Scott McClanahan - Crapalachia - A Biography of Place

So it shouldn’t have surprised us when we started hearing from other people about how it was a miracle Ruby survived cancer. One day Ruby came home after one of her senior citizen meetings. She had only been home for a few minutes.

She was sitting in her recliner, wearing a breast cancer survivor pin. She kept looking at it and saying: “I love my little pin.”

Then she smiled and touched her pin again and said: “They threw a party for me down at the center and gave me this pin because I’m a survivor.”

My Aunt Mary couldn’t take it anymore.

She told Ruby she shouldn’t be wearing a pin like that and telling people she had cancer. Mary told her the pin was for people who actually survived. It’s not for someone who was just telling people she did. Then Mary said it’s a wonder the surgeon didn’t get sued.

So Ruby sat and thought about it for a while and said: “I know that’s what one of the hateful women at senior citizens told me, but what does she know?”

Then she said her line: “Besides that, it was only a preventative surgery.”

So Ruby sat for a long time and then she finally said: “Oh the poor things. It seems like you can’t even go out of your house now without something horrible happening.”

Then she thought about all the people she knew who were having bad things happen to them.

She talked about the little girl who had her foot run over by a riding lawnmower and lost her toes. She talked about how I came to live with her.

She talked about seeing her cousin, who was driving down the road and a rock slide crushed her to death.

Then she talked about her friend who just had her deformed leg amputated and couldn’t get out of the house now.

And then she looked like if you just left the house something bad would happen to you, hurricanes, earthquakes, and then she grew quiet with another look on her face like something terrible was going to happen to all of us one day.

And you know what?

It will…

…if not tonight, then the next night.

The next night was radio preacher night. That only meant one thing. My Uncle Nathan was going to drink beer. I tried telling Nathan it was a bad idea to drink beer, but he wouldn’t listen. My Uncle Nathan was 52 years old and still living with my grandma. He had cerebral palsy and couldn’t talk. He just kept groaning and pointing at the beer and then pointing at his feeding tube. My hands were feeling kind of shaky as I popped open a can. “I don’t know, Nathan. Grandma is going to get pissed again. She’s just been home from the hospital for a few days and she’s kind of edgy.”

He just threw his hands up in the air and pointed towards the back room where she was doing her quilting and then he flapped his fingers like it was a mouth talking. That meant she was always running her mouth about something.

Then he pointed to the teddy bear sweatshirt he was wearing. He was still pissed that earlier in the day she had put the teddy bear sweatshirt on him. He groaned goop oop and had a look on his face that said, Fuck her. I’m a grown ass man and she’s making me wear a teddy bear sweatshirt .

So I undid the dressing on the tube and pulled out the plastic tube.

“Are you sure?” I said and moved the beer to the tube.

He pointed to the tube and threw his hands up. That meant, Get on with it .

He tapped himself on the side of the head because he was smart. What was the use of drinking beer when you could immediately pour a six-pack in your stomach tube and have it shoot into your bloodstream that much quicker? I poured the beer in and then I poured another. Then I cracked another and another. Then I did the rest. He smiled and then he burped. It smelled like a beer burp. I cleaned up his tube and taped it back to his stomach and pulled down his teddy bear sweatshirt. Then he pointed to the radio. He wanted to turn it on.

“Ah shit, Nathan,” I said. “I don’t want to listen to the preacher tonight.”

Nathan did though.

He waved his hands and started listening to the preacher going on about hell fire and damnation and the Day of Judgment awaiting us all.

Nathan shook his finger and told the preacher: Tell them. That’s right, tell them sons of bitches .

Then he moved his little finger above his head which meant, the good lord’s coming to get us soon .

I put the beer cans in a paper bag and hid them outside.

It was a good thing I did too, because just a few minutes later Ruby came into the room. She was still stitched and bandaged up but she was walking around at least. She said: “That’s right Nathan — the good lord’s coming to get you soon.”

When Nathan wasn’t telling preachers to give people hell, he was talking about his favorite, Benny Hinn. He pointed over to the counter where there was a Benny Hinn book.

He pointed up into the air.

I said: “What are you talking about?”

Ruby said: “Oh he’s talking about this little girl the preacher healed the other night. Poor little girl was all crippled up and couldn’t walk. The preacher prayed for her.”

So Nathan nodded his head yes and pointed to his eye. That meant: I saw it.

Ruby said: “He was so excited about it he couldn’t even sleep — poor little feller.”

I told Nathan I didn’t believe in preachers.

Nathan threw his hands up high again and groaned and pointed to his head like it was true.

I told him: “Ah hell, Nathan, these preachers are just ripping people off. You know what they say? ‘I want to be a Baptist preacher/I want to join the Baptist church/I want to be a Baptist preacher because I don’t like to work.’” I giggled and reached to the table and said: “I know you got your money hid for a reason.”

I pushed back the table cloth where he always hid his money. It was still there — crisp five dollar bills.

So Nathan laughed and giggled because I knew where he kept his radio preacher money.

It was our secret.

The preacher kept hollering. I helped Grandma put away her dolls. Earlier that day, she was looking at them.

Grandma and I were going through her doll cabinet, and then all of the sudden Grandma went “shush.”

I shushed and then she said: “Listen. Nathan sent the radio preacher five dollars this week. And the little feller’s listening to hear if he says his name or not.”

I giggled and listened to the radio preacher rattle off the names of all the sick and dying and the dead and the recently dead and the need to be dead.

Then he said all of these names so that people could remember them in their prayers.

Let’s remember sister so and so in Beckley who just had surgery.

Let’s remember sister so and so who has arthritis and wrote in recently requesting your prayers. Let’s remember the church’s hot dog sale this week. Let’s remember sister so and so who’s been having heart trouble since last week.

Grandma whispered: “I think he’s going to say it.”

We both listened.

We walked back towards the kitchen.

The preacher said: “And now I’d especially like for you to remember a special listener to this program.”

Nathan listened.

We listened.

And then…

“I’d especially like for you to remember little Nathan McClanahan who lives with his mother in Danese, West Virginia. Now Nathan has cerebral palsy and he listens to this program every week. He loves the lord and so I’d like for you to remember him and his five dollar donation. His mother has just recently recovered from surgery.”

Nathan burst out laughing.

He laughed and then he laughed some more.

He kicked and stomped his foot and threw his head all around.