Re: Cass & Burden: the Mean Eyed Cat
Burden couldn't never be called changeable. He was as he was, and truth was he'd been this way long as he could recall. He hadn't even gone through wild and temperamental times as a teenager. His momma, before things went wrong, had told him that he'd been born an old soul, and like he'd already lived a whole lifetime before coming to them. Early on, she'd even whispered at him that could be the shivershakes were on account of that, but it was the kind of thing she'd uttered when no one could hear. His momma, she was faithful, but she was also one of them people who was perpetually trapped in the amber glass of youth, never having grown up fully and surrounded by the most responsible and steady of folks, and so she wasn't expected to do a whole lot of her own thinking.
"Do you believe knowing folks before you pictured them made them less tense? I reckon you're right about catching that moment, and I reckon a moment, a real one, ain't one that knows it's being observed. But what does that say about famous folks and photoshoots? Or those portraits folks take with their families? Does it make them less real?" He was musing, and it was clear from his tone that he didn't know the answer to his own question. It wasn't rhetorical any, and he shifted easily into thinking about wanting things, but he put up a hand first, refilled a few folks' glasses, and then returned to her. "I reckon everyone needs something, rich or poor, and that's living. I suspect that's what you mean by wanting things, and how everyone does. But poor folks, they need more and expect less. Rich folks, they expect so damn much from life, and they don't never seem satisfied, not from what I've seen. If you're terribly rich, why are you sitting here in this town?" It was an obvious question, he reckoned.
"You can call me Bell, and I don't know what Elvis would think. It's real human, ain't it? To wonder what folks already gone would think of what we're doing now. I know he's got immortality, in a way, and that seems to matter to folks. He's respected for his art, and could be that would matter to him more. Or maybe he's just real fussed he went the way he did, and that he couldn't give a good damn what we're all thinking now. And it's nice to meet you, Cass, assuming it's a good day?"