Scott McClanahan - The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. I

In the backseat of the car were a bag of groceries and a loaf of bread that never made it home.

Sometimes in the summer we went bear hunting. Bear hunting was really just walking on the mountain behind our house. And really it was my mother wanting to get some exercise, and knowing she was going to have to trick her child into coming along. She told me we were going bear hunting and she fixed me an egg sandwich, and we took off walking and hunting for bears.

But O God momma! I wonder what we would have done if we ever found one.

And then later that night my mother sat up in bed with me again and she told me about her uncle James. She told me how he died when he was a little boy. He’d just been to the world’s fair in Chicago with his Boy Scout troop. Then one day that fall he was playing on the steps of this old building when a drunk guy and this woman came by. The boys started shouting at them, saying nasty things. The drunk threw a bottle at them and it hit James in the head. It killed him instantly.

My mother pointed to my temple and said, “It hit him right there in the temple.”

It hit him right there.

I touched my temple where she was touching and hoped a drunk never threw a bottle and killed me.

My mother told me that later that evening they brought James’ body back up to the house. Mom’s grandpa Jim was sitting out on the porch. There was a whole crowd of people following the body as they carried it up to the house. So they put the body on the porch and grandma Dory cried a silent cry and threw herself on top of the body.

And then you could hear the cry and it was silent no more. So her husband reached up to the porch light so that no one could see and he twisted the light bulb off until it flick-flick-flickered and then finally went dark.

It wasn’t until the next day that he looked down at his hand and all of the skin had been burnt off of his palm.

He didn’t even realize it the night before.

His hand was a hand of fire.

His hand was a hand of burnt skin.

When we were on our bear hunting walk the next day my mother told me that it was never the same. And so Dory put all of her dead son’s stuff into an old wooden chest. Each year during the spring she cleaned it out. She took out all of the stuff in the trunk and she cried and cried. She cried over her dead little boy’s tie and she cried over the program to the Chicago World’s Fair. And as each year passed she said she never stopped looking for his face. She never stopped believing that he escaped from the grave. She always thought he wasn’t dead, but grown up. And he was living somewhere out there in the world, still alive.

And sometimes I used to sit out in the woods and just listen to the mountains. And sometimes I even imagined how the mountains became the mountains. I saw how the land used to be flat once and there was only the river and the giants. Then one day all of the giants grew tired and they decided to sit down and sleep. And they slept a sleep of a million years. The dirt and the rocks covered them up like graves and they were there now beneath the mountains. And one day they were going to wake and walk away and there would be no more mountains and we would be able to see past all of the hollers and the valleys and the rivers — all the way to the ocean.

And then on our bear hunting walk the next day, I told her that I wished my favorite episode of Reading Rainbow would come back on. A few months earlier, I had watched the episode with the dinosaur bones and I wanted to see it again. She told me that she talked to Levar Burton that very day and she asked him to play that episode again — just for me. So when I got home and turned on the TV… it was the Reading Rainbow episode where Levar Burton went searching for dinosaur bones.

I sat and watched the show and I said, “It’s the dinosaur episode.”

My mother said, “I told you.”

And then she laughed and I thought that she was the most magical woman who ever lived.

But if I had to tell you about my parents I’d probably tell you about a couple years ago when they went over to Beckley to eat at Captain D’s. When they got there, they went inside, saying to each other like they always do, “You know what you’re going to get?” And then, “Yeah I think I’m going to get that three piece fish dinner.”

They stood in line and waited, and then they saw these two people standing in front of them. There was an old man carrying a Bible with a crocheted cover and there was his daughter who was probably in her forties and looked like she had something wrong with her. The old man told the girl behind the counter what he wanted and then he told his daughter, “Go ahead Janie. Go ahead and tell the woman what you want to eat.”

The girl stood all nervous and pointed to the menu. “I’ll have one of those.” And the Captain D’s girl turned around and said, “You mean a #1?”

And the girl said, “Yeah I want a #1.”

My mom leaned over and whispered to my dad, “Gary, I don’t think that girl can read.”

My dad just nodded his head.

The Captain D’s girl rang it all up and said, “That’ll be 18.74 sir.”

The old man looked into his wallet and slowly pulled out his check card. Then he handed it to the girl behind the counter.

She slid it through the register and then the register went beep.

So she tried it again and slid it through the register and the register went beep again.

So she handed the card back to the old man and said, “I’m sorry sir. Your card is denied.” The old man reached out and his hands were shaking.

“What? It’s denied.”

His daughter said, “What’s wrong Daddy? Why can’t we eat?”

So the old man said, confused, “Well I just put some money in the bank the other day. I don’t know.”

Then the old man just repeated, “Well I put some money in there. I don’t understand.”

He started walking away and his daughter followed behind saying, “What’s wrong Daddy? What’s wrong?”

They walked out of the restaurant and started walking along together.

My parents ordered their food and paid for it with their coupons. They went to sit down. They sat and ate their three piece fish dinner and their hush puppies in silence. My dad ate his baked potato and they didn’t say anything. They didn’t say anything about the white-haired old man or his daughter who couldn’t read. They didn’t say a single word until my dad stopped eating and said, “Well I guess I should have given that man some money so they could eat.”

My mom said, “I was thinking the same thing.”

My dad said, “Well why didn’t you say something to me?”

She looked out the window of the restaurant to see if she could still see them walking.

She looked as far as she could and said, “Well I don’t see them. Do you think we might be able to catch them?”

So they got up and threw away their food and they left the Captain D’s.

They got into the car and started driving. And they drove and they drove.

My dad said, “If he didn’t put that money in on Friday it’s hard to tell when they ate last time.”

They kept driving down the road. They drove past the Go-Mart and they drove past the armory and they didn’t see them. They drove back up the road and they still didn’t see them. So they turned around and were starting to drive home when they passed a street and then up at the end of the street my mother saw something.

Was it them?

My dad turned down the street and went driving past the houses. Then the two figures grew closer.

And then they grew even closer.

My mom said, “It’s them.”

It was. It was the old man and his daughter walking together and holding the Bible. My dad stopped the car behind them.