American Salvage

THE SOLUTIONS TO BRIAN’S PROBLEM

solution #1 Connie said she was going out to the store to buy formula and diapers . While she’s gone, load up the truck with the surround-sound home-entertainment system and your excellent collection of power tools, put the baby boy in the car seat, and drive away from this home you built with your own hands. Expect that after you leave, she will break all the windows in this living room,including the big picture window, as well as the big mirror over the fireplace, which you’ve already replaced twice. The furnace will run and run. Then she will go to your mother’s looking for you, and when she does not find you, she will curse at your mother and possibly attempt to burn your mother’s house down. Connie has long admired the old three-story farmhouse for its west-facing dining room with window seats and the cupola with a view for miles around.You and Connie have discussed living there some day. solution #2 Wait until Connie comes back from the “store,” distract her with the baby, and then cut her meth with Drano, so that when she shoots it up, she dies. solution #3 Put the baby boy to bed in his crib and sit on the living room couch until Connie comes home. Before she has a chance to lie about where she’s been, grab her hair and knock her head hard into the The Solutions to Brian’s Problem  fireplace that you built from granite blocks that came from the old chimney of the house your great-grandfather built when your family first came to this country from Finland—blocks you gathered from the old foundation in the woods. Don’t look at the wedding photos on the mantle. Don’t look at Connie’s wide wedding-day smile, or the way her head tilts back in an ecstasy that seems to have nothing to do with drugs. Don’t let the blood stop you from hitting her one final time to make sure you have cracked her skull. Put her meth and her bag of syringes and blood-smeared needles in her hand so the cops find them when they arrive. You will tell them it was an accident, that you were arguing and the argument escalated because she threatened to shoot meth into your baby. solution #4 Just go. Head south where it’s warm. After a few hours, pull over at a truck stop and call your mother to warn her to call the cops if she sees Connie. After that, pretend not to have a wife and baby boy. When put to the test, Connie might well rise to the occasion of motherhood. Contact the union about getting a job with another local. Resist taking any photographs along with you, especially the photographs of your baby at every age. Wipe your mind clear of memories, especially the memory of your wife first telling you she was pregnant and how that pregnancy and her promise to stay clean made everything seem possible. Do not remember how the two of you kept holding hands that night, how you couldn’t stop reaching for each other, even in your sleep. She lost that baby, and the next one, and although you suspected the reason, you kept on trying. solution #5 Blow your head off with the twelve-gauge you keep behind the seat of your truck. Load the shotgun with shells, put the butt against the floor, rest your chin on the barrel, and pull the trigger. Let your the solutions to brian’s problem  wife find your bloody, headless corpse in the living room; let her scrape your brain from these walls. Maybe that will shock her into straightening up her act. Let her figure out how to pay the mortgage and the power bill. solution #6 Call a help line, talk to a counselor, explain that last week your wife stabbed you in the chest while you were sleeping, that she punches you, too, giving you black eyes that you have to explain to the guys at work. Explain that you’re in danger of losing your job, your house,your baby.Tell her Connie has sold your mountain bike and some of your excellent power tools already, that you have been locking the remainder in your truck, which you park a few blocks...