The song finally ended and he hit play again. I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.
Then he went and weighed himself again.
He weighed 225 pounds.
There were other things Bill did too. He washed his hands. He took a hell of a lot of showers. He washed his hands some more. He sprayed some more Lysol. He weighed himself again. He weighed 225 pounds. He told me about the Greenbrier Ghost again.
Then he played “Dust in the Wind.”
I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.
I asked him if he had to listen to the song again. He said, “I thought you liked Kansas?”
I told him I was just being nice.
He turned it off. Then he started spraying the walls down with some more Lysol. “You’ll see one day,” he said. “You’ll see.” Then he played Kansas, I close my eyes…
So that night Bill told me what was wrong with him. He told me he had a condition called OCD.
A LIST OF OCD SYMPTOMS IN CASE YOU ARE A HYPOCHONDRIAC AND WONDERING IF YOU MIGHT BE SUFFERING FROM OCD:1. Compulsive actions in order to alleviate anxiety.
2. Obsessive thoughts in order to alleviate anxiety.
3. A combination of compulsive actions and obsessive thoughts in order to alleviate anxiety.
4. Constant obsession with a particular repetition of actions/ and or thought patterns.
Then he told me how it happened.
He told me how he first knew something was wrong with him when he was ten years old. He was sitting up on the counter eating a giant bag of cheeseballs. He was covered in orange cheeseball dust. It was on his hands and it was on his fingers and it was on his face. He kept eating the cheeseballs and before long he started thinking that he was turning into a cheeseball too. All of a sudden his mother and brother came into the room and he started yelling at them: “Don’t eat me. I’m a cheeseball. I’m a cheeseball.”
So he jumped off the counter and before long he started running around because he thought they were trying to eat him. Of course, this freaked them out so they chased after him thinking that something was wrong. They chased him around the house. They chased him around again.
Then they chased him around the house one more time and now Bill was screaming, “I’m a fucking cheeseball. Don’t eat me.”
Then he told me about the Greenbrier Ghost.
And then he told me it was like this with chicken of any kind too. He cleared his throat again, eeeeghh. He told me if he got anywhere near chicken he would start to get all sweaty trying to swallow the thing. He told me about being a kid and trying to eat chicken legs. He would chew on it and have to spit it out. He couldn’t bring himself to swallow it.
I said, “Damn.”
He said, “I thought I was possessed by the devil for a while. I knew I wasn’t in control anymore.”
He said, “Then I realized no one is in control.”
The next morning I woke up to the lyric:
I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All we are is dust in the wind.
I came home the next day, I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.
I went to bed each night. All we are is dust in the wind.
I finally said, “Would you please stop it? Seriously. Stop.”
He played, I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone.
STOP.
He grunted. He checked his weight. He weighed 225 pounds.
STOP.
He grunted. He checked his weight. He weighed 225 pounds.
He told me about the Greenbrier Ghost. Back in the 1890s a woman named Zona suddenly died.
STOP. You’re driving me nuts.
He played his music.
When he was gone one day, I hid the CD.
He sprayed Lysol.
STOP.
He grunted. He rubbed his hands together.
He told me about the Greenbrier Ghost. It’s the only case in history where a man has been convicted based on the second-hand testimony of a ghost.
STOP.
He sprayed Lysol and rubbed his hands together. He grunted, errghhh.
Then one morning I woke up and he was gone. He told me the night before that he was going to see his grandpa.
I didn’t know what to do without him. I actually walked around and cleaned up. I felt a little fat. I got up on the scale and I watched the weight pop up. I weighed 196. Then I got down and rubbed my hands together.
I thought, How much do I weigh now?
I couldn’t remember. I got back on the scale. I weighed 196 pounds. I got off. I got back on the scale. I got off. Then I went back to the closet and got out the CD. I put it in the player and pushed play. Then I started singing along, “I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All we are is dust in the wind.” I listened to the whole song and then I did it again.
I close my eyes.
I listened to the whole song and then I did it again.
I close my eyes.
I told myself the story of the Greenbrier Ghost. He killed me, Mommy. He strangled me and broke my neck. I tried not thinking about Ruby and Nathan.
I listened to the whole song and then I did it again.
I close my eyes.
I told the story. It’s the only case in the history of the country where a man has been convicted of murder based on the second-hand testimony of a ghost.
I listened to the whole song and then I did it again.
I looked down at my hands and my hands weren’t my hands anymore. My hand wasn’t made of flesh anymore. My hand wasn’t even a hand anymore. I held it up and looked at it. It was orange. I said, “I’m a cheeseball. I’m a motherfucking cheeseball.” I wasn’t in control anymore.
I stayed up late that night and I thought about Nathan and how he died and I thought about my grandmother. I went through my wallet and looked at the funeral notice from a few months earlier.
I read: IN MEMORY OF
NATHAN ELGIE McCLANAHAN
BORN
May 8, 1943
Backus Mountain, WV
PASSED AWAY
February 11, 1996
Beckley, WV
SERVICES
February 15, 1996
2:00 PM
Wallace and Wallace Chapel
Rainelle, WV
Pastor Steve Martin
INTERNMENT
Goddard Cemetery
Red Springs, WV
Then I went to sleep and I dreamed about graveyards.
AND THEN THE NEXT NIGHT
I dreamed about Ruby and she was telling me it’s just one thing after another. Then she told me that some shit happens and then some more shit happens and then some more shit after that. There are floods, explosions, disasters, tornadoes and none of it makes any sense. It’s all just one big joke you have to laugh at.
Are you laughing?
MESSING WITH BILL
I don’t think we had anything to do after a couple of days living together except talk. Since Bill’s mom was never around we sure as hell didn’t go to school that much. No one could make us. For some strange reason we started talking about religion.
I started giving him hell about his views of homosexuality. He repeated again that it was an abomination of God.
I told him he was just pissed because he caught his cousin taking it in the ass one day. He came home early one day from school and there was his cousin getting fucked by the next door neighbor. I told him butt-fucking usually runs in families.
Then I reminded him about his silver-dollar-size nipples and how I didn’t want him walking around with his shirt off when I was drunk because they kind of made me horny.
He grinned and just kept going on about homos being an abomination of God. Homos man, homos.
I asked him where he got that abomination of God thing from. He told me Leviticus. I asked him if Jesus ever said anything about homosexuality. I knew the answer was no. I told him
didn’t Leviticus also say you have to keep your woman outside the tent if she was having her period? That shut him up. Then he quoted Leviticus.
I told him that as much as he quoted the Old Testament you’d think he was Jewish.
Bill was getting mad.
I kept telling him seems to me if he loved the Old Testament so much we ought to change his name to Crookshankzowitz.
I told him yeah you’re my Jewish friend Crookshankzowitz.
Bill was mad.
That morning I sat down at the computer and made a fake e-mail address that I could send him. The e-mail I made was called [email protected].
I sent him an e-mail that went:
Dear Bill:
This is the lord. I have been listening to your religious conversations with your roommate Scott McClanahan. I would like for you to know that I am disappointed in your recent conversion to Judaism. It is a beautiful faith, and one my father started. But please understand that you must return to Jesus and the study of the New Testament or face eternal hellfire and damnation. Your friend and savior.
Jesus Christ.
The son of god.
P.S. Please quit skipping school so much. Remember, drugs aren’t cool. Stay in school.
That evening Bill sat down in front of the computer and checked his e-mail. I watched over his shoulder. He scrolled through his e-mail and started reading it. Then all of a sudden he got up from his computer and walked over to me. He was halfway grinning, but he scratched his head and said, “Jesus just e-mailed me.”
So Bill walked out of the room. I heard him praying in the other room.
I heard him praying for his grandpa and his uncles and then I heard him pray for my grandmother and me. I heard him praying for my Uncle Nathan. I heard him praying that my Uncle Nathan was in heaven. I heard him praying for a girlfriend. “I try to be a good person,” he said. “But I’m very lonely. I’d really like a girlfriend to spend some time with. I’d just like to have someone who I could talk to. I know I’m not good-looking, but I would like someone.” Then I heard him praying about his condition. He said he knew it couldn’t stop forever, but he would like for it to stop for a day. He would like the voices and anxiety inside his head to stop for a day.
An hour or so later he walked back up to me and said, “I guess you think you’re real funny, don’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
He told me he was just pretending that I fooled him earlier.
It was around this time Bill started taking pictures of stuff. At first he bought the camera so he could take pictures of himself with his shirt off—flexing his muscles. And then he started taking pictures of other things.
He took pictures of trees.
He took pictures of flowers.
He took pictures of clouds.
He took pictures of his hands.
He took pictures of parking lots and trucks.
He took pictures of the Meadow River.
He took pictures of the sky and storms.
He took pictures of the mountains.
He took pictures of old civil war trenches.
I told Bill to take pictures of the dogshit outside the stray dogs were leaving all over the place but he refused.
Oh come on, Bill.
We watched the stray dog crapping outside the apartment. I begged him, please.
He still refused.
The next morning he was going on about the gays again and how it was an abomination of God. He went on about evolution and how he didn’t come from a monkey. I tried to correct him and say Darwin didn’t say that. He said we came from a common ancestor. He told me he didn’t care. He told me it was an abomination of God and that there would be a lake of fire to burn it all.
I told him I came from monkeys. I was a wild animal.
So one weekend when Bill went home I decided I was going to mess with him some more. I had people who Bill knew come by. We went through Bill’s drawer. Then we walked around and put his clothes on and we took pictures of each other.
And even better than that I took his camera outside too when he was asleep. The stray dogs were running around again. I went outside and saw these big piles of dogshit on the ground. The stray dogs had crapped everywhere.
I had an idea.
A week later Bill went to have his pictures developed. He stood in the middle of Rite Aid expecting to see pictures of his muscles and pictures of nature, but instead he found pictures of people he knew.
“Hey, it’s pictures of my friends.”
Then he noticed weird things about his friends. “I think it’s pictures of my friends with my clothes on.” Then he kept flipping and what did he see?
He saw trees.
He saw flowers.
He saw muscles.
He saw dogshit.
He saw giant piles of dogshit.
He saw giant piles of nasty-ass dogshit.
It was steaming dogshit that would burn into all eternity—as if the only thing that survived was dogshit. IT IS.
That night I dreamed my dream about Ruby and that the world was just one thing happening after another. I awoke and I saw that life was one big practical joke full of pain. Someone was laughing at us. Someone was torturing us. I remember being at Grandma Ruby’s as a little boy and crushing the ants on her sidewalk. I saw all of Nathan’s pain and I saw all of Grandma’s pain explaining to relatives that Nathan was dead. “It’s a debt we all have to pay.”
Then she told me again, “Scott, Nathan is gone.”
I told her I knew. I was there.
She sat in her recliner and she said again, “Scott, Nathan is gone. We have to find some way to carry on. We have our own debt to pay now.”
We were ants and God was only a child with a nose full of snot. God was crushing the ants in the sun.
I left Bill alone for a few weeks. I didn’t steal his camera. I didn’t e-mail him from [email protected]. I didn’t bring up religion for us to argue about. I didn’t tell him to stop checking his weight. I didn’t tell him not to tell me about the Greenbrier Ghost. Bill started going back to grunting and rubbing his hands together and playing his music. He stopped taking pictures of his muscles in the mirror. He went back to spraying Lysol.
Then one day Bill walked into class and asked me if I thought I was funny. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Then he told me about another e-mail I supposedly sent. It was supposedly an e-mail I sent pretending to be God.
He showed me the e-mail. It was from an e-mail address with nothing but zeros in it. [email protected]. It was an e-mail from God.
Dear Bill,
My son Jesus wanted me to e-mail you. I have to admit though that I’m pretty drunk. I don’t know what to tell you about anything. I have to take medicine to go to sleep each night. I’m a sleepwalker. I know I wrote you to give advice, but now I see that I’m just complaining. I’m sorry to burden you, but I feel confused most of the time. I really don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I know your roommate Scott made a toast to god one night when you were drinking 40 ounces. His toast went: Here’s to God almighty, the laziest fucker I know. I want to tell you that it hurt my feelings. I know he recently lost his Uncle and is hurting, but I thought his toast was a bit rough. It hurt my heart.
I read how he wanted to tell Bill he wasn’t lazy. He was just tired. He realized now it had all been a horrible mistake—the world. He knew he created not with any plan in mind. He created just because he felt so lonely—that was all. He was so lonely and now it was all out of his control. He said he was an atheist he realized, but only a true atheist believes in God. Therefore, maybe he wasn’t an atheist because he didn’t know if he believed in himself anymore. He said he was Peter Pan. He said he wanted something removed. He said he felt like a hermaphrodite.
Bill smiled and said he knew it was me. I got up and went to the bathroom. How could I tell him that I didn’t write it? How could I tell him that maybe it really
was from God. Maybe we would all meet in a lake of fire one day. Maybe we were all abominations. How could I tell him that I didn’t write this e-mail, but the world was just a joke, and God was a lonely hermaphrodite who was writing e-mails to strangers in the dark? Who knows?
SO I WENT TO SEE GRANDMA
It had been months since Nathan’s death and I wanted to see how she was doing. The first time I went to see her, she said, “Oh lordie, I’m dying.”
The next time I went to see her it was, “Oh lordie, I’m dying.” I always asked her if she liked living with Stanley and Mary, but she didn’t say anything.
I borrowed Bill’s car and I went to see her for a third time and it always happened like this.
I said, “Well, Grandma, I should get going.”
Grandma told me there was no use to be running off.
Crapalachia: A Biography of Place Page 7
