The Cave Painter & The Woodcutter

by Don Hannah

  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.”

  “You betcha,” I says.

  Some even call me that, Sunny, I mean, like a nickname.

  “How’s she hangin’, Sunny?”

  “Fine, sir, real fine. And yerself?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  He’s looking at the snapshot.

  All lined up on the new couch. Bobby with his arm around Brittie on his lap. Angie with her arm around the both a them. Lookit’m smile. J’ever see anythin’ happy as that? Even Brittie, for once. When she started ta talk and she stutters—

  How should we’ve tried ta help fix her? I finish her words when she gets stuck, so she won’t feel dumb or…

  He gently tears the photo in two.

  Frustrates Angie though. One night she says ta me, “We should call her somethin’ else, can’t even say her own name without that stutter.”

  He keeps tearing it into smaller pieces.

  And then she goes, “B-b-b-b-b-brit-t-t-t-y.”

  “You quit that.”

  “Aw, y’re not the boss a me,” she goes. And I’m thinkin’, “What’s this now? What’s all this?”

  Angie, she starts ta change. I don’t mean about her packin’ on the pounds, not that; I mean that she starts gettin’ all contrary. We could a weathered it out, all of it. After Vistas let me go when money disappeared that time—and not me, wasn’t me, but he wouldn’t listen, said, “Y’re lucky I’m not callin’ the cops.”

  “Call’m,” I says. “Call’m, you prick, ’cause I had nothin’ ta do with it whatsoever! It’s that Farrah, and you know it, but y’re all too busy tryin’ ta get into her pants!”

  After that it’s a little while, not much more’n a month or so before I start up at the Palace Grill, but she’s at me before I’m hired ’cause I’m home so much.

  “Where ya want me ta be? Costs money ta be anywhere but here. Watchin’ Oprah is free,” I says, “and I don’t see you out lookin’ fer no job.”

  Then kids get the mumps and there’s that big storm and we’re all locked up at each other’s throats. But we could a weathered all of it out, I think, we could’ve. Yes. Of that, I’m certain.

  Except for she said yes to that kid brother a hers ’cause he had nowhere else ta go. Once Kevin comes ta stay with us, that’s when the worst all got goin’. “He’s sweet as can be,” she says after he phones her up. “Loves lookin’ after little kids and that.” I say, “Sure. Okay.” I know he’s had a hard time of it, dirty stuff happenin’ to’m when he was a kid and that. I got sympathy for that, I know that stuff really happens, it’s not just the TV.

  The moon has disappeared. He’s holding the photo pieces, staring at them.

  But then he shows up.

  He slowly starts eating the bits of photo. Taking them like pills, chewing and swallowing them as he talks.

  I come home from work and he’s there already, havin’ one a my beers.

  The look of’m!

  Tattoos everywhere on his arms and his hands—Love and Hate and the like on his knuckles and all this Chinese nonsense—but it’s his face. Spider-Man webs on his cheeks he’s got, and zigzaggy things—all black as pitch—and 666 on his forehead like a big asshole. That’s real smart. How could he do that to his face? That stuff don’t come off. And these hoops in his ears the size a quarters, his ears all stretched out forever. Little spikes in his eyebrows and rings on his lip.

  “He don’t give a fuck how he looks,” I say, and she tells me he’s had a hard time and ta be quiet and be patient with’m.

  Just a scrawny little runt, can’t weigh more’n a hundred and twenty, keel over if ya spit on’m, and always sneakin’ around, pants hangin’ off the tail end of his ass. I keep thinkin’ of how he wasn’t too bad-lookin’ once, and now he’s just gone and fucked himself for all time. What kind a job could he ever get? Who’d hire someone with that face?

  And poor little Brittie’s scared a him—well, he’s scary-lookin’, that kid, and she spooks easy. And so pretty that one, lovely as can be. Sweet, sweet, just sweetness itself.

  He moves right in, sleeps on our couch. And he don’t do nothin’, don’t get up till noon, kids can’t sit on the couch ta watch the TV before school, hafta sit right up by the screen with the sound turned down so’s not ta disturb his “beauty sleep,” and where’s he go to at night, that’s what I want ta know, what kind a hangout is there for the likes a that?

  “I’d hate ta run inta the crowd he hangs out with on a dark street, scare the livin’ shit right outta ya. S’like a horror movie, creep ya out, like Jason in them Friday the 13ths ’cept he had the sense ta stick a hockey mask over his face.”

  “Shut up!” Angie tells me.

  But why won’t she admit that he’s freakin’ her out, I’m thinkin’, why won’t she? “He’s got that little tear there, tattooed on his eye,” she says, like that’s supposed ta make me all sad. As if I could pick a tear out from the rest of that crap he’s got all over his face. “How much money d’ya suppose he’s thrown away on that nonsense, just how much? And he’s out there gettin’ more done, I just betcha! Not gonna be a square inch a real skin left on’m before long.”

  “Just shut up,” she says.

  “Know what that face a his looks like? It looks like a page ya wasted in yer scribbler.”

  “Shut up,” she says. “Just shut up shut up shut up!”

  So I try and keep my counsel.

  But it’s buildin’ up, inside a me, it’s buildin’ up. Angie’s different, there’s all this tension stuff, the kids’re all unsettled and that. “How long’s he gonna be here?”

  “I’m talkin’ ta my family,” she says. “Somethin’ll happen soon.”

  I got no use fer that Aunt Darla, but she’s not stupid, she won’t let the likes a that Kevin come ta her place. That I know.

  I keep tryin’ ta keep my counsel.

  And they’re always whisperin’, the two a them. Psspsspsspss.

  A noise in the woods. An animal in the underbrush. He listens.

  Who’s that?

 
Who goes there?

  He listens again.

  Don’t sound big enough ta do too much damage.

  Chipmunk, maybe, or some kind a asshole squirrel.

  He listens.

  I wake up in the middle a the night ’cause Brittie’s crawled inta bed with us and she’s real upset, I can tell. “Ya havin’ a bad dream?” She shakes her head. “What happened?” She just snuggles in and starts cryin’ and I think, what happened? Bobby can tease her sometimes, but he won’t be awake at this hour, sleeps right through the nights now. I didn’t think Kevin was in yet, I usually hear’m come in, see. Wakes me up between two and three most nights. ’Specially f’I got the breakfast shift.

  She’s all shivery like she’s cold, and scared. “What’s up, darlin’?”

  Won’t tell me what’s wrong.

  Then I hear it, this noise from the livin’ room.

  I start ta tuck her in next ta Angie, who could sleep through most anythin’, like fights outside the window and that, cars with no mufflers tearin’ back and forth half the night— though she’s always goin’ on about me snorin’, keepin’er up—I tuck’r in, and she’s clingin’ ta me, hangin’ on. “I’ll be right back,” I whisper and kiss’r, and then I go out and down the little hall there.

  He’s sittin’ on the couch, is our Kevin, buck naked, with the TV on, no sound, and there’s all this commotion in his lap. That’s what it looks like first, then I realize there’s a girl’s head down there, she’s goin’ down on him, and he’s not lookin’ at her, payin’ her no mind, he’s lookin’ out over top of her, watchin’ some porno movie on my TV, these two women goin’ at each other…

  I just stand there not knowin’ what ta do. Did little Brittie see this on her way inta our room? This what’s got her spooked? S’all I can do ta not go over and beat the shit outta him. But at first I don’t wanna cause some big uproar, see, wake up Bobby.

  And I’m thinkin’, who’s that girl? What kinda girl’d take up with the likes a that? Maybe she’s all feeble-minded, or packed full a drugs or…