The Sarah Book

by Scott McClanahan

  They didn’t know what the hell the other was talking about. We never do.

  That afternoon the psych nurse told Sarah about the nightmares inside of the schizophrenic guy’s mind. There were devils and death and righteousness and rot and feces and a hand exploding. But then the next day he was still talking to the voices inside his head and they gave him medicine.

  He wasn’t getting any better though.

  So they zonked him out and he wasn’t getting any better.

  Sarah had an idea. Sarah looked at where his devil woman hallucination always sat and said, “Can you believe she just said that?” The schizophrenic guy looked at Sarah like someone finally understood.

  He said, “Yeah she’s always running her mouth like that. You can’t get her to stop. You just have to ignore her skank ass.”

  Sarah had another idea. She walked over to where the hallucination was standing or at least where the schizophrenic guy was looking and Sarah took her finger and pointed at the devil woman and shouted, “You know what? I really think you need to shut your big ass mouth, bitch.”

  The schizophrenic guy looked like someone was finally making sense. Someone was finally helping. And Sarah acted like the devil woman was trying to start some shit.

  She said, “What did she say?”

  The schizophrenic guy said, “I hate to tell you this nurse but she called you a ‘cunt’ a few minutes ago.”

  Sarah said, “She called me a what?”

  So Sarah started wrestling with the air. She punched a punch and she kicked a kick and she started putting the air into a headlock before she finally kicked another kick until the devil woman ran out of the door in a zoom.

  Sarah shouted after her, “I don’t ever want to see your tramp ass again or I’m gonna rip out those fake ass hair extensions. You trashy bitch.”

  Then Sarah smacked her hands together and said, “Shoo wee.”

  The schizophrenic guy said, “Thank god she’s gone. Finally.”

  Sarah smiled and knew the world was just one big hospital and we were all trapped inside of it. Then she thought about the invisible things. She thought about gravity and she thought about wind and she thought about the most invisible thing of all.

  Day after day it was like this. We had our days of debauchery and lived our lives and Sarah came home and told me about how crazy her fellow nurses were. She told me how she caught one of them screaming at an 80 year old man. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to clean your fucking foreskin? You must have had a horrible mother.”

  She told me about what nurses spend their money on.

  Titties. Fake Titties. She told me about how one of the nurses used a credit card to pay for a breast augmentation and then defaulted on her credit card. Sarah asked the nurse if she was nervous about not paying back the money for her operation.

  The ER nurse just pushed out her chest and wiggled her tits around and said, “I’m not worried. They don’t repossess titties, girl.”

  * * *

  Then Sarah told me about the old man who was her favorite patient.

  He was this patient who had diabetes and who’d just had his leg amputated. Sarah told him he looked like a pirate now since he only had one leg. The old man didn’t hear her at first but then he smiled and said, “Argg matey.” The old man didn’t have any family though and he didn’t have anyone come visit him ever. The old man was almost deaf or at least all of the nurses thought he was almost deaf until one night Sarah noticed that his ears were dirty.

  “Gracious, it looks like you need your ears cleaned,” Sarah said and took out her tweezers. She pulled out the clot of wax and looked at it. The wax was the size of a baby finger.

  “I bet that feels better,” Sarah said.

  All of a sudden the old man shouted, “I can hear. It’s a miracle. I can hear.” But it wasn’t a miracle. It was just ear wax.

  Then one night Sarah told me a story about death. It was three o’clock in the morning when they brought this young man back to the ICU and he was already brain dead really, but they were keeping him alive. They were keeping him alive so his mother could drive from North Carolina and say goodbye. Sarah took report from the ER nurse who told her, “Gunshot wounds to the chest and the spine and throat. It had happened a few hours earlier. A family disagreement.” There was also another shot that was lodged in his skull. Sarah looked at the young man and touched his arm and listened to the ER nurse finish report. She told Sarah that the patient had come from North Carolina for the weekend to protect his sister from an abusive boyfriend. Her brother brought his pistol and there was a confrontation with the abusive boyfriend. Shots were fired and here he was.

  Sarah imagined about what his day had been like. She imagined how earlier that day he had been playing video games with his nephew. She imagined how earlier that day he’d been throwing the football. He kissed his sister’s cheek and touched her pregnant stomach and then that night he was shot and now here he was and he was dying. So Sarah called the dying man’s mother on her cell phone and updated his status. The mother had Sarah put the phone to her son’s ear. She told her son to stay alive. She told her son she loved him in case she didn’t make it there in time and then Sarah hung up the phone and she checked his vitals again. It beeped in the background and then it beeped again. She went and hung another IV. She saw the tattoos on his knuckles and the teardrop on his cheek. She saw the claw on the side of his neck. Then Sarah thought of the worst tattoos she’d ever seen.

  There was the one where she took off this kid’s pants one night and he had two tattoos. There was one on each knee. On the right knee it said, “Fuck” and on the left knee it said, “You.”

  So Sarah smiled and thought about another tattoo she saw on a guy who overdosed. It was on his bicep and it said, “Mother. The only lips of another man’s wife I’ve ever kissed.”

  Sarah straightened up the sheet on the man who had been shot. It rested and twisted beneath all of the tubes. Then she looked down and saw a tattoo that ran the length between his hips and above his pubic hair. It ran straight across him and just below his stomach. Sarah wondered, “What did it say?”

  Sarah pulled the gown and the sheet away for a moment and she looked at it. It said, The Bedroom Bandit. Sarah laughed and then she whispered to her friend Rhani who was standing outside in the hallway and filling out a chart. “Hey Rhani, come here.” Then she wiggled her little finger come here and Rhani finally walked into the room. She asked Sarah, “What?” and Sarah lifted the sheet and pointed out the tattoo. The Bedroom Bandit. Rhani laughed too and then she looked close.

  “What is that beneath it?” Rhani asked and then they both looked closer. There were two small pistols beneath the words The Bedroom Bandit. And the two small pistols were smoking and beneath the two small pistols were tattoos of something else.

  “What is it?” Sarah said.

  Rhani smiled and said, “Pussies.”

  So Sarah looked closer and it was true. It was two tattooed pussies and the pussies were smoking too. But then they both heard something outside in the hallway. Rhani left the room and went back to work and then Sarah turned around and another nurse said, “His mother is here.”

  Sarah quickly covered back up the bedroom bandit’s tattoo. She knew this wasn’t something he ever expected his mother to see. The mother came in like she was in a trance.

  She walked over to her son and she whispered, “My baby. My baby.”

  She stopped crying and she thanked the bandit for being her son and she thanked god for allowing her to be his mother. She told him he was a good son. She told him she would see him again one day in heaven.

  Sarah reached down and tried to make sure the sheet stayed put around the bedroom bandit tattoos. But then the mother moved her arm from around her son and the sheet slipped.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Sarah said and tried to pull the sheet back up so the mother couldn’t see the tattoo. But then the mother saw it all and stopped Sarah.

&nbs
p; The mother said, “What’s this on my son?”

  The mother looked at the tattoo and didn’t say anything. she took her fingers and ran them over the length of the tattoo. The B. The E. The D.

  Sarah said, “I guess sometimes we do things and we don’t think our mothers will ever see them.” His mother didn’t say anything. She told Sarah, “No, I’m glad he liked life. I’m glad. And it looked like life liked him back.” Then the mother told Sarah that he was a good son and she wanted Sarah to know that. Sarah smiled too and his mother was still smiling a soft smile an hour later when they removed her son from life support. The mother held his hand and kissed his swollen face. And then she told him to go home. To go home. He never belonged to her anyway.

  Then Sarah thought of all the true tattoos we never get. She wondered why people didn’t tattoo themselves with the truth like I am not a butterfly. I am not a unicorn. I am not a snake. I’m afraid. I’m dead inside.

  But these are the tattoos we wear inside our skin. These are the tattoos placed on the tissue of our hearts and they all say the same thing, we are all losing the things we love.

  I thought Sarah had a boyfriend maybe. Even though I’d already moved out and we were getting ready to sign the separation papers, I was still coming over to the house and watching the kids when she was gone. So one afternoon after she left for work I went into the back bedroom and went through her stuff. I opened up the tiny drawers of her jewelry box and looked through them for some kind of proof. I opened drawers full of her clothes and shut drawers full of her clothes thinking I’d find the love letters from someone new. I opened and shut drawers and listened to the children cry from their high chairs in the kitchen. I shouted, “It’s okay babies. Just hold on. Dad-dy’s trying to find proof that mommy is cheating.” The kids didn’t care and kept screaming like I was just a paranoid asshole. So I went back to looking. I picked up an old yellow purse she’d been using earlier in the week and I went through it. I found some wadded up chewing gum wrappers and an old empty pill bottle from the weight loss clinic.

  I threw the old diet pill bottle back in the purse and I heard the children shouting some more so I said, “Settle down children, your mother is on drugs. She’s on speed.” I put the purse back in the closet. Then I went through some dirty clothes she had in the corner and I emptied out her pants pockets and I found more lists. There were lists that said, “Gray Goose vodka and tattoos.” Tattoos? Then I found a wadded up white post it note and on the white post it note was someone’s handwriting and a phone number 304-979-5450. I took the white post it note and walked into the kitchen and quieted the kids down. I handed Iris some grapes and I gave Sam a set of plastic keys to keep him occupied. I didn’t tell them that I found the phone number of their mom’s new boyfriend and how the man on the other end was the one breaking up our family.

  They just played and giggled and ate. I picked up the phone in the kitchen and tried to dial the number with shaky hands. The phone rang and I tried thinking about what I was going to shout at him or if she was with him now. The phone immediately went to voicemail. And then I heard the bastard’s voice. “You’ve reached Scott McClanahan of Beckley College. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.” Fuck. The children stared at me like I was a dumbass.

  I said,“Don’t look at me like that. It’s an honest mistake. How many times have I ever called myself at work?”

  So I decided to chill the fuck out. I told them that this still didn’t explain the receipt for the department store that said men’s wear from a month ago. I fed them and I cleaned them and then I sat them in front of the TV. I went to where we kept the new computer and I logged on to the department store’s website. I looked at the product number on the receipt. 7aj665. In the other corner of the receipt it said: quantity. 3. I imagined dress shirts and ties. I imagined sports jackets and new pants. I imagined new clothes she’d bought for a new boyfriend. I tried to type the item number in the search bar of the department store website but nothing came up. I pulled down to men’s wear on the web page and watched the department page pop up. I scrolled through the department page searching through the item numbers. There was 7aj658, 7aj675, 7aj621. I couldn’t find it. That evening before I put the kids to bed I was packing some of the clothes I left behind and I realized there was a bag from a department store over in the corner. Inside the bag were three packages of underwear that Sarah had bought a month before. The men’s wear was mine.

  I decided to stop acting crazy. A week or so later I talked to her on the phone when I was at work and Sarah said her mom was coming over to watch the kids because Sarah needed to say goodbye to her friend Kimmy. Kimmy was leaving the hospital for another job. I knew Sarah had worked with Kimmy for years. I said, “Well, tell your boyfriend I said hi.” Sarah asked me how I was doing with the paranoia and I told her I felt like I was doing better. We laughed some more and then we hung up and I went back to work and then just a few minutes later the old thoughts started creeping in. I thought, “She has someone else and that’s the reason for the divorce.” I thought, “She has a boyfriend and is making up that Kimmy story. She’s going to go see him I bet.”

  I left my office and got in my car. I drove down the mountain and got caught at the red light. I said, “Come on. Come on.” I waited and I wondered what was wrong with me. I thought about long ago when she loved me and I thought about how she walked barefoot in the shadows of our floor. I thought about the sounds we made. I thought about how I went and got us hamburgers from Wendy’s on that first night we were together and we ate them in the kitchen with the lights off. I thought about how the sound of poems felt inside my mouth. But now the red light turned green and I drove. I felt my heartbeat and I thought about Dr. Jones and I remembered years before when we saw him at the mall and Sarah’s eyes were shining. And I thought at the time that she’d never looked like that at me. He was a lung surgeon who moved into the area. Lungs: Where we breathe and live.

  I thought, “I’m not going to the hospital because she probably isn’t saying goodbye to Kimmy at the hospital. I bet she’ll be at Dr. Jones’ office.” I pulled into the clinic of where Dr. Jones’ office was and I passed the cars in the parking lot looking for Sarah’s. I saw a Ford mini van. I saw a Dodge mini van. I saw a bunch of beat up cars with plastic in the window spaces and I saw a bunch of doctor cars and I saw a Toyota. I saw another Dodge mini van and I saw a black Honda CRV. I stopped my car and got out and then I looked inside. There were two children car seats inside. There was the car seat of Iris and there was the car seat of Sam. The children were with her mother. I thought, “Motherfucker. I’ve caught you. You’re not going to see Kimmy. You’re going to see Jones.”

  So I walked into the office complex and decided to just stand behind the door of Jones’ office. I wanted to see who might come out. I sat and waited. The door opened once.

  It wasn’t Sarah.

  The door opened twice.

  It wasn’t Sarah.

  The door opened three times. No Sarah.

  But then the door opened again and there was Sarah walking out of Dr. Jones’ office. She looked skinny and stepped with a quick step to her car. I walked past her and said, “How’s Jones doing?” Sarah looked confused. “Scott? What? I was seeing Kimmy.” I saw anger flash across her face. She shouted, “Goddamnit,

  Scott,” and then she started shouting and yelling and telling me she was sick of my shit. She told me I needed to see a psychiatrist. I started apologizing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She said, “I told you I was going to say goodbye to Kimmy. It’s her last day. It’s this type of shit that made me ask for the divorce in the first place.”

  I told her I thought Kimmy worked at the hospital with her, not in Jones’ office and then Sarah told me I was an idiot. She told me Kimmy worked in Jones’ office. Then she repeated. “I’m fucking sick of this. I’m so fucking sick of it.” Then she slammed the door to the car and shouted at me from the open window of the car. “Kimmy hasn’t worked in t
he ICU for years. She’s been working in this office since she left the ICU.”

  So imagine me mouthing the words, “I’m sorry.” And imagine Sarah pulling away.

  I drove out of the doctor’s parking lot and I told myself to stop being crazy again. I took some deep breaths but then I started thinking about the bad things. I thought, “I bet she’s lying though. I bet Kimmy doesn’t work there.” I drove all the way back to my office and I thought up a plan. I’ll look up Dr. Jones’ office number and see if Kimmy really works there. I sat at my desk and looked up the number on my computer. I looked through the people who worked in the office on the website and I didn’t see anybody named Kimmy. I saw a Margaret and I saw a Samantha but no Kimmy. I figured that this Kimmy didn’t even exist. My hands were shaking so bad I dialed the wrong number. I started again and dialed the number to the doctor’s office and then the phone rang. And then I waited.

  A voice answered. “Hello, this is Dr. Jones’ office.”

  I asked the man, “Yes sir, is Kimmy there?”

  I knew Sarah was busted.

  The man voice said, “Yes, this is she. This is Kimmy.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  It was Kimmy. And she wasn’t a man. Her name was Kimmy and she was a woman. Her name was Kimmy and she existed. So I told her I was sorry and then I hung up. I knew I was wrong about everything and I hoped I’d never be right about anything ever again.

  The next day Sarah called me and said we needed to sign papers. We didn’t get lawyers though. We just met at the courthouse lobby and we didn’t say anything to one another. Sarah’s face was all puffy and she had tissues in her hands and she kept wiping her nose and crying. Her hands shook when she handed me the papers and she cried some more and I touched her hand. Then she signed. Then she signed again. Then she signed some more. Then I signed. Then I signed again. And then I signed some more. I told her I didn’t want this and I wanted her to change her mind. Sarah told me she would make copies and file them with the court. Then she gave me the second set of papers we signed. So this was the beginning of the end. We just had to take a child parenting class now and the divorce date would be set. It was all so easy. And it was all so fucking boring. Just like our lives.