A High Country Tale Ch. 03: Of Odin and Ovid

Returning to the Madeline for lunch, on purpose, made for an exceedingly gratifying reception by the hotel occupants and staff. Jeremy and I had missed the entire thing. I suppose we were looking for vicarious fulfillment. Bryce and Cal were rock stars in the staff's eyes, the streamed show having spread like wildfire overnight. We ate lunch amid adulative recognition, loving the attentive drag ski and party participants. Fettuccini, Colorado Bass filets and coq au vin went down deliciously with Oolong tea. Cal was fending off over-the-top men of all stripes and relishing every second. The man was in his element.

Bryce, not so much. He wasn't seasoned at the art of deflection, unused to being center of attention. The previous night, he had been swept up in the party without much forethought. But now, he was obviously uncomfortable. Adolpho went into protective mode for his new other half but we watched the basically shy Italian get swamped by the attempt.

We more seasoned partiers coalesced around the two in big brother fashion, putting the young couple in our center and insulating them. They caught their collective breath and gradually deduced our strategy. Our 'baby bro' was hit by the strong, solid wall of caring he had gained in our family. The 'coming out' talk at Hallowe'en amongst us four flooded back to him, now permanently impacting his spirit. Faith was instilled. We had his back and he finally believed it.

Before we finished dessert, Bryce was already accepting he wasn't alone and the pressure melted before our eyes. He seized on the overzealous crowd, maturing a little right there before our eyes. Cal and Jake caught on to his reaction and Jeremy grasped me tight in tacit acknowledgement. And Adolpho...well, he drooled on him. His boi was growing up.

The Art and Psychology of leaning on one another. The basic concept of Family. The gay community was coming of age through the allowance of equal rights. The harvest was ready for the reaping. Let it be understood.

While Cal signed an autograph, hat-size increasing as he scribbled, we strolled across the piazza toward home. As we walked, I felt the vibrating iPhone in my pocket. Answering it, I was astonished to hear Ambergai's voice. The man rarely ever spoke telephonically. But it was his words which really threw me. In assent to his assertive instructions, I quickly hung up. "We are needed up at Elmer Edgewater's place. Right away."

Not aware of any specifics, I was unable to enlighten the rest. We took off for the house and grabbed both double snow mobiles from our shed. Three bodies on each slowed our progress but we made it up the mountain in twenty more minutes, finding two four-wheel drive vehicles with snow chains parked in the snow by the door.

Double stepping the stairs, we were greeted before we knocked by a tear-streaked Annalise, linen handkerchief to her nose. Bart was on her heels, wet eyed, too. We saw Gai, Susan, the home health nurse, and Miss Winfrey standing at the large bay window anchoring the front view in the house. All were statuesquely quiet; reverentially so. The aura of calamity hung in the air. And the house was freezing cold.

Hugging the old couple, we entered. From up the staircase there emanated the sound of Glen Miller's Band playing 'Moonlight Serenade'. No one said a word. We listened as the big band hit played on. Its haunting melody filled the old lodge.

Ambergai pulled away from Oprah after a few moments and approached us, unusually reserved. "Mi Mons, 'der be a big change in da' stars—dey been done realigned over da' night. If ya be a'followin', now, let's us go up to da big room 'der. Da couple done bein' havin' 'der own private ideas for da' future..."

At the ominous words, we followed as Gai took Oprah's arm. The powerful woman smiled sadly at us and we trailed the two up the stairway. The music grew louder as we reached the landing. Topping the last step and turning into the roomy bedroom, our eyes beheld both Elmer and Trude. They were in the bed. Frozen in final embrace.

The scene shocked us but the serenity on their faces said everything. The two were cheek to cheek, but more, they were unclothed and holding one another close, in full body mode.

The couple appeared to have locked together in the act of consummation, now evincing unearthly beauty in expiry. Discernible ending moments in mutual rhapsody resided in their death masks. Arms wrapping tightly around one another, her long tresses had been unwound and brushed through, now caressing both of them in a golden mantle.

In amazement, we saw Elmer's splinted left leg covering Trude's right one: or the part remaining, anyway. Amputated at the knee, his disabled one protected her lost one. We found the Olympic athlete's prosthetic propped next to the bed out of sight. No one had known of the Olympic skier's obviously recent amputation. Metastatic disease was agonizingly consumptive.

The lovebirds had opened all of the windows throughout the house and shared their passion before the now smoldering fireplace. Two partly-filled wine glasses rested on the side table by the bed. Elmer's empty opiate pain medication bottle lay next to those and an opened push-tab wrapper labeled, 'Tadalafil/20 mg', close by that. Burned-down bee's wax candles were positioned in profusion around the room. A smoked roach lay cold in the small ash tray. Fresh snow powdered the sills and floors.

Jeremy leaned into my ear, "Honey, there has never been a more moving sight...look at them." He nuzzled my face and I felt his tears collide with my own. Each of us were totally stunned. Nothing would ever alter that etched memory for the rest of our lives.

Glen Miller finished the song. After a few seconds of static from the old Motorola turntable, set to endless repeat mode, there came another. 'In the Mood' soothed the room. An unmatchable sense of sangfroid and karma swathed us. I felt like an intruder, suddenly, as did we all.

Jake made motion to cover the couple but Cal stopped his husband, gently pulling his hands to his own, "My Jake, they left with their spirits together. Far be it for us to decide they would want to be covered now. Leave them in peace, baby." We knew how right-on he was. Departing the love nest, we descended in deferential silence. Meeting the Chastains and Susan at the base of the stairs, we sought seats in the windswept living room, shivering on more than one level.

It was Oprah who noticed the envelope on the mantel. Fallen flat in a gust of wind it had gone unnoticed. She read the addressee and handed it to Annalise. The elegant woman carefully opened the seal. Pulling out the single sheet of paper, the elderly couple read together, more tears streaming.

The music ended again and Annalise looked up at us. Snowflakes settled on her head through the open window, carried in on the soft sigh of an alpine draught. She gracefully read to us as a new melody began. It was Glen Miller's recording of 'Elmer's Tune'.

"Dear ones.

We regret the shock to your senses, but did, indeed, decide our course. Know that it is the right one for us and be happy. We are supremely so. Here in the heights, we are both certain our spirits will have a very short trek to our eternal spot.

Let it be said that we left on top of the world. Cry: it is cleansing. We miss you all already. But don't be sorry for us. We will only be making up for lost time in a dimension where there is no sense of it.

Notice the bequest we leave for our woodland friends. A haven to be shared. Seek us just twenty yards to the southwest of this front door. Come and commune whenever you like.

Please grant us this one favor. Let this bed and this home serve as our bodies' final resting site. And our pyre.

Forever at Peace, Elmer and Trude.

The fitting melody progressed into the lyrical reprise and as she finished, the words wafted over us:

'Why are the stars always a'winking and blinking above?'

'What makes a fellow start thinking of falling in love?'

'It's not the season, the reason is plain as the moon.'

'It's just Elmer's tune.'

'What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose?'

'Why does a gander meander in search of a goose?'

'What puts a kick in the chicken, the magic in June?'

'It's just Elmer's tune.'

'Listen, listen, there's a lot you're li'ble to be missin'.'

'Sing it, swing, any old way and any old time.'

'The hurdy gurdies, the birdies, the cop on the beat.'

'The candy maker, the baker, the man on the street.'

'The City charmer, the farmer, the Man in the Moon.'

'All sing Elmer's Tune...'

Jeremy sat on the Adirondack chair at the edge of the ice. He watched contentedly as I pirouetted and twirled on the ice skates in a private show for him. My scarf trailed behind me as I carved designs on the pond outside our home. With a final turn, I skated across to him, slowing as I drew close. I ungracefully ended by collapsing in his lap and he applauded my efforts.

"Boi, you are making Apolo Ono jealous as shit right now. I should be streaming this somewhere to show you off, my man." Never mind that I had been figure skating rather than speed skating.

More like Brian Boitano, I hrmmphed to myself. He and I had practiced on the pond over the preceding winters, strengthening our ankles in the doing. Since I wouldn't yet permit my patient to risk himself falling on the ice, JK good-naturedly put up with my protectiveness with graceful aplomb. He pulled me down for a slow kiss and we snuggled in the last vestiges of the epic snowstorm.

Only fluttering snowflakes fell at this point, as Nature finally exhausted itself. An inexplicable weather system had sprung a surprise on the region's meteorology experts, fostering an event which grew into a snowstorm of epic proportions, raging over Telluride mountain for three days' duration. Paralyzing the mountain during that period, the Ski Festival had been forced indoors, as ski lifts and even the ever-running gondola system had been shut down.

Barely making it down from the divide following our impromptu wake at Elmer's lodge, blizzard conditions had set in. The night of the couple's deaths, as authorities pieced things together afterward, it seemed a combustive event had been triggered by a closed flue capping the big rock fireplace. Whether a tragic accident or a forethought stratagem, the ancient heartwood oak and spruce log home had caught fire and blazed through most of the night.

Without ability to get fire equipment up the steep incline during the blizzard, no relief had been possible. By three mornings later, the foundation and two fireplaces were all that remained. Officials had identified dental remains and announced that the elderly Olympians had succumbed to the vagaries and caprices of Mother Nature at her worst. Or finest. Tragedy had taken them and all had been deemed unpreventable by Man.

That night, the seven of us had hunkered down in our cozy abode as intermittent glimmers of an ongoing conflagration up on the divide flared through the maelstrom. Trude and Elmer had been safely sent on their way to eternity and there would be no interruption in their plans. It would seem that they had been bequeathed their last wish.

The truth of the matter, which would follow all of us to our graves, was this. The group celebrating Trude and Elmer's 'lives well-lived' had closed the ground floor windows after listening to the swan song letter penned by Trude and built up a roaring fire to heal the coldness. Breaking out the pantry provisions and wine cellar stocks, we had paid tribute to the duo upstairs by holding a memorial wake as the two had requested and would have wished. The Glen Miller Band had serenaded throughout. In the middle of the fete, we had all trekked the twenty yards to the southwest as Trude's letter had directed and come upon an exquisitely poetic discovery.

A secluded alpine glade had been carefully cultivated there. Snowdrifts insulated a sylvan setting where Elmer had long ago dug a fire pit, ringed it with large smooth pink granite stones and set a heavy, heartwood-oak bench to one side. The comfortable seat had been lovingly hewn from a single mammoth trunk. Large enough to seat four people comfortably, it had most probably come from the hoard of hand-cut logs used to construct the log home following the Olympic Games in the 1940's. The old recluse had no doubt spent countless hours in reverie at the site over the years. Situated behind the fire pit, the bench faced outward, commanding a magnificent view of the valley for miles around.

To the side stood two mature trees which a young Elmer Edgewater had nurtured until they were self-sufficient. Both were imported as saplings. Not native to the area, it had taken years to be confident of their survival. Now, intertwined not only in their branches, but in their roots as well, the gnarled old Chinkapin Oak and the elegantly straight and tall, heart-shaped leaved Linden tree served as sentinels over the entire vicinity.

Newly carved into the bark of each, we encountered one half of a heart. In the oak, the initials E.B.E. were carved. In the Linden, the initials T.B. had been traced. Each set of initials were based by five interlocking rings. Olympic rings. An entire heart had been wholly etched in a nearby granite boulder, both sets of initials together there. The lovers had spent some of their final moments at this site, making their mark. A contagion of goosebumps proliferated amongst us during our visit to Elmer and Trude's eternal dwelling. Their spirits were probably unpacking as we explored. Or making love. But surely laughing at us...

We had then made our way back to the lodge and closed everything up. Tight. But only downstairs. After sharing a commemorative doobie in the couple's honor at Bart and Annalise's insistence, the final act had been to stoke the fire and toss the healthy blunt on the flames before heading out the door. Nobody seemed to notice the first wisps of smoky backdrafts invading the common room. The tight downstairs closure had included the fateful clamping of the main flue. It would bode serious risk for the old lodge's integrity, one that was fraught with danger of a fiery accident.

Or a funeral pyre.

"Gramps, do you think William knows I'm back?" Little Elle had proven adamant about the subject since her and her mama's arrival to our eyrie a few days before. On every previous visit, the young ram had faithfully shown up to welcome the little tyke on whom he had an interspecies crush. Now, the pig-tailed girl was demanding information from her grandfather, the All-Knowing, and was not going to be put off any longer.

"Baby girl, William isn't used to you and your mama coming this time of year. He's up on the mountain looking for girlfriends the way most rams do right now. I think he'll be around soon...your tree trunk is all warmed up and that boy can feel it, I am pretty sure. So, be patient, sweetheart." Jeremy was asking the impossible of a six-and-a-half-year-old but the new nickname was still flummoxing the man so it was the best he could come up with at the moment.

'Gramps' was a shock to his system, I could tell, and even though the little sprite meant the world to the big teddy bear, as Big Elle continued to do, the timber of his voice betrayed JFK's trepidation at the word. Walking away from our spot in the hottub, the little girl gazed forlornly at the spruce tree across the way.

"Well, Gramps" --- she emphasized the word--- "he better get his butt down that mountain soon, 'cause he's missin' me." I couldn't hold in the smothered snicker and Jeremy elbowed me at the reaction. I was tickled by the sprite's usage of the forbidden word, 'butt', however her grandpa was still focusing on the second intonation of the now officially detestable reference to his status, inferring my amusement as due to...that word.

I splashed him and pushed his head under the surface of the roiling hot tub bubbles. He responded by gripping my piece around its base from his submerged position. Though my trunks kept him from a good grip, his mouth followed the hand, and teeth next portrayed faux vexation by engulfing me through the material. I was surprised by his contact and almost shrieked in delight.

Not missing a thing, Elle Jr piped up, "Grandpa Luke, is he getting on your junk again?" I was shocked by her precociousness and gulped water in my sputtering.

"Well, Luke, is he?" This from big Elle's mouth. Jeremy's grown up daughter had exited the back door, carrying a tray of lemonade and a fresh bowl of hot popcorn. The two females were ganging up on us boys.

"Hey, Elle, I didn't hear you," as I tried extricating myself from the submerged piranha still teething. Not thinking his granddaughter could see, let alone know what he was attempting, he sure wasn't aware that his daughter was now querying the same subject. I yanked my man away and pulled him topside to face the music.

Shaking his handsome head, Jeremy rubbed his eyes to clear them and visualized his girls. 'Oh, hi, Ellie... hey, that looks good." He reached out for a tall glass and was playfully rebuffed by the dark beauty bearing the tray. Mock anger crossed her face as she berated her daddy, "Can't I even leave you two alone one minute without you getting nasty in front of this innocent, boys?"

I nudged him again and he grasped the undercurrent of the unheard questions by looking from one to the other. In feigned state of embarrassment, he turned to me and planted a lip lock kiss over my mouth. Both girl's 'yucked' in their dismay at his lack of humility. Finally backing off, he turned to them again.

"My girls. You two may as well pull yourselves out of the Stone Age and come to grips with the fact that this here is my...husband... and we love each other. He can't keep his hands off of me."

A huge splash erupted from his submerged hand-swipe upward and hot water soaked them both. Their peals of laughter halted the allied onslaught. The two attempted fakery in the form of peeved insult. The front lasted all of five seconds before big Elle put down the drinks and now-soggy popcorn. Both of our 'baby girls' tumbled into the hot tub with us. In true collusion style, all three of us collectively dunked the big stud. Gramps succumbed in tickled defeat.

Toweling off in our shower room, Jeremy rolled his and popped my ass, "Boi, you are in deep trouble. Siding with that pair of harpies against me? I believe you are in line for a spankin', now. So, I'll be benevolent. Either get over this knee--- right this minute--- or get on this." He pointed down at his swelling dick. Seeing my glance at the door, he added, "You saw me lock that door, you bad boi, so make up your mind."

I chose both. It had been two days since we had shared pleasure, an unheard of period of chastity between us. Our collective desire was uncontrollable. Lifting me over his shoulder, my man hefted me out the en suite door. I was deposited unceremoniously onto our bed. He set to slaking his ardor in a series of moves which succeeded in satisfying our combined needs over the next hour. Laying exhausted after multiple climaxes, we were interrupted by loud knocking at the bedroom door.

Little Elle had been ignored long enough. "Are you two about finished in there? We have things to do and places to go out here, y'know. You old guys need to put it away and get back to me and mama." We were dazed, again, at the little imp's audacious display and smothered one another under pillows to stifle our mirthful disbelief.

The next sounds outside the door were hushed admonitions by Ellie, pulling the little big mouth back down the stairs. We did shriek from under the same pillow then, "My God, what is going on with that imp? She is Ellie on steroids!" We both remembered back to big Elle's precocious ways at the same age. While she had been just as astutely observant, the young mama Elle had exhibited much more reserve in her delivery. Or were we misremembering? Could that be? Apparently coming to similar conclusions, we lay awhile longer in commiseration before rising and dressing.