Re: Cass & Burden: the Mean Eyed Cat
"Could be you knew parts of them their friends or families didn't," he said. He'd ministered to plenty of folks in his life. He looked young, and he was young, but he'd gone off to seminary at 18, and that was going on seven years now. Seven years of listening and talking, and he wouldn't never claim to understand all folks, but there were some things he saw regular and repeated. "Folks got different faces they show, depending on who's looking. Could be a camera lens sees different than living folks. We're all tangled up in our own feelings of things, of people, of the world, and that makes us see as ourselves, not necessarily how folks truly are." He was wandering now. Wandering with his words, like Father Amos always said, but Burden liked talking.
He was wiping at the counter, having returned from refilling drinks, and he tossed his washcloth over his shoulder and let it hang limply there. He looked around, real obvious and conspicuous-like. "You don't look locked away to me," he said, his smile friendly, but understanding. "Slipping out easy?" He'd never been in a home, and he'd never received any type of psychiatric care, but he'd been tied to a bed plenty on account of the madness that came with the shivershakes. His folks, they'd done what they thought best, but he didn't like thinking on those years much. He reckoned the Quiet Home was like its own version of being bound to the bed. "I know untidy folks, and I like them better for the mess," he said, head inclined near to hers, leaning over the bar some, talking just loud enough to be heard above Johnny's crooning.
But then there was Elvis talking to be done, and he smiled at her. "It's a good day as long as we're alive, walking and talking, and it's a better day if we're happy and content. It's good, taking the day and praising it. Not necessarily in a religious way, but just on account of it existing." He looked around again, but this time thoughtfully, as if taking in the room and the night and the folks gathered. "I tell you what, next time you escape and come around, we'll do Elvis instead of Johnny Cash, and folks won't know what to do with themselves."