Cap in Hand
No.473 in 'A Story a Day for a Year - and then some!
CAP IN HAND
You ever knowed someone who’s mom died and they was all broken like glass inside and they was your best friend ever? I din’t know what to say or what to do and so I just looked at Carl, looking sad as wet sunsets and being just as silent.
She warn’t sick, not so far as anyone knowed. She just died. Doctors said her heart just stopped and they said it can do that sometimes and not ever start again. And Carl swore hard as any man, all his words like thrown stones and all of ‘em thrown ‘gainst God. And ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ and ‘bastard’, he said, and ‘cunt’ he said also. And I told him to just let it out, like a poison released, and it warn’t ever no sin to be doing like Carl was doing, not even though he was doing it in front of the church.
The minister came out to see what all the commotion was and his face was red as wasp stings and he was holding his fist up to hammer the blaspheming air. When he saw it was Carl, well, I think he understood, and he let fall his slack fist and he asked us if we wanted to come inside.
Carl shook his head and turned away and I turned away with him. The minister called to our backs as how the door to God’s house was always open. And Carl said all his best swear words again, saying ‘em under his breath this time so only God and me could hear ‘em.
We din’t plan it or nothing. Not nohow. We just decided there and then to go. We stopped off at my place and I picked up a bedroll and some apples and a leg of pork that had been cooked and was cold. Then we just left, me and Carl. There warn’t hardly no words ‘tween us and we just walked up out of the town and kept on walking.
We left the road as soon as we could and headed into the trees, and it was cool in there, as cool as church stone, and the sky was in bits ‘tween the trees and we walked till we was nowhere and till we was out of breath and out of the will to walk more. And we just sat down beside each other, sitting on a old fallen log with the sound of running water playing like music over our shoulder and the smell of Sweet Flag hanging in the air, and it was like the weight of everything was in that moment we’d been brought to.
All I had was sorry, sorry for Carl’s mom, but sorriest for Carl. So I said I was sorry and real sorry and sorry right down to my boots. And Carl just started crying – which the occasion told me was alright and sometimes crying ain’t just for girls like people say. And I put my arm round Carl and I held him tight as not letting go and he just cried hisself down to quiet and to sob and I din’t have more to say to him.
Sitting like that, all still and near to silent, well it was like we slowly became invisible and a nat’ral part of the forest, and suddenly this glassy eyed red-flame squirrel just ran under our feet and it stopped to look at us and to get a sense of everything. And Carl and me just looked at the squirrel what was looking right back at us, and bits of sunlight making rare gold on the forest floor, and me and Carl still holding to each other, and like that I reckon as it was better than any church and Carl felt it too, and God was there, sure as eggs, there with His cap in hand and saying He was sorry, too.