Smokey Mountain Breakdown

An Easter Story ~ Part 1: Gethsemane

An Easter Story ~ Part 2: Faith of our Fathers

An Easter Story ~ Part 3: A Man Hath Friends

An Easter Story ~ Part 4: Cock Crows Thrice

An Easter Story ~ Part 5: The Empty Tomb(final)

He chose his sister, Alice, to tell first, in a letter. She was the logical choice and the sibling he was closest to.

He nervously awaited her reply, expecting silence at the best. And when her reply came, with its offer of love and prayer, he felt elated.

Dearest Scottie,

Of course, I am dismayed to hear this, but not entirely surprised. Please know that I will always love and support you. I will offer prayers for you and if God sees fit to change your heart, then let His Will be done. But if not, then know that I will always be your loving sister and that, too, is God's Will and the dearest wish of my heart.

Lovingly,

Alice

He carried her reply around with him in his wallet for weeks. Every now and again, when he felt despondent, he would take it out and read it, then press the letter close to his heart and weep.

One of his brother's wives found his letter laying on Alice's desk and began to tell the rest of the family. Scott heard of this and was dismayed. He had wanted to tell them each in his own way.

I agreed with him that he had been robbed of something that was rightfully his.

"It may not be such a bad thing, Scottie." I told him, "Remember, you have been coming to terms with this for thirty-something years. They, too, will need some time to come to terms with it. Maybe this is just God's way of working mysteriously."

I began to see subtle changes in Scott as he slowly and painfully confirmed to his closest friends what they had suspected, what had been rumored for so many years.

Their reactions were varied and some shunned him for a time, but as they became used to the idea, the ones that mattered the most embraced the new Scott. For Scottie had first let them know who he was before he revealed what he was. And very few people can resist Scottie's warmth and humor.

And I noticed that Scott began to make better decisions for himself. He seemed less self-destructive and spoke out of turn less often. I could see the man-child I had first met evolving into the man he should have become so many years ago. His health improved and his psoriasis cleared up. Excess pounds began to shed off his big frame as he began to see himself as a person with worth. The intense and consuming energy he had once put into concealing his nature from himself, his family and God was now being used to better himself and to deepen his relationship with the Deity.

He had once upbraided me for being angry at God and expressing that anger.

"Oh, Scottie," I said, "God and I do this all the damn time. He does something... I get mad and stomp off...He then shows me something amazing. I forgive Him...He forgives me. Then the whole damn thing starts all over again."

It was inconceivable to Scott that my relationship with God was most easily described as that of a grumpy old married couple. That I was unashamed to show God my anger and outrage. But in my mind, it seemed silly to hide anything from He who can draw out the Leviathan.

After all, if every parent abandoned every child who blurted out "I HATE you", we would have a world of orphans.

And while Scott seemed incapable of being angry at God for what was happening to him, I was feeling that anger in spades for both of us.

But God was about to show me something amazing.

The most difficult letter that Scottie wrote was to his father. He put off its writing for some time, for he feared losing his father's love more than anything. Again, he waited nervously for the post to arrive, expecting at best, silence.

But what came was a phone call. To Scott's surprise, his father's response was much like Alice's. George's strict and rigid military bearing had softened with age and all he could feel was compassion for his son.

But Scott was still not convinced. He had woven a tapestry of horrible fantasy around this revelation of his and it was so real to him that it could not be dispelled until he met his father face to face, man to man. On some level, his father, a smart and perceptive man, knew this.

The call came from his father a few weeks before Easter that he wanted Scott to come down for Sunday lunch. It would be the face-to-face meeting that Scott both dreaded and hoped for. He had been summoned.

He folded himself into my big leather chair and put that big head in those big hands. His fragility was tangible.

"I don't know what to do!" He whimpered.

"Just go and find out what he has to say." I said. "You owe him and yourself that. He has things that he needs to say and you do too."

His head shot up and and his eyes grew wide with panic. "What if he takes my truck away?"

"Oh, come on!" I said, attempting to inject some reason. "Your daddy doesn't want that nasty old truck. Really!"

As the weekend approached, Scott increasingly grew more fearful. In desperation, he called his father and tried to back out of the planned meeting. But George was not put off so easily.

"I'll meet you halfway." He said.

So, Scott drove off that Sunday to the Shoney's in Waynesville with a pit in his stomach. More than a few times, he wanted to turn back and run away as he had from so many other painful situations. But the new Scott drove onwards. It was a small sign of his increased sense of responsibility.

His father, George, and his sister, Alice, were waiting in a corner booth for him in the packed restaurant. The Sunday church crowd had well and truly arrived. Scott darted his eyes at Alice and noticed that she seemed a bit reticent. His father stood and gravely hugged his youngest son with a stern look on his face.

Scott felt a frisson of uneasiness and felt like fleeing the restaurant. But he sat and let the chirpy little waitress who called everyone "Hun" take his order.

They politely exchanged news about the folks from home until the food came. Scott kept looking at Alice, who seemed oddly fixated first on her salad plate and then on her tea glass. Once in a while, she would shake her head at nothing in particular. Scott's first bite of chicken-fried steak tasted like wood pulp and stuck in a lump in his throat as his sense of impending doom intensified.

"Scott," George said finally, "We need to talk about this letter you sent me. About this three- letter word you mentioned."

Scott pushed his peas around on his plate and made a mortar of them with his mashed potatoes. Alice shook her head sadly again while keeping her face averted.

"Yes, Dad." Scott said in a half whisper, not able to meet his stern father's direct gaze.

George peered at Scott for a moment with those piercing eyes of his. "Son, I sort of hoped you and Rose were going to get together."

Scott continued to avoid looking his father in the eye. "No, Dad. Rosie and I are just friends. Good friends, that's all."

Alice shook her head again and made a disturbing tsk-tsk sound.

"You always did have way too many female friends." His father said, still looking at him. "Guess I always sort of knew."

George suddenly stood up from the booth.

Scott's stomach lurched as he felt sure his father would turn his back on him now and forever, just as the parishioners in the church had.

But instead, George took his spoon and tapped it loudly against his water glass. All of those God-fearing faces turned to stare at the booth in the corner.

"Ladies and Gentleman, your attention, please!" Scott's father's voice, a voice that demanded attention from great men rang out into the restaurant, commanding silence and respect. Scott felt himself shrink a bit in his seat, convinced this was going to be worse than he thought.

"This is my gay son," George's voice proclaimed, "And he doesn't think I love him because he's gay. I'm here to tell you all, here and now, that I DO love my gay son and am proud of him!"

Scott sat in shock as tears began to well up in his eyes. Whatever he was expecting, it was not this. Alice finally raised her face to his and started laughing. She had known what was coming and was in on the gaff. She scooted over in the booth to hug him as tears coursed down his face.

The silence was deafening from the rest of the diners, until a few hands began to come together in applause. Slowly the applause grew and a few of them stood up. Not all, but a few. Maybe they were clapping for George, who had stood bravely and faced the foe of an ideology he had embraced all of his life, but finally rejected in the name of love. Maybe they applauded Alice, the good and kind sister whose comforting presence had enabled Scottie to hold on this long in the face of persecution and a troubled spirit. And just maybe, they applauded Scottie who had finally left his closet...his tomb...allowing all of that love and light to shine forth, dispelling the darkness.

And as Scott told me this story, I realized, that once again, God had showed me something amazing.

God and I were friends again and I was no longer angry.

An Easter Story ~ Part 1: Gethsemane

An Easter Story ~ Part 2: Faith of our Fathers

An Easter Story ~ Part 3: A Man Hath Friends

An Easter Story ~ Part 4: Cock Crows Thrice

An Easter Story ~ Part 5: The Empty Tomb(final)

He vacillated between fragility, elation and sadness during those days. I wondered at times if he was moving too fast. But once he had told me, he seemed to need to tell others.

His family and his faith continued to be the most torturous part of this process. He had built up inside of himself fears and nightmares that were the worst case scenarios and had convinced himself that they could not help but come to pass. And there was some evidence that could happen.

He came home from work one day, his arms stinging from nickle spray from the factory where he was working. He was feeling good that day. The anti-depressants were taking effect and he felt somehow light and free with bluegrass music blaring from the radio. As he pulled the white pickup truck into the driveway, he sensed suddenly that something was wrong. Someone had been there.

On the side of the pink house in the hollow, someone had spray painted "FAGGIT" in big ugly black letters.

He felt the violation wash over him in waves. He reached his large hand out and touched the atrocity. It came back wet and sticky like tar.

"Fucking oil base." He thought to himself. His fists clenched and he bit his teeth together hard. But he did not cry.

His landlord came up from the house down below to help him clean it up with turpentine and paint thinner.

"This too will pass, Scott," Jerry told him, "This too will pass. You can live here as long as you like. I'm okay with it."

He had met a local pastor with a gay brother who offered him counseling. Scott eagerly agreed and went to each session.

"You know, I have to try to talk you out of this." The pastor told him.

Scott nodded and said, "Let's give it a few months and see what happens."

They met each Thursday to pray and go over bible scriptures.

Every once in a while, Scott would run into the pastor and he would clap Scott on the shoulder and say, "So how's it going, Scottie?"

"Still gay, I reckon." Scott would say back.

But he really was trying. He was fully into the bargaining stage. At one point he asked God to give him a sign.

"Oh God," he prayed, "if the next message on my answering machine is a woman, I will truly know Your Will."

It didn't work out that way. But there was a spate of calls, sometimes a string of 20 messages a day, from a rather drunk and stoned woman he had never met who wanted to "hook up" with him. When he didn't call her back, she had her sister start calling him.

"Maybe that's my 'sign'." He said to me after replaying the crazy set of messages.

"Dunno, Scott." I said. "Sounds like a crack whore to me. My God doesn't usually speak through crack whores. Does yours?"

Then one Sunday he went to his pastor friend's church. He wore his best overalls, new and stiff, over a button down shirt. He polished his shoes. His hair was perfect and he carried his worn Bible and hymn book that he always kept close.

The church was already filling up when he sat on the left side in the fifth pew from the front near where the singers were and bowed his head in prayer. When he raised his head, he noticed that the entire congregation was moving to the other side of the church.

They all stood in unison and turned their backs on Scott. They would not let the service begin. His pastor friend looked on in dismay.

He approached Scott, sitting, shunned, all by himself on the left side of the church.

"Go on home, Scottie. Just go on home and I'll call you later."

Scott gathered his Bible and hymnal and stood. He ducked his head to hide the wetness that was gathering in the corners of his eyes. He left the church with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, not in prayer, but in pain.

As he drove home to the pink house in the hollow down the bumpy gravel road of The 15th, his stomach hurt. Tears blinded his sight and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

He was barely aware of pulling into the driveway of the pink house in the hollow and sat there with the engine running, the radio silent. The pink house greeted him with all of its shabby, nearly un-inhabitable silence. No smoke came out of the chimney and he knew the fire had gone out. He shut the engine off and stumbled into the house, shaking in sadness.

Only when he had curled his nearly seven feet into a ball on the worn couch did he allow the great whooping sobs to emerge. But he felt no enmity for the parishioners or the pastor who had abandoned him. They had only done what he, himself, had been taught to do to people like him. And he wondered to himself, and felt with great certainty, that his family would do exactly the same thing.

But I had met his family back before this all began. They were all lovely people and I felt warmed by the love I felt they all shared. They accepted me, a total stranger, as one of their own and included me in their Christmas celebrations. I could feel how much they loved their Scottie.

I couldn't...I wouldn't believe that they, too, would do this to him.

But Scottie was not as sure.

And I wasn't sure what would happen if his family denied him as his faith had.

The pieces would be too numerous to pick up from such a shattering.

An Easter Story ~ Part 1: Gethsemane

An Easter Story ~ Part 2: Faith of our Fathers

An Easter Story ~ Part 3: A Man Hath Friends

An Easter Story ~ Part 4: Cock Crows Thrice

An Easter Story ~ Part 5: The Empty Tomb(final)

But for a time, he was very happy living in the pink house in the hollow on the mountain.

He attended church each Sunday and Wednesday at the little church across from the cow pasture and reveled in the hellfire and brimstone services that he loved so well. His beautiful singing voice soared during the songs and his heart felt full in the presence of these people. His people.

Until there was an instance when he publicly drank some beer at a local gathering. It got back to the preacher of his church and he was publicly upbraided one Sunday in front of the congregation. He didn't feel comfortable going back to the little church across from the cow pasture after that. They had hurt his feelings.

He had been here a few years before I met him. And I had been here a few years more before we met.

I had heard of him. Someone would say, "You know Scott? He's that big goofy guy from South Carolina?"

"No, I haven't met him yet." I would say.

"Thought you might have, you'uns being from the around the same part of the country."

I never explained that the lowcountry and the upcountry of South Carolina were entirely different worlds.

I was pumping gas when he first introduced himself. I was fairly bedraggled that day and still wearing my barn clothes. An impossibly tall man with a shock of wavy brown hair came toward me. His face seemed fixed in a perpetually bashful expression. I remember thinking to myself that he looked close to my age, yet was really just a big kid.

"Hey! Are you the 'Goat Lady'?" He asked, ducking his head slightly.

I holstered the pump and screwed the gas cap back on my jeep.

"Some folks have called me such." I said and wiped my hands on my overalls, looking up at him.

He looked embarrassed for a moment.

"Miz Busbee told me all about you. I'm Scott."

"Oh, yes!" I said, "She has mentioned you to me. She has good things to say about you."

He blushed in the cold and ducked his head the funny way he has that is so incongruous on such a tall, big man.

He told me that he was on his way home from his Garden Club meeting and laughed about how he was the only man there. We exchanged some pleasantries about who we knew. I took note of his dialect that had none of the east Tennessee twang that I had finally deciphered.

"You sound like you are from my neck of the woods." I said.

"Well, I'm from upstate South Carolina, but most of my relatives are up here on the mountain."

I invited him to come by the farm for coffee and a visit. He asked me if I had any goat manure I could spare for his rose bushes.

"I've got plenty of that. All you have to do is shovel it up." I said. "You are most welcome to as much as you can carry."

I didn't see him again until the next winter. I'm not sure what he was doing in the meantime. Mrs. Busbee would mention him now and again. He would come clean her flowerbeds out for her. We always seemed to just be missing each other. He never came for the goat poop.

I was getting in my car after visiting the Newport Bargain Barn one cold winter day when I saw him again. His face looked different somehow. He was paler and his bashful face looked like a puppy who had just been kicked.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries about the weather and Mrs. Busbee.

Then he said, out of the blue, with a yearning look, "Do you ever feel lonely...well, alone...up there on the mountain?"

I searched his face as I searched my mind. I could tell he was looking for a certain answer.

"No, Scott. Not really. I sort of like my own company."

He looked embarrassed and a bit frantic, like a startled deer.

"Don't get me wrong," I qualified, "I love company. I just don't mind being by myself."

"I just get so depressed." He said, haunted.

I drove away with Scott laying heavily on my mind. A few days later I drove up to the pink house in the hollow to give him a bar of my pine tar soap for his psoriasis. It was a gesture of friendship that I was making, but I knew I should go slowly with him.

We soon became close buddies. I knew he was gay from the first time I met him. But it soon became evident to me that he hadn't made peace with that part of himself. I didn't say anything, and avoided any attempts on his part to discuss the topic. I knew that when he was ready to say the words that he would.

That time came after he tried to hang himself.

He sought help at that time for his depression and began that introspection that we all must face at one time or another...for some reason or another.

I was the first person he told.

He sat down in my big leather armchair and explained what he had been going through.

"Well, you see..." he said, blushing and stumbling over the words, "I think I'm gay."

I smiled gently at him. "I know, Scott."

He looked at me in a panic for a moment, his eyes large.

"Why? Do I look gay? Sound gay?" He said, mustering a bit of outrage.

"Gee, I don't know, Scott." I retorted in my smartass voice, "Maybe it was because when I first met you were on your way home from your Garden Club meeting? Oh no....maybe it is because of your vast knowledge of Absolutely Fabulous? Look or sound gay? Oh no...not you...Mr. Studly Rose Gardener!"

"Fuck you!" He said in mock indignation. "Fuck you very much!"

Almost all of my good friends say this to me at some point in time. That he felt comfortable saying it made me feel good.

We talked further about his feelings about the subject. He was still convinced that he was going to burn in hell. I assured him that he wasn't, though I knew it would take him a long time to figure this out for himself. He had a lifetime of mixed messages to sort out.

But mostly, he was concerned for his family. He was terrified that they would never want to see him. That they would not love him.

"I suspect, Scott," I told him, "that they probably have had their suspicions. But give them time. Tell them when and only when you are ready. This isn't a race."

He placed his big head in his big hands. And as I had so many times before, I wondered how such a big man could be so fragile.

An Easter Story ~ Part 1: Gethsemane

An Easter Story ~ Part 2: Faith of our Fathers

An Easter Story ~ Part 3: A Man Hath Friends

An Easter Story ~ Part 4: Cock Crows Thrice

An Easter Story ~ Part 5: The Empty Tomb(final)

It wasn't by any means the first time that he didn't know what direction he was going in.

He fled to the mountains first, to give his life to God.

His folks were from here. His mother was a gentle soul who took her youngest son with her on Garden Club meetings and bridge parties. She infused him with a love of flowers and culture. But she was born in these hard scrabble hills and never forgot the place or the faith she was raised in. The old time religion of the mountains still sang in Scottie's soul. She was his anchor, his rock, his north star. As long as she lived, he could grasp her hand and feel quiet.

His father was a tall, erect military man, a veteran of multiple campaigns, with sharp eyes and a willing heart. The sort of man with direction and purpose. A man of faith. The sort of man who you were glad to have guarding your back. He didn't miss a trick. He could be harsh, but he was also fair. If you were looking for a hero, you didn't need to look further than George Smith.

Don't even think of filling this man's shoes. It can't be done. They just don't make them like that anymore.

Scottie's values were the values of his faith. The values of his parents. In all the years growing up, following his family to different countries as his father was stationed at different military bases, they kept their faith. The faith of the mountains.

Like the mountains, the faith of the mountains has sides both light and dark. It has it's greatest beauty in the fiery oratory of the pastors, the transcendent harmony of the music, the giving and friendly nature of the people and the womb-like sense of community they inspire. It's more than just literally accepting the Bible. It's more than just being saved or witnessing. It involves following a strict morality code.

Very near the top of this morality code is "Thou shalt not be homosexual." It is enforced with an iron fist. Not only is the sinner shunned but the sinner's entire family can be shunned. There is no single other faceless group that the worshipers hate with such intense biblical rage. The persecution is not a new thing, they were merely picking up a baton from generations of misunderstanding of human nature.

But Scott had a face. He truly was one of them.

He loved his family more than tongue could tell. He wanted to be everything that his mother and father wanted him to be. He really tried. But he couldn't remember a time that he wasn't gay. That he didn't feel gay feelings. The conflict of believing so fiercely in his faith created a destructive worm of self-loathing that he couldn't escape. He worried constantly about burning in hell. He really believed that.

Scott's closet was a dangerous place where he was being slowly eaten alive.

He held it together until his mother died. As long as he had her there, he felt he had an anchor. He could hold everything together for her.

And when she died of cancer, the bottom of his world dropped out.

The rain that night fell like bullets down onto the glassy black of the freeway that other time he took off in his truck eight years ago. He drove blindly with tears streaming down his face. He turned off onto 40 from Asheville and headed towards Knoxville. Lightening crashed in the mountain passes lighting up the interior of the truck.

He had a vague plan to drive his truck off the interstate into the Pigeon River. Scott knew his bible. He knew the penalty was for what he was. It was unlikely that anyone would try to solve this problem for him. He was a mountain of a man and intimidating by his very size.

The route he was taking was toward Grassy Fork, where he had spent so many happy childhood summers with his mother and his large extended family of cousins. As he skidded around a particularly treacherous hairpin curve, light seemed to fill the cabin of the vehicle. Time seemed to stop. His ears were roaring.

He screeched to a halt in the middle of the strangely deserted freeway and stumbled out onto the middle of the road. Weeping he fell on his knees on the pavement.

"Why, God, why, why, why.....?" he wept.

Suddenly, his mind became quiet. He felt a voice speaking softly in his mind.

Go to the mountain, Scott. Go to the mountain. Give your life to Jesus.

He felt at peace suddenly. It was his epiphany. It was the story of his "saving".

Scott got back in his truck and headed toward the mountain. He knew just the one.

The rain had let up as he pulled into his aunt Tullie's driveway. He hadn't seen her since he was a little boy and had fallen into her outhouse. He banged on the door like a madman.

She peeked out cautiously through the screen door wearing a faded print house dress. Her jet black hair stood in sharp contrast to her weather worn face. Her eyes were wide and alarmed and she wondered if she needed the shotgun.

"Aunt Tullie!" Scott said in a rush, his face aglow, "It's me, Scottie...you know, little Scottie, from Pickens! Sarah's boy. I've come to give my life to Jesus!"

Tullie opened the door and embraced Scott. She squealed in excitement and happiness for him.

There was great celebration on the mountain that night. The night Scottie was saved.

And Scottie felt he'd finally come home.

And indeed he had. He moved there shortly after that so that he could feel the peace of the mountain all of the time.

But while Jesus had changed Scott in so many ways, he had left him the same in others. He was still the child that God had made.