Day Out of Days Read Free

basket.
    “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” says the head. “I’m deeply grateful.”
    “You’re like a spoiled child,” says the man indignantly.
    “I’m like nothing you’ve ever come across,” says the head.
    “Well, it’s nothing to be proud of,” says the man.
    “Pick me up once more,” says the head. “And this time lift me all the way up to the top of your head and carry me up there.”
    “Are you crazy?” says the man. “I can’t possibly lift you all theway up to the top of my head. I could barely carry you on my hip.”
    “Yes, you can,” says the head. “Just make one tremendous effort. Make an effort like you’ve never made before in your entire life. As though it were a matter of life and death.”
    “I don’t have it in me,” says the man. “Those days are long gone.”
    “Stand up and give it a whirl,” says the head. “Be a man.”
    “Are you intentionally insulting me?” asks the man.
    “I’m offering you a chance to be.”
    “I’ve got nothing to prove,” says the man.
    “Then go away and leave me alone,” says the head abruptly.
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to do all along,” says the man. “Since the moment I met you.”
    “Do it,” says the head. “See if you can. Just walk away.”
    “You threatened me before. You said I would pay the price if I turned my back on you.”
    “There’ll be no repercussions,” says the head. “Believe me. Just walk away.”
    And now the man feels more alone than he’s ever felt in his life. A deep, crushing aloneness that presses down through his chest. It’s the very same feeling he’s been trying to avoid since he was a little boy. The feeling he shakes off every morning when he stumbles toward his toothbrush and every night when he clicks off the light. Without thinking, he reaches down and grabs the handles of the wicker basket and with a mighty heave swings the head up to his shoulder and then, with a final grunt, manages to place the basket on top of his head. He has no idea how he’s accomplished this all at once but feels suddenly all right about himself; as though the sun has just popped out from behind the clouds.
    “Now we’re going to look like a man with two heads staggering down the highway,” says the man to the head. “One on top of the other.”
    “We
are
a man with two heads,” says the head brightly from his lofty perch.
    “No,” says the man. “We’re two separate things. You don’t belong to me. I just found you by the side of the road. Don’t forget that.”
    “Whatever you like,” says the head. “Keep straight ahead. I can see the lake from here.”
    “What’s it look like?” asks the man.
    “Flat. Green. Absolutely peaceful.”
    “Is it what you were hoping for?” says the man.
    “We’ll see when we get there,” answers the head.

Chatter
    I now have an almost constant swirling chatter going on inside my head from dawn to dusk. I never could have foreseen this when I was five, playing with sticks in the dirt, but I guess it’s been slowly accumulating over all these sixty-some years; growing more intense, less easy to ignore. I wake up with it. I feed chickens with it. I drive tractors with it. I make coffee with it. I fry eggs with it. I ride horses with it. I go to bed with it. I sleep with it. It is my constant companion.
    Sometimes I’m casually talking to people; looking them earnestly in the eye; just people in town, down at the Jot ‘Em Down grocery store buying the
Racing Form
, dog food, half-and-half; wondering if they too might have a constant chattering going on inside
their
heads. We could be talking about anything; the breakdown of the gray filly in the Kentucky Derby, the rising price of corn; it doesn’t matter, I continue to wonder the whole time. Ihave no idea what it’s really like with other people. Actually, I have no idea what it’s really like with me, when you get right down to it. I’m fishing in the dark.
    Sometimes, though, I can