Free The Cave Painter & The Woodcutter by Don Hannah Page B

And ya have to be careful ’bout that though ’cause people hear ya, think y’re crazy. They make fun a ya. Angie, even, sometimes, was mean about that. About catchin’ me talkin’ ta myself.
    She’d be like, “Who’s in there with ya?”
    â€œNobody.”
    â€œWho ya talkin’ to?”
    â€œNobody, I’m sittin’ on the throne.”
    â€œThen knock it off. Ya sound all stupid. Ya want the kids ta think y’re crazy in the head?”
    So I tell’r, “I’m just figurin’ things out! I’m just tryin’ ta figure things out out loud!”
    (
shouts
) I don’t care if ya can hear me! Don’t give a sweet shit! Come and get me, ya asshole pricks!
    When I come downstairs the mornin’ after Fa died, whole world was different, but that was nothin’ compared ta bein’ around once Mike’s gone, that was a piece a cake! There’s some days when it wasn’t bad, like if I could forget about him takin’ off and that. But mostly…
    Mostly…
    â€™Cause I feel somethin’ like—
    It’s like there’s nothin’, s’like there’s just nothin’ everywhere.
    And once that feelin’ starts, it just won’t quit. It just takes over me, and it lasts and lasts. It’s there between me and everyone else. And for a long, long time. It’s inside a me and outside all round me, too. It don’t stop, even when I’m laughin’. And it keeps up all through that summer and the next year and the next. And I’m still like that after I’m done with school, and take off outta town, thinkin’ I’m gettin’ out a that shithole for good. There’s just nothin’ all that time. When I’m kickin’ round, then gettin’ settled and startin’ work. Even when I’m thinkin’, “City life, this here’s the answer,” and drinkin’ with those boys at the Cedars and hangin’ round with Reanne when we was together. All that time nothin’ seemed ta matter. When we was fightin’ or when we wasn’t.
    She was somethin’, that Reanne, what they call “bipolar.” Means ya don’t know what the hell y’re gettin’ from one day ta the next. Could be all lovey-dovey, could be comin’ at ya with a bag a frozen bread. And no makin’ sense of it, never. But while it’s goin’ on, all sort a feels like one and the same. And I got real low there. Gettin’ high and stealin’ from the 7-Eleven and gettin’ caught and punched out and goin’ ta court and jail. That whole time’s no picnic, but…
    All through then, when all that stuff’s happenin’, mostly what I feel from after Mike took off is nothin’. Nothin’ but nothin’.
    And it keeps up and lasts, that feelin’, it lasts and lasts even when I first meet Angie, who was from back home and we’re both all, “Never goin’ back ta that place never!” Even when we start goin’ together and I think I feel different, even when we’re doin’ it, it still lasts and lasts and it don’t go away, really, it don’t stop, it keeps up—till the very first time I hold little Bobby in my hands.
    Moonlight through the clouds and branches.
    He’s finished clearing his area and he stands outside of it.
    Ya know when things change fer real ’cause s’all different. The bad times are over. Ya feel it from the moment y’open yer eyes in the mornin’, that, “We’re outta the woods, now.”
    Ha.
    He starts to empty his pockets—keys, Kleenex, the crumpled photograph, a plastic McDonald’s toy. He places these on the ground.
    When kids come along, even if it’s not you that wants’m, ’cause it’s the women want’m, but when they come along it’s true what they say, babies make things better. S’like everythin’s