Kudzu Queen

By Tamara Ducote

The Beginning: One rainy afternoon in late December, the sun briefly broke out of the clouds, and I had an epiphany.

“Bob!” I shouted. “We’ve got to go to the woods! Right now!”

“This sounds like one of your Great Ideas,” Bob said suspiciously.

“Oh, no,” I assured him. “It’s not one of those. This is an epiphany. That’s way different.”

I had stopped using the term “great idea” ever since I noticed it caused my family and friends to become nervous.

“I hate to burst your bubble,” Bob said, “But it’s cold as hell and it’s been raining for two days. Might not be the most pleasant time to be out in the woods.”

“We’ll build a fire!” I exclaimed. “A great big toasty fire! It’ll be awesome!”

“Kinda difficult to build a toasty fire with soggy wood,” Bob said.

I had been off of work for nearly two weeks, and I’d been devouring nature books in the interim. I was wildly enthusiastic about putting my new woodcraft skills to the test.

“Bob,” I said, condescendingly, “A little wet weather doesn’t bother true woodsfolk.”

“I’ll pass,” Bob said. “But you go have fun, Jungle Girl.”

The dog willingly accompanied me as far as the back door and then cringed against the chilly dampness outdoors. She whined, then ran and hid under the bed. Fine, I decided, I’ll go alone.

Nobody had told me that floodwaters can continue to rise even after the rain has stopped. And I was unprepared for how the water, as it rises and swirls, can change the appearance of an area. Landmarks shift, even disappear. Or maybe it isn’t the water. Maybe evil trolls run amok in the woods at night, cackling evilly as they rearrange the scenery.

The Middle: I was soaked, clinging pitifully to a slimy tree branch as muddy floodwater swirled around me in every direction. I tried to remember what it was like to feel my toes. I very much wanted to cry, but without anybody there to see, it seemed pointless. Above all, I wanted to be rescued. I dug my cell phone out of the ziplock bag in my sodden backpack and called Bob.

“How’s that fire going?” he asked jauntily.

“Bob, I’m lost and cold and scared,” I whimpered.

“Throw some more logs on that fire, so it’ll be a good signal fire,” Bob suggested, “And I’ll come find you.”

I used to wonder why in the world Bob’s ex-wife had divorced him. I decided then and there that I could lay that question to rest.

“I’m really, really lost, Bob,” I said. “But don’t call the cops. Just come get me out of here.”

I secretly hoped that Bob would overrule me on the cops issue. In fact, he ought to call the National Guard. I wanted a burly soldier to pluck me off my slimy branch, deposit me into a dangling basket, and winch the basket up to the search-and-rescue helicopter which would be hovering overhead.

“Just go back the way you came,” Bob suggested. I looked around wildly.

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know which way I came,” I quavered. “It’s dark and scary. The water is c-c-c-cold, and there’s all these tangly b-b-branches everywhere.”

I told myself it was impossible to be truly lost in such a teensy patch of woods this close to civilization. But that’s what the student filmmakers in “The Blair Witch Project” had thought, too, and look how they ended up. I deeply regretted I had watched TBWP roughly 700 times. I regretted having watched it AT ALL, and I knew if I glimpsed a tiny humanoid stick sculpture dangling from a branch, I would well and truly lose my shit.

The End: Four million hours later, I emerged from the woods and collapsed into my car. Muddy water squelched out of the top of my swamp boots, drenching the floorboard. After a few tries, my shivering fingers got the key into the ignition slot, and I headed home. I was amazed to see that from my tree perch, I had been so close to an actual neighborhood. I mean, if I had given in to my heartfelt desire to start screaming my head off in the woods, somebody in that brick ranch house might have shouted at me from their patio: “Hey! Quit that screaming! The baby is napping!”

I passed Bob on the street, but I did not wave to him. I was mad that he had not called the U.S. Marines Amphibious Rescue Corps, or at least the Coast Guard.

At home, I peeled off my muddy clothes and jumped into the bathtub. I just couldn’t get warm enough. I kept refilling the tub with hot water, and the feeling started coming back in my feet. I was demoralized, not so much from my brush with mortality as from the knowledge that Bob had a very embarrassing story to use against me and the sickening certainty that he would, at every opportunity.

As I pulled on my favorite fuzzy comfort pajamas, my mind, as my mind often will, came up with another thing to freak out about.

“Bob!” I said, trying not to let my voice betray the panic that was rising like murky floodwater in my brain. “What if I’m not really warm and safe at home? What if I’m still clinging to that branch in the swamp? Maybe exposure is making me hallucinate.”

“Could be,” Bob said, soothingly. “But as long as you THINK you’re safe and warm, why not enjoy the thought? If you’re really still out in the swamp, your mind will snap back to cruel reality soon enough. Enjoy the delusion of being safe and warm while it lasts.”

I was so freaked-out by this possibility that I went right to bed, in the middle of the day.

The one positive thing about this misadventure is that it clarified for me what my New Year’s Resolution will be. I am keeping my cigarettes and my fattening foods and my profanity. But I am going cold turkey off of nature books.

Contact Tamara Ducote at TDDucote6@aol.com.

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