Scott McClanahan - Crapalachia - A Biography of Place

But no one did. I just sat up in the window and watched her waiting. And she was still waiting there that night when we opened 40 ounces and drank them. She was still waiting there the next morning when we awoke. We started playing video games, and we didn’t say anything to one another. Bill didn’t say anything either. He acted like he didn’t want to leave the apartment ever again — like he knew something no one else knew.

He knew there were two lives apportioned for each of us and there were families who we’ve never known who are out looking for us tonight. Even tonight they are out there searching for us. They are wishing to tell us who our true mother was. They are wanting to tell us who our true father was.

Listen: They are coming for us.

They are wanting to tell us our true names.

I took her to the Methodist church she used to always go to. Usually she only went once a year. She went on Mother’s Day because they gave a fruit basket to the woman who had the most children. Since Ruby had 13 children, she always won the fruit basket. Of course, she could care less about the yearly sermon, but she always liked the free apples and oranges. So I was surprised when she called and asked me to take her that Sunday. It wasn’t Mother’s Day and they weren’t offering any prizes. I borrowed Bill’s car and I drove her to the church.

I sat with her and listened to a sermon that went like this.

One time a man left home. He had argued with his mother and father the day before he left. They spoke horrible words to one another and he left without saying goodbye. He had been gone many years and even spent time in jail. Years later, he finally got out of jail and he wondered if his mother and father were even alive, and if they were ashamed of what had been said and of where he had wound up. He wrote to them and told them he would be coming home on a specific day the following week. If they wanted to see him and were not ashamed they should put a blanket on the clothesline, and he would know to come inside. If the blanket was missing, then he would know that he was not welcomed. He would know to turn back. He told them he hoped they were in good health.

The man arrived by rail the next week. He was nervous when he stepped off the train. There was no one there to meet him. He walked up the worn path towards the home place and thought about the past. He thought about his time in jail. He thought about how ashamed his parents must have been. He thought about the horrible words they spoke. He was just about to turn around and go back to where he came when he saw a blanket in a tree. He kept walking and he saw another blanket. He kept walking and he saw another blanket. Then he turned towards home and the house was covered in blankets, the yard was covered in blankets, the clothesline was covered in blankets, the path to the door was covered in blankets. His parents were standing there and they were welcoming him inside.

I took Ruby home and she talked about Nathan. She talked about how she missed him. I didn’t know this would be the last time I spent with her like this. I didn’t know this last week would be the last week of her life.

A few days later, my Uncle Stanley called. He said they had to take Ruby to the hospital. He said that she was sick. So later that evening I went to see her. She acted like she didn’t recognize me, but then she told me that the angel of death had come to see her that morning. She said the angel of death sat at the foot of her bed. She told me she heard Nathan’s groans in her dreams. I heard Nathan’s groans too. She told me the angel of death didn’t say anything, but just sat looking at her. She told me that it wasn’t a man or a woman, but it was the angel of death all right. She said that the angel was smiling at her. The angel had black teeth and I believed her. She wasn’t faking her death. She was eighty years old and this was the end.

And so I stopped by my Aunt Mary’s and told her that Ruby was real confused and she wasn’t doing any good at all. I told her this was the end. I sat down on the bed and watched the cold rain beat against the windows. Then my Aunt Mary sat down beside me and said she didn’t know whether to believe her or not. She didn’t know whether she was sick or not because she was so good at manipulating you.

I looked at Aunt Mary and said, “I don’t think she’s playing this time. I don’t think she’s ever going over to the hospital again.”

Then I felt myself repeating: “I think this is the end. I don’t think there is ever going to be another trip to the hospital for her.”

That night I stayed with my aunt and uncle. My Uncle Stanley came home the next morning at dawn and said they were sending Ruby home. He said the doctor came in and he just stood in front of her bed.

Ruby said, “Well it doesn’t look good, does it, Doc?”

The doctoring man said, “No Ruby, it doesn’t look good. I don’t think there’s anything else we can do for you.”

Ruby said, “Well that’s fine. I want to go home then. I want to go back to my real home then.” The doctor signed the order and sent her home. He didn’t send her back to Stanley and Mary’s. He sent her back to the old house. The house where my father was born. There were cobwebs, but it was her home.

I went over there in the afternoon and she seemed so happy. She just sat up in the bed and smiled when I came in.

She said, “Well Nathan is gone, but he left me a good bed to die in. I keep thinking about the little feller.”

I stood at the foot of the bed and I told her about all of my memories. I told her about how I remembered when I was a little boy and had the croup and she put the Vicks salve on my chest. I told her about how I remembered staying the night and how I stayed up looking at the baby dolls in the baby doll catalog with her. Then she smiled and said that she remembered it all. She had something to give me but she wasn’t ready to give it to me yet. Then she smiled. She never got around to giving it to me. And now, years later, I just wonder what it was, what it was she wanted to give me…

I went back a couple of days later and she was dying. She was shaking and groaning and shaking.

For some reason I said, “Well you look good, Grandma,” even though she looked like shit.

She wasn’t eating. They had wheeled her around the house that morning so she could see her house and her things one last time. My uncle crushed her up a slice of orange and sat down beside her bed. Then he fed it to her. My grandma sat and looked like she was a little baby bird. That’s what I thought she looked like. I watched my uncle feed his dying mother just like she used to feed him when he was a little boy.

I thought my grandma’s face looked so much like Nathan’s right then.

There was something about my Uncle Stanley’s face too that looked just like my grandma’s face from long ago. I wondered if my face would look like my Uncle Stanley’s when I died. This was the story of faces. There was one face that looked like another face before it and then another face that looked like the face before it. This went all the way back until the beginning of time. Who knew what this face would look like a thousand years from now. Me?

There was a part of me that wanted it to be over. My Uncle Terry came in from California and sat beside her bed and said, “You gonna go see Nathan soon?”

Ruby whispered, “Yeah.”

I shook my head and wanted it all to be over because I knew deep down inside that the dying and the dead were selfish.