Scott McClanahan - Crapalachia - A Biography of Place

He turned over in his bed, staring at Rhonda’s picture.

He started watching soap operas again, but then it happened. One day on the soap opera, the actress he loved was walking across the street, and her husband’s crazy ex-wife hit the gas and ran her over. Her husband was there and held her in his arms as she died.

And so I imagine that Nathan just sat there unable to do anything, listening to her whisper, “I love you. I’m so sorry I didn’t do more to love you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And then… “I’ll love you forever.”

So Nathan watched her die and whispered it inside his head, I love you too .

And now it wasn’t an actress anymore he watched on TV, but a beautiful woman he had loved for a long time.

So nobody really knows what happened. I was outside when I heard Ruby scream.

I came running inside. There was a drawer on the floor and newspapers. Ruby said, “I was in the back room and when I came back the poor thing was like this.”

There was a set of knives on the counter beside the sink. He was in front of his chair. The chair was turned over. His legs were beneath the table. He was on his back. There was a steak knife sticking straight out of his chest.

There was an ambulance. Lights were flashing around and around.

There was a stretcher… ambulance guys… bringing Nathan out on a stretcher.

And then the back of the ambulance.

He tried to take his own life, but he survived. He didn’t die.

So after Nathan’s knife wound, he didn’t do much of anything but sit around at the kitchen table and watch it all go by.

One day I was sitting at the table with him, and he leaned over on his elbow and started rolling his 7UP bottle back and forth like he was bored.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

He breathed a soft sigh and batted his eyelids.

He had movie star blue eyes.

So he sat and I wondered if he was thinking about the fact that he was the one who stayed. He was the one who sat watching his younger brothers when they were little boys, and then watching them leave the house when they were grown men.

He was the one who stayed because he had to stay. He was the one who was sitting at the table now, where he was always sitting, remembering how his brothers returned with their young wives, all pink and pretty, and pretty and pink, and pink and pretty, and pretty and pink and pink and pink and with accents from faraway places.

And then a few years later, returning once more with pink children of their own.

So I felt his muscle and laughed, trying to make the quiet go away.

But he was quiet now because he knew he would never have any of this. I saw what he saw sitting there — that there would be no brides or babies. There would be none of this. He blinked and breathed another soft sigh with a look on his face like…

Oh shit I’m trapped in my body …

Oh shit I’m trapped in my body .

And so there was no more Rhonda.

There was no more Rhonda until after Nathan died.

After the wake was over, and the funeral was over too, and everybody was walking away, I went back to pick up something, or help my aunt walk back through the mud.

I looked up, and when I did, all the way in the back of the crowd of people was a woman.

It was a woman all by herself.

It was Rhonda.

She was crying so hard that I thought she was going to fall down.

She was crying and her chest was going up and down, up and down, and she was trying to walk back to her car.

A couple of months later, on a bright evening, just before the sunset, I went by the grave. It was fall and there was this glow over everything, and it was so bright. And it was all still there — the gravestone and the old tree, and the old flowers were there too. But now there was something new in front of Nathan’s gravestone. It was a little teddy bear covered in fur and there was a little note beside it. So I opened it up and saw a picture of a heart, and beneath the heart was a note that said, “I love you, and I’ll always love you Nathan.” It was just like in the soap opera. And then beside the heart was a single name. It said…

…Rhonda.

But wait.

I have decided to stop for a moment.

I want to stop for a moment before they die. I am not ready yet.

I want to stop and remember them for a moment as they were, when we were all together, when they were still alive. I want to remember Ruby’s food and Ruby’s table and Nathan’s laugh.

On Sunday I sat and smelled the chicken and gravy, bubbling up all brown and beautiful. I stood and dusted all the JFK commemorative pop bottles — and spoons from the 50 states — and a bird clock chirp-chirping the time. It was a bird clock that chirped a cardinal at two o’clock and then an Eastern Woodlands Oriole at four o’clock. So if you were outside and heard a robin chirp you were fucked up the whole day thinking it was three o’clock.

Then I dusted the plastic frogs going ribbet ribbet every time I walked by.

I dusted the pictures of Jesus and footprints in the sand.

I dusted a bowl of bread glazed stiff for decoration and a shotgun sitting up behind the door.

I walked around the recliner and the radio playing radio preachers and gospel tapes.

So Ruby stood at the stove and I asked: “Grandma, where’d you get these flowers?”

My grandma said: “Oh Larry sent ’em to me. He sent me some to give to Mae too but I liked her flowers better so I just kept them both.”

She was always doing stuff like this.

One day we went over to Aunt Shirley’s and Shirley had just put this new mirror on the wall. Grandma said it was pretty. Ruby walked over and took it off the wall because she wanted it for herself.

Shirley said: “Ruby, you can’t take that with you. That’s mine.”

Ruby said: “Oh but you have so much stuff.” Then she put it under her arm and we left. Aunt Shirley just stood there.

I looked at Ruby now and I saw all of the things she knew. She knew how to do all kinds of things no one else knew how to do.

She knew how to render lard and make soap.

She knew how to make biscuits from scratch and slaughter a hawg if she had to. And she knew how to do things that are all forgotten now — things that people from Ohio buy because it says homemade on the tag. I looked at the quilt she was working on. The quilt wasn’t a fucking symbol of anything. It was something she made to keep her children warm. Remember that. Fuck symbols.

Then she said: “Okay, I think it’s ready.”

…We all sat down and started eating the chicken and gravy and I did it like this. I took a giant spoon and started scooping out all kinds of gravy all over my plate and plopped out a spoonful of mashed potatoes. Then I grabbed myself a chicken leg and got to it. I sat and first started eating all the gravy with a spoon. Then I looked out across the table, and there were cucumbers in vinegar, and homemade biscuits, mayonnaise salad, green beans, pickles, fried chicken, chocolate cake, angel food cake, chicken, brown beans, peas in butter, chicken, more biscuits, and gravy, gravy, gravy. Then Grandma started telling us about how my father was born on the kitchen table and how the doctor was drunk.

Ruby told us about how the doctor was really a dentist but would deliver babies. She told us how she gave birth to him on the kitchen table. After he was born he was so pretty and shining and new. She just held him in her arms — the prettiest baby you’ve ever saw, the prettiest baby she had. He was so pretty that the doctor offered to give her twenty dollars for him or trade him for another baby he had out in his truck. But she didn’t trade him. She just held him close to her heart and listened to him whimper. We listened to the story and ate our chicken and gravy. Then I skimmed the bowl and got out a couple of more bites and it was all gone.