Re: Cass & Burden: the Mean Eyed Cat
Burden, he reckoned normal was beautiful. Or could be 'normal' was the wrong word, and he should just say folks in general, all of them, were beautiful. There was something about faces, about how they shifted and changed with moods, that was captivating. He'd visited with sick folks and dying folks, and he'd seen family and friends weeping, and that had been beautiful. He'd visited with people on wedding days and during births, and that happiness that lit them from within, it was beautiful too. And every emotion in-between, it was lovely, and he'd always reckoned that. Even his parents, scared and worried and him tied to a bed for lashings, that had been a frozen moment, and beautiful in its own way.
"Thank you kindly," he said of her compliment. "I always have liked music," he went on, and it was true. It was the one thing that hadn't changed from bluegrass, to sticky days, to here: Music. "But I reckon everyone has a face like a picture. All you need's a camera, or could be a paintbrush." He winked at her, and he didn't sound argumentative none. He didn't move from where he was standing, hands on the counter and waiting patient. Everyone else was filled up, and no one was wiggling fingers or calling out to get his attention.
He smiled at her. His smile, it wasn't a broad thing, and it tended to look some like smirking, but mostly his smile lived in his eyes. Pale seemed to brighten and the corners of his eyes crinkled up with 20-something years of living and smiling. "I'll take one," he agreed. He was new to bartending, but he'd already learned that folks liked buying the bartender a drink now and again, and he was real good at holding his liquor. That island he'd grown wild and weedy on, they didn't much care for water there, and he put out a shot glass and a regular glass. He filled the smaller glass with a shot for himself, and he motioned to the ice cubes. "Neat? On the rocks? Water?" He didn't take her for a soda type, but you never knew.