Galilee by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

crib.”
    â€œThis came from an asylum?” I said, looking down at the bed on which Dwight had set me.
    â€œIt sure did. I was chained up in that for two hundred and fifty-five nights.”
    â€œInside it?”
    â€œInside it.”
    He came over to where I sat and tugged the filthy blanket out from under me, so I could better see the cruel narrow box in which he had been put. The restraints were still in place.
    â€œWhy do you keep it?” I asked him.
    â€œAs a reminder,” he said, meeting my gaze head-on for the first time since I’d entered. “I can’t ever let myself forget, ’cause the moment I forget then I’ve as good as forgiven them that did it to me, and I ain’t never going to do that.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI know what you’re going to say: they’re all dead. And so they are. But that don’t mean I can’t still get my day with ’em, when the Lord calls us all to judgment. I’m going to be sniffin’ after ’em like the mad dog they said I was. I’m going to have their souls, and there ain’t no saint in Heaven’s goin’ to stop me.” His volume and vehemence had steadily escalated through this speech; when it was done I said nothing for a moment or two, so as to let him calm down. Then I said:
    â€œSeems to me you’ve got reason to keep the crib.”
    He grunted by way of reply. Then he went over to the table and sat on the chair beside it. “Don’t you wonder sometimes . . . ?” he began.
    â€œWonder what?”
    â€œWhy one of us gets put in a madhouse an’ another gets to be a cripple an’ another gets to go ’round the world fuckin’ every beautiful woman he sets his eyes on.”
    This last, of course, was Galilee; or at least the Galilee of family myth: the wanderer, pursuing his unattainable dreams from ocean to ocean.
    â€œWell don’t you wonder?” Luman said again.
    â€œNow and again.”
    â€œSee, things ain’t fair. That’s why people go crazy. That’s why they get guns and kill their kids. Or end up in chains. Things ain’t fair!” He was beginning to shout again.
    â€œIf I may say . . .”
    â€œSay what the fuck you like!” he replied, “I want to hear, brother.”
    â€œ . . . we’re luckier than most.”
    â€œHow’d you reckon that?”
    â€œWe’re a special family. We’ve got . . . you’ve got talents most people would kill to have . . .”
    â€œSure I can fuck a woman then make her forget I ever laid a finger on her. Sure I can listen in on one snake’s sayin’ to another. Sure I got a Momma who used to be one of the all time great ladies and a Poppa who knew Jesus. So what? They still put me in chains. And I still thought I deserved it, ’cause in my heart I thought I was a worthless sonofabitch.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “An’ that ain’t really changed.”
    This silenced me utterly. Not just the flow of images (Luman listening to snakes? My father as a confidante of Christ?) but the sheer desperation in Luman’s voice.
    â€œWe ain’t none of us what we should’ve been, brother;” he said. “We ain’t none of us done a thing worth callin’ important, an’ now it’s all over, and we ain’t never goin’ to have that chance.”
    â€œSo let me write about why.”
    â€œOh . . . I knew we’d get back to that sooner or later,” Luman replied. “There ain’t no use in writin’ no book, brother. It’s just goin’ to make us look like losers. ’Cept Galilee, of course. He’ll look fine an’ fancy an’ I’ll look like a fuckwit.”
    â€œI’m not here to beg,” I said. “If you don’t want to help me then I’ll just go back to Mama—”
    â€œIf you can find