Now, young Bryson Devereaux – twenty-five summers old and lookin’ like he’d wrestled every one of ‘em bare-knuckled and lost – was a case study in human driftwood. Residin’ down Florence way, where the Tennessee River lopes along like a tired old hound, 

Bryson seemed determined to sink himself deeper than any river-bottom mud. He was a patchwork quilt of a man, stitched from threads most folks only read about in dusty county histories. His daddy, Silas, was white as a magnolia blossom, but with the fiery temper of County Cork and a whisper of the old Cherokee trails in the set of his jaw – stories of Sequoyah’s kin tucked away like faded tobacco in a pouch. 

His mama, Lupe, was a tempest of New Orleans spice and Mobile Bay depth, her laugh once warm as chicory coffee, her lineage a proud tapestry woven from sun-baked Latino shores and the resilient strength of the Black South.

But Bryson? He was a quilt unraveled. Aimless as a tumbleweed in a dead calm, hopeless as a one-legged man in a kicking contest, and indecent in his disregard for himself and anyone fool enough to care. Gratitude? 

He treated it like a stray dog, kicking it whenever it nosed near. He’d dropped out of the Shoals Community College faster than a cat jumps off a hot stove-lid, his grades plummetin’ like a stone in the Wilson Dam lock. 

Motivation? He had less’n a stump preacher has hair. Rage, though? Oh, he had rage aplenty. It simmered in him like a pot left too long on the fire, boilin’ over at the barkeep who poured slow, the boss at the failing auto shop who dared suggest he show up sober, or his own shadow if it crossed him wrong. He’d pound his knuckles raw on the brick wall behind O’Reilly’s Pub till the blood mixed with the cheap beer stains, a kind of self-harm as ugly and pointless as the rest of him.

Whiskey was his riverboat now, piloted straight for the rocks. Cheap stuff mostly, burnin’ a path down his throat that only seemed to fuel the fire inside. Other powders and pills sometimes joined the voyage, cloudin’ his eyes and makin’ his hands shake like a leaf in a hurricane. 

His family? Why, he treated ‘em like strangers on a crowded omnibus, and quarrelsome ones at that. Silas’s quiet disappointment hung in the air thicker than August humidity. Lupe’s worried eyes, once bright as river-polished stones, were now dulled and red-rimmed. 

Words between ‘em were scarce as hen’s teeth, and sharp as broken glass when they did fly. He’d storm out of their tidy clapboard house on Pine Street, slammin’ the screen door so hard the whole neighborhood winced, leavin’ nothin’ but silence and sorrow behind.

He was sinkin’, folks. Sinkin’ fast in the muddy waters of his own makin’. Florence watched him stagger, a familiar, sad spectacle – young Bryson Devereaux, the boy with the world in his blood and hell in his boots. 

He slept rough sometimes, under the railroad trestle where the hobos wouldn’t even share their fire, smellin’ of failure and stale hops. His reflection in the greasy garage window showed a gaunt stranger, eyes hollowed out caves where somethin’ fierce and frightened used to live.

Then came the night the pot boiled clean over. A misunderstanding over a pool cue at O’Reilly’s – Bryson, fueled by rotgut and resentment, saw insult where none was intended. Fists flew like startled bats. Bryson fought with the blind fury of a cornered badger, but he was outnumbered and outweighed by sense. 

They tossed him out onto the rain-slicked street like yesterday’s garbage, his lip split like a burst plum, a rib howlin’ like a banshee, and his spirit lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut. He crawled, more than walked, towards the river, the cold rain slicin’ through his thin shirt. 

He slumped against a mossy piling beneath the old bridge, the Tennessee churnin’ dark and indifferent beside him. The thought came, cold and simple as the river stones: Easier. Just… easier. Step in. Let the current take the quilt.

He was shiverin’, soaked, starin’ into that black water, feelin’ the pull of it in his bones, when a voice cut through the drummin’ rain and the roar in his head. It wasn’t loud, but it carried like a steamboat whistle across still water.

"Boy."

He flinched, lookin’ around wild-like. Standin’ under a big black umbrella, lookin’ as out of place as a china teacup in a hog wallow, was old Granny Ruth. She wasn’t truly his granny, but a cousin of his Cherokee great-granddaddy on Silas’s side, ancient as the river bluffs and wise as the stones. She lived up in the hills, rarely came down.

"What you doin’ here, old woman?" Bryson rasped, his voice raw. "Come to watch the show? See the half-breed sink?"

Granny Ruth didn’t flinch. She stepped closer, her eyes, dark and deep as a well, holdin’ his. "I felt the earth tremble," she said, her voice dry as autumn leaves. "Felt the spirit pullin’ hard towards the Long Man." She nodded at the river. "Figured it might be that fool Devereaux boy finally runnin’ outta other people to blame."

Bryson bristled, the old rage flarin’. "You don’t know nothin’!"

"I know mud," she stated flatly. "Riverbank mud. Good mud. Holds things together. Lets things grow. But mud you churn yourself? That just makes a pit. You’re standin’ knee-deep in churned mud, Bryson Silas Devereaux. Irish fire, Cherokee silence, Black river, Latino sun… all that power in your veins, and you use it to wallow like a hog."

She pointed a gnarled finger, not at the river, but back towards the town lights glimmerin’ through the rain. "You think your anger burns the world? It only burns you. You think the whiskey drowns the noise? It only drowns you. That fine mama of yours? Her prayers hang over this town like mist. Your daddy’s silence? It’s the quiet before the storm of grief he’s holdin’ back."

Bryson looked away, the rain mixin’ with hot shame on his face. The fight, the cold, the sheer exhaustion of hating himself… it suddenly felt too heavy.

"Look at me, boy," Granny Ruth commanded. He did. Her eyes held no pity, only fierce, undeniable truth. "The river’s always there. Easy way out. Always will be. But you got other rivers in you. Stronger ones. Your mama’s river runs deep and patient. Your daddy’s runs stubborn and true. The Cherokee river? It knows endurance. The fire in you? It can forge, not just burn. But you gotta choose to stop churnin’ the mud."

She thrust a small, worn leather pouch into his cold hand. It smelled of sage and earth. "Strength," she said. "Not for fightin’ the world. For fightin’ yourself. The part that likes the mud." She turned to go. "Sun rises tomorrow, Bryson. Always does. Question is, you gonna see it from the bottom, or you gonna climb out?"

She vanished into the rainy dark as silently as she’d appeared. Bryson clutched the pouch, starin’ at the churnin’ water. The pull was still there, the cold promise of oblivion. But Granny Ruth’s words echoed louder, cutting through the whiskey fog and the self-loathing like a keelboat cuttin’ through a sandbar. "You got other rivers in you." 

The Irish fire… could it warm instead of burn? The Cherokee silence… could it be peace, not emptiness? The Black river… could it be depth, not drowning? The Latino sun… could it be warmth, not just anger?

He didn’t step into the river. He didn’t know how to climb out, not yet. But for the first time in longer than he could remember, the mud didn’t feel like home. It just felt cold, and dirty, and… unnecessary. He pushed himself up, every ache screamin’, and started the long, slow, painful walk back towards Pine Street. Back towards the light. 

Back towards the possibility of a sunrise he hadn’t earned, but maybe, just maybe, could learn to meet. The quilt wasn't mended, not by a long shot. But the unraveling? 

That, young Bryson Devereaux decided, shiverin’ in the rain but standin’ upright, had stopped tonight. The rest, well, that was a story for another day, and the river would still be there, waitin’, but no longer callin’ his name quite so loud.