Re: Cass & Burden: the Mean Eyed Cat
Burden, he hadn't lived in his skin long at all. He would be 24 soon, then 25, and then he reckoned 30 would come in a hurry. And he was slow. He didn't move sluggish, but waifish limbs moved like gravity wasn't a factor and rushing wasn't a necessity. It was a real good trait for tending bar, since he always seemed calm, and sometimes drinking folks needed calm around them. They got fussed and angry and sad, and a silkily moving wrist could make a whole lot of difference, even if it seemed a thing that was deceptively simple and inconsequential.
"I mean they record them instead of experiencing them," he said in agreement, his smile still there and mellow as he looked at the girl with her cheek against her palm. "See, I don't take photos, like I said, but I always did reckon all those amazing photos that are real evocative and capture folks, like they can see inside, come from people who spent plenty of time looking before bringing the lens up to their eye. But since I never did take a picture, you'll have to tell me if that's true, or if I'm days off from being right."
Her near laugh was a nice thing. He'd always been a child who smiled when others did, who laughed when others did, and there was a warmth to be found in a person who felt good sitting opposite. As for believing her words and taking them for reality, he didn't automatically discount them. There were more mysteries in the world than man could know. "Do sold eons make folks happy?" he asked, genuine interest in the pallor of his attentive eyes. "I met plenty of unhappy rich folks, and their brand of unhappy savors real different than the unhappiness of poor folks. Poor folks, they need small things to buoy them up and fill them whole. Rich folks, they're harder to bring a smile to."
He waited until she was done looking her fill at the folks in the bar, and he did his own inventory at the same time. "I reckon you're right, and it was just an interesting name, and then an interesting theme," he said of Johnny Cash and the bar. "Roadside places, they always tend to have themes. I learned that taking buses out here from Tennessee. Now, you want to see a living shrine and folks that know how to worship, then you got to take yourself to Graceland. But in Vegas, that same venerated man has been turned into nothing but gimmick. I find it interesting, and I'm Burden. Friends call me Bell, like the ringing kind."