WAYS TO DIE

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 apack 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, sowhy not him? The first floor, at least, and some of the second,and he'd leave the hard spots for their handyman, who couldhandle the height.

The boy wanted to help, and the man could find things. Maybesome drilling, and hammering, and the caulk gun. When it cametime to paint, the boy could spread it on as high as he couldreach.

And he could learn from their handyman the manly advantagesof the shank nail.

Or he could play Nintendo, or read, and there'd be day camp forJuly. He would fill time fighting with his sister.

Way one, in the wagon: The new extension pole was tipped overthe backseat and angled forward, and aimed, the man noticed,so that if he stopped fast it would proceed at original speed untilmeeting some meaty opposition like, say, his, the man's, head.

Way one would be quick, though not painless.

* * *

The woman never spent more than they made, so they lived in acottage, which felt fine, for a while. And then they wanted morethan to eat in one room and watch TV in another.

What they did:

The boy postered his bedroom walls and bought a beanbag chairand read upstairs, and the girl's room had all her music and electronics.The woman filled their guest room with sewing, and theman migrated to the basement, where he set up a space heaterfor 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 andsoldiers and goblins and, eventually, an entire village of hobbits,all of whom he named.

He listened through his entire set of LPs, methodically, in alphabeticalorder, starting with The A's and ending with StevieWonder.

He accumulated garbage—a birdcage, a manual typewriter, abike rim.

He carried down his laptop and surfed Internet porn.

He bought a bench grinder, and a belt sander, and a set of woodchisels, but never touched them, which seemed for the best.

When the woman came down, she turned one way and then theother, as if she expected to be assaulted.

* * *

The woman didn't think much of mops and scrubbed floorson her hands and knees, as she'd done long before meeting theman.

When they had met, she flinched when his dirty shoes hit thecarpet in her car.

And she seemed sensitive to the smallest smells.

When they moved in together, she insisted they replace theirtoothbrushes every third week.

That their towels be folded in half and then again in thirds, perfectlycorner to corner, so the closet wouldn't look a mess. Thatthe sink be scrubbed and then dried.

Before the boy was born, the baby room had to be sanitized to thesmallest crack in the floor. Then, poopy diapers went to the linedgarbage 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 confusedthe fabric cycles.

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.

* * *

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 likea 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. Notwith those layers of paint.

Thanks, the man said, before retrieving his mail, and running ahand through his hair to loosen paint chips, and driving back tothe depot to buy a respirator, which strapped over his head, withgas canisters under the chin.

I look like a praying mantis, the man said.

The woman said, What?

A praying mantis, he said. He clasped his hands in supplicationand bowed to her. Praying, he shouted. A mantis.

She shook her head. Take it off, she said. I can't hear.

She said, I don't want one speck of lead paint in the house. Notnear the boy. Not near the girl.

I don't want your work clothes in the house.

The chips will to get in the mulch, she said. We're going to haveto replace the mulch.

Is the lead going to get in the grass, she asked. Is it going to getin the ground?

She said, Ask the handyman if it's safe.

Ask the handyman, the man said.

You want me to take my clothes off in the garage, the man asked.

* * *

During the school year, the man got up at six, and woke the boyand the girl and fed them, and tugged clean socks on their feetbefore driving to preschool, and, eventually, elementary school.

Then to the high school, himself, five minutes without traffic,and into his homeroom to start a day of bells and bathroompasses and telling first this boy, and then that girl to get it togetheror else.

The man lodged his chalk in the muzzle of a metal holder, becausehe hated the feel of dust.

He put his students in a circle, for discussion, though they saidit was the gayest thing ever.

He used the Internet's endless supply of relevant videos, and,when his video projector burned out a bulb, with no money toreplace it, he bought a new one himself.

He wondered how many students become teachers because theyhad one good instructor.

The man liked the kids, even when they behaved badly, even thegood kids, who studied just to get ahead.

Something hopeful about them.

Sometimes the man worried that people teach because of achildish need to stay in school.

Mostly the man just taught his subject four times a day, sometimesto the state test, sometimes not, and felt good about projectsthe students liked, and hated the class for whom nothingwould do, and took lunch in the fifth period and supervised atleast one study hall.

The final bell always rang at twenty past two, but the man left atfive, after grading, or supervising the Future Leaders of America,or checking in with Mrs. Brooks, her arm stained green fromoverhead ink, a sign of her Luddite refusals.

And he went to pick up his boy and girl, who would be in theman's high school in six short years.

Dinner, when the woman got home. Hot dogs or noodles.

The woman forbade fast food, because she knew better, becauseshe worked in the business, though she never saw any actual food.

She was in middle management and brought home all the bestpromotional toys, meaning the boy had a wicked set of Pokémonfigures. The girl had many little ponies.

* * *

The man sometimes wondered when career plans became acareer.

The woman had known since school that she would launch marketingprojects for one corporation or another.

Though she said every company trained you to its own specificends, and ways, and means.

And she said business depends on people that can put up withother people. On people who got on well in high school andjoined fraternities in college. People who could absorb shit fromabove before spreading it below.

Stable, predictable quantities.

Like the woman, who watched TV at night, without fail. Whodid chores on the weekend. Planned summer trips.

She and the man even had the exact same fights about foldinglaundry and walking dogs.

Only now the woman said she felt alone, married to a man withno interest in her, as a person.

And she said that sometimes she, the woman, needed to be takencare of.

She needed him to take care.

About this the man didn't know what to do.

* * *

Every month, they saved sizeable chunks for emergencies, andretirement, and the boy's and girl's college, because time passes,and you have to plan.

If you own a house, you have to plan for repairs: A new waterheater. Landscaping. A new roof.

Or a whole new paint job every eight to ten years.The man had heard of guys scraping and painting just one sideof their house each year, every year, forever.

To him, it sounded like pushing a rock up a hill.

* * *

Way three: Death by tools.

You could lose a digit cutting siding, or you might hack into alimb, and bleed to death.

Or you could send a chunk of wood or the head of a nail off aspinning blade into your eye and brain.

The makeshift bench the handyman settled on two sawhorsestipped first this way, and then that.

Twice the man stopped his saw inches from the orange powercord that tangled in front of his blade.

And it wasn't just the big saw. The jigsaw, the man figured, couldbounce out of a plank and gouge his veins.

The nail gun would drive a ten penny slug through his forehead.

Maybe the drill wouldn't kill him, but it would make a sweet holein his flesh.

The more you worry about accidents, the man knew, the morelikely they happen, so he tried to play it cool, but that didn't seemright, either.

Chop, chop, the handyman said, grinning. Let's get 'er done.

Yeah, the man said. Yeah, daddy.

The man's daddy had never lifted anything heavier than the penhe used to write checks to the laborers who managed everythingaround the house.

* * *

The man was not without skills.

Garbage day, he was Johnny-on-the-Spot.

And he mowed a mean lawn.

From that very lawn he scooped dog poo.

Folding laundry he could do, and most days the right clothesfound the right drawers, though the boy complained when hefound himself swimming in the man's underwear, the girl whenshe foundered in the woman's socks.

The man did the dishes.

He straightened the house. Vacuumed.

And he could cook a mean chili.

But he couldn't do any of it without being told it needed to bedone, and the telling, that fell to the woman, who wanted toknow why.

You're that tired? she asked. Or don't you see it needs doing?

Or are you trying to piss me off, she said, and stopped remindingthe man about anything, just to see what would happen, and thelaundry baskets overflowed in the upstairs hall, and the kitchensprouted stacks of plates covered in food hard as cement. Thegrass flopped under its own weight.

I'll get to it, the man said, and he did, but only after the messfelt oppressive to the boy and the girl, who couldn't find cleanbowls for cereal.

Or you can feel free to do it, the man said, to the woman.

You'll pay the bills? she asked. And plan our trips? Arrange theboy's and the girl's birthday parties and sign them up for gymnasticsand invite over their friends? Why don't you keep an eyeon their schoolwork, she said. And buy all the Christmas presents?I hear you, the man said. Okay. Okay, he said and followed thedog, who'd fled.

He knew he wouldn't change, though he didn't know why not.

* * *

The man had to admit their life seemed to be about stayingafloat. That he and the woman often had nothing more to talkabout than getting from point A to point B.

About who would get what food on the table.

About who would get to the store to get the food that would beplaced on the table.

About who would get the girl after soccer practice to sit at thetable to eat the food someone had prepared.

Who would find another meal for the boy when he rejected thefirst.

Who would speak to the boy about the importance of beingreasonable before reminding him to clear his plate.

Who would clear the rest of the plates of the remains of thefood.

Who would run to the corner store to buy the sweets the firstperson avoided because he or she needed to lose weight, whichthey'd only manage if they a) cut out desserts and b) found timeto exercise at c) the gym to which they needed to renew, but onlyif they got d) the workout clothes they'd need to buy at the storewhen e) they ran to get the girl new cleats so f) she could succeedat soccer practice which came before they g) ate the foodon the table.

For each other, the man thought, he and the woman had no timeto spare.

And maybe they wanted every free second to themselves, awayfrom the other person's complications and upsets.

Upsets about work.

Or about friends.

Or about feelings of being tired, or sad, or alone, estrangedfrom a spouse.

* * *

Way four: Ladder.

Trees the man climbed without thinking.

Thirty feet up a sticky pine whose branches dug divots from hispalms—no problem, if a Nerf football was at stake. Or a mapleonto whose lowest branch the man had to be boosted, and fromwhich he'd eventually have to jump, if a limb needed to be cut.Done, and done, even when his neighbor said he was nuts.

Never mind the bad example for the boy and the girl and everyother kid in the neighborhood watching him go up and up andup after setting his beer can down.

Ladders, though, gave him pause, because the little ones shiftedwhen their feet wobbled, and on top of them the man correctedlike a seizure victim.

Or they had weight, and lifting them into place felt like pivotingsome great stretch of heavy pendulum into the sky, circus style.One wrong turn or tired arms, and down it would come, buildingspeed to land on him, or his house, or take down the fence.

And even when safely in place, those flimsy round rungs againsthis feet.

And the open space below, and standing way high up and reachingleft or right, stretching one foot off the ladder, to bang in anail or reach a tricky corner with the roller.

Climbing onto the roof and then off, backward onto the ladderagain, and down, down, not able to see, a paint bucket swingingfrom his hand.

The handyman never paused once.

But the man knew it would take just one goof and the groundwould come at him like a truck, snapping his neck or caving hisribs or twisting his leg so the rough edge of a bone would shootout.

That would give the neighborhood kids something to see.

* * *

It bothered the man that the boy and the girl would rememberhim as old, a tiring, middle aged man with frayed collars andloose skin on his neck and only enough energy to go maybe tothe park or for a bike ride but never both.

That the boy's friends would joke they'd never seen the man offthe couch or even sitting up.

That the girl would see pictures of the man at twenty-five andsay, every time, You look so young.

Not one memory of the man jabbering that his little boy couldsit up on his own.

The hours and hours and hours they'd sat outside the car washand stopped for every construction site, so the girl could lookat the trucks.

Or the museums, or the zoos, or the circus, or the summer soccerfor little kids, or t-ball—stuff you do with kids before they'reold enough to remember the first thing.

Days at the beach digging holes in the sand.

All of it lost, except to the man, and to the woman, who remembered,more, the man's complaints about diapers.

* * *

They'd talked about having a third baby, and talked about it, andtalked, and the woman said she'd always thought they'd havethree.

The woman said she couldn't imagine not having another babyto feed, and kept their crib and changing table and stroller, andset her face around other people's infants, holding back the impulseto grab.

And the boy and the girl needed another brother or a sister, thewoman said, and not one ten years younger than them, and thewoman was going to pass forty sooner or later, so they'd betterget moving, because no way could this part of their lives be over.

You miss the chance to have your family, and you've missed itforever, the woman said, and the man always agreed, because hedidn't disagree, but he never said something definite, or made amove.

Instead, he set his mind on blank, waiting.

Waiting to see what the woman would do.

Because maybe he was too old now for the late nights.

And the diapers.

Bottles and baby food and burping.

Spending hours playing with baby toys.

Spending, period.

On daycare.

They'd need a new home. A bigger home.

How fair would it be to the boy and the girl, having to share theattention?

And they never saw the family they had—not the man's brotherand his kids, or the woman's sisters, not the woman's parents orthe man's mother and stepfather, who wouldn't travel, anymore.