Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Friend Scott!!!
Perhaps the best Christmas present was having Friend Scott show up on my doorstep for the whole weekend yesterday. Today we drove around to different friends houses (he's much more social than I am and welcome everywhere for his funny jokes and impressions of local folks). We ate two Christmas dinners--both delicious and way off my diet. And look at that itty baby! Scott's head is bigger than her entire little body! So sweet--I got to hold her too!

He's gonna kill me for using this photo--but I love how his eyes light up--it's so Scott. We've been having a great time during our pajama party. He's already redecorating the house. We've been sitting up late and gossiping, telling stories, laughing. Such fun. I so miss him!

Today I was telling him something a little "blue" and he claps his hands over his ears and says, "Stop! It's Jesus' birthday!" Then he told me something even raunchier.

I think we're going to see a movie tomorrow after he visits with a friend in town.

Anyway, I've got him all the way until Monday and I knew you'd all love to see a picture of him. He wishes everyone a happy Christmas and a merry new year. As do I.

And since it's Christmas...here's some of the dreadful snow I ran into Friday on my way home. This is just turning into my road--little did I know there was a pine tree fallen across my drive just around the bend. My neighbor cut me a path. Then later that night, the ancient beech fell. Got a cord of firewood off that bad boy when it was cleared. But today was sunny and warmish.

Very late on Tuesday--actually Wednesday morning around 12:30 a.m.--headlights come up my driveway. Never a good sign. So I put on some pants (What?! You don't lounge around in your underwear after hours in the middle of nowhere?! Get over yourself!) and grab a gun. I slam on the porch lights so the intruder can see I'm in full possession of both pants and gun, which I firmly believe are important things to have in one's possession during any late night backwoods encounter. Yay! Pants! Yay! Gun!

Dogs are going nuts--but it's sort of a joyous nuts, especially on Max's part.

A long, deep drawl floats out of the intruder's truck window, "Hey, you got a couch in there for me?"

It's Friend Scott! Completely unexpected visit. I was sort of expecting him to come Wednesday day, but his schedule is sort of crazy and I don't always expect him when he says he's driving up. So this was really great. There's not a single thing about Scott that makes me uncomfortable--from his six-foot-nine frame to his languid Carolina drawl, everything Scott reminds me of home. I really miss having him live just up the road. I realize Scott is sort of my muse, in a way. I never lack for stories when Scott is around.

We sit up talking until four-ish or so. Scott tortured Max with a laser pointer--any tool that can distract ADD-Dog is welcome. We talk about many things, but there's this story he tells about him climbing out of The Red Claptrap of Death and this little man telling him, "You a twelve foot man in a two foot car!"

We get up at the crack of the afternoon--Scott swears he tried to wake me up but couldn't--and we take off driving around in his new truck. He hasn't had a chance to play with the 4WD so we grab a few corn dogs and waters at the Citgo and head up to Waterville, taking the road that goes by the AT Outpost--the back-back-back way into Grassy Fork. We natter the whole way, rummage through an abandoned house, see and chase veritable herds of turkeys. There's a long conversation about how come turkeys are so hard to hunt but if we tried real hard we could run one over with the truck. How come?

We end up driving all the way to the top of Snowbird to the FAA facility. My brother, the airline pilot, has told me about this--what it is for. It's a way for pilots to navigate without instruments. They have places like this all over the country. He's only seen it from the air. It's an unimpressive little building with a round roof and a big cone on top. The locals have many fanciful theories for what it's for. A "secret military installation," they'll say. Homeland security. And sometimes there is military activity related to this little place.

It's a long, bumpy ride to the top, and like a Roman road, it goes straight up. We've been living in the cloud cover for the past few days--it's like living in the rain rather than having it fall. On Snowbird, the fog is thick and the wind is high. You can see ribbons of cloud streaming by--so solid you could grab them, maybe stick your tongue out to taste them. It's sort of a shame since on a clear day, I suspect we could see to Clingman's Dome or the skyline of K-town from up there. It's 4623 feet above sea level. Scott checks his cell phone, then spreads out his arms like a giant bird and drinks the wind.

On the way down, we have to stop the truck to let the brakes cool.

Anyway, we visited a few of his friends and then he was off, back to Greenville. Usually my posts have some structure to them. Usually I nail my endings on my blog posts. Not gonna do that here. I just really miss my big friend. He's a great big irresponsible man-child, he redecorates my fucking house if he's here for more than a few hours, he places things on shelves out of my reach, he often lies (and badly), he gossips like an old woman, he's always in some sort of trouble, he's gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide--and completely irreplaceable. I miss him.

Okay, I've fallen a bit behind.

I had a wonderful day with Friend Scott, yesterday. People were civil and no fights erupted at the Hall Family Reunion--though he claims he got cussed out three times and wandered into the aftermath of a dreadful domestic dispute before he got to my house.

"Why didn't you just come here when you saw the cop cars?" I ask, because that's what I'd do. I'd get away from a dreadful situation like that once the cops were there. Because I hate a scene. People love scenes here.

"But I just had to find out what was going on!"

Typical Scott. He had to drive back to Texas this morning with a trailer of Standardbreds for a horse something in Fort Worth. He sleeps with the horses while he's there and they keep him up. It's like a horse house party.

There wasn't as big a crowd this year as there usually is. We got there in time for the morning and afternoon singing. It was hot and a bit sluggish for the afternoon. The singing at the Hall Reunion is some of the best in this area. They've really held on to that tradition, though I'm told in years gone by--it was even more impressive. Only five people came up to the front who could still read the shape notes. Still it was something to behold.

The food, as usual, was amazing, delicious and plentiful. Those Hall ladies sure can cook--I've seen a copy of their cookbook from the past and they really need to do another one of those. I would so buy it.

The absolute stand-out for both Scott and me, was this sublime sweet potato dish. I didn't think it was possible to surprise me with a sweet potato. I really didn't. I'm the Bubba Gump of sweet potatoes.

Scott and I were sitting side-by-side on a bench with our plates when I took the first bite.

"Oh. My. God. Have you tried this yet?" I pointed out his mound of the stuff on his plate.

Scott tries it and said, "I could eat that three times a day!"

I went back for seconds and Scot had three helpings. It's really a dessert and I have a feeling it would be much better as a pie than a casserole. She had taken the basic sweet potato pie filling recipe then topped it with German Chocolate cake filling(the coconut part), then sprinkled a butter-nut crunch topping and baked it. It had this stunning buttery crispy top caramelized on top of the sweet potato and coconut filling. Yes--it was really sweet and rich but what a show stopper! I wanted to leave a note in the empty casserole dish that said, "I love you!"

Happy Birthday to my buddy, Mallow over at Fun in Flatland. Go over there and wish her a good one. She's got amazing yummy cake photos on her blog!

Now. I have a matter of great import I need you native Appalachian folks to weigh in on. I may put it up as a poll. It is a matter of spelling.

How do you spell the word that means a small valley tucked into the mountains--holler or hollow?

The reason I'm asking is because the first line of Narrative Magazine's story of the week this week spells it "hollows" in the very first sentence. Spelling it that way destroyed the credibility of the author's narrator from the get-go, as far as I'm concerned. They don't say it or spell it that way here. At all. Do you remember being taught one way or the other? Am I being too harsh?

The 90 acre fire is now 1500 acres and burning Rocky Top. Still visible if not sniffible from my back porch. The night sky glows over beyond Sol Messer and you can see flames. They say it's 20 percent under control.

Scott's mailing address is:

Scott Smith
442 Tigerville Road
Travelers Rest, SC 29690

Send him some underwear or a postcard.

There is Popcorn Sutton news. His court date rescheduled to the 22nd of September. It doesn't look good for him.

CMT has a reality show called Outsiders Inn set in Cocke County. Scott has been following it religiously. I haven't been watching it though I remembered hearing about it while they were filming. Everyone was really excited to have the "TV people" in town. Having come out of that industry, I pretty much knew exactly what to expect. So now, predictably, some folks are upset. After the Esquire article back in 92 or whatever--you'd think they'd understand.

I will blog about all of this and more upcoming. But wanted to let you know things were moving right along here. Oh. And my kidneys are tanking again so they've upped my imuran.

I've just not had much to write this week blogwise. I've been blowing my creative juices over on Zoetrope, so I am writing new stories--several really good ones this week. But I can't share them with you here because it limits where I can send them. But as soon as they are published, you'll get the links.

Friend Scott was supposed to be visiting this week. He wanted to come up and get Amos, his sort of dog. Amos is a dog, but he was only sort of Scott's. Scott is doing really well back in Greenville. He has a job at a stable working with horses which is his very most favorite thing. He's living over a stable in an apartment. A different stable than the one he works at. He's really coming out of his shell there and meeting lots of fun interesting people. He bought a horse. Which I think he's going to have to give up because he can't afford it, but it's not like he isn't around horses all day now. He still misses Grassy, but this is really all for the best. Nothing good could have happened here for him.

I hope he finds himself a nice doctor and settles down. Or a dentist.

Some P & D?

*****************************


Lucius and Kellie watched Bubba lock up. Lucius fiddled with the car's cobra head-shaped shifter, while Kellie slumped down in the driver’s seat and watched as Bubba drove away.

“Are you sure we should do this, Kellie?” Lucius had the jitters and felt like backing out of the plan. He pointed at the “protected by Brinks Security” stickers in the windows. “That place looks pretty well protected. What if we set the alarm off?”

“I told you I saw him punch the code in. Once we are in, we’ll disable the security and it will be easy-weasy.”

Lucius began to realize his girlfriend had hidden talents beyond working the system for drugs and money.

It was still light when Kellie and Lucius went up to the building, both carrying duffel bags. The street was deserted since it was an industrial area. Lucius trailed behind Kellie as they walked to the side door. She pulled a set of lock picks out of her bag.

“What the hell are those?”

“Shhhh.” Kellie fiddled with the lock of the side entrance. The lock opened and Kellie gave the door a shove. The humidity had swollen it shut. Kellie slipped inside, pushing aside a mannequin modeling a white see-through baby doll negligee with crotchless bottoms. Lucius squeezed through after her.

Kellie punched a code into the security panel to quiet the steady beeping. Lucius exhaled the breath he was holding.

Looking around Mistress Mona’s Lingerie and Adult Emporium, Lucius saw the left side of the store was dedicated to lingerie and clothing. The bulk of the inventory was lacy see-through things made of synthetic materials. Mannequins modeled a variety of styles, exposing a great deal of painted flesh-tone plaster, leaving little to the imagination. Lucius took an arrangement of straps, stainless buckles and rings from one rack of leather and leatherette items. He held it up to himself, but could not figure out what it was supposed to be or how it was worn.

Kellie rolled her eyes.

To the right, a newsstand with DVDs and magazines claimed most of that wall to the checkout register. In the corner, just beside the door, was a display featuring The Lola Delight Inflatable Pleasure Doll. She kept watch over the store with vinyl blue eyes and arched eyebrows. Her red lace teddy sported cutouts leaving her pointy breasts and flat ass exposed. Lucius could not shake the feeling she was staring at him as he raided the porn DVDs, throwing them into his bag.

Kellie headed toward the Grotto with Lucius tagging after her. The glass beaded curtain hanging from the archway jangled as she passed through the door. Lucius pawed them out of the way to follow her. Kellie ducked behind the display case, swinging the velvet painting of the Last Supper outward to reveal a safe.

“Crap!” Lucius dropped his bag on the floor. "You didn’t mention no safe!”

"Here, hold this for me." Kellie threw him a small flashlight. He fumbled in the darkness to catch it.

Kellie turned the tumblers with her ear pressed to the safe door. The safe popped open, revealing fat stacks of bills.

"Bingo." She muttered and tossed the wads of cash into her bag.

"Woo Hoo!" Lucius ran behind the counter. "Kellie, you are a genius!"

He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up to kiss her. As his lips met hers, a cell phone went off in the store, loudly playing "Crazy Frog".

“Ding-da-da-Ding-da-da-Ding-ding-ding-ding--”

They froze in position for a moment, their eyes wide.

“Turn that damn thing off! I told you to leave it in the car!” Kellie pushed herself away from him.

“Uh…" Lucius stared at her. "I did leave it in the car.”

He passed ownership of the Golden Dynasty Buffet Discount Card to me before driving off in his white pick-up truck.

"Just four more dinners and you get one free," he said.

That was sort of a tradition with us. Scott called the Chinese the "Newport Country Club". The first time I went there was with Scott. I'm not sure how many of the red stamps on the back were from our shared meals, but I'm guessing most of them were from the two of us. I'd go in by myself once in a very great while if I had something to read, but honestly, it's not as fun eating alone as it is with a friend.

We hugged hard and he teared up. I have a delayed response to grief so I didn't feel that hungry hurt in the pit of my stomach until after the truck disappeared. But that is how I've always been. I nurse my wounds in the dark and silence.

We spent yesterday in town. We both got haircuts at Rubles. Scott ran into politico, Charlotte Leibrock who had heard about what happened. She told Scott she was sorry and that losing him was a loss to Cocke County. We went by the bank so I could give him the money all of you donated to him.

Scott wanted me to tell you all how much he appreciated your kind thoughts, wishes and donations.

"Yeah, my peeps is the bestest," I told him. He agreed. If you'd like to email him directly, his email is Biggen9257@aol.com. I'm not sure when he's going to find a computer to use, but he'll be able to check it eventually, I'm sure.

I'm going to miss him an awful lot. There is a quiet here now I wasn't aware of before.

The paper made it sound like some sort of domestic dispute--pointing out prominently that Scott and the suspect were related and had words. Words in which the suspect threatened to burn his house to the ground. Never mind that everyone here is related to each other. Pointing out that they were related is rather like pointing out that they had a mouth and a nose. But make no doubt--this was a hate crime. Just as the attack when Scott was coshed over the head was a hate crime. Just as when his house was vandalized was a hate crime. And honestly, the shunning of him at church was a hate crime--just not one that was a federal crime.

And of course, Satan's whisperers are out in full force. Saying things like, "He deserved it," or "It's God's punishment for him being gay." That they don't feel the cloak of evil suffocating them as these words form in their brains speaks only to how lost their souls must be. Even I, with my crippled faith, can see that.

The thing is--this was a really beautiful spot. The Pink House in the Holler was set back off the road deep in a holler off of Granny's Branch. It's a tiny little holler--just big enough for one cabin. Friend Scott's great great grandmother was born there.

The place had its own monster called a Three Toe--sort of a Smoky Mountain chupacabra. Friend Scott used to get freaked out about it at night. He could hear it snuffling around and crying. It seemed to like and tolerate Scott most of the time. Perhaps it will wreak a dreadful vengeance on Scott's persecutors. Perhaps it will come to their houses and breath its foetid breath down their necks. Perhaps Scott was the only thing appeasing the Three Toe. Perhaps now with Scott gone, the Three Toe will finally be free to rampage across the community, gnashing its dreadful fangs and shredding with its razor claws.

But of course, there's no such thing as a Three Toe, is there? Right? Just tell yourself that over and over and maybe everything will be just fine.

Of course, I have a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation for the Three Toe. I thought it up as I walked around the ruins of Scott's house, wondering about the strange dinner plate sized tracks I saw there. They had three deep indentations such as would be made by curved knives.

This is what I think.

The Three Toe is the evil thoughts, words and actions of the people in this community made real. It is the hulking specter of their own intolerance and hatred. It screams like a banshee in the night and seeks its victims on the breath of gossipers. It stalks the dark places where people complacently allow evil to happen, unseen by those who avert coward's eyes.

You, my fair community, are the Three Toe.



I want to thank everyone who has come forward to help Friend Scott. As promised, here is a list of his sizes. If you have any hand me downs you could send in his larger than life size, just email me and I'll give you the address to send them to.

Friend Scott sizes:

Height: 6'9"

Shoes: 13 Wide
T-shirts - XL
Dress shirt: Neck- 18.5 Arm-37
Other Shirts - XLLong
Pants: 40-44-Waist 36-Inseam
Sports Jacket- 46XL or L

No Food Porn today.

I’ve been stuck here on goat watch and trying to catch up on some of my writer business stuff.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s Friend Scott.

They burnt his house to the ground last night. He lost everything except the clothes on his back, his vehicles and a change of clothes. His cat got out with singed paws.

Scott is okay. He was at work. He’s in shock.

The cops have a fair idea who did it.

Anyway, I’m very upset for him. He didn’t have much to start with and now he has nothing.

If this sort of intolerance doesn’t lead to damnation, then I don’t know what does.

People are evil. My faith is shaken.

My friend Scott is just a wee bit vain. Not in a way that is annoying , but the way that men of a certain age get. It's adorable, really.

Having grown up with a father who was color blind and whose clothing was uniformly khaki, blue and sometimes yellow, these little peccadilloes sometime strike me as amusing. My father was always meticulously groomed, and his clothing seemed to have nothing that could get him in trouble with color. Nothing in shades of red or green. We also have nothing of male pattern baldness in my family, so the hair thing was never something I could wrap my head around.

My reaction to bad toupees has gotten me in trouble on a number of occasions. I think balding looks just fine. I don't see anything wrong with it. On most men, it's very attractive. But, unless one has invested in one of the expensive lace-front toupees, like the ones I used to work with...toupees look bad. Comb-overs are an abomination.

Scott's vanity seems to be attached to his hair and sometimes his face. He has lovely wavy brown hair that he keeps cut short with the top a bit longer. It really is his crowning glory so I can't blame him for being a bit proud of it. He's a handsome man and I understand wanting to maintain that. So, he uses a little hair dye to cover the bits of distinguished silver that shows on his temples.

But, in true Friend Scott fashion, he keeps encountering disaster.

He gets those little boxes of Clairol from The Dollar Store. He usually does such a good job that even I don't notice it. But this one time, he comes in my driveway wearing a cap. Scott never wears caps.

He marches into the house and removes the cap with a flourish.

His hair is Annie Lennox orange. Ginger pussy cat orange.

I feel the air dry my mouth out as my jaw hangs open.

"Scott...what have you done?" I say in a half whisper.

Well, as it turns out, someone tampered with the hair color boxes at the dollar store, switching all the products in the boxes. Scott doesn't find this out until he goes into the Sally Beauty Supply to beg for help.

After laughing at him, the sales girl says, "Oh, you must be one of the folks who got the hair color at the Dollar Store."

They sell him some Metalex and the correct shade of dye to get his hair back to it's proper shade of brown.

Then, he visits another time and I notice that his face is sort of puffy. I wonder if he's having an allergy attack. I hadn't seen his face look like that since the last time he helped me load some hay in. It was oddly smooth and sort of like what my face does when I'm on mega doses of steroids.

I didn't want to say anything, but I sure was thinking, "Gee, what's wrong with your face?"

Turns out, he'd found someone to shoot him up with bootleg botox.

And he loves it.

Like I said....I didn't want to say anything. So I kept my mouth shut and prayed that the disturbing telepathy thing we have developed would not betray me.

So...the last and most recent episode involved him going into one of the local "Curl up and Dye's" in town for a bit of pampering. He was just going to get his hair color touched up and his eyebrows waxed. I was relieved that he was going into see a professional.

I'm not sure what happened in there. It sounds like the procedures started to snowball. He got way more body parts waxed than I think he originally intended. But his hair...well, his hair ended up being sort of black with dark red highlights. Sort of dark maroon, I guess.

And his eyebrows. Well, they came out vaguely Norma Desmond-ish, if you know what I mean.

He went back in a few days later to get the hair color fixed.

The eyebrows ...well, we are still waiting for those to grow out. He'll be ready for his close-up in another month or so.

A Friend Scott Story ~ Part 1
A Friend Scott Story ~ Part 2


She weaved and staggered despite the support of the men. Scott and Buddy wedged her in through the door while Mitch held the screen door open.

They hadn't formed a clear plan as to what to do with her once they got her in the house.

Their eyes looked desperately at the furniture as they stood there supporting the massive drunk woman.

She was sagging on their shoulders and the men made a stagger toward the sofa.

"Crap, No!" Mitch said, "She'll bleed all over the sofa. Shelly will kill us all!"

So they lurched over towards a big wingback.

"Not there, damnit!" Mitch said, his eyes frantic.

"What the hell do we do with her? Hurry up, son! She's a biggun!"

Mitch disappeared into the laundry room and picked up a pile of clean towels that had been awaiting folding from the dryer.

He draped the seat of the blue Naugahyde lazy boy recliner with towels and pointed to it.

"There...drop her there, boys!"

Buddy and Scott backed Peggy into the big chair and released her. She fell back hard and the chair's footrest shot out like a see-saw leaving Peggy with her legs sprawling the sides and leaving the injured part of her anatomy peeking out from the hopeful modesty of her skirt.

"Oh, sweet Jesus!" Scott moaned, turning away.

Buddy grabbed a towel and forcefully threw it at the barely covered cooter.

Peggy's head lolled against the reclining back of the recliner and she kept mumbling, "My cooter...hurt the cooter...bwaaah."

The three men stood there breathing hard with exertion and panic.

"Shelly keeps the first aid kit under the sink, Buddy...Could you get it?" Mitch said.

Buddy retrieved the little white box. Mitch opened up the first aid kit and laid out some gauze and some betadine on a towel on the coffee table. He murmured to himself as he did this, "We just gotta get her cleaned up then we's can get her out of here. Get her out of here. Yes we can. We can do this. "

Mitch hands Buddy a hand towel and says, "Here ya go."

Buddy looks at the hand towel like it's a snake.

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Buddy says, ashen. "I can't touch her! Louella would kill me!"

Louella is Buddy's fiancee. Her momma can out-Baptist anyone on the mountain. Buddy knew he was risking damnation from his beloved's family by merely being in the same room with Peggy.

Buddy and Mitch face off and their eyes lock. Both knew they couldn't possibly doctor Peggy without incurring the considerable wrath of the womenfolk. They scowl at each other over the first aid supplies then they both widen their eyes in one of those moments of silent mutual resolution.

They both turn their eyes to Scott.

"He's gay...let him do it!" They both say in the same breath.

Scott turns even paler than before. Buddy throws the offending hand towel to him. Scott catches it and stares at its whiteness with horror.

"I can't do this." he whispered hoarsely.

Peggy moans from the lazy boy. "You'uns my friends. I love you'uns...I really do." Then she starts to cry again.

Mitch adopts a look frustrated sympathy. "Well, we sure as shit cain't! Come on, Scottie...be a man, for God's sake. Be a gay man!"

Scott slowly approached with the towel. He reached a tentative hand out to remove wadded up towel that Buddy had thrown to cover Peggy and replaced it with the hand towel, averting his eyes.

Peggy reached out and grabbed Scott's hand and ground it with the towel between her legs. She giggled drunkenly and looked at him with bleary eyes. The painkillers she had taken previously were obviously kicking in and said cooter was in less discomfort than before.

"Argh...uh...uh...uh!" Scott's eyes flew open in panic.

"Damnit, Peggy!" Buddy snapped. "Be-damn-have! We are tryin' to help you here."

He slapped her hand away from Scott's. Scott stood there shaking. Buddy matter-of-factly poured the betadine on the gauze 4 X 4s and handed them to Scott.

"You need to paint some of this on it." He said with the surety of one who has attended many a large animal veterinary operation.

"Aw, fuck it!" Scott finally broke. He grabbed the entire betadine bottle and squirted the antiseptic in the general direction of the cooter. He sopped up the excess with the hand towel.

"There!" Scott blurted with anger. "Damn cooter is fucking painted. Are you happy now!"

Peggy burbled and giggled again. "Yes, you'uns my good friends. Wanna party?"

She gave her breasts a little jiggle. It was her signature move.

A Friend Scott Story ~ Part 1


Peggy had a troubled past. Her present was none too peaceful either. She was now in her late twenties and was fast approaching that point when well-used women lose their charms. She had just gotten out of three months in the Cocke county jail for tumbling her vehicle off the side of the mountain after a high speed chase with the local sheriff's department. Her daddy had left her in there this past time, though he had bailed her out many times before. The consensus was that having the county take care of her for a bit would give the rest of the family a bit of time to catch their breath.

You see, it wasn't the first time Peggy had driven off the mountain. It was the eleventh. By some mysterious protection given to alcoholics and drug addicts, Peggy had been too boneless at the time of her accidents to actually break anything while plummeting down a 60 foot cliff. These accidents are separate from the 20 plus times she had driven into the creek at various parts of Big Creek Road.

Peggy was a massive woman. She stood 6 feet in her hunting socks and had a bit of a weight problem. But her height allowed her to carry her 400 pounds much better than a shorter woman could. She had considerable trouble finding shoes that would fit her size 13 feet, so she usually just wore men's hiking boots. Today she was wearing those as well as a denim mini skirt that was stretched like paint onto her massive thighs. Her orange top had little spaghetti straps that kept slipping to reveal a black and buff leopard print bra. Where she had found that neon green banana clip holding her mass of frizzy black hair was anyone's guess.

Everyone said Peggy was a really sweet girl when she wasn't drunk or stoned...or both. Really she was. But those days were few and far between. It wasn't that Peggy was a mean or angry drunk. Peggy was a slutty drunk. A hyper-sexualized drunk can get in a world of trouble here.

Scott, Buddy, Mitch and Shelly looked out the window as Peggy groped around in the dirt, seeking purchase to lift herself off the ground.

"Shit, man, what's she doin' here?" Buddy said.

Peggy leveraged herself onto all unsteady fours and lurched up. She picked up the vodka bottle and looked at it. Then she reached into her beat-up Taurus and pulled out what looked like a prescription bottle. She chugged the pills and downed them with the last slug of vodka.

"It don't look good." Shelly fumed. "I've about stood all I can take from her. Let's not answer the door. If we're real quiet she'll just go on."

The good women of the mountain had, in outrage, turned their back on Peggy after the last time she had driven her car in the creek. That time she was tanked out on painkillers and xanax. She had her six year old son with her and he had broken his jaw in the accident.

Scott looked out, ducking his head to see out the low window.

"We can't let her get back in that car. You know we can't." He said.

Outside, Peggy had dropped the vodka bottle again. She turned her back to them and bent over from the hips to unsteadily pick the bottle up. Her skirt hiked up to reveal that she had misplaced her underpants. Everyone got a real good look at her private parts.

"Oh! Oh! Oh, my sweet Jesus!" Scott cried and pulled away from the window, clapping a hand to his eyes and stumbling away from the window as if wounded.

Buddy deadpanned, "Yep. That's not somethin' you see every day."

Mitch looked at Scott, then took in Shelly's angry expression. He wisely said nothing. Buddy clammed up.

"Fine." Shelly snapped. "You three deal with her. I'm done. Done, I tell you. Flat, slap, out DONE. I'll be at my Momma's."

With this Shelly stormed out into the kitchen and made her escape out the back door. She was tearing out of the driveway past the confused Peggy as the three men stepped out into the yard to deal with their unwelcome and very drunk cousin.

Peggy's eyes lit up when she saw them.

"Hey! You'uns want to have a little party?" She slurred, cupping her breasts and giving them a little bounce. The leopard print bra burst free from the tight orange top then coyly disappeared from view again.

The three men came down the porch steps and squared off in a line facing Peggy. Mitch's eyes mournfully followed the dust trail made by his wife's pickup truck.

"She could'a stayed and helped." He said.

The three cut their eyes at each other, much as they had done previously in the calf pen. They seemed to share silent communication in the way that hunters and cattlemen do. They slowly approached the drunken cousin.

Buddy took "point". "Hey, Peggy," he said quietly, so as not to spook her, "What ch'ou up to?" He slowly advanced towards her.

Scott closed in on the left flank.

Mitch was on the right flank, but he was still following Shelly's dust trail with his eyes.

Peggy took a few stumbling steps toward Buddy, who was staring her down like a she was a skittish steer.

She smiled widely at Buddy, approaching him. Buddy backed up so she would need to move further from the vehicle.

"Awww, you know, well...atchually, I just finished off my last Somas and was wondering if you'un's had any?"

Scott saw his chance and loped in on his long shanks into the space between Peggy and the Taurus. He reached in and grabbed the keys from the ignition, shouting "Got'em!"

Peggy turned and gave them all a confused look.

"Awwwww!" Her face crumpled and she began to cry sloppily. "You'uns are takin' my car keys! You give them back! Bwaaaaah!"

Scott retreated with the keys to stand behind Buddy.

This is not the first time such a scene has been acted out. Given the nature of Peggy's self-destructive nature, anyone who had her best interests at heart, or who merely respected her family, felt obligated to take Peggy's keys when she showed up like this. The resulting scene was almost always the same.

Peggy bolted off running towards the cow pasture. Mitch tried to head her off, but his flying tackle left him grasping air and spitting dust.

If she made it, she would wander around the mountain stoned out of her mind. She had gotten lost in the Gulf for two days once, tripping on acid. So, part of the ritual of taking Peggy's keys also included an attempt to keep her from running off, followed by taking her back home, if possible.

She was not an easy 6 foot tall, 400 pound drunk woman to deal with.

Peggy was running blindly. She ran right into the stout and thorny Mr. Lincoln rose bush, straddling it, then coming down hard on the other side of it screaming like a bawling heifer.

There was more blood than the three men had seen since last deer season.

"Shit, man, she's hurt herself!" Mitch said. "Peggy, what's wrong?"

Peggy lay on the ground rocking herself. She had hit that rose bush at full tilt, practically knocking the tree-like stem off its onion.

Scott's face blanched at all the blood that seemed to be blooming down her legs.

Peggy sputtered out between broken attempts to breathe, "It...it..uh-uh-uh-uh...it's my cooter!"

Buddy looked at Mitch, "Did she just say what I think she just said?"

Mitch looked grimly down at Peggy. "Fuckin' Shelly. We need Shelly."

Scott clapped his hands to his head and shook it like a dog. He stamped around in a circle.

"Look, man, we have to get her in the house. She's got to get herself cleaned up. We gotta get her home." Buddy said, trying to be reasonable.

It took the three of them to get her back on her feet and to slowly help her to the house.

"Oh, my cooter!" she moaned, "My cooter, it hurts!"

The day had started off with a comforting degree of normality.

He was thinking of leaving the pink house in the hollow. It seemed like it was time to leave this place that had been both refuge and tomb. He knew that he could never truly be himself here and that the pink house would never be a house that he could share with someone he loved. He felt embarrassed by its tatty embrace sometimes.

Asheville was close-by and seemed attractive. Knoxville was an equal distance and also seemed like a good alternative to Grassy Fork. One thing he knew with certainty was that he would never be able to bring someone "home" to the pink house in the hollow. But he was conflicted on this. He dreamed of someday restoring the house to some shade of its former self, or to something more resembling what it should perhaps be. A cozy cottage in the mountains with all the charm and and warmth of a weekend getaway.

He dreamed these dreams as he sat, hunching his big frame on the porch steps. They had broken bits of wood and ancient nails sticking up. He mindlessly hammered them down with his claw hammer. They disappeared into the rotted wood and remained loose, waiting to pop back up with the slightest jarring.

The yard was covered in a peach fuzz of green as spring was trying to emerge. He knew every inch of this yard and where each trillium and lily lay slowly awakening in the nascent landscape. He knew because he had put them there, digging them from forests that were once homesteads long ago. Each had a history and he dreamed as he planted them of them coming west to this frontier with ancestors who also loved plants.

As he took stock of his roses, he decided to move them to more permanent and sunny places. He felt he might not be here next year and it was time to find them homes. When he had a home of his own, he could come back and get them, or their cuttings to bring to the place he felt he would finally call home.

And that was really how this day came into being, innocently enough.

He made plans with some of his cousins to do some yard work for them and to move his prize rose bushes to their place. The day was sunny and warmish for early spring when he did this work at Shelly and Mitch's house. He created a new raised rose bed in full sun for his beloved roses and did some work on the roses they already had planted there.

He spent a great deal of extra time on their ancient "Mr. Lincoln". It had grown all out of proportion and the main stem was as big as a sapling with huge lethal-looking thorns. Scott pared the big bush down severely.

"Don't worry, it really needs this." He reassured Shelly. "It will come back much more showy and be much healthier for it."

Not everyone appreciated Scott's knowledge and love of roses. Once, he held a job with the landscaping department of the city. While out on his rounds, he saw a poor straggling rose bush on what he thought was city property. He stopped to give it a good hard pruning. In the midst of his work, an enraged old man came out of a nearby house.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" He shouted.

Scott stood to his full height and cocked his head. "It needs pruning. I'm pruning it."

Turns out, the rose bush wasn't on town property. The man was furious and threatened to call a lawyer. Scott's co-workers dubbed him "the rose rapist". Scott was very upset about this. But that was a very Scott sort of thing...that he would see a rose bush and render aid to it even if it belonged to a stranger.

The Mr. Lincoln ended up being a dangerous thorny tree-like stump sticking out of the ground from its massive onion. It was ugly now, but Scott could see in his mind the large summer blooms it would produce in a few months.

After they finished up with the yardwork, Mitch's dad called and asked them to come over and help out with the calf tagging. A new crop of sweet-faced Black Angus had sprung up in the adjoining pasture. The three cousins shifted gears to go and shoo the stout little calves into a chute and give them all new little livestock earrings.

Scott had grown up with cattle so this was not a new experience to him. He and Mitch joined Mitch's daddy's hired hand, Buddy, in the enclosure while Shelly jumped up on the chute with the tagging gun. He seemed at ease within the confines of the stock pen shouting "Wooo, cow...wooop....woop...cow." He adjusted his direction without thinking, moving in a way that was loping and natural to one who was no stranger to stockyards.

And this was the start of Scott's perfectly normal Saturday. But things were about to turn strange as they so often do on the mountain. Strangeness is like the weather here. Before you know it, the sky is raining strange all around you and you have a ways to go before you can reach cover.

The strangeness arrived at Mitch and Shelly's house as they were all eating a bite of lunch and having a cold beer after the calf tagging. Buddy had come over for a visit. The strangeness arrived in the form of their mutual cousin, Peggy, who drove wildly into the yard skidding to a stop before she fell out of the driver's seat into a heap in the yard, clutching a nearly empty fifth of vodka.

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.

Today was hugely productive and I'm so excited I can barely stand it!

Friend Scott comes by today and takes me out to dinner at the local Chinese. On the way he relates this amazing Friend Scott story so hillbilly gonzo in its proportions that it can only be compared to "Snakes and Taxes". So I've got an amazing, hilarious Friend Scott story to relate after this current Friend Scott story is done. All I can say is it involves a drunk and licentious 400 lb "cousin" in a mini skirt with no underwear, rosebushes, calf-tagging, iodine, a consensual gang-banging and the phrase "He's gay...let him do it!"

And I say, "Why do you hang out with these people?"

So, we go into the Chinese and who should be there but the legendary Pastor Jimmy Morrow, who Scott knows and is, of course, related to. I've been wanting to meet Jimmy ever since I moved here mainly because of my fascination with the Pentecostal Church Snakehandlers. So, I finally got my invite, not only to attend one of Jimmy's snakehandling services, but also to come by his house to view his extensive archives of snakehandling history, photos and lore! Jimmy knows more about the history and genealogy of this area than anyone. He's is a backwoods genius and has been featured on The Discovery Channel, The Travel Channel and Nat'l Geographic. I'm so honored to meet him and can hardly wait just to sit and soak up anything he wants to tell me.

So V-Man...I may not have been able to attend the amazing and drunken Feast of Snakes in Claxton with you, Eric, Joe, Zonker, Elisson, Rick, Georgia and Denny, but looks like I'm gonna have my own private Feast of Snakes. And we ain't gonna have no sissy press passes or safe bleachers or boxed in snake pits. I thumb my nose at you sir!

Snakes in a Church....coming soon to a blog near you.

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.

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)

In summer, the creek runs burbling and laughing past the pink house in the hollow. The profusion of roses climbing every trellis, every possible surface grips the pink house in a desperate embrace. The scent is intoxicating. The azalea bushes bloom and every sort of bulb and tuber capable of bursting forth life whisper to Friend Scott and tell him that they love him, for he has loved them so well in return.

It's how it is in the mountains. Life here bursts forth, screaming in birth agony. It hides the pink house and its humble condition. The pink house is a dilapidated old homeplace that is barely habitable and hidden in the recesses of the dark little hollow. But only in winter do you realize this. In winter, the pink house's dusky shingles look dirty and dull. The rose vines are bare and barbed waiting to ensnare. Waiting to prick. Leaf mold lies rotting in the forest and the bones of the mountains threaten. It's dark. It's cold. It's lonely.

He had stamped off the porch of the pink house that grim winter morning. The light was gray. It was the sort of day when you could imagine the weather would never change. That it would always be dark and muddy.

He took with him a rope and went into the woods behind the house and selected a tree. He hadn't actually given much thought to the selection of this particular tree. He had just sort of picked it at random. No doubt, the big stump that was next to it made it a more appropriate tree to choose. But he hadn't actually taken much time to examine the tree. To touch it or feel a kinship with it. A kinship he felt keenly with all things of a botanical nature. I doubt he even noted that it was a locust tree.

Cold tears fell on his hands making them colder as he sat on the stump and tied the rope into a noose. He made no sound as he did this. He made no sound as he put the noose around his neck. Then he stood on the stump and threw the other end over the branch of the old locust tree. He looped the rope twice over the branch to make sure it would hold and tied the knot.

He said a prayer. He asked God to forgive him, but he couldn't keep living this way. The pressure of being something that he was constantly told was an abomination was just too much. The pressure of hiding for so many years so that those he respected and loved would still love him. Too much in the dead, winter cold of the mountains. Where spring was unthinkable. Where summer was impossible.

Then he flew off the stump, like some giant bird, trusting his six foot nine frame to snap his neck.

But it didn't . The limb broke and he ended up in a heap in the decaying leaf mold. If he had been paying attention to the tree, he would have known immediately that the locust borers had gotten to it. That the tree was on it's last legs and that each branch was a hollow sham of itself. The seemingly solid bough had been eaten up on the inside. Much as he had been.

He lay there for a while in the cold, panting from the exertion. Panting from the release of adrenaline. His hands clenched in fists, gripping the rotted leaves. Crumbling them in his fists.

He thought to himself, senselessly, "This will be about right for mulch come spring."

Then he said, to God...or to no one in particular or perhaps to his father, "I can't even do this right."

That was the day the bough broke. That was the day he realized that things had to change. He had hit bottom and he wasn't going to dig anymore. There was no place left to go.

Like his choice of the tree, he had no idea where this was going to take him. But something inside him had snapped. Like a graft taken too close to the trunk, he had no idea if this would take and bear fruit, or wither...costing him all he held dear.

He shrugged out of his noose and got in his white pickup truck and drove forth into the cold gray dawn.

He didn't know where he was going.

The youngest of this year's crop of kids joined us on Friday. Betsy came over with two new Nubian does, Sonya and Didi, and brought Phoebe as well. Phoebe's mom, Harper, was supposed to come along, but is still recovering from an udder injury.

Phoebe is a bit young to be leaving her mom, but I said to bring her along. If I couldn't get her to take a bottle, I could always take her back. And there is the size of "Li'l" Phoebe. At one month, she's the size of a two month old. She's frankly enormous. Harper herself is rather outsized and both of my boys seem to throw really big kids. So Phoebe got a double dose of the really big goat gene.

She's the color of cream shot with espresso and has a coffee colored stripe down her back. When I was a child, my nanny would bring me a cup of hot milk in the morning with a little bit of coffee in it so I could feel like part of the family who were busy drinking coffee and getting ready for work. Phoebe is that color. You can see from her picture that she has adorable goat lips.

Phoebe spent her first night on earth curled up with Betsy's daughter, Dori. Dori says she whispered her name in the way baby goats do sometimes. Now that I've met her, I must say it suits her. And it appeals to me since it is another name for Artemis, meaning "the bright one."

Her sweet and easy personality has quickly won me over. After only a few tries, she was eagerly slugging down bottles of milk. Despite her size, she's fairly well behaved in the house. Bridey and BossyToe have been largely banned from freely roaming the indoors due to their tendency to jump on the furniture...including furniture not built for jumping on. Phoebe placidly follows me around and will curl up on the floor at my feet. She comes when called. We did her disbudding this morning and she was very laid back about the procedure and quickly forgave me for hurting her. She seems to have transferred her affections fairly easily over to me and doesn't seem to miss her mom much at all. She is bonding well with BossyToe and hopefully will not become too corrupted by my current bad girl.

I've been very busy with farm work the past few days. This morning I woke to a dusting of snow. I realized while I stared out from my balcony how the snow seemed to fall upwards, driven by the winds coming up the cliff from the holler. It really did look like a snow globe.

Scott came by to visit Friday and Saturday. Saturday, I saw his truck drive up and he seemed to be taking a long time coming inside. I went out to grab a stick of firewood and find out whatever he was doing out there.

The wind was howling and making the windchimes sound with loud music.

Scott was standing in the yard facing the wind. His face turned upwards and his arms outstretched. The wind had blown his shirt up exposing his belly. His hair, almost always perfectly in place, was flying away from his face. The expression on his face was like that of a Renaissance saint in sculpture.

A more pure example of a religious experience, I have never witnessed.

It's why we live on these high places.