Crapalachia: A Biography of Place (17 page)

 

Out of the 11 children, 5 of them committed suicide. It could have been six. It could have been four. My dad doesn’t know for sure. He said he would have to check. He said he wasn’t really sure how many children there even were in Elgie’s family. Elgie’s mother died when he was young so no one ever talked about it. I told my dad that once four children commit suicide what does it really matter if it’s five or six or four? Who knows?

 

I have never had a million babies explode from my smile and start running all over the world. I am looking forward to that day though.

 

For some reason I decided to call my father Uncle Stanley in this book. I was tired of writing about my mom and dad in the books
Stories
,
Stories II
,
Stories V!
and
Hill William
. So whenever my Uncle Stanley says something in this book (minus his comment about homosexual marriage and the word
sheeeeett
) it is actually my father who is speaking in real life.

 

It was around the time of Ruby’s mastectomy that I found out that Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars weren’t really from Mars. I was further shocked when I found out that Ziggy Stardust was actually a man named David Bowie. I was even more shocked when I found out David Bowie’s real name was David Jones, but he changed it for commercial reasons. There was already a singer who was using the name Davy Jones.

 

I’ve been thinking about the story of the little girl getting her toes cut off all weekend, and I’m not sure if it was plural
toes
. I keep thinking that maybe it was only a big toe.

 

I never actually lived with Ruby and Nathan. I only stayed with them for extended periods of time. I was at Ruby’s at least two or three days every week of my entire life. Two of my earliest memories are playing in Ruby’s apple trees and her putting Vicks salve on my chest. I remember the way her bedspread felt on my soft skin when I slept with her at night. I never actually intentionally define whether I lived with Ruby and Nathan, but many people have assumed this was the case. What may have felt like vague family parameters is actually nothing more than the “crapalachian/scot/irish” concept of the extended family.

 

I never poured beer down Nathan’s feeding tube. Ruby wouldn’t have stood for that. There was less freedom for Nathan than what was in this book. However, he constantly begged me to bring him a six-pack. He would do this as a joke and sometimes he wouldn’t. When Rhonda gave him Ensure he used to tell us it was a six-pack. I let him drink the beer in this book because I wanted to give him a chance to be free for a moment. I wanted to give him a chance to enjoy something. This is the truth of my Nathan.

 

The line of dialogue about Ruby telling me not to eat the gallstones was never said by Ruby. She did have her gallbladder removed but she never said this line of dialogue. I created it from a story that concerned my Aunt Bernice and my Uncle Leslie. My Aunt Bernice had her gallbladder removed as well. When Bernice awoke from the anesthesia my Uncle Leslie came into the room. The doctor had put her gallstones in an orange pill bottle on the table beside her bed. My Uncle Leslie tried to make Bernice take them because he thought they were medicine. My Aunt Bernice said, “That’s not my medicine. Those are my gallstones.”

 

In the last few years of Ruby’s life my dad and the other brothers had a falling out with my Uncle Stanley over some borrowed money. My Uncle Leslie went over to Stanley’s house to ask for the borrowed money back. He took off his boots. Stanley threatened to kick his ass. My dad said Leslie deserved to get his ass kicked if he took his boots off before asking for the money.

 

I called my dad Uncle Stanley because I wanted to bring Stanley back into the family. I wanted to put the family back together again. I wanted to call the prodigal son home. I wanted to make him someone important in this book. So I took what my father said and did, and I said my Uncle Stanley said and did it. I made him my father. I made them one. I heard Stanley had a heart attack last year. When a family is cut open—this is what happens. People you loved, people whose houses you’ve stayed in, people who you have known forever, become strangers to you. They have heart attacks and you don’t even call. You don’t even remember. My Uncle Stanley was the first man to take me fishing. My Uncle Stanley was the first man I saw drink a beer without shame. He didn’t hide it. My Uncle Stanley was the first man who fed me pizza when I was a baby.

 

My mother said this to me the other night. “Why are you calling this book
Crapalachia
? That’s not a good title. It’s a horrible title.” I told her, “No it’s not. It’s a good title. Shit makes the flowers grow.”

 

I wanted to put the story of John Henry in this book, but I left it out for some reason. John Henry battled the steam engine. The town of Talcott, West Virginia, claims this battle happened there. Did it really? In my dreams it did. God bless the myths of this world. God bless those who keep trying to make myths. It’s all we have.

 

Actually Rhonda is the one who took the pictures of the dead faces to Rite Aid. There is no way you could walk to Rite Aid. You had to drive. Rite Aid was twenty miles from Ruby’s house. I had the conversation with her about the pictures though.

 

Little Bill’s lice actually happened in the 3rd grade, not junior high.

Mrs. Powell wasn’t the junior high math teacher. Mrs. Powell was actually our 3rd grade teacher. I wanted to put her name in this book so that her generations will know how nervous she made me feel.

 

I never sent a letter for Nathan. I did write one though, but I wrote it on behalf of myself. “I wrote a love letter for a girl once. I gave it to her and later that day I overheard her making fun of me. I overheard her making fun of my love.” I just heard that line in a movie I’m watching, so I wrote it down and decided to put it in my book. I wanted this moment of watching a movie to last too.

 

The character of Little Bill is made up of two people. It is a composite character. The first part of the character is made up of a school friend of mine whose name was Bill Terry. The second part of his character is made of a person named Phil Crookshanks. They were my friends. I knew them. Why did I do this? I’m getting older. It seems like all of my friends from long ago are slowly becoming one friend. Even now I actually have trouble keeping them apart. Bill was the one who had lice. Bill was the one who murdered. Phil was the one who couldn’t stop thinking the bad thoughts and who loved the beautiful Janette. Phil was the one I lived with.

 

There were things I didn’t write about Phil. I didn’t write about not having any money and asking Phil to drive me to the mall. It was December and the mall was far away. It was snowing but we took off in the late afternoon. We listened to Queen. We ordered our Chick-fil-A with our pennies. We sat and ate it and it tasted wonderful. It tasted like we would never be hungry again. Freddie Mercury is still amazing.

 

There is another story I didn’t write about Phil because it would make me look bad. This is one of the things I’m ashamed of. We were in high school and I saw him at one of the football games. I was hanging out with these two girls. We’d just come back from the woods and we were drinking whiskey out of a plastic Mountain Dew bottle. I was with two girls and I said, “You know what? You look like a Cro-Magnon man.”

A few years later I was drinking brandy in our room. We were roommates now. I was with two girlfriends again. I was laughing and having a good time being drunk. One of the girls wanted to leave because I kept kissing her friend and she kept kissing me back. Then Bill turned to me and there were tears in his eyes. He said, “So you think I look like a Cro-Magnon man, huh?” He started crying when he said it. It had been years but he was still hurt by it. I didn’t know what he meant for a few moments. I had forgotten, but he remembered. One day I will pay for these things.

 

So I took these shadows of my friends and placed them together. The generations are becoming one.

 

I actually worry I should change the names of the real people in this book. I worry they will track me down and kill me. That’s the problem with telling the truth. That’s the only thing I’m worried about, a beating. I’ll get it one day. That’s a fact. Maybe.

 

You can find re-runs of
Walker, Texas Ranger
on many channels. Check your local listings. It’s the best piece of art you’ll ever find. If you can watch it without irony, you’ll understand Nathan. It’s not a comedy. Remember that.

 

Nathan tried to take his life years earlier, not before his death. It was the early ’80s and I was a child, but it happened this way. I put the way he tried to take his life in the middle of the Rhonda story.

 

Nathan McClanahan, Elgie McClanahan, and Ruby McClanahan are buried on Backus Mountain near Layland, WV. Their graves are waiting for flowers. I haven’t visited them in years.

 

This book should not be thought of or included in a genre of literature called the Appalachian Minstrel Show. The names of writers who have written in this genre include Lee Smith, Mary Lee Settle, Silas House, and a list that goes on and on. They know who they are.

 

The recipe in this book is not Ruby’s recipe. Ruby didn’t use recipes. This is a recipe I googled. My wife said, “What is the problem with these women? They never write anything down.” You had to watch them to know. You had to be there to learn. If you cook this recipe you will be bringing someone else to life. Ruby’s cooking is forever lost to my generations.

 

I stole the title of the chapter YOU CAN’T PUT YOUR ARMS AROUND A RECIPE from a Johnny Thunders song. I changed the word
memory
to
recipe
.

 

The line about the crazy ass rivers means the Tigris and Euphrates. Our whole entire fucked up world is because of geography.

 

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, “Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?” It’s just a painting.

 

I didn’t live with Bill during high school. I lived with my mom and dad. I lived with Bill (Phil) years afterwards. Actually my grandmother died after I lived with Bill. I lived with Bill at college, but college never appears in Appalachian books. We can’t admit these sorts of things. We can’t admit we’ve gone to malls. We can’t admit we’ve gone to restaurants. We can’t admit we dream our dreams. People won’t believe you.

 

The days are correct on Nathan’s funeral notice, but the years aren’t.

 

I’m not sure why I keep talking about skipping school. We went to school all of the time. I bought a book on film at a yard sale. It was published in the mid-sixties. I read about
The 400 Blows
and I wanted to be a bad kid. I wanted to skip school and escape from reformatories. I read Huck Finn. I wanted to be a runaway. I wasn’t running. I was a good kid. I listened to my parents. I loved them. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I didn’t want to break their hearts. I still feel like lighting out for the territories.

 

Dr. Mustafa Mahboob is still in Beckley. He is still accepting patients. You can look him up in the phone book and set up an appointment for psychiatric help today. It might make you feel better to talk to someone.

 

Lee Brown. I cut a couple of Lee Brown stories out of this book, but I want to put them back in. I won’t though. If you ever meet me, just ask me about them and I will tell you. I want him to be remembered.

 

Pit Row wasn’t below the apartment. We couldn’t look down from the window and see Pit Row. I’ve told the story this way for so long that I can’t move it back. Stories can actually rearrange continents if they’re told long enough. It’s actually in the Bible. Matthew 15:6-7 states, “If you only had the faith of mustard seeds and stories—we could move mountains and the location of gas stations.”

 

For actual cassette tapes of these prank phone call conversations—you should contact Sergeant First Class Charles Wayne Tiller at his air force base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As teenagers we taped them and he still has the cassette tapes. The last time I listened to one was about five years ago. We also have a prank phone call we made to Jim Leyland and Tommy Lasorda. If you called the Pirates ticket line 1-800-Go-Bucs and let it ring through without choosing any option, an operator would pick up. You simply had to say “clubhouse” and the telephone would ring into the managerial offices. Tommy Lasorda actually called Reinaldo a faggot. Tommy Lasorda was an obvious homophobe.

 

I wasn’t in high school when the Sago Mine disaster happened. I graduated high school in 1996. This happened years later. When this happened, I was living in the house I live in now. I was watching college football bowl games that entire week.

 

I wouldn’t put midget the dog on the list of things I’ve loved anymore. I really hated that fucking dog. I wouldn’t put Arlene Maguire or Tom Maguire into this list either. I understand why you divorced one another.

 

The police never questioned me. I was in the 9th grade when the school break-in happened. Besides, I never lived with Bill Terry. I lived with Phil Crookshanks. Bill Terry was the one who broke into the school with this kid named Alvin. No one knows who truly took a shit in the principal’s desk.

 

For the specifics of the murder you should see
The State of West Virginia vs. Bill Terry
. It should be on file in the Greenbrier County, WV, courthouse. If you have LexisNexis, I’m sure you can find it. Bill Terry was a good kid. He was shy. I’ve never met someone so shy. He had the blondest hair of any of my friends.