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

I held her hand and we didn’t laugh anymore.

I pointed at the mountains and told her how they were formed.

I told her how the mountains weren’t created by the last ice age really, but were created by water runoff from the last ice age. So she stood and smiled. And then she told me how boring that story was. I kissed her and tasted the taste of chewing gum on her chewing gum tasting lips.

But then we noticed this other couple walking up to the observation tower from below. It was a guy and a girl. They counted their steps on the way up too—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 20, 30, 40.

It was this old guy who looked like he was about forty and he had a trach scar. He was with this pretty girl who couldn’t have been any more than twenty. They were the type of couple that makes you think, what the hell is that girl doing with that guy?

They were holding hands and they had a pizza and a two liter bottle of pop and a picnic basket full of picnic stuff.

FOOD!

They giggled all out of breath when they got to the top of the tower just like we had.

Then they noticed us and nodded their heads “hello.”

“Hello.”

We grinned and nodded our heads “hello” back.

“Hello.”

Then we went right back to talking, as they set up all of their picnic stuff on the other side like they were boyfriend and girlfriend. They had paper plates, and paper cups, and diet pop, and pizza.

We stood on the other side listening to them.

Kim said, “That pizza smells good. I’m getting hungry.”

But I didn’t say anything about it, wondering if she really thought I was just joking about us not going to dinner. I wasn’t joking though. I really wasn’t.

Then I saw something.

What was that?

I saw something moving in the woods beneath us. I saw this woman walking out of the woods towards the observation tower. She was wearing mom clothes and she had a mom haircut.

She was screaming something, coming closer to us, but I couldn’t make it out.

WHAT?

She screamed again and this time it sounded shotgun loud.

She shouted, “Steven. Steven. You cheating motherfucker. Get your ass down here right now.”

And so Steven, the cheating motherfucker, just sat over his pizza and didn’t know what to do.

He dropped his head like he was praying about it.

My stomach dropped.

Kim looked nervous.

It was Steven’s wife.

And the wife had two little boys with her too, dragging them behind her like dirty sheets.

The little boys were crying, “Mommy, Mommy.”

The pretty girl Steven was with looked like she didn’t know what to do. It was like she didn’t even know he was married.

Who knows?

Finally Steven got up and walked down the steps of the observation tower 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, saying with a quiet voice on the way, “Ah honey. We haven’t done nothing. We were just talking and eating some pizza.”

But his wife stood at the bottom of the stairs holding the little fists of their two little confused kids.

She screamed, “HOW dare you — you stupid asshole.” Then she whispered all pathetic, “You told me it was over. You told me it was finished.”

And so Kim stood there scared and said, “Scott. I think we should leave. This is none of our business. We need to get out of here.”

I giggled, “Ah no. It’s all right.”

Then we watched Steven’s pretty friend walk all the way down to the bottom of the steps. She was nervous and scared too.

His wife started screaming at her, “You little bitch whore. You want to introduce yourself to your fucking boyfriend’s wife and kids.”

Then Steven said, “Honey she’s not a whore. She’s just a friend.”

And then there was something else moving in the trees.

It was an old guy who I took to be Steven’s father-in-law, and a muscular and bearded guy, who I took to be Steven’s brother-in-law.

It was Steven’s in-laws.

Slowly they walked over to where the wife was screaming and kicking and kicking and crying. And then Steven held out his hand to the father-in-law and the brother-in-law too, but instead of shaking his hand — they jumped on him. The brother-in-law got a hold of Steven’s arms and then he threw Steven on the ground. Then he was on top of Steven punching him in the face and the father-in-law just stood by watching.

The father-in-law was smoking a cigarette and after a while he started kicking Steven in the side.

He kicked soft.

Then he puffed his cigarette. Puff.

Then he kicked again.

Then he puffed his cigarette. Puff.

Then he kicked again.

I guess Steven had been warned about this type of behavior before.

“Scott. I think we should get out of here,” Kim said. “What if they have a gun?”

I just giggled and said, “Ah no. Settle down. You watch too much TV. They’re just gonna kick his ass a little bit.”

So the wife started chasing the young girl towards the woods so she could beat the shit out of her, shouting “You little bitch. You little bitch. I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

The two little kids sat in the grass watching it all.

And then I saw it.

Pizza.

I pointed over to the pizza and it was sitting there all alone and delicious.

I giggled and rubbed my belly like I was hungry.

Kim looked at me…

“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no. We can’t.”

But I held her hand and walked over to where the pizza was.

She kept saying, “No. No.”

I picked up the two liter and poured some pop out in the paper cups.

I handed it to her saying in my best cockney accent, “Me lady.”

“Scott what are we doing?” she said.

I handed her a piece of pizza and I took a piece of pizza too.

I said, “Oh don’t worry. We’re just gonna watch the show.”

And so we watched the wife dressed in her mom haircut and dressed in her mom clothes chasing the girl into the woods before the girl finally fell. The wife smacked her in the side of the head. Then she started ripping out a clump of the girl’s hair, until a big clump came out.

Ah hell.

It was a hair extension.

And then the wife smacked the girl a couple more times before walking back and screaming at Steven who was now held in a head lock, “Steven I swear to God. I’m getting a divorce and you’ll never see these kids. You’ll never see these babies again. You’ll never see these babies.”

Kim and I sat eating the pizza and it felt so wrong to watch it all. We watched one of the little boys on his knees digging in the dirt with an old stick. Mommy was crying, and Daddy was crying and bleeding, and Mommy’s daddy and Mommy’s brother were crying and punching. The little boys were on their knees acting like this wasn’t happening. They looked like the whole world was invisible almost. They acted like they were invisible too.

And so we looked at each other.

We watched the brother-in-law whack Steven with one more kidney punch before finally getting off. Steven was coughing up blood now.

And then the brother-in-law got up and started walking away with his father who was still smoking on his cigarette. Puff. Puff.

The wife was gone too, but we could hear her cries from far away. It sounded like an animal dying.

After five minutes Steven finally sat up on all fours and started spitting out more blood.

His face was all swollen up like a rotten watermelon.

He kept putting his fingers to his lips like he was trying to see if he was still bleeding.

Fingers.

Blood.

Fingers.

Blood.

Yep, he was still bleeding.

And so Kim and I sat and ate their pizza and we drank their pop and we watched it all because this wasn’t our life being destroyed. We looked at the invisible little boys and they looked at us, and now we all wanted to be invisible too.