fried on the stove. Father wore his Phillies hat and so did Michael who did whatever Father did. I wore an Astros hat because orange is my favorite color, but not peach. I'm scared of the ball and Michael throws it too hard on purpose. It's difficult for me to be too concentrated because I'm hot, and the dead chives are frying and I feel guilty about Willard and choosing him. Tucker is somewhere under the deck panting and embarrassed because he has no hair and he doesn't even come out to thank me for not choosing him. Father laughs whenever I get hit in the head with the hard ball and I get boiling angry.

I go inside and to my room. Willard is there same as always smiling at me from the bed and not from the cradle that Grandpa spent a lot of time and effort making. I hope Willard doesn't know that I picked him and I wonder what the tiles are planning.

The tiles start to force me to make even harder choices. Grandpa vs. Tucker. Grandma vs. Cousin Katie. Grandma and Grandpa usually lose the choices because they're older and I figure in the Yukon the Eskimos put old people on ice flows so its understandable to choose them. Then God works with the tiles so I'll make other hard choices. These have a tendency to always be about Father. It's Father versus Mother, Michael versus Father, my friend Nat versus Father. And Father loses. But each time, I go to his study and I see Father and he's fine and he shows me different lands on his globe of the world and I wonder what God is doing with the tiles.

Mother tells me she's going to disallow me to go in to see the tiles anymore. She says I spend far too much time there and that I should be out raking the yellow grass or reading the King James Bible and not doing God only knows what in a dark lavatory. She also doesn't like it that I've learned how to lock the door like a grownup. So now I can't be taken out unless Michael gets the butter knife and jimmies the lock.

I empty the silverware from the dishwasher and it takes hours. Mother doesn't understand why I can't just put things in proper places and be done. But the spoons are good and kind and the forks don't trust the spoons so there's all sorts of problems. The silverware though doesn't make me make choices and that's a relief. One day I am helping the spoons out of a certain predicament and I hear Mother on the phone kind of worried talking about Father. I leave the kitchen where Mother is talking and go all the way up to their bedroom which is up the stairs and a long walk away.

I see Father on the bed and he is wearing no shirt and his body is a little red. I put my hand on his forehead and he doesn't move and I hear little breaths jumping around inside his stomach. My hand is wet from touching him. I don't want to wake him up because I think he has the croup and so I leave fast. I go to the tiles and bring Willard and pray that my choices not count. But the tiles don't really tell me anything even though I've spent a lot of time trying to keep the peace in the lavatory between all the browns, tans and yellows.

One day soon, Michael cracks open the door with the butter knife and he is wearing a suit. I pull my suit pants back up over my waist and Michael snickers all evil at me because he saw me without pants bare naked on my bottom half. I pull Willard from the floor and bring him into the car even though Mother says, "Don't bring Willard Bear he gets carsick," but I know she's trying to play a trick because she thinks Willard is clutter.

When we stayed at Grandma's for a week, Mother sat us on the wool couch that makes me itch. She kneeled down in front of me and Michael and Grandma and Grandpa stood behind her. Also Aunt Linda and Cousin Katie were there but I don't really know where they were exactly in the house at that particular time. Mother said "Boys, I have bad news." She started shaking and crying which she never does and so I got nervous and hot. Then she said, "your father......" And she sobbed which never happens, and so did Michael, and so after a minute I did too even though I wasn't surprised as much as I was terrified of Mother and Michael.

The car takes us to the hospital which is shiny and smelly with old people moaning near the entrance in plastic dresses. Even the men. My friend Nat's father is there and he meets us and one of the nurses tells my mother that Nat's father has been there every single day.

We get let into Father's room and I see him lying there. I'm nervous and feel like a ghost is dancing in my body because Father looks so different and he isn't moving and everyone acts quite serious. Nat's father lifts me onto the bed and Mother tells me to talk to Father. I can't really speak but I run my hand over his shaved head where underneath there is a lot of tumors. Mother says there is not enough time for them to find a cure and that there'd have to be a miracle. She said the tumors keep having babies and covering up the brain until all Father does is sleep forever and go to heaven early. I can't get used to the lack of hair on Father's head and he is just propped up for everybody to look at without him even knowing it. I touch his face and its scratchy and then notice his head again which has a big Frankenstein scar across it where the doctors opened it up. I wonder why the doctors can't take out the tumors and all their babies if they can open up Father's head but I don't want to ask Mother because she'll shake again.

We are in the backseat going home. I know Michael is angry at God for what He did to Father and I want to tell him that God isn't so bad because He kind of let me know beforehand what would happen. I stay away from the tiles for a few days because I'm afraid they'll make me do more choices and I want a miracle for Father like I've seen on the television or when Sleeping Beauty comes back to life after all that time in bed.

Mother takes us back to Grandma's for a time. Michael and I play croquet in the yard and Grandpa lets us ride with him on the mower and tells us long stories about being a Mennonite child. People stop by with presents for us and tell us they're so so sorry. I chase rabbits barefoot in the garden and dream about the tiles at night.

On a hot evening, Mother gets a phone call from the hospital. Father is dead. I am in the guest room with Michael and we share a lacy girl-type bed. Michael looks out the window and screams at God for being so cruel. I feel bad because Michael wanted to be Father and so it's a particular problem for him. But I'm upset that Michael is screaming at God and I yell back, "Its not His fault, Its not His fault."

I can't sleep that night and I don't want to get out of bed and see Mother in a bad state. I look at Willard on top of the bedspread and I wish that God had taken Willard instead of Father because Willard is only alive to me and not everybody else. But I think I must have been gotten out of the worst of the grief, because God had told the tiles to prepare me for these things.

I wish God had let Mother see the tiles. We were watching the hostages get released from Iran on the television a little time after the funeral and Mother was shaking again like she does a lot now. We were sitting on the yellow couch with all the faded stains from where Michael and I'd gotten sick and vomited over time. I could barely get out the words but I said, "Mother, why are you crying? The people are happy." She told me with shivers, "All of these people are getting their families back. Why can't we get our family back?" We watched all these Americans getting off planes and getting big hugs from their families. There was a lot of joy on the television but different from the bicentennial. And me and Michael and Mother, we just sat like icicles on the throw-up couch.

Tonight, I went back in and looked long and hard at the tiles. The browns and tans and yellows. I demanded that I be able to talk to Father. I told God He absolutely had to give me a miracle because Mother and Michael were too sad and that this had to stop. But I guess He'd done all He could because the tiles looked back up at me like a regular old bathroom floor. And that was the last time I ever tried to talk to the tiles.

---

Return to CONTENTS