List: A Novel

Ways To Die

WAYS TO DIE 3 Way one: They’d been at the depot, wandering the aisles. The man wanted a new drill, and new gloves, and a tool shed, but they ended up buying a paint scraper and a long pole, and a pack of gum for the boy. It was almost summer, and the house needed painting. The man figured anyone can scrape a wall and slap on paint, so why not him? The first floor, at least, and some of the second, and he’d leave the hard spots for their handyman, who could handle the height. The boy wanted to help, and the man could find things. Maybe some drilling, and hammering, and the caulk gun. When it came time to paint, the boy could spread it on as high as he could reach. 4 And he could learn from their handyman the manly advantages of the shank nail. Or he could play Nintendo, or read, and there’d be day camp for July. He would fill time fighting with his sister. Way one, in the wagon: The new extension pole was tipped over the backseat and angled forward, and aimed, the man noticed, so that if he stopped fast it would proceed at original speed until meeting some meaty opposition like, say, his, the man’s, head. Way one would be quick, though not painless.²²² The woman never spent more than they made, so they lived in a cottage, which felt fine, for a while. And then they wanted more than to eat in one room and watch TV in another. What they did: The boy postered his bedroom walls and bought a beanbag chair and read upstairs, and the girl’s room had all her music and electronics . The woman filled their guest room with sewing, and the man migrated to the basement, where he set up a space heater for winter and a dehumidifier for summer, and his old stereo, and a door over sawhorses. On his table the man painted tiny metal figures—knights and soldiers and goblins and, eventually, an entire village of hobbits, all of whom he named. He listened through his entire set of LPs, methodically, in alphabetical order, starting with The A’s and ending with Stevie Wonder. 5 He accumulated garbage—a birdcage, a manual typewriter, a bike rim. He carried down his laptop and surfed Internet porn. He bought a bench grinder, and a belt sander, and a set of wood chisels, but never touched them, which seemed for the best. When the woman came down, she turned one way and then the other, as if she expected to be assaulted.²²² The woman didn’t think much of mops and scrubbed floors on her hands and knees, as she’d done long before meeting the man. When they had met, she flinched when his dirty shoes hit the carpet in her car. And she seemed sensitive to the smallest smells. When they moved in together, she insisted they replace their toothbrushes every third week. That their towels be folded in half and then again in thirds, perfectly corner to corner, so the closet wouldn’t look a mess. That the sink be scrubbed and then dried. Before the boy was born, the baby room had to be sanitized to the smallest crack in the floor. Then, poopy diapers went to the lined garbage can by the garage. Then all the same again for the girl. The tub she bleached after every bath and then rinsed twice. She didn’t let the man wash their clothes, because he confused the fabric cycles. 6 And so on. The man never gave it a second thought. When the woman worried , she put things in order, which seemed perfectly normal, and made him a little aroused.²²² Way two: This courtesy of the mailman, who stood on the driveway, shorts to his knees, with socks as high, and an explorer’s hat like a garbage lid. He wouldn’t approach the house while the man scraped. Number one, he said: Lead paint makes you dumb as a post. B: Deadly for your organs. Not to mention you can go sterile, he said. Real bad for your kids. He said, That cheap mask won’t help when you get sanding. Not with those layers of paint. Thanks, the man said...