Then he watched the movie some more and mouthed the word again. Freedom.
I didn’t tease him about anything because he was happy that night, but then he started talking about his dad Butch.
Butch had the biggest head you’ve ever seen. He wore an adjustable cap, but the cap was always on the last ring and about to pop from his giant pumpkin head.
The first time his dad lived away from the mountain he was working in a sawmill that was about an hour away. One day he was off so he decided to walk to the post office. It was winter time and there was ice all over everything. Butch was wearing flip flops and he ended up breaking his face. He started walking down the steps of the post office and there was some frozen water on the steps. He slipped and fell. But as he was falling he looked up and there was one of his flip flops going end over end up uP UP into the air in slow motion. It went so far up that it landed on top of the post office. He broke his jaw and his cheekbone and he knocked out a couple of teeth. He broke his goddamn face.
So Butch walked back to his apartment and called the old man. He said, “Pa, I just broke my face. I think I need help. I think I need you guys to come here and help me and take me to the emergency room.”
The old man was real calm and said, “Well that’s okay, son. It’s a bit late to be driving. We’ll be down tomorrow to get you.”
His son just broke his face, and lived only an hour away, but the old man said he’d be there in the morning to get him.
Then Bill and I laughed and said we should go to the post office and find the flip flop and return it to his father. We imagined it still sitting there after all of these years, on top of the post office and just waiting to be worn. We knew the foot who walked with it would finally walk free.
Then Bill laughed. He said—they weren’t gone from us. There are no such things as ghosts, because they do not haunt us. He told me Ruby was not gone from me. He told me Nathan was not gone from me.
They are here right now.
They are holding our hands and whispering a whisper we will whisper one day. They are whispering—FREEDOM.
FREEDOM?
But then the next morning Lee came over to the room and woke Bill up.
He said: “Bill, get on up and look out the window—it’s Janette.”
I got up and looked out the window and I saw what was happening. It wasn’t good. It was Naked Joe. I told Lee, “No, let him sleep. Don’t tell him.” Lee kept shaking Bill awake. Bill got up though and went over and looked out the window, down towards Janette’s apartment. And what did he see, but Naked Joe giving Janette a kiss and leaving her apartment. She was reaching into Joe’s sweatpants and rubbing his dick. Then they were laughing. He’d spent the night with her. Bill just sat there looking out the window for what seemed like the longest time, not saying anything.
It was as if he was seeing our families from the past cross those lonely oceans to live in mountains, and as they crossed that ocean—it wasn’t the word freedom they were whispering. There was only one word they were whispering now, a word we will whisper one day too, oh SHIT!
JANETTE PART 2
So Bill started losing all kinds of weight after Janette. It was like a whole new Bill. There was an FB time in Bill’s history and then SB time. Fat Bill and Skinny Bill. He looked like one of those bobbing head dolls with his big head and this skinny body.
I turned around one day and he looked different.
“Goddamn,” I said.
He went to school in work clothes with about four t-shirts or so beneath it. For lunch and dinner all he ate were peanut butter sandwiches. He ate a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. On top of that he drank 9 glasses of water and that’s what started it.
I sat in school and I read about how everything changes even in Crapalachia. I read about how the miners became machines, and the loggers became the machines and the tiny roads turned into interstates and the towns became fast food drive thru’s and gas stations and the people became people to serve tourists and let the tourists laugh at their accents.
I read about how people charged money to take people down the river. They charged people money to go mountain climbing. The people worked in restaurants so that tourists could laugh at their accents. They were paying for something that was given for free. The people from here didn’t have to run a river to prove that it existed. They didn’t have to climb a mountain just to climb it. It was enough that the river was a river and the mountain was a mountain and inside of them were mountains too.
In the evenings, Bill sat and talked about how people hurt one another. He talked about how he heard voices sometimes and how hard it was to think the same thing over and over. I asked him if he ever thought about suicide. He said, “Yeah.” Then he asked me if I ever did. I said, “Every fucking day.”
The next morning Bill started checking his weight all of the time. He brought in this scale and sat it on the floor. In the mornings he got up and walked over to the scale. Then he stood up on the scale. Then he checked his weight. He got down off the scale and walked back over to his bed. Then he got a drink of water. Then he walked back over to the scale. He stood up on the scale again. He checked his weight. Then he did it all over. He did this all the time—50 times a day.
We went to school and he went over to the cafeteria and instead of eating a sandwich, and a salad, and a hamburger like he used to eat, now all he did was eat a peanut butter sandwich and drink 9 glasses of water. He was always drinking water. He drank one right after the other until he had filled his stomach up. It was something else to watch, him drinking all that water and getting all grumpy and mad.
Then we went into class and we read about The Greenbrier Ghost, we read about the Hawk’s Nest disaster. We read about how our place was changing. I read about the Sago Mine disaster and the men who survived an explosion only to have so little oxygen left they all went into the corner of the mine shaft and hid behind a giant rubber curtain. The giant rubber curtain was supposed to protect them from carbon monoxide. They put on the breathing mask, but there was only an hour of air left. They spent what time they had left writing letters to their children and wives. The letters went like this:
Tell all I’ll see them on the other side.
It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. I love you. Jr.
Your daddy didn’t suffer.
After Bill lost all the weight his personality really changed. It seemed like any little thing that happened would just set him off. One night in the room he was bitching and complaining about how something was wrong. Bill and Lee started getting into it.
Lee said something that pissed Bill off and then I shook my head and said: “What the hell happened to you? This new skinny Bill is pissed off all the time. I want fat Bill back.”
He started looking out the window all of the time. He kept looking down to the building where Janette lived. He did this once, and he walked away. Then he did it again, and then he walked away. He did it a million times.
“Seriously, Bill. Fuck,” I said. “She’s going to see you looking out the window so much you’re going to freak her ass out.”
He did it again.
Then we went to school and we studied the past. We learned about how rescuers went into the Sago Mine and found the miners. They were still alive. They were all alive. CNN reported all miners found alive except one. WVU won a football game that night. The governor said it was a night of miracles. There was a mistake made though. The radio wasn’t working properly. They weren’t alive. They were all gone. They were all dead except one. His name was Randal McCloy. He was a young man in his 20’s with a young wife and two children. It is believed he survived because the rest of the men in their 50’s made the decision to share their oxygen with the younger man, and keep him alive for his young wife and small children.
The young man watched the older men go to sleep one by one. And then it grew quiet.
And then Bill was up in the room that evening, and had
his shirt off doing some kind of sit-ups. It seemed like every week after Bill lost his weight he would bring in some new kind of fancy sit-up machine. He would have the Ab Cruncher 100 or another one called the Ab Buster 3000. Or he would be down on the floor doing crunches as fast as he could 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8… And he counted them off with his face all covered in sweat.
Then he stood up and said: “Whelp that’s another 500 crunches.”
Then he went over to the wall mirror and looked at himself and flexed his muscles. Then he looked out the window again.
Of course, after a while this really freaked Janette out—this guy looking out the window down at her apartment everyday, watching her leave for work. So I guess she had enough and ended up calling the cops.
The cop came by that afternoon and said there were complaints about Bill looking out the window and staring. He said Bill wasn’t in trouble yet, but the young woman was afraid. I told the cop it was all right. I told the cop Bill suffered from OCD.
The cop said, “What?”
I told him it would be okay.
I told him Bill wouldn’t do it anymore.
That evening when I came back to the room Lee and Bill were unfolding a sheet all the way out. They got up on two chairs and they took some clothespins and hung this sheet all the way over the window. We had this giant sheet across the window so Bill wouldn’t be looking out the window and freaking Janette out. It made the room dark as hell. Of course, Bill would still go over to the window and peak out the corner every now and then. Whenever I wanted to go look out the window I had to pull the sheet back too. It was like this for 4 months.
Then one day Bill came in and told me he didn’t care about Janette anymore because he had a new girl now. He just came back from a date with her. He told me they went to the movies. He didn’t say if it was a girl from school or not.
“Did you kiss her?” I asked.
He told me, “Well with it being a first date and all.”
I asked him what movie they went to see.
He laughed.
He couldn’t tell me.
I didn’t ask him what her name was because he wouldn’t be able to tell me that either.
He just went over and sat in his chair in front of his desk. He turned on his music and he started practicing his W’s. I close my eyes…
So now when I think about Bill I always think about him holding the flowers for Janette. I think about that Valentines Day. I still see him standing outside the apartment. And it’s dark and I have books in my arms taking them back to the library. Bill’s just standing in front of the bushes with the flowers in his hands. And the wind’s blowing so hard Bill’s head of red hair is all tussled. I see myself putting the collar of my coat up and just watching him.
He’s saying, “Do you remember which door it is, Scott?”
I see him standing there and his flowers are blowing over in the wind.
So I added Bill’s name to the list of people I have ever loved. I wanted to write down these names so that I can remember them one day when everyone else has forgotten. I wanted to write a list of all the people I had ever known and keep them in my heart. I wanted to have a list of them even though I couldn’t see their faces.
THIS LIST BEGINS…
Gary McClanahan, Audrey Karen McClanahan, Audrey Karen’s story of her family, Nell Jones, Samantha the dog, Nanook the dog, Midget the dog, Razy the cat, Buddy the dog, Iggy the cat, Stanley, Stirley, Leslie McClanahan, Aunt Bernice, Aunt Mary, Monte and Lisa, Uncle Larry, Aunt Mary Ellen—the most beautiful woman I knew, her children, Mary the cleaning lady, Lil Bill, Big Bill, Elgie McClanahan, Russell Wilson, Mickey Hawkins, Mike Chapman, Wayne Tiller, Brent Sanford, Jason Taylor, Jay Lilly, Ricky Duggan, Nicole Owens, Ammie Costa, Reinaldo Lopez, Keith Cordial, Jenna D, Chastity Burns, Tracy and the Fury’s, Keith and Eric Fogus, Carl Taylor, Robbie Bragg, Ulysses Phipps, Chad Tabor, and church: Joyce Hanshew, Melvin Hanshew, Ada and Harold Sifers, Ruby Hanshew, Harold Hanshew, George and Lena Deitz, Blaine and Aline Cook, Blaine Duncan, the Gwinns, Gary Redden, Charlie and Janette Redden, Viven and Ruth Bragg, the football team: Joey Fitzwater, Bill Bob, the baseball team: Boozy, Aaron Brown, Ryan Crookshanks, Kim Maguire, Mandi Demoss, the people at law school I secretly hated, Charlie and Dan, Ja Ja, Tom Maguire, Arlene Maguire, Chris Oxley, Lisa Griffin, Tim Keenan, Colin Worthington, Tammie Toler, Karen Angle, Jo Price, Sherry Koon, Mrs. Walker, Kenny Walker, Charlene Green, J.C. Dunbar, Patti Milam, Coach G., Casey Whitlow, Dr. David Bard, Dr. Baker, Dr. William Ofsa, Rosalie Peck, John Turner, Aunt Lynn, Mark, Marz Attar, Tom Attar, Carrie Sanders Turner Ricks Attar Sanders, Wood and A, Tia and Fay, Sue Sanders, Sarah Turner, Sarah McClanahan, Iris Grace McClanahan, Samuel Ray McClanahan.
These are the names that are written inside my heart, but my heart will die one day. So I want these names to stay inside this book forever, but if this book is needed for fire, then set this book on fire. Then these names will live inside the other names, inside the invisible ashes. There is enough fire burning inside my secret heart to keep them warm for a long time.
If you recognize any of these names from this book, please write to me, or better yet. Come quick. Tell me they have returned. Tell me they are alive and living well.
And I will tell you something else.
I will tell you that you have been visited by ghosts.
I know there will be other love names to add to these present names. The lovely Eleanor Gould.
They are out there. I am wanting to find them.
I am searching for you.
THE BREAK IN
So Bill did something stupid. A few nights later he was so pissed off he broke into the school. He took a sledgehammer and busted through the walls. He busted a hole in the wall of the cafeteria and stole a whole box full of salt and vinegar potato chip bags. He emptied chalk dust in the hallway and pissed in the chalk dust. The school was wrecked.
The principal went into her office and sighed because she thought her office was left untouched. None of her papers were messed with and none of her filing cabinets were turned over. This was different from the other rooms. She even asked the secretary, “Why would he trash the rest of the school and leave my office alone?” The secretary just shook her head because she didn’t know either. The principal sat down at her desk to call the police and the superintendent’s office. She opened her desk drawer. She reached in for the phone book. And then she screamed. She screamed because she saw a big turd sitting perfectly in the middle of her desk drawer. Someone had crapped it there.
“Damn, that’s cold to shit in somebody’s desk drawer,” Lee said.
I told him this was different though. This was not your ordinary robber. This was a robber who actually took the time to shut the drawer afterward. Most people would have left the drawer open and took off, but this guy was different. This guy was something of an artist.
We found out that Bill had been arrested that afternoon. The police asked me if Bill had been home last night. I told them I didn’t know. The police went through the numbers of absent students for the day and when they went by Bill’s mom’s apartment they found him asleep on the couch with five or six empty salt and vinegar potato chip bags sitting on the floor.
There was only one thing to learn from this.
The world was a weird world.
The world was a joke.
Oh well.
I WENT BACK
So I tried not to think about Bill over the next couple of weeks. I went to school and I studied. They sent Bill away to juvie because he wasn’t an adult. I came home to Bill’s mom’s apartment in the evenings and I studied. I thought about Nathan and I thought about Ruby and I thought about long ago. I thought about long ago so much that I wondered if they were really dead.
But she was dead. I knew she was dead when they all showed up at Ruby’s house over the next couple of months and started gathering up all the stuff they wanted. There was somebody who wanted the pictures (half of them were gone already). The
re was somebody who wanted the dolls. There was somebody who snuck out the back door with four garbage bags full of stuff. There was my cousin who bought the bed off my uncle and paid for it a couple months later—COD. We watched the rest of them go inside and gather up all the things they wanted in garbage bags. We watched people pull pickup trucks to the front door and fill them full.
Stanley just sat and watched them all and said, “It’s like a bunch of damn vultures. It’s like a bunch of damn vultures licking a bone clean.”
Of course, we got something too, but we didn’t call ourselves vultures. A couple of days earlier, I told my uncle that all I wanted was Nathan’s checkerboard. And so the day after the funeral, my uncle came home holding the checkerboard and said, “Here.”
It was my Uncle Nathan’s checkerboard, all beat up and taped together in the middle. I sat and ran my fingers over the checkerboard and I thought about ghosts.
Crapalachia: A Biography of Place Page 11
