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It Started With A WomanFeb 02 '07 (Updated Feb 17 '07) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line A simple Southern tale of love gone AWOL.
It’s almost like the Lord decided to send his prettiest angel down to pull the most unworthy rascal from the mud. Out of all the vermin to end up face–down in a puddle, bleeding from the ears after having received the heavier end of a pool cue to the cranium, it was me she dragged back to the William Sherman Inn to turn into a whole new man. I never imagined that the beautiful red-haired maiden who saved me from those dives and houses of ill repute would later leave me feeling cheaper than any whore I’d held. Having developed a taste for blood in the military, I found myself without a home or purpose once my relationship with that institution ended in acrimony. I’d never even heard of Jacksonville until I shot a man down in it, but its brutal nature found in me a devoted friend and lover. Fighting, gambling, cussing, fornicatin’- I was a regular kneeler before the shrine of self-destruction, and the cross I bore was artfully crafted by no one’s hands but mine. My experiences with love had never been happy or encouraging, so I mostly stuck to the transitory kind that one could purchase in the arms of scented ladies. I struck up a short-lived arrangement with a tavern wench named Carol, but our time together was more reminiscent of a stroll to the gallows than a storybook romance. When she advised me she was moving on, I responded by nearly knifing her to death in a seedy motel room. Love was clearly not the call my ears were meant to hear. And then that night arrived like an apocalypse in reverse. As the rain poured down on the back of a head too hard for any crown of thorns to lacerate, I begged the God above or the other one I was more accustomed to serving to hurry up and cast me down into the place for which I was headed anyways. Out the corner of my eye I saw someone approaching in a gown twice as white as my soul could ever be, and before I knew it, she had me up and in the dry warmth of her room. And while I was decked in mud from head to toe, I noticed that the mess had stayed off her clothes and bare feet as if by some divine command. I had finally found someone who made me want to stay alive, and we both agreed that an immediate relocation was in order. We headed for the swamplands to the south and opened a trading post miles from the outskirts of the nearest one-horse town. After leaving the safety of tiny Newton, our little store and cabin behind it was the last sight men would see before they entered that endless morass, where the friendliest faces you’ll find belong to cottonmouths and gators. We never asked anybody about their business out there. As long as they paid in honest money for their purchases, the rugged characters that trekked into that steamy mosquito kingdom were of little concern to us. About once a week I’d take the boat into Newton and load it up with supplies before returning to the remoteness of my home and the arms of that sweet and pale-skinned savior. I’d never been in love before, and I was wondering how Heaven was gonna compete with the sensation of waking up every morning next to my tender cherub. The first threat to our love arrived with that goddamn Bill Wetton, in the form of his thirteen year old son. Every time they ventured in, she’d just get so silly and give that youngster all of her attention. Looking back, I think she was wanting a child of her own, but all I could see was red whenever Bill showed up with the boy behind him. She’d take him down to the river while Bill chewed my ears off with his nonsense, and I guess I just got a little bit jealous that someone other than me was putting a smile on her face. Well, no matter- the situation fixed itself not long after, when Bill and his boy were found gunned down in some dense little neck of the jungle, their bodies already partially eaten by the scavengers of the swamp. I’d been in Newton on my regular run when word of their fate reached our place; by the time I returned, she was downright inconsolable. The intensity of her sadness for the death of that boy manifested itself in physical maladies, and she was bedridden for much of the following month with cold sweats, abdominal cramps, and open, running sores on her face and hands. Life wasn’t really quite the same after that. I was forced to run the store by myself, since she rarely felt like leaving the cabin. She began to look so sickly that I brought in a doctor from Newton, and requested that he stay until her health start to improve. Well I’m here to tell you that the daily regimen of pills and physician-assisted walks down to the river produced such a noticeable change for the better both in her appearance and demeanor that I almost asked him to work on me for awhile. They’d even take the boat out for hours at a time, while I was forced to stay behind and tend to the needs of our swamp rat clientele. One night, they didn’t make it back from their excursion until long after the sun had set. I guess that it shouldn’t have surprised me then to wake up one morning and find that they had disappeared, along with the boat and all the money we had saved. I was awfully sore about it for awhile, but I guess I’ve gotten over it some. It’s good folks like you that make living out here bearable, especially when you stop in for a glass of whiskey and humor a lonely man by consenting to hear his story. I’m usually up pretty late, so feel free to come up through the gate, past the two small mounds of stones that mark the graves of my hounds, and give the front door a good dose of knuckles. You sure don’t have to worry about disturbing no lady. Copyright 2007 The Minister's Right Hand http://www.epinions.com/content_4947091588 Moonlight & Its Revelations http://www.epinions.com/content_4945059972 A Sympathy Most Peculiar http://www.epinions.com/content_4942831748 Changing Out The Ghosts http://www.epinions.com/content_4941586564 The Coming of Elliot Stephens http://www.epinions.com/content_4939489412 Where Everybody Looks The Same http://www.epinions.com/content_4938047620 Abner http://www.epinions.com/content_4937785476  |
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