Hill William

by Scott McClanahan

  He quit chain sawing and shook my hand.

  I told him I was up seeing Bobbie but he was busy for the moment.

  “Yeah, he’s got him a new girl from what I hear,” he said. He smiled and took out a cigarette. “I told him to be careful and not wear her out. You can’t trade ‘em in for a new model once you wear that shit out.”

  We laughed.

  I pointed to the mountains. “Man, they’re really stripping the hell out of them,” I said.

  “Yeah, they even have NO TRESPASSING signs posted. I guess it’s easier to do whatever you want if you can arrest anybody who happens to be checking up on what you’re doing.”

  We talked and I asked him about Derrick. I told him I heard he was married and they were all living here in the house together. He grinned shy for a second, and then he lit his cigarette. He shook his head.

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Oh really,” I said.

  Then he told me. Frank said one day he came home from the woods and Derrick’s wife was gone. He said she took the kids too. Frank told me he was getting really close with those kids, but she just took them. I didn’t say anything and listened to him and then I finally asked, “Well, where’s Derrick?”

  He shook his head and grinned his gummy grin. “Don’t know.”

  Then he was quiet.

  He said, “He just took off too. Nobody knows where he’s at. I heard he was working up north.”

  He scratched his tattooed arms and blew his cigarette smoke and said, “Of course, we haven’t heard from him in more than a year now. Haven’t heard from the wife either.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I told him I met Sissy’s husband or at least I saw him. Then I said, “I was sorry to hear about Sissy’s premature baby. I’m sure everything will be okay.”

  Frank smoked and flicked the cigarette ash and kept looking at me. I said, “Things have a way of working out for the best.”

  Frank smoked and smiled again and looked like he was confused.

  I repeated, “They showed me the picture of Sissy’s baby and I’m sure it will be okay.”

  Frank said, “Be okay. Those goddamn women. I swear they won’t let it go.”

  I said, “What?”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He shook his head.

  Then he said, “That baby is dead.”

  “What?”

  Frank said, “That baby died two weeks ago. We buried it at Erma’s home place, but they won’t accept it. They keep talking like it’s still here and not in the ground, but it’s in the ground. They keep taking out those pictures and talking like it still has a chance of making it.”

  He smoked and shook his head and said, “Damn women.”

  I looked down and kicked a chunk of wood. The ground was littered with hundreds of cigarette butts sitting in the grass like dandelions. He said, “Walter came in for the funeral.”

  I tried acting like this made things better and I asked how he was doing.

  “Family Dollar is still suing him because of the water bed incident.”

  “What?”

  “He was living in an apartment above Family Dollar and Walter was jumping on his waterbed. The water bed popped and all the water poured down on Family Dollar.”

  He smiled and said, “I guess you know he doesn’t live in town anymore.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he moved to North Carolina after the water bed popped. I guess they understand his kind better in North Carolina.” I smiled and thought about North Carolina.

  We talked for a few more minutes and then I told him I better make it back and see Bobbie. I told him I was sure he was done by now.

  “That boy is nothing but trouble and that cousin of his too,” Frank said and smiled and started tugging at the chainsaw cord. “You watch out if you’re walking back the path to the welfare apartments. Like I said they have those signs posted.” The saw started and smoked and he pulled the trigger and let it rip and run.

  I waved goodbye and he nodded a bye nod back to me. I started walking back towards Bobbie B’s, but before I did I walked up to the woods and then I walked to the rock pile and then the dirt pile again.

  I walked down where the devil worshippers were. I walked by the creek and looked for crawdads. I walked by the old tree stand. Then I walked up to the sandstone fields and the fossil rocks and thought about Sissy’s baby. There were NO TRESPASSING signs posted everywhere. The chainsaws were ripping from far away and the dynamite was blowing the mountains into smaller mountains. I was just about ready to leave when I saw something move. I looked closer and saw what it was.

  “Holy fuck,” I said. “It can’t be.”

  I rushed over.

  It was a turtle.

  I picked it up and turned the turtle over on its belly to see if it was the same one. I searched for our markings on the soft belly, but I couldn’t tell if they were the markings from so long ago.

  I asked the turtle, “Was it real? Did we even exist at all?”

  The turtle hissed and peed on my hands, but it didn’t answer. He batted his black eye and his shell shut tight until he was safe inside.

  I thought about throwing him for a second and watching him fly, but then I remembered Walter’s words and put him down soft. I pushed him back down beside his rock and I said a prayer. I said a prayer for Sissy and Sissy’s child. I said a prayer for Derrick and a prayer for Walter and then I said a prayer for me too. I prayed these prayers even though I didn’t know what I was praying to anymore.

  I walked up to the side of the mountain like I used to do when I was a little boy. I looked out over Rainelle and watched it shine. The coal trucks and the logging trucks were still gunning it through town. They were still clear cutting the mountains and cutting the coal from the ground. Then I heard my mother calling and it was like I was a child again. I saw the mountain graves and the baby mountain bellies and I asked myself the question, “Are they pregnant bellies ready to birth babies or are they graves full of skeleton skulls?” I waited for the answer but no one answered. I didn’t know the answer either. I saw the mountains shine.

  So I dropped to the dirt and I thought about Bobbie B’s cousin who fucked the earth. I listened to the mountains being blown and I heard the trees come crashing and crackling down. I sat on my knees a praying man and felt the wet dirt start soaking through my jean knees. I unbuckled my belt and pulled down my pants and flopped against the ground until I felt my heart beat beating against the dirt. My ass glowed beneath the setting sun. I felt my heart beat bounce around inside my head. Then I felt the beat bounce again against the ground. I pushed my thumb down deep into the dirt and I started digging. I made a dark tunnel with my thumb and finally it looked like a mole hole in a place where a black snake might sleep. Then I spit wet into my hand and it shined and sparkled. I wrapped this wet and sparkle around me.

  Then I put myself in the dirt.

  I grabbed the grass with both hands and I started pushing myself inside. I felt the dirt at the bottom of my skin grave push back against me. I felt the rocks and dirt clods ripping against my dick skin and I was bleeding and making the dirt red. I saw how I was the one who made everything bloody. I made the fire inside the mountain fire, and I made the chainsaw saw all the trees away. They fell to the ground and rotted like wooden skeletons. I made myself slide up and down in the dirt and felt myself falling. I slipped inside the sticky soil. I took my fists and started punching chunks of the mountain away. I took my hand and tore away the trees and threw them into the sky. I made the mountains explode with dynamite until the trees started falling and the rocks and trees came and covered up the town. I looked below at the dirt and saw my sticky mixing together with the ground and the rock and the blood.

  I said, “I don’t hate you.”

  I said, “I don’t love you.”

  I made my ground become something new now. I destroyed the mountains and made them disappear. I made the world flat again. I fucked my earth.

>   So I stood up and I saw that the town and the hills and the valleys were gone. I said, “Thank GOD,” because I could see something else. I could see past the mountains that were mountains no more. I could see all the way across this flat ground and I could see something else in the distance and it was sparkling for me.

  I could see the diamond sky and planets circling.

  So at last I remembered the secret of eternal life from so long ago. Do you remember the church? So I sit and write the story I’ve just told you and I end the story saying, “I could see all of the way to the ocean.” Then I saw my flesh become a book—a book you’re holding in your hands and have been holding for days. I’ve been inside of you these last moments and we have become one.

  So say these words like a spell and it shall be true.

  Your name is me.

  Your name is me.

  And even though I’m far away by now, I have a new name too.

  My new name is you.

  My new name is you.

  My new name is you, and I am whispering something to you.

  I’m whispering…

  I LOVE YOU.

  Your secrets are safe with me.

  Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories V! and The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan, Volume 1.

  He also wrote Crapalachia.

  He runs Holler Presents with Chris Oxley.

  You can reach him at hollerpresents.com.