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

My girlfriend Kim woke up and walked into the room and said, “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

She pushed me out the door and said all disgusted, “Well go outside and see.”

So I did.

I went outside to see, and as soon as I did, I realized it was a mistake.

There was this white van in the middle of the road with its blinkers on and there was a guy sitting on his knees in the grass. He was dressed in painter pants and he was crying. So I walked slow out into the street and saw this dead looking girl sprawled in the middle of the street.

Her mouth was open and her eyes were too.

She didn’t even look like she was breathing and there was this dead look on her face.

The guy who hit her was sitting there, looking up at me and crying like, “What are you going to do?”

I looked down at the girl and guess what? She still looked dead to me. Her mouth was still open and there was blood coming out of the corner of her mouth.

Since I’d never taken a CPR class before, I just kept looking and thought, “What the hell am I going to do?”

I started backing up, real slow so I wouldn’t have to help her.

Back. Back. Back.

Then I turned around and started walking away even faster like I didn’t even know who she was.

Then her boyfriend and another guy ran back out. They were with her when she was hit and went to call for help. They were these J-Crew catalog looking guys. They stared at me and so I wasn’t able to get away. They bent down on their knees and started giving her CPR.

One one thousand…two one thousand…three one thousand.

Then they just looked up at me and gave me a look like “Were you trying to sneak away from helping a person?”

I walked back and acted like I was directing traffic around the girl.

I took my arm and waved the traffic on Route 60—to the left and to the left.

Then the ambulance came and I slowly backed away to the sidewalk and watched them take over the CPR. They put her on a stretcher and put her into the back of the ambulance and drove away.

Was I wrong?

Of course, a couple of weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything about whether she died or not. Then one day I was walking down the street with Kim when I asked, “I wonder what happened to that girl who got hit by the car? I wonder if she’s all right? You know I haven’t heard anything about what happened and I kind of wonder if she died or not.”

We walked on down the street and Kim was holding a newspaper and then she opened it up.

I heard her shout, “Oh shit. Here it is. She’s alive. She’s alive.” She showed it to me. There was a picture of the girl and a headline that said, WOMAN HIT BY VAN RECOVERS.

As I checked it out, there were a couple Gideons standing around and they were trying to pass out Bibles to people who were walking down the street.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Then Kim read the newspaper article to me about the girl who got hit.

She read the who, what, when, where, and why opening of the story: “Last Sunday night a twenty-three-year old woman, trying to cross the street was hit by a car on Route 60.”

Then she read about how the girl had been in a coma in intensive care for the past week and had almost died, and how her family had kept a prayer vigil beside her bed.

And then one day.

TA DA.

She woke up.

Then the article explained how that the poor guy who hit her was drunk.

“Ah shit,” I said and chuckled. “Poor bastard got busted and he wasn’t even the one who was jaywalking.”

Then there was this quote where the girl said, “I just want to thank everybody for their prayers and cards. There wasn’t anything I could have done. It wasn’t my fault.”

I laughed out loud because it was absolutely, positively her fault.

That’s when I heard the brakes shriek eeek.

I looked into the street and then — BAM. I saw another girl get hit by a car.

She was knocked to the ground and then she popped back up and took off like she was embarrassed or something.

Now let me tell you, I’m sure you may have been embarrassed before, but you haven’t truly been embarrassed until you get hit by a car in front of a bunch of people.

What was funny though was the guy in the car didn’t even get out of the car, but tried helping her up by putting his arm out the window. You need help?

But she was already gone and didn’t want help.

What’s even funnier is that the Gideons didn’t even go over and help her out, but they just kept passing out Bibles like nothing had ever happened.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Want a Bible?

Nope.

Want a Bible?

So I kept walking up the street and I started thinking, “This is the second time this month I’ve been around when somebody was hit by a car. What if I’m the one who caused it?”

I even started telling my friends halfway joking, “Yeah I might be like Drew Barrymore in that movie Firestarter . You know the one where all she has to do is think about it and she starts a fire? Maybe that’s me. All I have to do is be around and it happens. If there’s one thing that connect these people getting hit by cars — it’s me.”

And then everyone just laughed at me thinking I was joking and then they told me nobody can change things like that.

They laughed again and told me that the world was just chance and didn’t work that way.

Everybody laughed at me but I didn’t.

I didn’t laugh at all because I knew what I could do.

I didn’t laugh at all because just a month later, I was walking down the street.

And I saw IT.

I saw this red car zipping down the street with these old people inside.

I saw this tall, lanky guy walking across the street as the stoplight turned red. He was carrying some books in his arms and he was trying to get where he was going.

I saw the red car keep going and not even notice that the light was turning.

It went GREEN and then it went YELLOW and then it went RED. And instead of screaming STOP-STOP, I didn’t do anything.

I just stood and watched it all, knowing what I could do.

I just stood and saw how everything would happen. And then I said it.

I said BAM.

And BAM it was. The car plowed though the intersection and didn’t even hit the brakes. I saw it all.

I saw the red car.

And the guy getting hit by the car…

The windshield shattering from a big leg busting against it…

The body flying through the air like an old sock…

And then…

Falling…

Falling…

Back down onto the hood of the red car.

And then there were people running around.

They were screaming.

The headline in the newspaper a couple of days later: MAN NEAR DEATH CROSSING THE STREET.

I didn’t even stop because I was the one who caused it. I didn’t even stop and just kept walking beneath the sound of the people screaming for help.

I went right back to my apartment and shut the door. I locked the lock and closed the blinds and told myself I would never go outside again. I turned on the television and turned the volume up real loud so I wouldn’t have to listen to the sounds of the girl having sex upstairs. I just sat and listened to the sound of the television drowning out everything and for a second it didn’t even seem like daytime anymore, but night. And then I told myself that I’d never even tell anyone about it because I was the one who caused it. I tried shaking away the images of my friends and cars and telling them about the fires I started.

I told myself I’d tell no one, because if I did then I was probably putting their lives in danger.