Appalachian Quietus

“It is what it is. Don’t you know that?”  She said this to me, but I didn’t really understand until it was too late.  Hell, maybe I still don’t fully understand it.  I mean, what is it anyway.  Who knows?  Take time to make time  is what I would tell her & she would laugh until she cried & make fun of me until she passed out.  She was a drunk, but I loved her.  She invited me to stay with her out in the mountains that winter & I thought that I was to be her lover, but I turned out to be more like her jester; brought along simply for her amusement.  I constantly confessed my love for her & she constantly denied mutual feelings to the point where I contemplated leaving almost every day.  But, I never did.  I couldn’t.  I was infatuated with her & she knew it & she loved it.  She was very cold & demanding.  I rarely had any time to myself as I was at her beck & call every second of every day.  She was wealthy beyond her means, but she was abstemious in her living, except of course for her thirst for booze.  She drank nearly all day most every day, but somehow managed to maintain her beauty & her wit.  One morning I woke to find her cutting off her hair.  She was using scissors & had cut most of it down nearly to her scalp.  She had missed a spot or five & long scraps were left here & there.  I walked past her pretending I didn’t notice as I went to wash my hands & face.  “I did it, Martin.  I’ve gone crazy.”  She said in her up all night voice.  “No, you’re not crazy, you’re just drunk.  It happens.”  I tried to comfort her.  It didn’t take.  She dropped the scissors & began to laugh hysterically.  “You damn fool!  What are you doing here with me?  Look at me!  I’m hideous!”  She continued to holler & laugh as she began the day belittling herself …& eventually me as well.  “I’m nearly twenty years older than you & yet you cling to me like I’m a delicate young lady ripe for the taking.  You’re pathetic!  Get a life & preferably one without me.”  She was really on a rant this morning, so I decided to go for a walk & have a smoke.  I stole her open pack & put on my boots.  “Where do you think you’re going?”  She scowled as she turned to watch me lace up.  “I’m going to get some fresh air.  Do you need anything from town?”  I asked.  “Ooh, the delicate aristocrat needs some fresh air,” she loved to mock me at every chance she got, “No; I don’t need anything from town, or from you, or anyone for that matter.  Just get the hell out of here & leave me be!”  I was already closing the door behind me as she was finishing that sentence.  I couldn’t understand why I still felt the way that I felt about her.  She was absolutely horrible to me, but I just let it slide.  I never dwelled on anything that she would say & just felt lucky that a woman of her caliber would even speak to me, I guess.  Maybe she’s right.  Maybe I am pathetic.  Oh well, at least I’m living with her.  The most wonderful woman I’ve ever seen & had the pleasure to know.  I walked along the trail for thirty minutes or so until I got to the road that leads down into town.  I stopped & lit another cigarette.  I was trying to decide if there was really anything I needed in town.  I couldn’t think of anything.  If I didn’t have to go to town, I would prefer not to.  The walk back up this grade is grueling.  I decided no on the trip down & proceeded back to the cabin.  I opened the door & my lady was nowhere to be found.  There are only two doors inside this cabin; one to her room & one to the bathroom & they were both open.  I walked into her room while hollering her name.  No reply.  I turned toward the bathroom & I saw her hand hanging out of the bathtub.  I rushed in & threw open the shower curtain.  It was amazing to me how quickly the color had left her.  Her body lay still & pale as the February sky.  I grabbed her hand & it was already ice cold.  She did it.  She really did it.  I remember several months ago when we driving out here.  We sold her car to a musician in town & rented some horses to get to her recently acquired cabin secluded atop the Appalachians.  It seemed like an innocent enough remark at the time & I brushed it off as such.  She thanked me.  It may have been the last kind thing she ever said to me.  She said, “Thank you, Martin.  Thank you for staying with a nasty old woman in her final days.”  I was more focused on the fact that she called herself nasty & old than I was on the ‘final days’ part of the statement.  I mean, she was only forty-one & definitely not nasty.  Well, her attitude certainly was, but nothing else about her was.  No, not at all.  She was a goddess.  A beautiful addition to this planet & I couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around the wave of emotions I was feeling as I sat there on the edge of the bathtub with her hand in mine.  I left her alone for merely an hour & she ended her life.  Of course, I blamed myself, but only for a minute.  Now was not the time to think of myself.  I could think of nothing but her.  I picked her up from the tub & carried her into her room & laid her on her bed.  I covered her up with her woolen blanket.  I walked over to the rocking chair in the corner & pulled a book from the shelf.  I turned to her favorite page & read her favorite part aloud, the man left town with no money, no friends, & no direction.  He was destined to live the rest of his life on the move.  He was destined to die the same way he was born.  Cold, afraid, & alone.  I closed the book & put it in the chair as I stood up.  I told her goodbye & walked out of the room.  I took the last two chilled bottles of scotch from the ice box & went outside.  I pulled from the first bottle until it was empty, then poured the other out along the edge of the porch & on the side of the cabin.  I lit a cigarette & then lit the scotch.  I stood there smoking, watching the flames as they began to climb.  I finished my cigarette & walked back into the burning cabin.  I put on my jacket & pulled the hood up tight over my head.  I laid down on my cot & closed my eyes.  It was getting very warm.  My lady must be comfortable now.  I’m burning alive.  She must be laughing at me wherever she is.  My boots are melting.  She won’t stop making fun of me.  My back is sweltering, now.  She’s pointing & jeering; her hair has grown back.  I’m joining her.  She said, “Welcome home, Martin.”  I’m crisp.