The Sarah Book

by Scott McClanahan

  We used to do nice things for another though. One night Sarah came home crying because she’d broken an old woman’s leg. She told me all you have to do is find a 90 year old woman who weighed 85 pounds and then just move her a little bit. Then you’d see what would happen, you’d see how fragile people are. The next night she came home crying again because a guy had projectile vomited in her mouth and he was HIV positive so she was going to have to take an AIDS test. The night after that she came home and complained about this creepy patient who kept masturbating in front of her. She tried to embarrass him in front of his new girlfriend by asking to change his colostomy bag, but the mad masturbator didn’t mind. The new girlfriend didn’t either. I told her it would be alright and that everything would be fine and I decided to do something to cheer her up. I looked at the schedule she kept on the side of the fridge and then I counted the number of days she had off this weekend. 1,2,3.

  It was getting warmer and winter was almost over. She’d mentioned the beach a few weeks before. So without telling her I got on the computer and I booked a hotel room. I saw the blue water inside my head and I saw Sarah happy. I found restaurants we could eat at and things we could do.

  Later that night she went to the bathroom and she shut the door. I thought I heard her crying. I knocked once and then twice.

  Sarah whispered, “Scott, I’m in the bathroom.” So I went away for a second but then I came back and I slid our hotel reservations beneath the door. I heard Sarah start laughing. “The beach. Thank god. If I had to spend one more day in this shit place, I was going to kill myself.”

  So we got our shit together for the beach. I imagined the sand and taking pictures of ourselves. I imagined the quiet in the morning and dolphins swimming and the boats on the horizon and then the slow fade until they disappeared.

  The night before we were supposed to leave, Sarah called me from work. When she said, “Hello” I could tell something was wrong. She told me that we couldn’t go to the beach and then she was quiet. I said it was okay and I asked her why and she told me that we couldn’t go to the beach because Becky’s father had a heart attack. She told me Becky needed to be with him and that there was no one else to cover Becky’s shift. Rhani was out of state and Mindy’s daughter was getting married. I told Sarah it was totally okay. I told Sarah that we could do it another time and then I told her we could cancel the hotel reservation and everything would be okay.

  But everything wasn’t okay. That night Sarah came home and I could tell she was sad. She told me that she had to take a body down to the morgue. It was this little old lady who was so sweet and after she died, Sarah went in and painted the old woman’s fingernails because the little old lady always liked it when Sarah painted her fingernails and toenails. But Sarah said she didn’t have time to paint the woman’s toes. She told this to the funeral home guy who picked her up and he told her it didn’t matter because the feet swelled so much after death they usually had to cut off the toes to get them to fit in the shoes for the funeral service. Then the funeral guy laughed and Sarah said she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. She hoped he was joking.

  But I told her not worry about it now. I told her everything was okay, but then Sarah said it seemed like no matter what good you tried to do it just turned out wrong in the end. The next morning she woke up feeling so down and went to work like always. I told her we’d go to the beach in the summer and I told her it’d be okay and then I watched her drive away.

  After she left that day, I got in my car and I drove to Walmart. It started snowing outside just a little bit and the sun was shining at the same time. But Walmart already had their spring shit out. I took a buggy and wheeled it around and I pushed my cart towards the swimming pool section and then I shopped. I picked out an inflatable horse to wear around our waists so we wouldn’t drown and then I dropped it in the buggy. I picked out an inflatable chicken to wear around our arms and I dropped it in the buggy. I picked out a snorkel and a pair of flip flops and I pulled out a big plastic pool and I balanced it on top of the buggy. I knew I should probably stop but then I drove to Lowes and bought some bags of sand. I felt my arms get heavy from picking them up and putting them in my cart.

  I drove home and untied the kiddie pool off the top of the car and I drug it inside and I looked at my watch. I was running out of time before Sarah got home. So I unloaded everything else from the trip and brought it inside. I put the plastic kiddie pool down in the middle of the living room floor and then I popped the bags of sand with my fingertips and poured each plastic bag full of sand into the swimming pool until the sand was ankle deep. I wadded up the empty plastic bags the sand came in and I threw them away. I put on the flip flops I bought and then I blew up the inflatable horse arms like this fooooooo and then I blew up the thingies for my arms like this fooooooooooo. And then I blew up the beach ball I bought. I blew foooo and watched everything grow and then I waited.

  That evening Sarah came home from work and I was ready. I put on my sunglasses and then the door opened slow and at first she didn’t see me as she unlocked the door, but then she looked up . And this is what she saw: the swimming pool, the sand, the beach ball, the beach.

  She saw my swimming trunks and my black socks. And then she started laughing. I told her I hoped she liked the beach and then I took her hand and I said, “Take your shoes off, but be careful because the sand is really hot today.” Sarah laughed some more. She kicked off her tennis shoes and then she pulled off both of her socks with her toes. Then she came and stood in the sand and so I took the bucket and we made a sand castle. She kissed me and we looked outside. The snow was spitting a weird spring snow and so I said, “Pretend.” And then we saw that the whole world was pretending again.

  But then a few months later, Sarah came home and she told me the greatest story of all. She told me she was going to have a baby.

  I didn’t think it could get any worse but it did. I sold my wedding ring one night after Sarah and I signed the papers so my friend Chris and I could go to Lady Godiva’s. I went to Cash 4 Gold with my friend Chris and the guy behind the counter looked at my wedding ring and said, “I’ll give you 250 dollars for it.”

  I said, “Sold.” I looked at Chris and then I looked at the guy and I asked for 20 dollars in ones. But then Chris decided he didn’t want to go. “What do you mean you don’t want to go?” I asked.

  Chris said, “Well, the last time we went I had a bad time.” Of course, the last time we went Chris had just got out of the ER because he’d found out his wife was pregnant with another man’s baby and he was threatening to take his own life. We decided to take him to Lady Godiva’s and cheer him up, but then one of the dancers had a hemorrhoid and this sent Chris into a suicidal spiral that he never fully recovered from.

  I told him it was going to be okay this time and we’d have fun. Then I told him, besides—he should do it for me. I was sick of teaching classes and I was sick of grading papers. I told him about how I saw one of my students on the local news program Crime Stoppers stealing from a Walmart and how some of my students just slept. They were bored with the world and I was bored with them. I was even sick of my ENG 206 classes. I told Chris all the students wanted to do was talk about whether the characters in the stories were good people or bad people or whether the writer was a good person or a bad person. Like this even existed.

  Chris pulled up outside the club and the lights glowed from the front of the building and the neon sign. The gravel crackled beneath the track of the tires. There was a sign above the parking lot that said Lady Godiva’s. And this was the place. I asked Chris if he had his ID and he said, “Yes.”

  So we got out of the car and I got my ID out and Chris got out his ID too. We could already hear the boom boom boom coming from inside the building and the walls were vibrating and I felt like we were vibrating too. We walked closer to the door and we tried to recognize the song that was playing on the inside. We wondered what it was and watched a couple of big coal miner
looking guys come stumbling out the front door. They looked like they were buzzing and the looks on their faces were like, “Hey if you look at me the wrong way I’ll stomp a brand new asshole in the middle of your forehead, boy.” I didn’t want somebody stomping a brand new asshole in the middle of my forehead so I tried not looking at them and I hoped Chris wasn’t looking at them either. We walked up the steps and we opened the front door and entered into a tiny closet sized room with a window and a big door. The hole at the bottom of the window opened up and we couldn’t see inside. We heard a muffled voice and we handed over our IDs and then we both waited. The sign next to the window said: NO FIREARMS ALLOWED.

  The guy behind the glass slid our IDs back to us like they were puzzle pieces. Then the door buzzed and unlocked and Chris pushed the door open and then the room just popped around us. There was music and there were cigarettes. And there was cigarette smoke. And there were girls with dyed blonde hair in bikinis and heels. And there were dark haired girls and there were big girls and there were stoned girls and everyone was wonderful. And there was a bar and there was a row of people sitting at the bar drinking drinks and drinking beer and there were naked dancers and one was on the stage twirling around and around and upside down and then down on her knees and picking up dollars. There were fat guys at the bar and skinny guys and all kinds of guys. Every type of heart in the world was here and we were all the secret people. We were sons and daughters and mothers and friends and no one could judge us and no one could know us because tonight we were together. Tonight we were alive. There was a dancer in the very back you could only see in the reflection which showed her dancing on a fat dude’s lap. And there were dancers standing at the bar and there were dancers sitting at the bar and it was beautiful. Chris and I sat down next to a truck driver looking guy and we ordered two beers and then a dancer walked over and started talking to Chris.

  I spun around on the bar stool and looked at the stage. A new girl came on and she spun around and I watched her walk a long walk and fall on all fours like a panther. Then she scissor kicked her legs and pushed her ass towards us. She gave her butt cheek a little smack and the butt cheek bounced and did a tiny ripple shake and then she looked at me and I looked at her.

  Then she finished dancing and another girl came out and I felt something drop inside. I recognized her. Or at least I thought I recognized her. She looked like a former student of mine. I spun back around on the bar stool and hoped she didn’t recognize me and then I saw her reflection in the mirror above the bar. She had tattoos at the top of her spine and on her shoulder blades were tattoos of cheetah spots or angel wings. So I leaned over and whispered to Chris and I asked if he wanted to leave, but he said we just got here and gave me a look like I was a dumbass. I wondered if I should just go and sit in the car, but I knew Chris would probably be here for a while.

  I was just about ready to get up and leave when I heard someone say, “Hey Mr. McClanahan. What are you doing here?” I looked at her and I saw Tiffany. And Tiffany didn’t look like she looked at school though. Her hair was all poofed and her eye makeup was put on thick and she sat down next to me and she was holding her cigarettes and a tiny sparkling purse. I took a sip from my beer and she smiled and said, “You should buy me a drink, Mr. McClanahan.” And so I did. Then we both laughed and she said, “Well, this is uncomfortable.” And then we talked about all of the secret lives we lead and how the true world is hidden from all of us. We both looked at ourselves in the mirror and the dancer spun and twirled on the stage behind us and then I asked her how long she’d been working here and what her stage name was. She looked at me with a fake sexy look and shook her head in a robot shake. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders and she whispered, “Misty Lee.” Then we both laughed again and she flicked her cigarette and the ashes glowed bright. She told me that she’d worked here for three years and the money really helped to take care of her sick grandmother and her son. She told me how she loved to dance. Then she said, “My Mawmaw is all I’ve ever had. She’s raised me since I was a baby. I’m all she has.” Then she smiled and said, “I’m sorry I dropped your class last year. I was having a hard time.” I told her it was okay and that she didn’t need to worry about it. I was still thinking about leaving.

  She said, “I’m sorry to say, but the stuff you gave us to read in class was just so boring.” And so I laughed because this was the only criticism I ever understood anyway. This was the only crime: boring people. I told her she was right and then she smiled. She reached out with one hand and touched my leg. I didn’t tell her to move it and I didn’t talk about the nature of ethical dilemmas. I didn’t tell her that my life was falling apart and that I was getting a divorce. I didn’t tell her that I was worried Sarah had met someone new and that I’d lost everything in my life. I didn’t tell her that I hoped her grandmother would be okay. I just picked at the label on the beer bottle and then she leaned in close to me and said, “So Mr. McClanahan, I have a question for you.”

  I said, “Yes.”

  She said, “Do you want to see my pussy tonight?”

  Of course, I should have said no. I should have got up and left immediately. But I didn’t say no and I didn’t get up to leave. I just smiled and nodded my head. And so she grinned and I grinned and she took me by the hand and led me into the back room where the mirrors were. I opened up my legs and she walked around them and between them and over them and stepped like a spider. I thought about the secret world and our secret lives and the lies of our minds. I kept thinking honest thoughts for the first time in a long time. I thought about how I was wearing clothes someone made somewhere in the third world and I didn’t care who. I ate fast food and shopped at stores that supported conservative causes and I didn’t care. I shopped at stores that were anti-union and I didn’t question why the boots I wore only cost 150 dollars instead of 400. I turned on lights and didn’t care about where it came from. I paid taxes each year to a country that made bombs to blow people up and I thought horrible thoughts about men and women and children too. I was a horrible person sometimes. Then I smiled and whispered to a world of imaginary people,

  “And you know what? You are too.”

  A few weeks after we signed the separation papers, I couldn’t sleep. I drank a six pack of beer, but that didn’t help either. I flipped and flopped on the cold couch until the couch got hot and then I started to sweat and shake. I tried sleeping on my stomach and then I tried sleeping on my side, but I still couldn’t sleep. I tried sleeping on my stomach and then I tried sleeping on my side again and then I tried sleeping on my back, but I started thinking, “You need to go by the house, Scott. You need to go by Sarah’s house.” So I got up and put on my clothes and tried to find my keys and I found them.

  I got in the car and started looking out for cops, but I didn’t see any. I drove up the hill to the house where I used to live and I drove down a side street and I parked in the parking lot of the apartment complex that was down from Sarah’s. I looked around and stopped across the street and then I went into the woods so I could sneak up behind the street. The moon was out and it was throwing shadows over everything. I kept looking up at the windows of the houses and I was afraid that one of the old women on the street would see me walking through the back yard like a thief and call the cops. I said, “Fucking cops.”

  I tiptoed up closer to the house and I watched it glow in the darkness. The yellow light was coming from the basement and it was coming from the windows and it was coming from the back of closed doors and glowing in the backyard. I walked closer to the light and that’s when I saw it. It was a brownish BMW with a WVU school of medicine license plate parked in the back yard behind our house. On the back of the car was a vanity license plate that said BABYDOC1. It was Dr. Jones’ car. I thought about keying his car, but instead I walked closer to the house.

  I walked up behind the back door and made sure I stood in the blackness of the night so no one could see me in the light. I looked inside the house. Th
ere were two people there. One was Jones and the other was Sarah. They were drinking out of tall glasses and they were talking. They were talking about how strange it is that people meet, how strange it is that we have come together how we have. I was about ready to scream at them that it was all chance, blind chance, and we’re only broken mirrors for one another, but then I stopped. I stopped because I noticed something and it was something that I hadn’t seen in Sarah’s eyes for years or maybe even ever. She looked different now.

  She looked happy.

  * * *

  But really that night I didn’t even think about pulling out my keys and scratching his car. I was drunk and I didn’t want there to be a confrontation and I didn’t even see Sarah. I ran back to my car after I saw his car and then I drove home. I kept telling myself on the way, “You’re almost home. You’re almost home.” When I got back to my apartment I called Sarah on the phone. It rang and rang and went straight to her voicemail. I hung up and called the house phone. It rang and nobody answered. I hung up and called again. It rang and then finally Sarah picked up. I called her a liar and she called me a selfish dick. I called her a cheater and she called me a cocksucker. I called her a bitch and she told me I was just having my man period like usual. She told me I was horrible and I was. She repeated, “Man period. Man period.” I tried to think up something I could say that would make her stop because I couldn’t think of any. Finally I thought up something. I said, “I’m going to call your Mom.” Then it was quiet and she started laughing. She laughed so much and said, “Scott, can’t you come up with anything better than that? I’m 37 years old.” I laughed too and then we laughed together, but then I got mad and I told her she was a cheater. She told me we were legally separated now and she knew I’d done worse talking to people online all the time and I was the one who was drunk all of the time and I was the cheater. Then she called me a dick. And I told her she was a whore and she told me I was a piece of shit.