Red Delicious (story) (Patreon)

Apples aren’t red. Apples are cold and crisp. I took a bite and someone  sat down. This is Emmett, Sherri said. When Sherri went to the little  girl’s room, Emmett asked me whether I knew he was Indian or not from  his voice. I told him no. He sounded just like everyone else around  here. I told him I knew he was Indian from the joke a boy made under his  breath at the next table, about huffing gasoline, when Emmett came into  the restaurant. He let me touch his face, so I could see his big Indian  nose.
 

A week later, Emmett took my fingers and touched them to the area around  my vagina. He put them against warm skin. “What colour is this?” he  said. “Did anyone ever tell you?” His voice was so quiet. It was a  pleasure to listen. “It’s bright, bright blue,” he said.
 

Emmett’s mother let him take the car once, to go for groceries. It had  windows that you could roll down. I couldn’t get over it. When I was a  little girl I used to roll and unroll the window when we went for Sunday  drives. Now our car has electric windows. Everybody’s does. With a  button, god knows what is happening. I like to feel the window move. I  like to know. I rolled down the window and fastened my seatbelt. Then I  rolled it back up again. Then I rolled it down.
 

The sun is bright, or the moon is bright. That is what people would tell  me. This light is bright. Grapefruit insides are bright pink. I didn’t  get it. I used to tell him that. It was frustrating. Like colours. I  heard the click of his pocket knife. “This is bright,” Emmett said, and  he cut my thumb.
 

Emmett had six apples in a bag, three each. We stood where I could hear  the cars rushing down below. “Tell me when,” Emmett said. A car was  coming. It rumbled, then wooshed. Another car: Rumble. One, two, Woosh.  Another rumble, then, “Now,” I said. And we dropped six apples. Glass  cracking and brakes squealing. I unfolded my cane, and later showed a  man my blind card. We were the innocent blind girl and her doting  boyfriend. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” the angry man asked. I  felt Emmett’s protective arm around my shoulder. “Sir, I think that was  in poor taste,” he said.
 

“Can you hear people’s hearts beating?” Emmett asked me. “Can you tell  if they’re lying? If you lose one sense, your other senses compensate.  You get super hearing.” I told him, “No, but people can change colour  for me. When my mother broke her finger, she was pink, crashing around  the house. Then she was suddenly green.” He pulls me closer in the front  seat of his own mother’s car. “What color am I right now?” he whispers.  He’s pulling at my belt. He’s violet. He’s rose. He’s orchid white.
 

The car roared up the hill and I felt heavy. Then all of a sudden I was  floating. My stomach was somewhere below me. Then it was over. “That was  blue,” Emmett said beside me. “That was what color the sky is.”
 

Emmett died in a car accident, someone told me outside the school. It  was another one of his jokes. Oh no, Emmett is dead. I better throw my  arms up and cry. He’s standing across the street, waving because he  knows I can’t see.
 

They let me touch him before the funeral, so that I could say goodbye.  It wasn’t him. They got the big nose right, but it was the wrong colour.  Emmett’s mother said, “It didn’t feel real until I saw him.” I sat up  straighter, expecting Emmett’s voice, “I felt that comment was in poor  taste.” But all there was was the air conditioner and her wet breathing  and red.

-Joey Comeau