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

It was only five years.

And Rodriguez just looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying.

He looked at me like I was messing with him.

Then he said, “Oh, I’m not getting out of here McClanahan. I’m a fucking lifer — murder one. I just made all of that shit up for you to have something to talk about in this stupid fucking class.”

I didn’t know what to say. Was he joking? I couldn’t tell with guys in here.

He went out into the yard and started talking to a couple of guys and they started laughing too.

It was stupid, wasn’t it? Thesis statements, transitional phrases, topic sentences, 119046, 117843.

I looked at Rodriguez’s face and I didn’t want it to be true. It was like no matter how long he tried he was never going to be able to teach me anything.

So I thought about his mother — gone.

I thought about his murdered father — gone.

I thought about his hope and his stories — all gone.

And so later that night, waiting for Kincaid to walk me out, Kincaid looked out of the barred glass of education and pointed to Rodriguez who was standing beneath a flickering light, all alone, smoking a cigarette.

Kincaid, the prison guard, said, “You see that guy there. That guy is smarter than shit — probably the smartest fucking guy in here. He goes around like a fucking gang banger, but the truth is, he’s just a spoiled ass rich kid from the suburbs what I hear. Look, doesn’t even have any tats on him. Look at his face. His face is smooth. From what I hear he ended up killing somebody.”

I stood looking at Rodriguez and I thought about waiting and loving mothers and crossing far away rivers.

I heard Kincaid say, “You can’t trust any of these guys. Everybody has a choice in this life. You remember what I told you the first day we met?”

It was like Kincaid wasn’t even talking to me anymore, but was repeating a mantra of some kind, a mantra known only to him.

I looked at Rodriguez and wondered who he killed, a girlfriend, a dealer?

His mother?

So that night after lockdown Kincaid gathered up his radio and his prison keys and we made small talk. Then he took out a picture of this little girl and showed it to me. It was a picture of Kincaid’s little girl who was about two years old with blonde hair, and she was wearing a hat that had a little cartoon kitten on it.

“She’s a beauty isn’t she?”

“Yeah she’s a cute kid.”

“Oh God I love her so much,” Kincaid said.

And so Kincaid put it back into his pocket and his face shined so full of love.

I went home that night feeling like I was going to be sick.

I listened in my head as Kincaid’s words twirled about how proud he was and how he loved the little girl.

I thought about her face.

Maybe he was right. We all make choices in this world and that was the scary part. Kincaid’s little girl was so far away from this place. Kincaid’s little girl was so far away from the talk of lockdowns, TB outbreaks, prison riots, drug convictions, and lying men.

So I was surprised a year or two later, after I stopped teaching a class at the federal prison because it was just too much. I awoke one morning and there was snow on the ground. I turned on the television and saw a picture of a little girl on the local television newscast. There was something about the picture of this little girl that looked familiar. She was two years old in the picture and she had blonde hair and she was wearing this hat with a Hello Kitty on it. I felt like I knew this girl. I saw a man being escorted into court wearing an orange jumpsuit and he looked familiar. I saw who it was. I saw who it was before the reporter even said his name, “Kincaid…a prison guard for the past ten years at the federal prison in Beckley.”

Then the reporter said Kincaid was being arraigned that morning for the murder of his three-year-old daughter who was found beaten to death the day before.

Now I saw one last thing.

It was the little girl in the picture — gone.

I sat watching the television and I saw Kincaid’s sad and shocked face. I thought back to the class and I heard Rodriguez quoting, “Nothing human is alien to me.”

I whispered to myself, “Nothing human is alien to me. Nothing human is alien to me.”

That was the scary part.

And so I sat and wondered if this is the way the world works. I knew you couldn’t trust anyone in this life, not even yourself. I wondered what murder was waiting inside of me to commit. I wondered what murder was waiting inside of the person who was reading this.

And so now I lay me down to sleep and sometimes I dream this strange dream. I dream that we’re all back at the federal prison except we’re outside the prison walls now. We’re all there, all the people I’ve ever known and all the people in the world are there. And you’re there too. We’re all cold and scared and shivering and Kincaid and Rodriguez are there as well. They’re arguing over this life and what our actions are guided by. No one can figure it out. No one can figure out who the prisoners are and who the prison guards are, and who even the guilty are. And so we’re all standing outside the prison walls and we’re all arguing over this. It’s night. And there’s lightning — a black and white night.

And we’re all fighting.

We’re all fighting to get back inside.

It had been a rough year already and I needed someone to talk to.

One morning I was just hanging out in my office and I clicked on an e-mail.

It was from my boss, and it said, I’m sorry to inform everyone about the passing of our colleague, Nicole Owings, this morning at CAMC in Charleston. More details and funeral arrangements to follow.

I sat at my desk and felt like somebody had kicked the shit out of me.

Nicole Owings.

She couldn’t have been 50.

I guessed it was a heart attack or something.

Then Mr. Davis stuck his head through my door and said, “Did you get the e-mail?” I shook my head yes.

He said, “Isn’t that horrible? I guess it must have been a heart attack or something.”

I went down to the main office and asked the secretary, “What happened?”

She put her hand over her mouth and whispered, “She shot herself.”

Then the phone rang and she repeated the same thing to the person on the other line. “She shot herself.”

I walked back down the long hallway towards my office and I just sat there alone. I didn’t even do anything but just kept thinking about how I saw her just a couple of days before. Nicole was always the type of person who looked you in the eye when she shook your hand and said, “You having a good day?”

She was always the type of person who meant it.

She was always the type of person who said, “Thanks for helping me out and doing such a good job.”

She wasn’t like most people at work who just bitch-bitch-bitch and then bitch some more.

That afternoon I cried in my office and left a little early telling the secretary on my way out the door, “You just don’t know people do you?”

She shook her head and said, “Yeah, you just don’t know people.”

She’d been crying too.

Over the next couple of days, I started putting together all of the details. I heard from one person who said she was unhappy with her job. Then I heard from another person that she’d bought a weapon recently. It all started rolling together. Someone said the police had yet to rule out murder because the gunshot wound was in her chest. Then the guy down the hall said maybe our bosses had her killed. He was always spinning crazy conspiracy theories about the bosses.

I thought, “Just because they didn’t give you a raise last year doesn’t mean they’re murderers. Not everything in the world has to do with you not getting a raise you fucking asshole.”