Chapter 6: Seeing Red




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     "Tarnation," exclaims the prostrate and still tipsy Benjamin Reed lodged atop the rhododendron thicket.

He moves a shoulder in an attempt to roll and quickly pulls back, the weight shift threatening to dislodge him from the precarious perch at least twenty feet off the ground. He tries lifting a foot with the same result and remains stuck after attempting to move all four limbs, but at least he knows his arms and legs are still working.

     "Rock of ages cleft for me," he sings with a sigh, resigned to using the one movable part that doesn't risk a tumble to the death: 

Let me hide myself in thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From thy wounded side..., is halted mid-verse when his squinting eye catches a reddish motion on top of the ledge.



     In later years illicit moonshine became associated with insanity or worse, blindness and kidney failure. In the early twentieth century, as copper sheeting became expensive, a prefabricated still of sorts became readily available. The problem with radiators salvaged from junk cars was that they contained antifreeze residue. An even more insidious issue was the multiple vertical layers of metal soldered together to increase the surface area for heat dispersal. Ethylene glycol and lead-soldered sheets both help to cool internal combustion, but either can cause a toxic encephalopathy in humans. 

     The second sight that ran in the Reed family came with a potential down side. Self-generated mental images or sounds can be interpreted as coming from an external source. Benign interpretation can lead to the divine revelations and speaking of tongues common in some southern evangelical churches. A less functional expression of such visual or auditory hallucinations can be called psychosis. And then there's being just plain schnockered.



     "Long time no see, Chief Red Pants," Benny calls up to the apparition on the rock.

"Go west," he hears in the wind suddenly whispering through the grove. 

"West where, you old muckety-muck?"

"Arkansas," hisses a gust through the rhodendendron leaves.

"Fine, fine, I'll go if you'll help me down," Benny bargains, but the Melungeon medicine man disappears when a hollering voice floats up from the hollow.




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