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

But I couldn’t let it go.

I pushed him again and then he grabbed a hold of my shirt and then I shoved him and said, “You’re the bastard who threw the sandwich at my car for no reason. Don’t nobody throw a bologna sandwich at my car and use that kind of language in front of women. You piece of shit.”

So the homeless guy and I started wrestling back and forth, holding onto each other’s arms and I was shouting, “You’re not going to use that kind of language.”

And he held onto my arm and kept repeating, “Fuck you, motherfucker.”

And now Kim was pleading, desperate. “Please Scott, let’s go. Please.”

But it was too late because now we were on the ground wrestling around. I was shouting about the bologna sandwich, and he was shouting his drunk shouts and Kim was shouting. “No Scott. No. My mother’s here. You’re embarrassing me.”

But I wouldn’t listen to her. I punched him awkwardly in the chest. And then he hit me on top of the head. Then we were rolling around and around in each other’s arms and he was pulling on my shirt and I was gagging from the smell of his shit-stained trousers. This went on for about a minute, but I couldn’t get a good punch in. Then he got up somehow and took off running fast as hell.

I got up too and giggled at what a coward he was and dusted off my pants and straightened up my shirt and shouted at him, “Yeah you bastard. When I see you again I’m going to kick your ass.”

And then I turned around and Kim and her mom were just standing there shocked.

Kim was holding her face and crying and her mother was looking at me like, “What’s wrong with you? Really, what’s wrong with you?”

Then later that night, after Kim’s mom went to bed, I kept trying to explain myself. It made me feel good about myself. It made me feel good to beat that dude’s ass.

Kim just snapped, “Oh shit Scott. It’s not like it was even a fight really. It was more like a wrestling match. The guy obviously has something wrong with him and you didn’t care. He just took off running because he was afraid the cops were coming.”

Then she was quiet and whispered, “And besides that, my mother thinks you have anger issues now.”

But I didn’t care.

I didn’t have anger issues.

I just wanted to go find him and make him pay for throwing the sandwich at my car. Over the next couple of months I started looking for him everywhere. I started going down to the public library and hanging out all day, but I never once saw him there either. So then, every day when I drove home, I came up the road, hoping I’d see him pushing his buggy or drinking his 24 ounce can wrapped in a brown paper bag, but he wasn’t there either. I started going down to the Riverfront Park in the evenings and waited in my car, hoping he might show up.

But he wasn’t there either.

It was like he was just gone.

And by this time there were other things gone too. My girlfriend Kim had moved out and was dating a new boyfriend.

I was going to be homeless soon because the lease was up on the apartment and things were all going to hell.

One day right before I left town, I walked down to the Riverfront Park and sat down on an old bench and drank a 40 ounce of beer, thinking I might see him still. I hadn’t shaved in about a week. I’d been wearing the same jeans for about three weeks until they were all greasy. I figured I’d look for him one more time and hope he’d show up. So I pulled out an old hamburger I’d bought after I scraped together about two dollars worth of nickels and dimes. I unwrapped the hamburger and took a bite out of it and washed it down with a gulp of beer. I sat and watched the river roll all dirty and full of dead things, and then I saw this group of people walking up the river. At first I thought it was the cops so I made sure I covered up my beer so I wouldn’t get busted for an open container.

But then they walked closer and closer and they were laughing and having a good time. It was girls and guys, laughing and telling jokes and giggling at how funny the world was. And as they passed by my bench that’s when I saw him. It was the homeless guy or at least it kind of looked like the homeless guy, except he looked all different now. His hair was cut short and combed over, and his beard was shaved off, but the eyes were the same somehow.

I wanted to shout and scream at him and throw my beer bottle at him and tell him I remembered what he did. I remember how he threw the sandwich at me and made me look like a fool in front of my woman, but I didn’t.

I didn’t because I couldn’t even tell if it was the same guy even. This guy looked twenty years younger.

He was dressed up in a shirt and tie, and he wasn’t alone.

Then they saw me and looked at me and I guess I looked kind of funny to them. I was trying to hide the beer bottle from them and balance my Wendy’s hamburger at the same time. A couple of them pointed their fingers at me and started laughing.

But the homeless guy didn’t. He just grinned at me and smiled and I saw that his teeth weren’t all rotten like I remembered. They even looked real. But the others were laughing and I felt like I was going to lose it.

I tried shouting something at them to make them stop laughing at me.

I wanted to shout something like, “I’m a human being. I haven’t shaved in a week because my girlfriend broke up with me and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life now.”

But when I tried to scream at them it didn’t work. It all just came out in gurgles and grunts like homeless person talk. So with this they stopped laughing and they looked the other way like there was something wrong with me.

I just grunted and groaned and they walked on by because I had nothing now.

You can see all kinds of weird shit in Rainelle. One time I was driving past the welfare apartments in town when I looked up and saw something that changed my world.

I was with my mother and we were going over the railroad tracks when I looked up and saw this guy in a red sweat suit riding a 12 speed bicycle as fast as he could down the hill.

What was even stranger was that the 12 speed bike didn’t even have a chain on it. And what was even stranger than that was that he was carrying a chainsaw in his right hand. Not only was he riding a bike and carrying a chainsaw at the same time, but get this — the chainsaw was running.

We sat at the railroad tracks and I pointed to the man on the hill and asked my mother, “What in the hell is that guy doing anyway?”

My mother looked up at the guy and then she said, “I don’t know.”

We rolled up over the train tracks and on down the road. I twisted my head around and kept watching the guy riding his bike and carrying a chainsaw.

I asked again, “Why is that guy carrying a chainsaw?”

My mother just shook her head and said, “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

And by this time we were driving on down the road, and I couldn’t see him anymore. I knew there was something about him that meant something, and if I ever found out what it was — then maybe I’d finally know the meaning of my life.

I went through this weird period about ten years ago where every time I went outside, I saw somebody get hit by a car. The first time it ever happened I was just sitting around my apartment and listening to the drunks shouting from the bar next door. It was Labor Day weekend and I was sitting on the couch watching television. I was just about ready to go to bed when all the sudden — BAM. I heard this big thud outside. I looked out the window and opened the door, but I didn’t see anything. There were cars in the bar parking lot and this flashing light.