The Cave Painter & The Woodcutter (7 page)

Well, first my dad, see, her son, and then her husband, and I see now how close those two things were. So close. She just…

“Dead before they hit the ground, the both a them.” That's what she kept sayin', like she couldn't believe it.

I can't really blame her, Gram, I mean, lookin' back. Mike, though, always did. After she tracked down Mom, and Mom's all, “No way, I can't cope, can't cope just yet.” Gram says, “Too selfish, that one. Too damn lazy.” And Mike gets all mad, starts shoutin'.

He and Gram never got along, see. Maybe mostly 'cause he had a different father from me, so no kin ta her and Fa whatsoever. So he always cursed her for callin' in the Aid. Always-always.

I'm sittin' on the floor by the TV watchin' Dukes a Hazzard. I remember it so clear. Bo and Luke and their car and that, and even which show it was, the one with Boss Hogg's twin brother, who wore black but was good. Boss Hogg's like the evil twin. We was at Mrs. Conrad's place then. She was somethin' and her husband was worse when he was around. But he drove a bus and was away a lot a the time. Heather was almost same age as me, and nice ta me usually, Heather was, and we kept up some, but she had no use for Mike. I'm watchin' TV by myself, I'd be about twelve and Mike, he's sixteen. We been with the Thompsons and the Allens and the Owenses and Mrs. Fisher and some whose names I forget 'cause the times there wasn't long enough. Then we was stuck with the Conrads. That's how Heather's mom put it, “Y're stuck with us now,” she says. I never knew if it was s'posed ta be funny or what.

Mike comes in and sits down on the rug beside me. “I'm headin' out,” he says.

“It's almost supper.” I'm thinkin' how it'll piss her off if he goes outside right now. She'll get all cranky at me and Heather.

“I don't mean this minute. And I don't mean I'm just goin' out either.”

“Whatta ya mean then?”

“Dig the shit outta yer ears, I'm takin' off.”

“For good?”

“Damn right.”

“Where to?”

“Somewhere I won't go mental like here. Like New York or Montreal or somewhere.”

“What'll ya do there?”

“I don't give a fuck,” he says. “So long as I get outta this shithole.”

And me?

And me?

I'm waitin' for him ta say that he wants me ta take off with him, but he don't. Takin' off is just for him all by himself.

One night shortly after that, a week or so after he took off and didn't come back, it was then, I'm lyin' there in bed thinkin' that he's gone now and left me for good. I know he's never comin' back. Just like Mom, just like Gram.

“Why me,” I'm thinkin'. “Why's this happen ta me and not some prick somewhere, or someone in like Africa that I'll never know? Why me? ”

And this feelin' starts up in me, this thing like it's always gonna be like this. 'Cause if even Mike takes off on me, I'm thinkin', even Mike, well…

What'd I ever do? How many times did I want ta tell someone like that Mrs. Thompson ta like, “Frickin' bite me!” or tell that Mrs. Allen ta like, “Go stick a chooky up yer big fat ass.” But I hold my tongue and do what I'm s'posed to. I try and be grateful, like they says. Sunday school says if ya do what's right, ya can't go wrong, ya'll get yer reward.

I useta talk ta Mike 'bout stuff but now only one I have ta talk to is myself. 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?”

“Nobody.”

“Who ya talkin' to?”

“Nobody, I'm sittin' on the throne.”

“Then 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…

'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 special 'cause ya helped make this thing, this perfect little—

Ya can't begin t'explain what it's like—

How perfect they look and feel and—

How ya just wanna kiss'm all over, ya just wanna pick'm up and hug'm—

Or just sit there and watch'm sleep. There is nothing so beautiful as a baby that's sleepin' and—

How soft they are and how ya gotta hold'm tender and careful 'cause a the soft part on their heads, and cuddle'm and—

How ya know they're more special than any other baby that ever was.

I mean, ya know that's not true, that they can't be that, really-really, but that's how it feels, that special thing. And I want Bobby ta grow up and finish school and get a fine job that'll make'm happy and never have ta be in a foster home or take crap from people who look down their noses at him.

That kid made me feel so good, see, made me feel like it's true what Angie says, that “babies make things better.”

Even though there's times when they're howlin' and cryin' and won't sleep and got the croup and Angie's all tired 'cause she's the one gettin' up ta feed'm and that. Even then.

And then Brittie comes, and it's so good! She's the quiet one, always skittish, serious little thing. So shy. But she don't quit smilin' at first, that one. And I can see me and Mike in her and Bobby, but in a way that'll turn out for the good 'cause Bobby won't take off on his sister, Bobby won't be stupid like Mike and end up with the Hells Angels and that. How could Mike be so stupid? Get all mixed up with drugs like that. He was even smart enough ta learn French for chrissakes, he was smart enough for that. But those bikers, Jesus.

“But not Bobby, no,” I tell Angie. “He's not gonna be stupid like that. You'll see. We'll do everythin' we can to bring him up right. No dirty talk, no treatin'm bad. On time fer school and then the Sunday school once a week.”

“All right,” she says, “Good.”

“So we're in agreement?”

“Yes,” she says, “don't need ta be married ta have an agreement.”

“That's right.”

“I'm not gonna be like my mom, or yours,” she says. “We're havin' none a that.”

“That's right. A clean slate, like old Gram useta say.”

'Cause little Bobby come along and woke me up, he come along and smartened me right up. And him and Brittie together—

“Share that with yer sister now,” we say, and that Bobby, he does that pretty near every time. Not too much a that “gimme gimme never gets.”

And at the church there, Reverend Simon preaches this sermon on how things'll get better, when Heaven comes and that. “The wolf'll dwell with the lamb,” he says, “and the leopard'll lie down with the kid, and a little child shall lead'm.” And I'm goin', “That's it, that's right, that's just how it is. A little child shall lead'm.”

“Y'll do whatever it takes?” says Angie.

“Yes I will. I'll come home from the restaurant and hand the money over straight ta you. No stoppin' by the Cedars or nowhere after work. Straight home.”

And I go about doin' just that. I do. And I'd a stayed with it, too, I would've.

But don't those two kids make me really love Angie! She's so much like me, I think at first, we even grew up in the same place. I only know'r 'cause Heather kept in touch that time 'fore she moved away, and they're still friends. I didn't know'r growin' up, can't even remember her from school. She remembered us though, said, “I always thought your brother Mike was a hottie.”

Ha. He'd a liked ta hear that.

“Had no use fer'm myself,” Heather says. “He useta take money from Mom's purse.”

“Now no one ever proved that.” But she's probably right.

“And you don't remember me comin' by?” Angie asks.

I couldn't for the life a me.

“We played Barbies in Heather's room.”

I still can't place her back then.

But's funny, when ya meet someone and ya know so many a the same things, but ya don't know each other. Like Mrs. Sales there, taught us both math. I liked her, Angie didn't. And she liked Mr. Lawson, but not me. We both liked Ms. Ross, in the computer room, she was nice. We're five years apart, which's a lot when y're a kid.

Her folks was mean, the both a them, and hard drinkers. Angie's just ten when she and her brother start ta stay with her Aunt Darla, who maybe was kind to them after her sisters moved out, I'm not sayin' she wasn't. She raised them up more or less, but she had no use for me or me for her either. She thinks she's somethin', that Darla. Weren't for her, I wouldn't be out here in this fuckin' mess. That I know.

Angie'n me, we're a lot alike. Got pushed around, the both of us. I'd lucked inta that place above the flower store, lots a space and quiet in the back. Reanne had it first, but she took off, good riddance, so that's where I am when she was lookin' fer a new place. We'd just started foolin' around couple a weeks before she moved in. “S'even got a bedroom for the baby,” she said, like a joke, and then we had one. And she's no Reanne, all crazy and that.

“Are ya mad?”

“No. Why'd I be mad?” I was surprised though. She's younger'n me, not gonna be twenty till the spring. Tenth of April. “Ya gonna keep it?” 'Cause Reanne, see, she had the abortion. “Couldn't cope.”

“Course I'm gonna keep it.”

Well then.

We got along. Watched TV, Wheel a Fortune, Jeopardy, played crib. I'm workin' just down the street at the Oak Leaf back then, even come home on my break sometimes. She useta read them books from the second-hand store, Stephen King and that, tell me the stories. Me, I had no time fer readin', never interested me all that much. But I like it when she stops and tells me all that's goin' on. “Listen ta this part,” she says sometimes, and then'll read it ta me. “Scary,” she says, “listen ta this.”

She's a real reader, that Angie. Could a kept up and studied more, I told'r. Could a…

The moonlight begins to fade.

We had an agreement. Bought that Excel off Darla's ex-husband so we could get outta the city, come back here and visit. Never wanted ta see this shithole place again, but I come home for her. Said I'd never leave her, I made a promise when Bobby's born, and I meant it. And then little Brittie come along. Oh my Jesus, weren't we just as happy as could be!

A cool breeze that makes him shiver. He's digging small holes with his hand and burying the contents of his pockets.

Bobby's like what's good in Mike, I could see that in him as soon as his little sister come along, in all the ways he was a big brother to her. Not jealous, no sir, not for a minute. He stands by the playpen and givin'r toys and plays with'r and that. Like me and Mike, I think. And it's gonna stay good. We won't be rich, but we'll be a family with a better life. I work at the restaurants, they like me there. “Y're a hard worker, Ted,” they say. “Y're always so sunny.”