Free The Cave Painter & The Woodcutter by Don Hannah

askin’,” I says.
    â€œWell, don’t get smart.”
    But I’m right. Gingerbread house’s a trap. Hansel’s locked in that cage ’cause the witch trapped him and plans to kill’m. Isn’t that somethin’ like that Herod’d do ta get his hands on the Baby Jesus? But she’s even worse’n that—she’s not just a witch, she’s like a cannibal. She plans ta get’m all fattened up so’s she can eat’m. What she wasn’t, that witch, was magic. She was just a mean old thing who ate children. No spells that I can remember, like that abracadabra, or ridin’ around on a broomstick or…
    No. She’s just old and near blind and she had a trap fer kids so she could cook’m up like a big chooky dinner on Sunday.
    Gives ya the creeps.
    Pause. An owl very faintly in the distance.
    What kept them goin’, those two, was that they had each other, they weren’t alone.
    â€œThat’s the good thing ’bout family, that, havin’ a sister or a brother.” I told my kids that.
    â€œIt’s important that ya stick together. Then y’re not alone. Ya can help each other.”
    Isn’t that why we tell’m the story? S’what it’s all about.
    I heard it with Mike at Gram’s and at Mrs. Owens’s, too, and at the Thompsons’ and probably even with Mum way back. Everybody knows it. At school it’s a picture book and Gram had it on my dad’s View-Master, but it’s always Hansel and Gretel and the gingerbread house. And they won out, they did. It was tough goin’, but Gretel shoved that witch in the oven, give’r a taste of her own medicine, cooked her up. And after, after the little duck brings’m home with the witch’s treasure, after that, then everythin’s just dandy forever.
    Was it ever a real true story? I mean, like way back? In Germany or wherever it is that they lived, that family? The Black Forest? How’d it get started? Was they real kids once upon a time?
    Mike’s smart as a whip. “What’s that house do when it rains?” he says. “Don’t it get all soggy and melt?”
    â€œIt’s a story,” they say, “just quiet up and listen.”
    â€œBut it’d get some sticky. Turn right ta mush.”
    â€œDon’t get smart.”
    â€œEnd up lookin’ like a big pile a puke.”
    Little Bobby always liked that part. That part about his Uncle Mike.
    They should a met, those two. Things would a been real different if Mike could’ve come ta see his nephew. What a different world it would a been all around. Mike comin’ ta visit us after all that time.
    â€œDad, there’s a man says he knows ya at the door!”
    â€œWhy that’s yer uncle Mike.”
    â€œYer big brother?”
    â€œOne and the same!”
    Mike comin’ back ta see us all…
    Pickin’ little Bobby up, tossin’m in the air.
    Angie goin’, “Careful now, careful.”
    All of us happy…
    I know it could never’ve happened, but what if? What if?
    Before all this, before yesterday, worst thing in my whole life was losin’ Mike. I never knew ya could feel that bad about anythin’.
    Suddenly, he erupts.
    Ya don’t teach us that, do ya? (
shouts
) Do ya?
    Don’t teach us that’s gonna happen!
    What good are ya? Can’t teach us nothin’ useful, now ya can’t even find me, can’t even find me, ya fuckers!
    Useless assholes. Useless search party assholes. I dare ya! (
shouts
) I dare ya!
    Stupid fuckers.
    Calms himself.
    You ever feel this bad? Any a you ever feel this bad?
    Waits.
    Didn’t think so.
    A moment.
    When Mom brought us ta Gram and Fa, after Dad died, I s’pose I felt bad then. But I can’t remember much, I was so little. Then Fa’s shovellin’ the driveway one night when he keels over, same as happened ta Dad. I was asleep, slept through