Take Me Home, Country Roads

It had been a long ride. A really long ride. Ten hours or more, according my GPS, not counting the untold amount of time I was lost in rural Maryland when it decided to stop working. Thanks to some friendly truckers at my second pit stop, I was able to continue on my way, but the exhaustion was starting to kick in. I have some good music on my iPod, but after ten hours, even the best tunes can be too much to handle.

Luckily for me, just as the sun started to set over the hills, I passed the welcome sign for Matewan, West Virginia. I had made it.

The ride from Brooklyn hadn’t necessarily been difficult in and of itself – it was actually kind of nice to drive through city and suburbs and country and finally mountains, with nothing but the road before me and the cool spring air in my hair. It was more the reason I was driving to the boonies of West Virginia, to visit some great aunt I had never met and couldn’t quite figure out where she belonged on the family tree.

Simply put, I was driving all this way because my parents were dead.

It had been mid-March, and I was just getting out of class at UNC Chapel Hill on the day before spring break when I got the call. My parents were supposed to be driving down from Brooklyn to meet me, and the three of us were going to spend the following week in Charleston, South Carolina. My parent’s always wanted to spend my breaks with me, and I, frankly, would have rather been with them than getting hammered with the co-eds at Myrtle Beach. So, when I saw my dad’s number on my phone, I answered with a smile and a promise to be packed and ready to go by the time they arrived.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t my father on the other end of the line, but a doctor at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. My parents had been in a car crash, he said, hit by an eighteen-wheeler driven by some poor schmuck on a twenty hour shift who had fallen asleep at the wheel. There was a ten car pile up on the expressway - Mom and Dad had been pinned in their car. Mom had been killed instantly, Dad was apparently still alive when the gas tank caught fire.

By the time I had made it to the medical center, the autopsies were underway and I was asked to make a number of decisions that to this day I don’t know how I managed to answer without completely collapsing. Jeremy and Ronnie, my parent’s band mates came down to meet me. Between the three of us we were able to make arrangements and soon enough I was on my way back to Brooklyn, on compassionate leave from UNC for the remainder of the semester.

They met when they were both at NYU for school – Mom was an exchange student from Ireland and Dad was the radio show host who refused to play her requests until she went out with him. They got married right after college, getting jobs and settling in Brooklyn. Dad was a music teacher at the local high school. Mom managed one of the best locally owned bookstores in the city. They also were in a folk band called Swinging Gypsies, with the aforementioned Jeremy and Ronnie. They couldn’t have kids on their own, and so adopted me when I was just two weeks old, having been left off at the fire state next store to Dad’s school. It was just the three of us from then on out. Mom hated to cook, but could bake like a champ. Dad was determined that I love John Denver as much as he did. We took trips every other year to visit her family in Cork, and to see my dad’s only surviving family in Seattle on the alternating years. We didn’t have a TV in the house, but we had more than enough record players, books and instruments to keep up entertained. Lee and Nora Anderson were good people, who died far too young, but still made their mark on the world.

At least, that’s what I told the people who had come to the funeral. I wasn’t good with public speaking, and eulogizing my parents was the last thing I wanted to do. It wasn’t great, but I found myself really not caring what anyone thought. Of course, my parents were loved by their friends and family, and their memorial was attended by so many people, from students to fans of the band to casual bookstore customers who always appreciated the help my mom gave them. But despite the outpouring of love, I couldn’t help but feel completely and utterly alone.

Jeremy and Ronnie helped me pack up the house. I could have kept it, thanks to the life insurance policies my parents had – but I could be there without them. So, the past month was spent packing, selling and moving. The only things I kept were my Mom’s books and my dad’s instruments and records, everything else was sold. My parents were really sentimental about objects, and neither was I. Their memory wasn’t going to be kept alive in a wall clock or an old worn chair. Besides, I didn’t have room for much else in my small apartment in Chapel Hill.

I was planning on heading back there, or possibly head to Ireland for a time, but the idea of being around my friends who would be stressed with school or my Irish relatives who would be in mourning in their Irish Catholic way, just wasn’t appealing. That was when the letter came.

Florence Anderson lived in Matewan, West Virginia, and was over ninety years old. No one knew for sure just how old, nor just how she was related to my dad. He had always just called her Crazy Aunt Flo and left it at that. She had always been around, on the periphery of Dad’s family. When my paternal grandparents had been alive they had mentioned her a few times – how she was a bit of recluse in the mountains and rarely saw anyone. I think my grandfather saw her one time in 1962 at some family reunion or something. I didn’t know why she was crazy, or even that she existed until my 10th birthday, when I received a birthday card and $100 from her. $100 for a ten year old was a huge amount, so I of course declared Flo to be my favorite relative. Dad had been completely confused – he had never gotten anything from her. I rubbed it in his face then and every year after as, without fail, I received another card and another $100. I also got cards for my high school graduation and when I won the local talent show with my singing and guitar playing.

So when Crazy Aunt Flo sent me a letter expressing her condolences on the death of my parents, I wasn’t surprised. What did surprise me was the fact that she invited me to come visit.

We had never spoken in person, just letters back and forth. I knew nothing about her, aside from the few random stories I had picked up over the years. And now she wanted me to drive out to East Jesus Nowhere, West Virginia. She gave me her address and said to come whenever I felt like it, no need to call ahead. Maybe she was crazy.

But after all the packing and crying struggling to figure out what I was going to do, I felt like I might be going crazy. So, I did what any crazy person would do, and took her up on her offer.

It was late April now, and I was almost to her place. I figured I would stay for a bit, play it by ear depending on how much of a nutcase she was/how bored I got, and then head back to North Carolina. Hanging out with an old lady in the middle of nowhere didn’t seem like the most exciting thing in the world, but it was something different, I reasoned. And for some reason I always like the idea of West Virginia…or at least the mountains. I knew Dad’s family was from there way back when, but we had never been. I’d grown up in the city all my life, though I did go to camp a few times. The great outdoors was always appealing.

“Turn left here,” the GPS commanded. “Destination on right in 3.2 miles.”

I turned onto the dusty dirt road that wound along the bank of a river, the hills rising up on either side, the air fresh with the smell of evergreens and wild flowers. It really was beautiful here, and it seemed Aunt Flo lived pretty far off the beaten path. The untouched beauty of my surroundings was incredibly refreshing.

Winding down the road, I tried to keep an eye out for the house. I had no idea what to expect – Matewan had been normal enough, if not incredibly small. But it had typical houses and gas stations and even a Wal-Mart. The stereotype of West Virginia had me thinking they all lived in trailers with twelve brother-cousins and six teeth between them. I made a mental note not to mention that to anyone I met.

“You have arrived at your destination.”

Turning a final corner, I came upon a clearing in the woods, modest white farmhouse sitting up on the hill with views of the river and the surrounding valley. There was a rose garden and a garage, a tall oak tree providing shade to the wrap-around porch. It was adorable.

And Crazy Aunt Flo was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, knitting. Parking near the garage, I checked myself in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t a complete mess, and reminding myself how far I had driven and that I couldn’t back out now, got out of the car. Flo didn’t look up at my as I approached the porch, though I was sure she saw my pull in. The only acknowledgment I got was from a black cat lounging lazily in the last remnants of the dying sun. It meowed as I put my foot on the first step.

“Aunt Flo?” I asked gently, not wanting to startle her. “Florence Anderson?”

She looked up from her sewing, taking me in with crystal blue eyes. Her skin was white and wrinkled, her hair silver and pulled back into a bun. She was small and fragile looking, but that was to expect when you’re coming up on 100 years old. “Oh hello Emma, dear,” she said with a sweet smile. “I’ve been expectin’ you.”

I was slightly taken aback by the fact that she knew who I was, but assumed that maybe my dad had sent her a picture of me or something. “I’m surprised you recognized me,” I admitted, coming fully onto the porch, wringing my hands a bit awkwardly.

“You look exactly like I ‘member you,” she said, looking back to her knitting. “Welcome to Mate Creek.”

“Is that the name of the river?” I asked, looking down the lawn through the trees. You could hear the river clearly, and some reflections of the suns rays shone through the forest.

“No, that’s the Tug,” she replied, as though I should have known that. “Mate Creek is the town.”

“Oh,” I replied, nodding. “I thought it was Matewan.”

Flo waved her hand dismissively. “That’s the new name. But it was Mate Creek long before that.” Right.

“Cute cat,” I offered, getting a feeling that Aunt Flo thought we were a lot more acquainted than we actually were. “What’s its name?”

“Don’t have a name,” she replied. “But he’s good luck.” Black cats usually weren’t, but I decided to let it go. I was beginning to see why Dad referred to her as ‘Crazy’ Aunt Flo.

“You have a beautiful house,” I tried one last time.

“Darlin’,” she said, putting down her knitting, southern accent coming through fully. “Are you gonna stand there and try to chit-chat about things that don’t matter, or are you gonna get your things and get settled?” I blinked at her. “Your bed’s made up already. Second floor, first door on the right.”

As I unpacked, I decided that I might stick around for a bit. Aunt Flo might be a bit crazy, but I also got the feeling that she was going to be quite entertaining. I was at the bargaining stage of the grieving process – so my psychology major roommate Lindy told me – as I thought that maybe making closer ties with my distant family would help me be closer to my parents. Lindy, who I considered my best friend, though she didn’t come up for the funeral, had scoffed at my plan to visit Flo, but shrugged it off saying it was how I was “dealing” with my parents’ deaths.

It had been over a month by this point, and while I wasn’t happy and missed them terribly, I had accepted the fact that they were gone. But being around their friends in New York or at school in North Carolina just kept reminding me that they were gone. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

And Flo had yet to mention in. It was both strange and relieving at the same time.

I spent my first day at Flo’s helping her in the garden. She basically ordered me around as I cleaned up some fallen branches and trimmed her rose bushes.

The next day I drove into town for groceries – Flo barely had anything in the house and I wondered how she survived out here on her own. Flo then started teaching me how to knit. I had tried to get online and email my friends, but Flo had laughed saying that she ‘had no need of that confounded world wide web’. Cell phone service as well, was lacking. But in a way, it was sort of refreshing to be completely cut off from the world.

The third was spent on my bed, crying. Apparently I wasn’t as over my parent’s deaths as I thought. Flo didn’t bother me all day, only bringing me some lunch around noon and a cup of tea. She didn’t say anything about my red eyes.

On the fourth day, which was cool and cloudy, Flo called me up to the attic. I didn’t really know how she got up there – the woman could barely get up the stairs – but I had found she was a bit sneaky in her movements. Sometimes, when I thought she was in the kitchen, she’d show up right behind me with some random object she wanted me to clean. One time, I looked out the window to see her shooing the nameless cat back into the house. I looked away for what I thought was less than a minute, but she then called to me from the top of the stairs to bring her denture cream, which was, for some reason, on the back porch.

So, I didn’t really question how she made into the attic, but it was clear that when I got up there, I was in for a long talk.

The attic itself looked like it was straight out of a period piece novel, where the heroine finds herself in the possibly haunted attic in the estate home of the gentleman suitor she doesn’t know she loves. There were cobwebs and candlesticks, a large full-length mirror, books and more books, and a chest, which I was sure once contained (and possible still did) pirate treasure. Flo by passed all of the more interesting looking items – such as a globe that still had the United States as including the Oregon Territory and two pistols that undoubtedly were used in an Old West shoot out – and went to one chest at the very end of the room. It creaked open, but no poof of dust emerged as I expected.

“There are things you need to know, Emma,” she said. “About West Virginia.”

I watched as she pulled an old album out of the trunk. Surprisingly, it was clean, as though it had only recently been looked through. She handed it to me.

“Go on, open it.”

I did and squinted in the dim lighting at the figures in the pictures. They were all black and white, looking like they dated from around the time of the Civil War.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“That’s Devil Anse Hatfield,” Flo said, pointed to the man in the middle of a group photo. He had a short beard, a black hat and rifle across his lap. “Have you ever heard of the Hatfields and the McCoys, Emmaline?”

“Of course,” I replied immediately. “But…to be honest I don’t know much about them. I didn’t even realize they were from here.”

“You’re Daddy never did tell you much about West Virginia, did he?” she tutted. “The Hatfields and the McCoys were two families who lived in these hills, on either side of the river here. The feud between them killed a whole bunch of family members and plenty of others. Went on for decades. Got the Governors of West Virginia and Kentucky involved and everything.”

“And this Devil Dan started it?”

“Devil Anse, dear, though you best just call him Mr. Hatfield. Got to pay respect where respect is due.”

“Oh, okay, sorry.” Aunt Flo headed back toward the stairs.

“Bring that down here and we’ll talk over some tea.”

I set up the album at the kitchen table as the first drops of rain started to fall. The wind had picked up and I watched out the window as the oak tree swayed ominously. Flo barely even noticed.

“So, the Hatfields and the McCoys,” Flo said, pouring each of us a cup of tea. “Ol’ Randall McCoy and Devil Anse were friends, you know,” she said, looking at me as if I knew these men personally. She certainly acted like she did.

“Apparently, that ended?” I offered, taking a sip of my tea.

“After the War,” Flo nodded. “McCoy never forgave Devil Anse for desertin’ the Army, or the fact that Anse’s Uncle Jim Vance supposedly murdered his brother Harmon. Then there was the whole pig incident which I won’t get into.”

Oh, thank God.

“Sounds like a complicated relationship.”

“Sure was. Didn’t help much that the families had intermarried in different ways. Meant a lot of people had to choose sides. This here is Lavicy Hatfield,” she said, pointing to a new picture of a woman holding a young child. She was quite beautiful, with strong features and cool, but not unkind eyes. “Wonderful woman, and mother. Loves her children somethin’ fierce.”

I was a bit worried that maybe Flo shouldn’t have been spending so much time alone in the house. She was starting to make friends with the pictures of her long dead ancestors.

“Who are they, Aunt Flo?” I asked, pointing to two young men, trying to show my interest.

“Ah, I was wonderin’ when you’d notice them boys.” Flo looked at me, an odd, almost knowing smile on her face.

“That there is Johnse Hatfield,” she said, pointing to the taller of the two. “Bit of a fool, if you ask me, but he’s a good heart. And there, well, that’s his brother. Cap Hatfield. He’s about your age in this picture, I reckon.”

“And they are Devil Anse’s – sorry, Mr. Hatfield’s – sons?”

“Two of them, at least.”

I leaned in, looking at the picture a bit more closely. They were both fairly attractive…for antebellum hilly billies.

“What happened to his eye? Or is that just something on the photo?”

“Timber yard, accident,” Flo replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Best shooter in the territory, though.”

Suddenly, Flo shut the album and put it to the side. A clap of thunder sounded outside and the cat ran out from under the table, spooked.

“That’s a really interesting story, Aunt Flo,” I said, trying to be polite. Really, I was just confused.

“Oh, it ain’t over, dear.”

“Oh…okay…”

“But I daresay I don’t have time to tell you everythin’, so might as well just let you learn it for yourself.” If I had the internet I’d go Wikipedia it…at some point. “Why don’t you play me a song dear,” Flo said, shuffling off to the living room. “Bring your guitar down.”

I did as she asked, playing a few folky tunes, along with some classic rock songs I thought she might like: James Taylor, The Beatles, etc. Aunt Flo just rocked in her chair, knitting. Lightening flashed outside and the lights flickered.

“Oh dear,” Flo said, as night approached. The woods along the end of the property were still visible through the rain, but it was getting dark quickly. “I think the cat got out.”

“What?” I asked, and Flo motioned to the window. I looked at her, confused, but got out of my seat and peered outside. Sure enough, just out in the yard was that damn cat, looking back at me with yellow eyes.

“How’d you know - ” I started, but Flo cut me off.

“Could you shoo him back in, Emma dear?” she asked, not looking up from her knitting. “Shouldn’t be too hard, he comes right away.”

Seriously?

There was another clap of thunder and the wind whistled sharply. I fought back an annoyed groan. “Sure, Aunt Flo,” I said. “Let me just get my shoes on.”

The umbrella I took was useless, the wind turning it inside out within seconds of me stepping outside. The cold rain pelted my face, and the lightening streaking across the sky would have been cool if I hadn’t been standing near a massive oak tree. The cat trotted casually toward the tree line, as if it wasn’t even bothered by the storm around us.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I grumbled to myself. Aunt Flo was fucking nuts.

That at turned and looked at me, and as I approached I felt brief burst of optimism, but as I came with touching distance, it skipped out of reach, down the hill into the woods.

The ground sloped downward and I grabbed a tree to steady myself. At least now that I was under some cover, the rain and wind wasn’t so bad, but I was soaked to the bone and completely pissed off. The cat sat there, taunting me, just out of reach.

Willing to give it one last attempt, I jumped for the cat – my step landing conveniently on a loose stone.

“Shit!”

I stumbled forward, trying to keep my balance, but the slippery leave foiled that plan and sent me tumbling down the hill. As I came to a stop, my head slammed against a fallen log.

I blinked. My head swam and I felt sick to my stomach. Another flash of lightening tore across the sky and the rain dissipated. There was another roll of thunder, as I closed my eyes, that damn cat the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness.