Read Online The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daniel Woodrell
Tags: Literary, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories & Anthologies, Single Authors
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what he has is a gift like she never seen before.
Gift I say. A gift is not like Cecil.
May I have the book she asks. I hand it to her. She opens it to a middle page. Like this listen to this. She begin to read to me from what apparently Cecil my son has written out. The name of it is “Soaring” and it is a string of words that say a bird is floating above the junkyard and has spotted a hot glowing old wreck below only the breeze sucks him down and he can’t help but land in it. When she done reading the thing she look up at me like I should maybe be ridiculous with pleasure. I can’t tell but that is my sense.
Is that the first chapter or what I want to know.
She lets out one of them whistly breaths that means I might overmatch her patience. These are poems of his life on the street she tells me. But they are brimful of accurate thoughts for all. Yet grounded in the tough streets of this area.
They have junkyards everywhere is my comeback to her.
But the bird Mister McCoy. The bird is soaring over death which is an old car wreck. The poet is wanting to be that white bird winging it free above death. What it really signifies is that Cecil want to be let off from having to die. That is the point of it she says.
Now to me this point is obvious but I feel sad for a second about Cecil. Two things he never going to be is a white bird.
Read on I suggest.
She slides out a smile for me that lets me know I’m catching on. Then she turn the book to another page. This was in some big-time poetry magazine she says. Then she read. The words of this one are about a situation I recognize. The poet has ripped off his momma’s paycheck to pay back some bad dudes he ain’t related to.
Hold it there I tell her. That is a poem that actually happen several times lady. Cecil a goddamn thief.
No no no. He wants to make amends for it. He wants to overcome the guilt of what he done.
I tell her it would be in the hundreds of dollars to do that. Is these poems going to get him that kind of money? My question is beneath her. She won’t answer it.
This poem has meanings for all the people she says. They look into it and see their selves.
That is nice and interesting I tell her but how come Wilma and me has to pay for this poem all alone? Everybody who looks in it and see their selves ought to pay some back to us.
This comment of mine puts pressure on her cool and she begins to pace about the room. The room is clean enough but the furniture is ragged. I have a hip weakness and janitor work pains it. Wilma has the job now.
The lady stops and looks out the window. Two cars is blocking traffic to say what’s going on to each other. Horns are honking. People get hurt over things like that.
Mister McCoy do you love Cecil?
There was a time I answer. It was a love that any daddy would have. But that was way back. If I love Cecil now it is like the way I love the Korean conflict. Something terrible I have lived through.
He has changed Mister McCoy. He has got in touch with his humanity. If he had a place to live he could be paroled to start fresh.
I believe I will sit down. As I say it I drop to the three-legged chair by the door. I am thinking of my son Cecil. He was one of a whole set of kids Wilma and me filled out because we had only each other. He ate from the same pot of chili as the rest but he turned out different. His eyes were shiny and his nose turned up instead of being flat. The better he knows you the more relaxed he is about stealing you blind. Same pot of chili but different.
I don’t believe we want to take him back I say.
But you are his family. There is no one else for him.
Family yes but main victims too lady. I reach up and pull the bridge from my mouth which leaves a bad fence of my teeth showing. See that? I ask. Cecil did that. He wasn’t but fifteen when he did that.
He has changed she says again. She says it like that settles it.
I don’t believe it. He may well write out poems that say he sorry and
Gift I say. A gift is not like Cecil.
May I have the book she asks. I hand it to her. She opens it to a middle page. Like this listen to this. She begin to read to me from what apparently Cecil my son has written out. The name of it is “Soaring” and it is a string of words that say a bird is floating above the junkyard and has spotted a hot glowing old wreck below only the breeze sucks him down and he can’t help but land in it. When she done reading the thing she look up at me like I should maybe be ridiculous with pleasure. I can’t tell but that is my sense.
Is that the first chapter or what I want to know.
She lets out one of them whistly breaths that means I might overmatch her patience. These are poems of his life on the street she tells me. But they are brimful of accurate thoughts for all. Yet grounded in the tough streets of this area.
They have junkyards everywhere is my comeback to her.
But the bird Mister McCoy. The bird is soaring over death which is an old car wreck. The poet is wanting to be that white bird winging it free above death. What it really signifies is that Cecil want to be let off from having to die. That is the point of it she says.
Now to me this point is obvious but I feel sad for a second about Cecil. Two things he never going to be is a white bird.
Read on I suggest.
She slides out a smile for me that lets me know I’m catching on. Then she turn the book to another page. This was in some big-time poetry magazine she says. Then she read. The words of this one are about a situation I recognize. The poet has ripped off his momma’s paycheck to pay back some bad dudes he ain’t related to.
Hold it there I tell her. That is a poem that actually happen several times lady. Cecil a goddamn thief.
No no no. He wants to make amends for it. He wants to overcome the guilt of what he done.
I tell her it would be in the hundreds of dollars to do that. Is these poems going to get him that kind of money? My question is beneath her. She won’t answer it.
This poem has meanings for all the people she says. They look into it and see their selves.
That is nice and interesting I tell her but how come Wilma and me has to pay for this poem all alone? Everybody who looks in it and see their selves ought to pay some back to us.
This comment of mine puts pressure on her cool and she begins to pace about the room. The room is clean enough but the furniture is ragged. I have a hip weakness and janitor work pains it. Wilma has the job now.
The lady stops and looks out the window. Two cars is blocking traffic to say what’s going on to each other. Horns are honking. People get hurt over things like that.
Mister McCoy do you love Cecil?
There was a time I answer. It was a love that any daddy would have. But that was way back. If I love Cecil now it is like the way I love the Korean conflict. Something terrible I have lived through.
He has changed Mister McCoy. He has got in touch with his humanity. If he had a place to live he could be paroled to start fresh.
I believe I will sit down. As I say it I drop to the three-legged chair by the door. I am thinking of my son Cecil. He was one of a whole set of kids Wilma and me filled out because we had only each other. He ate from the same pot of chili as the rest but he turned out different. His eyes were shiny and his nose turned up instead of being flat. The better he knows you the more relaxed he is about stealing you blind. Same pot of chili but different.
I don’t believe we want to take him back I say.
But you are his family. There is no one else for him.
Family yes but main victims too lady. I reach up and pull the bridge from my mouth which leaves a bad fence of my teeth showing. See that? I ask. Cecil did that. He wasn’t but fifteen when he did that.
He has changed she says again. She says it like that settles it.
I don’t believe it. He may well write out poems that say he sorry and
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