I knew these people. These two people…(coughing)…They were in love with each other. The girl was very young, about 17 or 18 I guess. And the guy was quite a bit older. He was kind of raggeddy and wild . And she was very beautiful, you know. And together, they turned everything into a kind of adventure. And she liked that. Just an ordinary trip down to the grocery store was full of adventure. They were always laughing at stupid things. He liked to make her laugh. And…they didn't much care for anything else because all they wanted to do was to be with each other. They were always together. And he loved her more than… he ever felt possible. He couldn' t stand being away from her during the day when he went to work. So he quit, just to be home with her. Then he get another job when the money ran out, then he quit again.But pretty soon she started to worry.
Jane
About what?
Travis
Money I guess. Not having enough. Not knowing when the next check was coming in.
Jane(rit)
I know that feeling.
Travis
So he started to get kind of…torn inside.
Jane
How do you mean?
Travis
Well, he knew he had to work support her, but he couldn't stand being away from her, either.
Jane
I see.
Travis
And the more he's away from her, the crazier he got. Except now, he got really crazy . He started to imagine in all kinds of things.
Jane
Like what?
Travis
He started to think that she was seeing another man on the slide. He came home from work and accused her of spending the day with somebody else. He yelled at her and break things on the trailer.
Jane
The trailer?
Travis
Yes, they lived in a trailer home. Anyway, he started to drink real bad and he stayed out late to test her, to see if she get jealous. He wanted her to get jealous. But she didn't. She just worried about him. That got him even Madder. He thought that she never get jealous meaning that she never really cared about him. Jealousy was a sign of her love for him. And then one night, one night she told him that she was pregnant. She was about 3 or 4 months pregnant. And he didn't even know. And then suddenly everything changed. He stopped drinking. He got a steady job. He was convinced that she loved him now because she was carrying his child. And he was going to dedicate himself to making a home for her. But the funny thing started to happen. He didn't even notice it at first. SHE started to change. The day the baby was born,she began to get irritated at everything around her. She got mad at everything. Even the baby seems to be an injustice to her. He kept on doing everything all right for her. Buy her things. Take her out for dinner once a week. But nothing seemed to satisfy her. For 2 years, he struggled to pull them back together like they were when they first met. But finally he knew that it was never gonna work out. So he hit the bottle again.
But this time he got mean. This time when he came home late at night, she wasn't worried about him or jealous. She was just enraged. She accused him of holding her a captive by having her have a baby. She told him that she dreamed about escaping. That was all she dreamed about: escape. She saw herself at night, running naked down the highway, running across fields, running down riverbeds, always running. And always just when she was about to get away, he 'd be there. He would stop her somehow. He would just appear and stop her. And when she told him these dreams. He believed them. He knew she had to be stopped, or she'd leave him forever. So he tied a cowbell to her ankle. So he could hear her at night if she tried to get out of the bed.But she learned how to muffle the bell by stuffing a stocking into it and inching her way out of the bed and into the night. He caught her one night when the sock fell out and he heard her trying to run to the high way. He caught her, and dragged her back to the trailer, and tied her to the stove with his belt. He just left her there, went back to bed and laid there listening to her scream. And he listened to his son scream. He was surprised at himself because he didn't feel anything anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep. For the first time, he wished to go far away, lost in a deep, vast country where nobody knew him. Somewhere without language, or streets. And he dreamed about this place without knowing its name. And when he woke up, he was on fire. There were blue flames burning the sheets of his bed. He ran through the flames,for the only 2 people he loved. But they were gone. His arms were burning. And he threw himself outside and rolled on the wet ground. And he ran. He never looked back at the fire. He just ran.He ran until the sun came up and he couldn't run any further. And when the sun went down, he ran again. For five days he ran like this, until every sign of the man had disappeared.
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