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

It was like this every day. My dad took his break at 10:15.

Rex shuffled over in his giant winter coat even though it was the middle of summer, “You know what time it is?”

My dad looked at his watch and said, “10:15.”

Rex swung the yellow bag he kept the papers in and said, “You want to buy a paper?”

My dad said, “No.”

Sometimes my dad got there early enough to see Rex’s eighty-year-old mother drop him off in front of Kroger and say, “Now you have a good day Rex.”

Rex said, “OK Mom.”

Every day Rex stood out front and sold maybe two or three papers. I remember being a little boy and being afraid of him. I was afraid of the others who gathered in front of the stores too. I remember being afraid of the man with cerebral palsy who if you dropped a quarter in his bucket, he gave you a brand new pencil. He could hardly move, but he just sat there all day asking for money.

Then one afternoon my dad talked about how Rex had been selling those papers for years and how he heard Rex’s mother was having trouble seeing. She couldn’t drive anymore.

He said, “I don’t know what Rex is going to do when his mother is gone.”

The next day it was more of the same.

The next day it was Rex saying, “You know what time it is Mack?”

And then, “You wanna buy a paper?”

My dad said, “No I don’t wanna buy a paper.”

Every day it was like this. Every day it was throwing around fifty pound bags of potatoes and watching this old couple come in shouting at each other.

The old woman always led the old man, shouting at him, “You crazy asshole.”

The old man shouted, “That’s right I’m a crazy motherfucker. I was crazy enough to marry you — you old bitch.”

The old man went off one way and the old woman turned to my dad, “Now how much are these green beans, honey?”

My dad pointed to the price and she shook her head and said, “Oh gracious. I can’t afford that. I’m just a little old lady on a fixed income.”

My dad turned his back to her and he looked up into the mirror above and saw the old woman open her purse and put the greens in because if there’s something an old woman loves to do — it’s shoplift. Then she pushed her buggy down the aisle like it was nothing.

He didn’t say anything because he had other things to worry about. The order was in. The order was a couple of tons of fresh produce fresh off the truck.

“What are we doing standing around? Let’s start putting this away,” my dad said.

And so they did, but they started doing it all wrong. They had the strawberries over here and the cucumbers over there. The giant freezer they kept it all in wasn’t rotated right so he came in and chewed some ass. “Old stuff has to go out on the racks and in front. New stuff in the back. It’s called rotation.”

This was the way it was every day. It was my father getting up before the sun rose and going to work, and then the next day getting up, looking into my door and going to work. Then the next day it was getting up and going to work, and coming home at 3:30.

The next day it was just the same. It was two hours of moving watermelons, and my father’s arms so tired he could hardly lift them. His polio legs were already starting to ache. An hour later it was the old woman yelling at her husband. She called him crazy and a bastard, and he called her wore out and an old bitch, and how she was crazier than shit. This went back and forth, back and forth, until the sweet little old lady turned to my dad just like always and said, “Now how much for a mess of these string beans?”

My dad told her.

She turned to him with her scrunched up face and said, “Oh gosh — that’s too expensive. I’m just a little old lady on a fixed income.”

My father turned and walked away and watched her in the mirror. She opened up her purse and put the string beans in.

My father turned back to her and said, “Mam. I’m sorry but I just saw you put those string beans in your purse.”

She smiled and looked at him. She opened up her purse and put them back, saying, “Oh gosh. You caught me.”

Then she walked on down the aisle to keep shoplifting other things like microwave popcorn.

Dad went outside to take his break and it didn’t get any better. He sat drinking his pop and watching his watch for the fifteen minutes to end. Rex walked towards him all sweaty without any teeth and wearing his pop bottle thick glasses.

He was saying, “Buh buh buh” which meant, “You know what time it is Mack?”

This had been going on for years though and my Dad had had enough. He couldn’t take it anymore.

My dad said, “Rex, why don’t you tell me what time it is?”

Rex looked at my dad’s watch. It said 10:15.

Rex looked down at it and said, “It says 10:15, Mack.”

And then Rex smiled a smile because he knew what time it was.

He’d been doing this for years and he always knew what time it was.

He needed someone to talk to.

I’ve always had the gift. Ever since I was a little boy I could see into the future, or at least I could tell when something bad was going to happen. It used to come to me in my dreams or it would just be a feeling. I got it from my grandma Ruby. She was always seeing into the future or finding out what would happen to the world through her dreams.

Every time I left her house she said, “Oh Lordie Todd, don’t you get killed in a car accident on them roads.”

I told her just like always, “Grandma, my name is not Todd. My name is Scott, but I’ll be careful.”

I guess if you have thirteen children like she did, grandchildren, great grandchildren, friends, neighbors, secret enemies, and every one of them gets ready to leave and you tell them to be careful because they might be killed, at least one or two of them are bound to find tragedy along the way.

I don’t know if that’s what you call future telling or not.

I knew I had the gift when I was about eight years old and awoke from a dream about my uncle Charlie. My uncle built houses. He actually drank beer and smoked cigarettes while someone paid him to build houses, but if you asked me what he did — that’s what I’d tell you. In my dream we were going to his funeral except his funeral wasn’t a funeral really. My aunt Mandy was crying and my grandma Ruby was crying, and all of my cousins were crying, and my uncle Charlie was there, all rotten and dark looking. He wasn’t even saying, “sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttt,” which was his catchphrase, the longest drawn out “sheeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt” you’ve ever heard in your life. He was quiet now.

I woke up from this dream about Uncle Charlie and went into the kitchen and told my mother about it.

I told my mother that my uncle died in my dream.

My mother said, “Oh Scott, don’t worry about it, it’s just a dream.”

I thought this was a pretty silly thing to say to a future teller. But it wasn’t three hours later my grandma Ruby called and said my Uncle Charlie was in an accident. He was working a circular saw and cut his thumb off.

They reattached it.

That evening I asked my mom if she thought it meant anything, my dream about my uncle Charlie.

My mom said, “Well you know, you’ve always kind of been like that. I know your grandma Ruby is always seeing things in her dreams.”

Then she told me about how her uncle James died when he was just twelve years old.

A bird flew in the house the day before, and if you’re a country person and a bird flies into your house, you better get ready because some shit is going to go down.

Of course, my dad didn’t think there was anything to the dream though.