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

And so, as he was just about ready to turn around and get back into the rickety old car, I said, “Randy?”

Randy stopped.

I stood there and wanted to say something that was memorable for him.

I wanted to say something that inspired him.

I wanted to say something about how I remembered when he wore that woman’s panties and how funny it was.

I wanted to say something that made him think I was a real friend.

I wanted to explain how it was wrong that I doubted him.

My voice cracked and all I could say was, “You know what Randy? Your brother was the best of you Doogans.”

Randy just looked at me like he was overwhelmed by my sentiment. There were tears in his eyes and he kept looking at the ground.

Then he said, “ Yeah. He was a good brother. He was a real good brother.”

Then it was quiet for a second and he said, “I better get going and take care of business. It’s going to be a long drive.”

I shook my head yes and watched him squeeze into the back of the car. Then the car took off — putt — putt — putt — and drove away on down the road, heading off to Delaware.

And I stood in the Go-Mart parking lot and watched them drive away. I thought, “You did the right thing Scott. You did the right thing.”

But then I thought, “I guess I did the right thing?”

That’s what I was telling myself at the kitchen table a couple of hours later when I went back home. “He looked so sad.”

My mother piddled around in the kitchen and said, “Oh Scott. It could have been Jesus.”

I told her maybe so.

Then I told her about all that had happened. I told her that he asked for fifty dollars, but I gave him seventy-five because I didn’t think fifty dollars was very much by the time he got to Delaware.

Then I told her, “I guess I did the right thing.”

She just patted me on the back and said, “Oh you’re a good person Scott. You really are. We don’t realize how responsible we are for each other. Only a good person wonders if they did the right thing.”

I agreed with her.

So over the next couple of days, I told everybody I knew about what I did and they all said the same thing — that I was a good person. I told them about how Randy lost his brother. I told them about how he asked for fifty, and how I gave him seventy-five. I told them about how I doubted him, and how we were all responsible for each other.

Then about a couple of weeks later I was out at a party in Rupert with a couple of friends of mine. There was my friend Wayne, and Wayne’s woman, and my friend Kevin, and this teenage girl he was dating who wasn’t even out of high school yet, and who Kevin later got pregnant. He was already the father of three other children with three other girls. My friend B.J. was there too. We were all sitting on Wayne’s porch, drinking beer, and telling stories back and forth to one another. Then somebody started telling a story about Randy Doogan and how crazy he was. They told how they were going down the road with their mom one day and they saw Randy fucking this girl on a picnic table, right beside the road, and how his mother pretended like she didn’t see it, even though she did. He told us that it was weird to drive down the road and see a guy fucking a girl on a picnic table. And then everybody laughed. Then B.J. told us how a couple months ago he saw Randy getting his ass kicked up the sidewalk by this guy, and Randy’s head was all cut up. Then everybody laughed more.

So I waited for the moment to die down so I could tell my own story. I wanted to tell them about how he lost his brother, and how I gave him some money. And finally the laughter died down and I thought, “Here’s my chance.”

I said, “Well it’s horrible what happened to his brother.”

Everybody just looked real confused and then B.J. said, “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

I drank my beer and said, “Didn’t you hear? He got killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago. Isn’t that horrible?”

But B.J. just laughed and said, “No he didn’t. He didn’t get killed in a car accident. Randy was going around telling everybody that and asking for money. Some dumbass even gave him some, and Randy took it and got all hopped up on dope, and ended up robbing the Handy Place. He’s over in Southern Regional Jail now. He ended up knocking over some old lady on the way out and hurting her.”

And then everybody laughed and started telling other stories about Randy, but I didn’t. I just sat around and drank the rest of my beer, and that evening after we were all drunk, I wandered around the front yard, beside the old dozer, and emptied my pockets of a couple of dimes, and a few wadded up dollars, pieces of torn receipts, and some stupid pennies. I told myself to forget about all the old stories, and that I wasn’t an asshole. As I did it, I threw some more money on the ground, and crushed it down into the rocky mud with my dirty boots. I reminded myself that I was a good person, and I was never going to do another nice thing for as long as I lived.

You ever hit a deer before? I used to ride to school in the mornings with these guys who worked at the saw mill in Princeton. There was my neighbor who everybody called ODB, and there was this other guy who everybody called the Mud Puppy and who got his name from throwing a water-dog across the river. They used to drive me to school every Monday morning at about four o’clock on their way to the saw mill.

One day we were driving through the dark woods on this old back road, listening to the Mud Puppy tell about how this guy got killed the other morning trying to miss a deer and what ODB should do if he saw one.

“Yeah most people get scared as shit and just slam on their brakes and end up getting killed,” the Mud Puppy said. “What you should do is just hit the gas when you see one and use your bumper like a battering ram”

And then the Mud Puppy told us that the problem was the damn deer were all doing it on purpose. He told us that the deer are all just waiting out in the woods trying to find a car to run in front of so they can watch it crash. He told us that people are just too kind-hearted to see it. He told us deer are crazy fuckers.

Then he asked me what I thought about it, but I just smiled from the backseat and told him I didn’t know.

Then ODB told him that he didn’t know either.

He liked to sit outside in the mornings and watch the deer eating in the field below his house.

He said, “I figure that people just don’t want to hurt something that’s all pretty and wild. I know I kind of like to drink my coffee in the mornings and just watch them. It makes me feel calm.”

The Mud Puppy shook his head all disgusted and told us that deer were just rats with big eyes.

ODB chuckled and drank his coffee and drove and drove and after a while it got quiet because it was still only four o’clock in the morning and people were still sleepy. ODB pushed his Roy D. Mercer tape into the tape player and chuckled along. The tape played like it did every Monday morning and the Mud Puppy took off his sweatshirt and made a pillow out of it and propped his head up against the window. I sat in the back of the car and looked out at the dark woods and thought about all the deer waiting for us in the trees, waiting to try and take our lives.

Was that one?

Is that one?

Then I saw our headlights and a couple of deer crossing in front of us. ODB saw them too and stomped on the brakes.

EEEEEKKKK.

And then — BAM.

But it was too late. We slammed into a deer that bounced against the hood, and slid up against the window, and then shot up and over the car until it landed in the road behind us.