Remembering Cherry Omega

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Five Months with Cherry-O

by Mendy Knott
Originally published in her Substack Writing Close to the Edge
Summer 2025, reprinted with permission.

Part 1: Under Advisement
July 31, 2025

I agreed to be Cherry Omega’s spiritual advisor even though I had nothing to recommend me and no qualifications for the job. Hell, I didn’t even like Cherry; or maybe it’s closer to the truth to say I did not trust Cherry-O, not in the slightest. She stole, she cheated, she lied when it suited her purposes. She built a dungeon in the garage of the house where I lived. It wasn’t my house, so I had no say in the harness she hung from the ceiling beam, the whips and leather straps draped on hooks I used for tools. The shovel, mattock, rakes, and pruners leaned together in a back corner, the wannabe gardener further inconvenienced by a hammock strung between two opposing wall posts with a hand-scratched NO TRESPASSING sign clothes-pinned to the hammock weave.

Weeks passed. I thought she’d never leave. My room in the back of the house had a window overlooking the garage. I kept it open all spring, summer, and most of fall. There was no ac back in the ‘90’s on Shady Oak Dr. The house my roommate, Ann, owned was perched on a hill high above Biltmore Village. Open windows and ceiling fans kept us cool enough until Cherry started S/M camp in the garage, and I grew hotter and hotter under the collar.

A different kind of heat rose, as heat will, from the garage below. In the wee morning hours, moans and groans and screams of orgasming women issued from behind the tarp Cherry-O strung across the open ended garage. The racket, instead of generating good heat, annoyed the hell out of me. I tossed and turned, hearing Cherry murmur commands, while strangers obeyed, or disobeyed in exchange for delightful punishments. I would holler out the window, “Cherrrrr-yyy!! Stop! Whatever the fuck you’re doing, shut that shit down!! I swear to god, Imma come out there and shoot your ass. I have to work tomorrow!”

“Bubba,” she’d call, “you’re just jealous. Get down here and help me out. Come on! Have some fun. You’ll love it, I promise.”

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I was no prude, but our thoughts on taste and manners differed vastly. Besides, who were these women? I didn’t know most of them, only a few. I was mad at them, too, for encouraging her.

I guess the Supreme Being took those omg’s seriously, because when the shit hit Cherry in the face with a cancer diagnosis, I was there. Lenny tricked Cherry into coming over to her house, while Kim and I sped from Asheville to Atlanta. The three of us spent the better part of two days convincing Cherry to get medical help, if for no other reason than to ease the pain slumping her body over her shoes. After losing 60 pounds in 3 months, Cherry was barely recognizable. I peeked out the window when she put-putted up in that rattletrap van. I didn’t want to gasp in surprise when we came face to face. I could see her skull through the pale skin, her usually round face and mischievous grin replaced with sunken cheeks and pained creases.

It took us two days of wheedling, pleading, and begging to get her to go to the hospital for help. Kim and I sat with her all night in an ER room. None of us had slept in days. Cherry wouldn’t leave Emory hospital again for 3 weeks. When she was rolled out the double doors at last, it was with a terminal diagnosis. What had once been operable cervical cancer, had grown into incurable ovarian cancer.

Cherry knew this. She’d turned to the medical professionals for help a year earlier, but finally could not deal with the establishment males in medical practice. She was a big butch dyke who they despised on sight. They told her she was fat. They told her she had too many sexual partners, that she wasn’t careful enough—that’s how she got HPV and the virus gave her cervical cancer. They told her treatment would be very expensive, that out of pocket expenses for surgery, chemo, and radiation would be exorbitant, even with her insurance from the electrical union. Then they said, “Let’s set a date for surgery.”

Cherry said, “No fucking way. I’ll never see any of you motherfuckers again,” and slammed out the door of the surgeon’s office. For her, for me, for a lot of us, dying has more dignity and causes less pain than dealing with the white male medical industrial complex. White men in white coats—been there, done that, won’t do it again.

That is how it was and is, unless you find a great woman doc who actually cares. How many of my lesbian and women friends hear the words, “morbidly obese” every time they mount a scale? How do those same doctors think it makes my friends feel about the medical profession, about themselves? Does Dr. Prick really think those women will come to him for help when they have cancer? I don’t think the docs care. It’s just the damn money is so good. For the sake of mankind, though, the fewer dykes in the world the better, right? In five months, the world would be down one, at least.

At first the job, “spiritual advisor,” was a joke Cherry made to the hospice admissions crew. When the social worker asked Cherry what denomination she preferred for spiritual counsel; protestant chaplain, catholic priest, or rabbi, Cherry lowered her dark eyebrows and stared out from beneath them, her brown eyes shooting sparks.

The young blonde shifted in her seat, looked away. “Well, we can get someone Native American, or Muslim, if that’s your preference,” she said. Cherry scowled again and shook her shaggy head.

“Well you need some kind of spiritual advisement during this time, don’t you think?” She was committed to saving Cherry’s soul some way, somehow.

Cherry pointed to a picture on the bookshelf near the foot of the bed. “That’s my spiritual advisor,” she said. I was afraid to look, afraid I was familiar with that particular picture in that specific spot. It might be Ann’s framed photograph of me at our giant 1954 ‘s fortieth birthday party. I planned that party and co-hosted. It lasted 3 days and nights. There were as many as sixty people, representing several states, present at any given time. Who knows why, but 1954 was a great year for birthing baby lesbians.

I glanced in the room to see where she was pointing, and spit the coffee I was sipping onto the hardwood floor. I choked with laughter, until Cherry turned that scowl on me. “I’m serious,” she said.

In the photo, I’m wrapped in a large, raggedy, gold-striped beach towel, relaxing on a red webbed lounger. My bare legs are crossed. My hair is wet and spiked. I’m grinning with blue eyes twinkling from beneath a handmade crown. Across the front of the crown are the words, “BIRTHDAY QUEEN” in gold glitter sparkling in the sun. Beneath the towel, I am butt naked, fresh from skinny dipping in my friend’s pool filled with beautiful members of my tribe. I might be terrific in my role as birthday royalty, but spiritual advisor to a dying Cherry Omega? Get out!

I took the job. I took it because she was the first butch lesbian I ever met, way back in our early twenties; because she was the toughest rugby player on an all-dyke team; because there was always one degree of separation between us, usually a woman we both liked or a good friend; because I’d kept her at arm’s length most of our lives for self-preservation purposes; because Lenny, Cherry’s electrician partner, and my best butch buddy, asked me for help; because I admired her strength and her remarkable ability to get most any woman to have wild sex with her; because she was a gypsy by then, had lost her home and was living out of an old van between women’s festivals; because that van was overloaded with what looked like crap, but proved useful if you ever needed anything while camping or repairing some odd broken pipe or wiring in your house; because she never apologized for being anyone but Cherry Omega or for spending her money on pot and women or for stealing occasionally; because she admired me for being a cop, even though she hated cops; because she loved my writing and bragged about it; because she knew what I did not–partly due to that single degree of separation, I might be objective enough to act as counselor and confidant where those who loved her dearly would not; because Cherry, who never needed anyone, needed me now; because she was dying at 51 and that wasn’t in her playbook, wasn’t in anybody’s playbook.

Part 2: Hospice, Meet Cherry
August 12, 2025

A couple of months passed before Cherry made her winding way up to the Appalachians of Western North Carolina. During her initial recovery from surgery and chemo, Cherry stayed at Kecia’s house in Decatur. At first, the set-up seemed fine for all involved. (Fair warning: this line will repeat throughout the telling.) Cherry had a bed in a small extra bedroom. Kecia had the master. She went to work for the City of Decatur while Cherry held court, which inevitably grew larger with each passing day.

Soon enough, as different women arrived to visit, hang out, and smoke dope all day- every day, the small house and its owner became overwhelmed by 1) the skunky smell of pot smoke 2) having to find a place to park after work, at her own house, and 3) the constant company milling around in a vision one might associate more with a MARTA rail station than a small brick house in Decatur.

Although, I talked to Cherry about once a week during her stay in Atlanta, all I know about it was what I heard through the long distance line from my buddy, Lenny, who was Kecia’s former partner. They had remained friends. In fact, Lenny’s Sports Palace remained in Kecia’s attic room. If Cherry could have climbed the stairs to the attic, I’m sure she would have installed herself there instead.

The Palace contained a couch and comfy slouch chairs, as well as memorabilia and expensive collectibles from the Atlanta Braves to the TN Volunteers. Baseball caps in forty-two flavors lined the room. Cardboard cut-outs leaned against the walls. Hand-signed balls and baseball cards of value took pride of place on shelves. Jerseys and posters were pinned to the walls. A big tv set sat front and center, and all of it was lit with small, bright Christmas lights. It was magnificent, if you’re into that sort of thing. We sat shoulder to shoulder in the Sports Club to watch the annual Super Bowl while downstairs, the best Super Bowl snacks in the world sat between two giant goalposts on the dining room table. An open bar and fridge held every drink imaginable. Lenny and Kecia’s famous Super Bowl extravaganza was not a party to be missed.

With Cherry recovering in Kecia’s house, Lenny was too preoccupied to take comfort from the Sports Palace. After a couple of weeks, Lenny started calling and she didn’t stop. “Bubba,” she said, voice tight as piano wire, “Kecia is ready to call it where Cherry’s concerned.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “It sounds like a zoo there. Kecia’s got a life.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But where’s Cherry gonna go? She’s got no home, no income. She can’t work. Nobody whose here is from here, and she’s not going to Oregon or California or Missouri to die. Besides, her birthday’s next week, Feb 8. What if it’s her last? My god, she’s turning 52. Only 52. She wants to have the party here. I’m thinking we tell her she has to find someplace else, after the party.”

I commiserated, but was also glad it wasn’t my house. I had been to parties at Cherry’s house before the foreclosure. I sat in the living room on long afternoons with Lenny, watching as a dozen women came and went. No damn way. I needed a quiet mind most of the time.

The lucky break came just after Cherry’s birthday. Ann, my former roommate and a longtime admirer of Cherry’s, had since moved from the place we had once lived together. She bought a different house on a street that dead-ended at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Cemetery. She also purchased a piece of land that had a small trailer overlooking the Ivy River north of Asheville.

Ann invited Cherry and her girlfriend to move to Asheville and stay at her house in town. Ann volunteered to stay at the trailer on the river, or at her lover’s house in Boone, if she began to feel crowded. To this day, I am unsure about the generosity of the folks who would stay out of their own places while Cherry and her crew occupied their property. Of course, these were friends and and lovers and they did not want her to suffer or to die homeless. It was winter in Asheville and would be, pretty much all the way through April. Cherry couldn’t camp in her van long and remain alive, and she could not go to the hospice house. In a few days, she would have been decamped from that quiet place full of dying and grieving people. In another scenario, she may have had the whole place swinging and smoking dope in the central lounge area. Either way, I’m sure she would have been asked to leave.

Truthfully, I believe very few of us thought she would live longer than a month or two. This was an underestimation of her incredible vitality and will. Did we really forget how strong she was, how tough her body remained, even after she got sick? Did we really think she would not exert every fiber of her muscular will to keep her feet planted firmly here on Earth?

After three rounds of chemo in the hospital, her hair started to fall out. She was a skeleton compared to the Cherry we had always known. It was hard to believe she could last very long. I didn’t think she would. But we were wrong. I was wrong, but at least I understood where my boundaries lay with Cherry Omega. I never let her stay with me, but then I had a partner who would never have allowed it anyway. Even so, she ended up living at the head of our little dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, Yancey County for over a month.

Cherry Omega moved to Asheville towards the end of February, 2005. She and Kubby arrived first. Soon they were joined by Barb from Missouri, and Ruby from California. They folded themselves happily into Ann’s place, where they temporarily cozied together until Ann decided to head to the trailer on the Ivy River.

Ann’s house was small for four people. Hell, that house was small for three people, one of whom was Cherry Omega, and partying as if her life depended on it. The house perched on a steep incline that dropped off into a Kudzu clotted ravine. There was a laundry room and a back deck, extending out over the steeply pitched yard. Women lined the deck on warmer, sunny days. A thousand joints were smoked, a cat walked through the railing and fell 40 feet below, but survived. I’m glad none of us fell, since we were forever in a stoney stupor. There was a basement carved into the hillside, with walls of thick, red clay. A ladder-like set of stairs led down into molded orange walls. Cool and damp, you inhaled as caves and graves came to mind. There was nothing finished about it, but you could walk standing up and sit on a stool or two for a private conference, if need be.

It was from Ann’s house that the Buncombe County hospice was called. The hospice nurse and social worker were scheduled to arrive on a bright, cold afternoon in early March. I drove the hour from my farm in Yancey County that morning to help prepare Cherry for her grand entrance into the one club where everyone is welcomed. It’s easy to get a membership. You simply have to be dying, with a doctor to verify your status.

I arrived on hospice day as Cherry was practicing her morning ritual, rolling the first joint with easy speed. I hesitated, my marijuana highs were few and far between, but I knew Cherry wouldn’t parlay if I didn’t partake. I sought advice from my hospice nurse partner the night before, but I felt shaky enough not to want to complicate the admission process with a smoke screen in place. The high only made me nervous about talking to “medical professionals,” especially hospice. I don’t know why. They wouldn’t care if we were all stoned as Cooter Brown. Plenty of cancer patients smoke, eat, and sip T with their tea.

Cherry was famous for her generosity, especially when she was rolling in dope, which she was. Friends from all over the country made sure that Cherry Omega would not know a dry day until she was gone from this Earth. She rolled a joint for herself, and another for every woman who joined the circle. The ritual never got old, and it was important to her that you join the fun. If you didn’t want to smoke, you did not belong in the circle.

“Bubba!” she said, hearing me greet Ann at the door. “Take this.” She lit a joint and handed it to me. Immediately, she started rolling another. Her main caregivers were all there. Kubby, Barb, Ruby, Eagle, and Ann passed the joint from one hand to another, their fists bumping as the big doobie became a roach. When it reached Cherry, she would pass the new one, tossing the burnt end of the first in a small cigar tin. Repeat the process. I breathed a little easier knowing I could get away with feigning to hit the hand-rolled cigarillo, at least half the time.

“Now, why should I do this, Mendy?” Cherry asked while sucking in smoke and oxygen. “I’m not dead yet. I think I might get better. Feels like giving up to me.”

I went over my talking points for the third time. Having hospice did not mean she was giving up. If she wanted to quit at any time, she could. If she got better, hospice would gladly fire her. On the up side, entering hospice meant she would never have to go to the hospital, or doctor’s office, or even a pharmacy again. They would bring her what she needed right to the house and she could lounge around in her pj’s while she toked dope with friends all day long. I knew this was my best angle. Cherry hated hospitals, doctor’s offices, anything that reeked of alcohol or bleach.

“You’re sure about that? I don’t have to go anywhere for medical attention?”

“I’m sure,” I said, and I was. My partner told me so. One of our friends would be Cherry’s hospice doc. “And you can call them day or night if you need anything.”

Unfortunately, Ann, in whose Asheville house we sat smoking dope, had a mental breakdown about the time the social worker and nurse arrived. I don’t know whether she was upset about Cherry or if she could read the future in the smoke circulating her living room. These gypsy women would “not go easily into that good night,” to quote a dead poet. She would be lucky to get them out the door to go grocery shopping.

The social worker and intake nurse arrived together. Ann immediately had a nervous breakdown, and we lost the social worker to a bedroom where she attempted to give her some comfort. Cherry and I were left with a young, long-legged, redheaded nurse with whom Cherry immediately began to flirt.

“You have the most beautiful red hair,” Cherry said.

“Thank you,” Nurse Redhead answered. “Now, I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Shoot,” Cherry said, then held up one finger. “Let me come over there and sit next to you so we can hear each other better.” Cherry moved next to her on the couch. I steeled my inner fortitude in a rocker across the room. I built enough momentum rocking to power a small lamp or two. This was Cherry’s gig. I was determined not to interfere.

“You know, everyone here is a lesbian,” Cherry whispered loudly.

Oh, here we go, I thought. Great, just great; she hasn’t even been admitted yet.

I shook my head at Cherry, who ignored me.

“I see.” said Nurse Redhead. That much was apparent, no doubt. “Well, I’m not, and neither is the Social Worker. In fact, she’s married.” She jerked her chin up and stared at Cherry with some defiance. All that red hair. She looked a little proud she had given such a chippy answer. A cartoon smirk etched my lips. Ms. Redhead was no match for the likes of Cherry O.

“Are you married, though?” Cherry asked, fishing.

Nurse looked down at her computer screen, punched in some data, shook her head, “No, I’m not.”

“Have you ever tried having sex with another woman?” Cherry said in a soft voice. “I mean, how do you know you wouldn’t like it if you haven’t tried it?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cherry! Let the poor woman get on with your intake. Please.”

No, really,” Cherry said, still ogling her nurse-to-be. “You can’t really know that, right? I mean, not for sure.”

I admit watching a fair-skinned redhead blush is a thing of beauty.

“Cherry. Stop it.”

“Just sayin’,” Cherry shrugged. The intake continued.

Cherry agreed with everything Nurse Redhead said, after confirming for herself I was telling the truth. Among the things she agreed to, but did not do, were leave the county without notifying her hospice team; stay gone for more than a week at a time; take “extraordinary measures,” including acupuncture, certain supplements, or antibiotics without letting them know; not go to the hospital or be given life-saving treatment. These were Hospice in the Sky Rules that, if broken, could get Cherry fired. In exchange, she would never have to visit a hospital or doctor’s office again. They would bring all necessary medicines and other necessities to her, and visit in person once a week. Any of her caregivers could call a nurse if needed, night or day. A nurse’s aide would visit twice a week to help bathe her.

Cherry was quite cheerful throughout the intake. No doubt Nurse Redhead was improving her disposition. Ann cried in the bedroom with the social worker, who I felt we could have used, because signing your friend up for hospice can only mean one thing: the end is near. No matter how you look at it, or laugh about it, or make light while showing off for the pretty nurse, Cherry was staring down the barrel of a gun. The trigger was cocked, and it was bound to go off sometime in the next six months. She was number one with a bullet.

The nurse and social worker left a large packet explaining how hospice operated, what they would and wouldn’t do, what Cherry could and couldn’t do, and a small insufficient booklet titled Gone from My Sight. Sketched on the thin blue cover was a sailboat floating off into the sunset. I found neither the image nor the title comforting.

Cherry popped a couple of Percocet, leaned back in a lounger. and began to page through the materials. After a quick glance, she threw the papers, the booklet, and the manila envelope over her shoulder where they splayed in a pile behind her. Some of the pages came loose and scattered across the hardwood floor. I felt untethered by what appeared to me as a spontaneous combustion in that toss. I read those crumpled pages like tea leaves. Nobody was about to take instruction on how to die in peace and comfort here but me. Chaos would ensue. “You die the way you live.” Hospice workers everywhere seemed to agree this was more true than not, by a long shot.

I would visit her in my new role as spiritual advisor at Ann’s house for weeks and see those papers in the same condition, except kicked out of the way into a far corner. Each time I would ask either Cherry or a member of her cartel if anyone had looked at them. The question would be ignored or shrugged away. There they remained, unread by anyone to whom it might concern. For some reason, that passive display of anger and denial hit me like a fist to the gut every single time. I wanted badly for someone to book up on the subject, to understand what was happening, what would happen, how to make it easier when it did.

Part 3: Asheville: Gone from My Sight
August 20, 2025

The phone rang early on a mid-March day during writing time. It was cold and I was propped in bed on three pillows with pen in hand, cozied by the fire burning in the big old Swedish stove. I took the call, as it came from Kubby, Cherry’s lover and full-time caregiver. “Mendy,” she said, “we’ve got a problem.” My heart quickened, as it was usually Cherry that called. This was the first time any of the gang of caregivers had phoned me.

“What’s up?” I said, feeling the beating wings of my heart rising like a butterfly into my throat.

“Cherry’s gone and we don’t know where.”

“Wait. You lost Cherry-O? How the hell do you lose a woman who can barely walk, who has cancer, and no hair? It’s freezing outside!”

“She just walked out the front door and left.”

“Why didn’t you stop her? Or go with her? Something! Y’all just let her go?!” My heart sped up until it was buzzing in a little warning bee dance, danger! danger! I had to move. Phone cocked between shoulder and ear, I was pulling off pajama bottoms, pulling on underwear and jeans.

“I don’t know. We just didn’t. She’s so mean to us.” Kubby’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “You don’t know what she’s like right now. Nobody does. We need your help.”

I pictured Kubby in my mind, tall with broad, rounded shoulders. She had short, dark hair and broad cheek bones. At 5’10” and nearly 200 pounds, Kubby could have been intimidating, but her round face and big brown eyes were those of a young boy’s, innocent and gentle. She looked like a tall, young Cherry Omega. The resemblance between the two took my breath away. Kubby could have been Cherry’s daughter, sprung from her loins like Aphrodite from Uranus. I found it uncanny that Cherry had chosen someone that looked so much like her as her final lover.

I jumped in the little white Toy truck. I took the curves fast down Highway 80 to 19, slowed down through Burnsville, risked the hill between Yancey and Madison counties until I reached the interstate where I busted through the sound barrier into Asheville. I made my way through the hills in Montford until I came to a “Dead End” that marked Ann’s street. Kubby, Ruby, and Barb shuffled outside to meet me. Their heads were bowed, shoulders slumped. They were a dejected-looking trio.

I knew what they were up against, having known Cherry Omega for the better part of my life by then. I was talking to myself as I flew uphill and down dale on the way to Ann’s, Don’t lose your temper. They’re freaked out and Cherry can be mean as hell when she’s unhappy. Listen first. Just listen. Then listen some more.

I followed my advice, said, “What in the wide world of sports is going on here?”

None of them looked at me, not even Kubby. They cast their eyes around the front yard, looking for answers in the few scraggly shrubs and bare trees. There were none.

I ran my hand over my short, quickly graying hair, tugging at the roots. “Why did you all let Cherry walk off on her own?”

Each one answered with a shrug or a shake of the head.

“WHERE THE HELL IS CHERRY OMEGA AND WHY DON’T YOU KNOW?”

The loud voice served to wake them. They talked all over each other. “You don’t understand.You’re not with her all the time. She’s meaner than a blind snake in Fall. We’re doing our best to keep her happy, to feed her, to get her to sleep at night. We try our best, but it’s never good enough. She curses and yells at us, then refuses to say why she’s mad. She locks herself in her room and won’t come out or talk to us for hours. Today she hit Kubby and then took off. “We couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Whoa, whoa, just a minute. Rewind. She hit Kubby? Kubby?”

“Yeah, well, you know. Just in the arm, but it hurt. It’s the principal of the thing,”

Kubby said. “I do whatever she asks me to do. I try to make her laugh. I’ll do anything for her. I love her.”

“I know you do, Kubby. I know you all do. Listen, here’s the thing. Cherry is at a final crossroads. She’s freaking out, with good reason.” I watched tears well and spill down Kubby’s chubby cheeks, parking themselves at the corners of her mouth.

“Still.. Now listen. This is important. Look at me! You do not, you must not, let Cherry Omega abuse you—not verbally, not emotionally, not physically. If you don’t know, I do—she’s capable of any and all of these things, especially when she’s depressed. Don’t let her be mean to you! Call her on it. Walk away. Whatever you need to do to keep your dignity. It’s hard, but you owe it to yourselves. If you’re going to make the home run, she needs you to take care of yourselves. She can’t help herself.”

I studied them for a long minute. At least, their heads were up and they were looking at me. “With all my heart, I don’t believe she wants to hurt you. She absolutely knows everything you’re doing for her on a daily basis. I do. We all do. I am so grateful to each one of you for being willing to stay with her. But if you want to help her have a decent death, you have to make her act toward each of you with respect. She mustn’t disrespect you. Do not stand for it.”

“Well, that’s why we let her go,” Ruby said. I saw some defiance in the set of her shoulders, and was glad.

“Well, try not to wait so long before you call for help next time. There’s me and you’ve got the nurse and the social worker at your disposal. You can call them anytime. Y’all need some readily available help up in here. We will talk more later, but will somebody please point me in the direction you last saw Cherry? I need to lay eyes on her and make sure she’s okay.”

Kubby walked me out the front door and down the half block to the dead end street. A tall cyclone fence loomed on the other side of some out of control hedges. We stopped. She pointed at a half circle cut into the fencing. “We go through here sometimes.”

“Here? Where does this lead exactly?”

“Riverside Cemetery. She likes to wander around over there, look at the statues and trees and stuff.”

“Okay, so our dying friend who is still recovering from major surgery is wandering alone in the biggest cemetery in Western North Carolina. What’s wrong with this picture, Kubby?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. Here. I’ll hold the fence while you climb through.”

I crawled through like a spider, all arms and legs. When I turned to hold the fence for Kubby she was walking back toward the house. “Aren’t you coming?” I said.

“No. I’m trying to take your advice. I need a minute. Besides, I’m scared of her right now.” Kubby walked away.

Jesus, into the lion’s den. Aloud I hollered at her back, “Feel free to take the entire afternoon. This is a huge ass cemetery!” Kubby kept walking. “Wait! What’s she wearing at least?”

Over her shoulder, Kubby tossed, ”Red hoodie, loose jeans, black boots.”

I kept grumbling. “All she’s got on is a sweatshirt? For fuck’s sake. She’s gonna freeze to death.”

I stood on tiptoes to see four sidewalks branching four directions. Thousands of tombstones, ornately inscribed, decorated with mossy cconcrete lambs and fierce angels, perched atop steep hills.

“How the hell am I suppose to find Cherry in here? God, I’m glad I brought my jacket,”I complained to no one. I leaned into a bitter breeze and started walking. At least there weren’t hundreds of people jogging, strolling, or driving the twisty roads that led through the famous cemetery; not on a weekday in early March. I figured I should be able to spot a red hoodie. How far could she have gotten? She kept saying she was “weak as a cat.”

An hour of walking and calling, “Cherry! Cherry Omega!” later, I spotted that damn red hoodie and the woman beneath it on her hands and knees crawling up a steep hill toward one of the giant scary angel statues.

“Cherry! Stop! Wait!” She kept crawling. She never even looked back at me although I know she heard me. She was an all terrain vehicle and I was a sprinter, already spent from former exertions. She chugged up that hill as I broke into a jog to catch up with her. “Godammit, Cherry! Will you please fucking wait?” She still did not acknowledge me although I was gaining on her. I shook my head, coughed, spat in the grass, my throat rough from calling her name. I passed her, extending a hand to pull her to her feet and over the last hump before we reached even ground. “What the hell, buddy?”

She stood looking at me as only Cherry could do. Sometimes she would stare into your face, or give you the once over-all over, before deigning to either answer or greet you. “I’m wearing your hat, see?” she said, pulling the hood back on the firetruck red sweatshirt to reveal a dark, maroon hat beneath.

“I see that now.” I said. The memory of the day I gave her my hat punched me in the chest. Memories, long and short, take on a whole new aura when you spend a lot of time with someone who is dying, particularly when you are playing a big part in what life they have left.

The week before, a number of us were sitting out on the deck of Ann’s house. The day was weirdly warm, a March day of grace occasionally given to those who live in these mountains throughout the windiest month, so we don’t give up and die before actual Spring arrives in May. We were engaged in Cherry’s favorite rite of passing, handing a joint from one woman to the next around an uneven circle. Everyone was participating. It was close to happy hour, although Cherry never needed a happy hour to get stoned. We relaxed into the afternoon sun until it started dropping like a stone behind the mountains. A breeze sprang up and everyone dug deeper into their wraps, which consisted of light downy coats and blankets. I pulled a red wool cap a friend made me for Christmas out of a deep coat pocket and pulled it over my ears. I loved that hat. It was red. I’m an Aries. It fit my head perfectly and looked good on me. I should have known better.

“Oooh, Bubba,” Cherry crooned. “Nice hat. That’s a nice, red hat.”

“Yes, yes, it is, Cherry.” I squirmed with the intuitive knowledge I was about to lose my favorite winter hat. In my head, I began to mount a defense.

“Lemme see that hat, Bubba.” She stretched out a bony hand and wiggled her fingers in my direction. When Cherry wanted something that did not necessarily belong to her, a semi-sweet note between wheedle and coy accented her words. The notes merged in a strange wild bird’s song, part turtle dove, part loon. It held a note of longing; a little sweet sorrow that the hat was not already hers. She understood as soon as she saw the object of her affection, it would likely be hers, soon enough.

I pulled the hat from my head, leaving a little water fountain of hair sticking straight up. In over three months of wearing that hat, I had never washed it. It smelled like my head, a little coconut, a bit of brown sweat, sheep wooly, and if she was lucky, honey scented chapstick where the woman in my life had pressed her mouth against it before work. Woodsmoke and evergreen tied it all together.

Cherry snatched the black cap she wore off the long black stubble that passed for her hair, at this point. I handed her my hat and she pulled it on. “Oh, it fits just right,” she purred. The circle ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ at my red cap on Cherry’s head. I was thinking thanks a lot, when Cherry turned back to me, brown eyes sparking delight, and said, “So how’s it look, Bubba?” I admitted it looked pretty damn good, and warm. Shit.

“So let me wear this red hat and you can have it back when I’m done with it, okay?”

I wanted my hat back. I really did. I wanted to be able to say that without denying my spiritual advisee and dying friend a simple request. There was no way out but through so I said, “Sure, Cherry, wear the hat. It’s a lucky hat.”

I knew she knew that I loved that cap, but she was in dire straits or she wouldn’t have kept it. And I did think in a few months the hat would be mine again. I saw her in that red cap plenty in the next several months. She wore it almost every day. She wore it on the day I said goodbye to her, as I was leaving her to move to Arkansas. Although she died shortly thereafter, I never got my hat back. After several months on her dying head, it became too precious to give up, I suppose. Of all the things I lost between looking out for Cherry and my move to Arkansas, I miss that red hat the most.

In the cemetery, I recognized my cap at once. It’s a good thing she had a red watch cap, because she was easy to spot in a crowd. If she had not been wearing a red hoodie, I would have seen that hat, no matter how many graves lay between the two of us. Her eyes were red too, from crying. Snail trails of recent tears marked her cheekbones.

“You doing alright, buddy?” I said.

She growled at me, which, coming from Cherry, means neither yes nor no. It means “I will tear your head off if you ask that question again.” It could also mean, “Make me talk to you. I am tough, I am strong, I am woman, hear me roar.” That’s how I interpreted Cherry’s growls.

She swiped her sleeve across her face, gave me that smile she had that looks just like the pained-smile Emoji on the phone. It’s the one I use the most, more grimace than grin. “Come here. I want to show you something.” We walked a bit, until we stood at the feet of one of those monolithic angels, this one covered in dark green ivy. The greenery served to soften its severity. “This is my favorite.”

We wandered around reading headstones until Cherry had sobered up some from her chaotic feelings. It was a heavy cocktail to balance, in a martini glass held with one heart, as she attempted to move gracefully from party to grave in one swoop of her super woman cape. I planned to talk to her about her caregivers, but the timing was wrong. I had long ago given up trying to understand, decipher, come up with some answer to a question I had no idea how to answer. Today we talked in lowered voices, a little banter, a little back and forth, a little fear-sharing. That was what we could do.

We headed toward the hole in the fence that would allow us to walk uphill to Ann’s. As we neared the descent to the the chain link fence, we walked by two fresh graves that were raw, red clay still unmarked. They smelled of the Delta, all crawdads and muddy water. They had not been sodded, but weeds were beginning to grow. Cherry walked over and weeded a bit, then stretched out on her back in the center of one of those long, red rectangles. She glowed in the sun with something other than a right here, right now light.

“I thought I should try it, y’know?”

She looked over at me and I said, “I guess so.” I held her gaze a minute before she closed her eyes. It felt like a private moment, a chance she didn’t get or want often, to be alone with her thoughts about her brief future.

I felt a salty knot swell in my throat. I tried to swallow the wet ball of tears, but it wouldn’t go down. I looked over at the closest headstones instead. A pair of polished marble slabs read—well, shouted at me, really—LASATER, spelled like that, all caps. I thought, “That’s weird.” That’s Lenny’s last name and she spells it exactly like that. I never saw Lasater spelled that way, except for Lenny’s family name.

I walked closer, squatting and peering at the stones for first names. Maybe Lenny was related to them. I was studying the two markers when I felt a chill trill from my feet up through the top of my head. I shivered. It felt kind of creepy standing between Cherry’s living body laid out on a grave, while two Lasater headstones stared at me from beneath the bare branches of an oak.

Cherry rolled off her Earthen fainting couch, and we started the toe-gripping downhill to Ann’s house. We were soon through the fence and back in her front living room. The gang of three greeted us with hi’s and hello’s, like nothing untoward had happened and they were thrilled to have their prodigal sun return to its rightful place in the center of their orbit.

I glanced around the living room. There, the pile of papers splayed in a corner as always. The little book was open, page down, atop the pile. It looked like a little blue roof on a shoddy house. I shook my tired head. I knew there was a lot of spiritual advising yet to do. I had to get this motley crew to grab hold of the rope and pull together so they could raise sail and head toward that not-so-distant horizon, when Cherry would be, forever, gone from my sight.