The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. I

by Scott McClanahan

I went through this weird period about ten years ago where every time I went outside, I saw somebody get hit by a car.

I remember my 5th birthday party when I asked for Barbie dolls and the Barbie doll swimming pool (not because I wanted the pool but because I wanted to drink the water from the pool) and all of my uncles just shook their heads when I opened up my Barbie.

And so I just sat in my white pantyhose and my red lipstick and I imagined myself a soldier in some far away land, searching for something beautiful to kill.

I told her I was so lonely there was a fly living in my room for a couple of days and I couldn’t kill it. I told her I talked to it and pretended it talked to me.

And so I walked all the way back to my apartment watching the lights from the cars zipping down 3rd Avenue like stars. So I unlocked the door, and locked it behind me and I sat down beside the telephone in my tiny apartment, hoping the phone would ring—just like hopefully somebody will call 304-252-0430 right now, and then maybe I won’t be so lonely anymore.

I’ve had a good life. But I’m not doing any good. Tell my wife I love her. Please don’t feel sorry. But remember all of the good times. I’m going away now. Love, Jesse.

Would you tell me I was wrong if I said I had a dream about you last night? And in this dream I saw into your future. I saw you living a long and happy life. In this dream I saw you walking out the door tomorrow and finding true love, if you haven’t already. I saw your children growing healthy and strong and throwing their arms around you saying, “I love you Mommy. I love you Daddy. I love you forever.” I saw you living there in this future world without pain, surrounded by children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and knowing one thing in this world, knowing that you will never grow old, and knowing that you will never die.

So sometimes at night I just sat up in my bed and listened to all the mountain sounds. I’d leave a little night light on and listen to radio stations snapping and popping from as far away as New York or Atlanta. And sometimes I sat up with a candle light reading books by writers whose names I didn’t even know how to pronounce. So right before sleep I might shut my eyes and listen to the dogs barking outside—far away dogs, barking so loud like a ghost was walking among them. Sometimes I wished I was one of these dogs and sometimes I wished that ghost was me. And then at 11:30 the coal train came blowing through town just like every night. I listened as it blew and whistled and whispered. I imagined that coal train going somewhere just as I imagine it now, to Norfolk or the north. And then afterwards—Japan.

Quit checking your Goddamn e-mail so much. Flush that cell phone down the toilet. There’s a whole world outside. Let’s break into blossom.

And if I’m far away and gone and you want to find me, go to Rainelle, WV on any given night. The street will be empty at 11:30. So go there and listen for it and I’ll come running. We’ll ride where the black train takes us, deep into the mountains, deep into a place where no one knows our name, like our very own time machine, taking us not far into the future, but deep into the past, before any of the towns were here, before we were even born. We’ll be dinosaurs then and at last we won’t even exist. Thank God. And so now you’re saying, “What’s that sound?” I say, “That’s the sound of the coal train coming. It’s coming to take us away.”