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

I listened to Whitman’s words and I looked out from the window and all I could see was one thing through all of the trees.

It was the Walt Whitman Mall.

It shined in the darkness now and I knew what I had to do. I had to steal a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass from the Walt Whitman Mall the next morning.

The next morning I didn’t even say anything about my plan to Kim. I waited for her and her mom to leave so they could go see her grandma. I told Kim I was going to take the car and fill it up with gas. I was Okay.

I didn’t know the way really but I felt something was guiding me. I felt something was guiding me when I saw it appear in front of me like a temple — the Walt Whitman Mall.

I felt something guiding me as I parked the car. It was so early there weren’t any people inside. I found the bookstore on the mall map and kept thinking about the only rule I knew about shoplifting.

The rule: If anyone catches you, run like hell.

So I walked down the empty mall and went inside the bookstore. There was a mousy looking girl working behind the counter, and she didn’t even look like she was awake. I didn’t even know what I was going to do with the book after I stole it. Of course, the bookstore girl was drinking coffee and typing stuff into the computer. There was a part of me going, “What are you doing Scott? What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”

But I didn’t stop.

I just walked to the literature section and I scanned the W section. Wilde, Wolfe, Woolf.

No Whitman.

So I scanned again, Wilde, Wolfe, Woolf, and Richard Wright’s Black Boy .

No Whitman.

So I went over to the fiction section thinking someone had put it there by mistake. I scanned the shelf — Wouk, Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker.

No Whitman.

Wouk, Wolfe, Alice Walker.

I scanned again. Whitman? Whitman? No Whitman.

I walked over to the counter and the girl working behind it asked, “May I help you find anything, sir?”

Of course, I knew asking her a question and having her notice me was going to make this a lot riskier.

I kept saying inside my head, “Just leave Scott. Just leave. What are you doing?”

But I said it anyway, “Yes, I am looking for a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass .” She didn’t say anything but typed it into the computer. It was like she couldn’t speak without the computer screen telling her what to say.

The computer screen blinked a new screen and then she said, “Oh I’m sorry, we don’t have it in stock for some reason. But we might be able to order a copy for you.”

I just shook my head “no” and heard a voice inside my head. Look for me under your boot soles/I stop somewhere waiting for you .

And so I turned away and drifted back to the literature section: Wilde, Wolfe, Woolf.

No Whitman.

Wilde, Wolfe, Woolf, Richard Wright.

No Whitman.

He wasn’t there.

And then it was like I was lost in some strange spell, a strange spell cast over me by a WITCH. This was a witch who wasn’t good or bad. I looked back at the counter where the book girl was and she wasn’t there anymore.

All I could see were books. There were books about all of the people I knew. I took a couple of them off the shelf, but they were all written in these strange languages that I didn’t recognize.

Imagine: Books telling the future stories of all the people in our lives.

And so that’s when I saw it. It was a book called The Life and Death of Scott McClanahan. It was such a slim volume. It worried me, but when I opened it up there were only blank pages — all blank pages except for the last page. On the last page was a poem written by Walt Whitman but signed with my name, a poem stolen by Scott McClanahan.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean

But I shall bring you sickness and loneliness nonetheless.

If you want me again look for me

Under your Nikes

Failing to fetch me at first give up

Missing me one place go home

You’re a Goddamn stranger here.

I stop nowhere waiting for you

But I am always out there

— running…

— running…

And then there was a muzak song drifting inside my head. It was like a whisper song and I was singing along.

You’re the one that I want

You are the one I want

Woo hoo woo hoo

Honey

The one that I want

You are the one I want

Woo hoo woo hoo

Honey

And so I fucking ran.

I used to teach this class at the federal prison in Beckley, WV. On the first day I called up education from the phone at the main desk. I was so nervous and fifteen minutes later the prison guard, Kincaid, showed up. He was walking towards me, all sawed off and with these big linebacker arms. He searched me and had me take off my shoes and put them back on.

He said, “My name’s Kincaid and I’ll give you a piece of advice. You can’t trust anybody in here.”

He took my keys and left them at the control desk saying, “We keep your car keys so if there is ever a hostage situation, they can’t put a gun to your head and have you drive them off the premises.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

He took me inside the prison and it took fifteen minutes just to go through six or seven locked doors, which crashed like cars when they opened and closed.

SMASH.

SMASH.

We walked along and he told me sometimes guys will get in fights just so they can go to solitary, and if I noticed anything in my class to let him know.

He said, “I guess they pick up some morphine or heroin along the way and they like going to solitary so they can shove it up their ass and enjoy it in privacy.”

I finally just stood there thinking, “I don’t think this guy is joking.”

I was already paranoid from a report I read the week before on the Columbian drug cartels sending hit lists through written code. I was worried the guys would put these hidden messages in their essays ordering the death of someone on the outside. I imagined drug cartel guys breaking into my office to steal the essays and get the codes.

But then I stopped thinking because Kincaid gave me a radio.

He pointed to a red button on the top of it and said, “Now if anyone’s ever attacking you, just hit this red button and it will probably save your life.”

But then he just laughed and said, “Unfortunately this one is broken, so the red button doesn’t work, but I’ll try to get one for you next week. So if anybody tries to kill you this week, we’re screwed.”

Was this a joke?

And then we both just laughed, nervous.

Was this joking?

We started walking again.

We walked through a locked door and then another and then another.

But once I got inside the prison’s education department, which only consisted of about one hundred Bibles dropped off by local churches, everything was fine.

I did make the mistake of introducing myself to the guys as Scott. When Kincaid walked by the room and heard them calling me this, he knocked on the glass and stuck his head inside the door shouting like an asshole cop, “Hey guys, you call him Mr. McClanahan.”

I apologized, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and then he left, but not before making one of the prisoners remove a fro pick.

I heard one of the guys saying, “Damn that guy is wound about two wounds too tight.” And then another guy said, “You have to be a sick motherfucker to make the choice to come inside a prison.”

Then someone else said, “At least he gets paid to be here — about $65,000 from what I hear.”