Scott McClanahan - Crapalachia - A Biography of Place

“You take that camera and take a picture for Grandma,” she said…

Then she pointed to the camera

…and then at the body

…and then at Tina.

Tina didn’t want to take the picture either, but finally she took the camera out of my hand and turned to the body.

“That’s right,” Ruby said. “Grandma’s just a poor, old woman who can’t get up. Go ahead and take it for your poor Grandma and make sure you don’t cut off the pretty flowers behind the head. Someone spent so much on that arrangement.”

So Tina held the camera and Ruby said: “That’s right.” Then Tina snapped the picture — SNAP — and everyone looked around at where the camera flash was coming from.

I figured this would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. The next morning I walked the film down to Rite Aid when Ruby was working on one of her quilts. She was still stitching one of her squares on when I came back from Rite Aid and put the film back down on the table. I told her they wouldn’t develop them. I told her what they said.

“What?” Ruby said after I told her what they said.

I repeated it: “They said they couldn’t develop pictures of dead bodies anymore. They said it’s the policy.”

Ruby just looked so confused: “You mean they won’t develop pictures of people you know anymore. Well how are you going to remember them? How’s an old woman gonna remember all of ’em?”

I said: “It’s probably because of privacy laws and stuff. I’m sure there are not too many people bringing in pictures of dead bodies anymore.”

So Grandma Ruby kept working on her quilt with this funny look on her face.

Grandma said: “Well that doesn’t make any sense. These aren’t strangers. They’re my blood.”

I shrugged my shoulders and I sat with Ruby as she stitched another stitch and said, “Don’t make any sense to me. I know I used to get them developed all the time.” And then she was quiet for a second and then she started telling me a story that didn’t have anything to do with anything…

…She told me about how she used to ride the horse down into Prince with her grandmother. “We used to go peddling,” she said.

And they didn’t have anything, and I guess they sold canned preserves or quilts.

Then she told me about how they were going down the side of the mountain towards Meadow Creek one time and they heard this sound of what sounded like a wild animal crying.

They rode and the sound grew closer. They realized it was a baby crying.

It was all bundled up and put beside the path so if somebody came by they’d find it.

So Ruby asked her own grandma if they could stop and take the baby home.

Her grandma just shook her head no because they could barely feed themselves, let alone another baby. They left the baby there and Ruby said the last thing she remembered was the sound of that baby crying from far away and the mule moving away so slow.

She started stitching another square.

She looked at the squares of her old scrap quilt.

She looked so sad thinking about how Rite Aid wouldn’t develop her pictures of the dead.

And even now, years later, I wish I had pictures of all the faces I once knew. I wish I had pictures of Ruby and quilts, Nathan and teddy bear sweatshirts, groans and moans and radio preachers.

So Ruby and Nathan, let us pretend that we will always be like this. Let us pretend that we will never die.

Let us meet at this address a thousand years from now. Let us meet in Danese alive and not dead, alive and not dead, alive and not dead.

I sure as hell felt dead when the phone rang and they told Ruby that I had been skipping school for the past two weeks. They told me if I didn’t come back the next day we would be in trouble. The next day I went to school and was at least happy to see my friend Little Bill. He was wearing a toboggan. I had been friends with Little Bill forever. It wasn’t that big of a deal except we had retard math together and the retard math teacher Mrs. Powell only had three rules. No hats. I was just sitting down with Frog who was telling me about his brother getting crabs. “My mom told him not to be messing with that girl.” Frog said it was really sad. He kept telling me how his brother came home one night and finally told his mom that he had crabs. She was drunk and told him to put Raid on it. He didn’t know she was joking. Then Frog laughed. “And that’s what he did too. Shit ate through the skin and he almost lost his testicle.”

I shook my head and laughed and watched Little Bill sit down in front of me with his toboggan.

I whispered to him, “What are you doing? You’re going to get killed wearing that hat.” Then Frog shushed me.

I finally realized what wearing a toboggan meant. Little Bill came from a big family who all had different last names. Some days they came to school wearing toboggans — even the girls. I looked up at the retard math rules: #1 No gum. #2 No talking. #3 No hats. And Little Bill just sat quiet. At first Mrs. Powell didn’t notice. She sat in front of the class doing paper work.

One of the girls, Bobbie Jo, raised her hand. There was something wrong with Bobbie Jo. She was always holding crayons and pretending she was smoking cigarettes. Then she would eat the crayons. She always went around saying, “I got Terry’s ring,” pretending that she was married to this poor guy in our class. It was either that or, “I’m going to sit on Terry’s face.” Terry never said anything. One time I watched this guy named Jody spit on her. She wore glasses and the loogie smacked against the lens of her glasses. It slipped down the lens. She cried and cried. After that whenever she got the chance she started telling on people.

So Bobbie Jo raised her hand and said, “Mrs. Powell, isn’t one of your rules that we can’t wear hats inside?”

Mrs. Powell wasn’t paying attention but then she finally said: “Yes — that’s right. No hats.”

Bobbie Jo kept going: “Well why is Lil Bill wearing a hat then?”

So it started.

Mrs. Powell looked up and Little Bill put his head down.

“Bill, take off your hat.”

Little Bill kept sitting there like he didn’t hear her. He kept his head down.

Mrs. Powell said it again. “Bill, take off your hat.”

Little Bill said, “I can’t.”

Mrs. Powell walked over to him. “What did you say?”

Bill said, “I can’t.”

We were all feeling for him now.

Mrs. Powell walked over to him and said, “What did you say?”

Bill said, “I can’t.”

“What?” she said again. “Take off your hat.”

“Please no,” Little Bill said.

“Take it off.”

“Please no.”

“Take it off.”

“Please no.”

TAKE IT OFF!

And so he did. He took off his toboggan real slooooooooooooooooowwwwwwww. That’s when we saw it. His skull was bald and shiny and bright and so pale that you could see the veins running all over beneath the white skin.

“He has lice,” Bobbie Jo said. “His mother makes him shave his head when he gets lice.”

One of the other kids said, “You’re bald, Lil Bill. Did your mother do that?”

Little Bill tried thinking something up quick. He knew we were in 9th grade now. He knew he was too old to have lice. The only thing he could come up with was the wrestler King Kong Bundy. King Kong Bundy was bald. Little Bill was bald. Little Bill said, “I’m trying to be like King Kong Bundy. I want to be a wrestler. I want to be like King Kong Bundy.”

Then he was walking around us showing us his wrestling moves, showing us his muscles. He wanted to be like King Kong Bundy. Goddamnit. He kept saying it like it was true, like he didn’t have lice, like the whole world was one big stupid lie that he believed in his heart.