How Best to Avoid Dying (15 page)

You would think the world was watching, but no. At the moment of Thurston Helbs' enlightenment and death most of America was tuned in to the season finale of
Extreme Makeover
. Peter Wamison, Thurston's friend and critic, was masturbating to outtakes on a special edition DVD of
Donnie Darko
. Beam, his life's one love, was well into her second shift at the Doughnut Palace. And the rest of the literary world was preoccupied in celebrating the release of Jonathan Franzen's sequel to
The Corrections
entitled
Spell Check
.

Only one person was logged on to witness Thurston's deification. Norman Mailer was watching. Watching and weeping.

ARNIE'S GIFT

“Are you finished yet? You still have to screw in the legs on the Baby Real highchair,” his wife said. She was standing by the stockings over the fire, trying to figure out the different levels of the Spit-Up gauge on Baby Real's back.

“Almost done, sweetheart,” Arnie said. He was installing the door on the Who's-A-Housewife Egg Scrambler. It seemed simple enough. Peg A. Slot A. But a little plastic bendy thing stuck out right over Slot A, preventing Peg A from slipping in. Arnie grunted.

“Quiet, you'll wake Willa,” his wife said.

Arnie didn't want that. He swallowed his frustration and resumed the task. The Who's-A-Housewife Egg Scrambler was Willa's dream gift. She had studied the television commercials since September, squeaking out sweet little hints. “Look,
Daddy, wouldn't that be wonderful to have around the house?” Never begging, not a chance. Just hints. And Arnie knew any father worth his salt would hear those hints and supply his daughter with a four-foot miniature oven complete with working heat and real scrambled egg flavored mix. It was only right.

He looked back at his wife by the fire in her terry-cloth bathrobe, wiping synthetic spit-up off her cheek. She was beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but very pretty. Attractive, that was the word. He wanted to sneak up behind her and lift her robe. He wanted to rub against her. But she wouldn't allow it. He had tried something like that one morning in November.

“You've got work, Arnie.”

“I can be late once.”

“It's that kind of attitude that gave the promotion to Peter Wicks. You think Peter Wicks tries to mount his wife in the broad morning light? Not a chance. If he wants to mount her, he takes her out for a nice meal, maybe some wine, maybe a movie—a good movie, too. Not some crappy movie.”

“I didn't know it was going to be crappy. The poster looked good.”

“Reviews, Arnie. That's why God made reviews. You can bet your balding ass that Peter Wicks reads reviews before he drags his wife out to see a three-hour piece of crap. And he doesn't drag, because she wants to go and it's not crap because he reads the reviews, and he reads the reviews because he loves her. Now go to work.”

The Who's-A-Housewife Egg Scrambler box said, “Some assembly required.” Arnie had been warned, he wasn't arguing
that. But it should have said, “A lot of assembly required.” With its Peg A and Slot A, and its three holes for F-size screws, but four screws and five bolts. And this bendy piece of plastic in the way, but Arnie couldn't tell if it was supposed to be there or not. He was getting flustered. He tried to picture his daughter's glowing face when she saw her gifts. That would make it worth it. All of it.

Hadn't last year been a really magical Christmas? Arnie spent half his bonus on the Poptown Boys' Jamming Roller Blades, which played a Poptown Boys' song as you skated. Arnie spun the wheels a few times when wrapping them up. “Gonna grind you, gonna blind you, gonna go deep deep inside you. I'm your boy…” Wasn't Willa thrilled? Wasn't her little face just bursting with smiles? Didn't she run out of the house to show her friends, yelling out thanks to Santa? But Arnie knew who Santa really was. That was great.

Of course, didn't she come back half-an-hour later, wasn't she screaming and covered in an obscene amount of blood? The doctor gave her twelve stitches on her chin and she cried the whole time. His wife glared at him, as if he'd personally cut Willa's face. That was horrible.

Christmas was hard. The year Willa wanted a Donny DownsSyndrome and all he could find was an Autistic Annie. The PeachBerry Happy Pony that melted by the fire and filled the whole house with a sick plastic fruit smell. The time he made his mother's recipe for homemade eggnog and Willa nearly died from salmonella. But this year would be different. He knew it.

Okay, the little bendy plastic thing was not in picture on the instruction booklet, nor on the picture on the box. But Arnie was still hesitating to remove it.

“You be careful,” his wife said. “We don't want a repeat of the puppy ordeal.”

That was a low blow. He was almost sure the puppy had been alive when he put it in the stocking. Oh little Willa's face… at first it was so sweet. Big eyes, mouth all open. “A puppy!” she chimed and for a moment the whole Christmas ordeal was worth it, more than worth it. The little puppy's head hanging just over the edge of the stocking. Willa swooped it out. “Merry Christmas, little puppy,” she hugged the puppy, held the puppy above her head, hugged it again. “You're a sleepy little puppy, aren't you?”

“Have you even read the instructions, Arnie? Have you even done that?”

“Yes.”

Maybe Arnie could just move the bendy thing, just bend it a little, so the door would close. But Arnie pressed a little too hard and the bendy plastic thing snapped. But, hey, voila, the door closed. Add Peg A into Slot A. Only now it didn't stay closed. It just flopped open each time he let it go. He checked the instructions for any information on a latch. Yes, there it is, small print at the bottom of the page. “The safety latch, which keeps the oven door closed, is a small, plastic, bendable piece…”

Arnie wanted to die. He wanted to put his head in the little, yellow, Who's-A-Housewife oven and die.

“The oven door is on backward. I can see that from here.”

He wished the roof would collapse, so he wouldn't have to show his wife how he had screwed up, so his daughter wouldn't cry in the morning, so he wouldn't have to go back to his shitty job on Monday, so he wouldn't have to find Interstate Hotel matches in his wife's purse, so he wouldn't have to stare each morning at a body growing older and think with a brain that was making no kind of progress. Wasn't there supposed to be wisdom? Wasn't that the promise? You get older, your body gets weaker, but you become wise. Life teaches you things. Life gives you things. Wasn't that the promise? He stood up and kicked the oven. His foot bounced off the plexiglass.

“What are you doing?”

He kicked it again. The door fell off.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid oven. It doesn't look like the one on TV, doesn't look like the box.” Another kick, the yellow handle went flying. “And the eggs taste like shit. You know it. Shitty yellow.”

“You're breaking it!”

Arnie picked up the oven over his head and prepared to smash it to the floor. This felt good. This was a strong man, this was a man taking action, like Atlas. He caught his wife's eyes. She looked frightened. That was good, too. Then he turned and caught his daughter's eyes. She had come downstairs, wearing her pink footie pajamas. Her eyes looked frightened, too. That was not good.

“Daddy?” she said. Oh, little girl. He wanted to hug her, to hold her, to kiss the scar on her chin and tell her not to be frightened, tell her everything in her life would be happy. There was a crack in the back of his head and Arnie fell to the floor. The oven rolled away.

“Willa, dial 911,” his wife yelled. She was standing above him gripping the Baby Real. He could feel something wet on the back of his head and he wondered if it was blood or synthetic spit-up. Arnie tried to stand and she whacked him again.

“Was Daddy going to hurt me?” Willa asked.

“Yes, baby. Now get the phone.”

He tried to say he wasn't going to hurt her, that he would never hurt her, but Arnie couldn't quite make his mouth make words. Instead he grunted loudly and Willa yelped. He tried to reach out to her and comfort her, but she jumped back.

“He's trying to get me, Mommy.”

Bash. Right over the head. Baby Real split and spit covered Arnie. When he opened his eyes again his wife was in the next room on the phone.

Something in Arnie clicked, some animal instinct of self-preservation, and he ran. He stumbled out the back door into the falling snow and looked for a place to hide. In the rear of the back yard was a pine doghouse he had made for the puppy. It had never been used. Arnie scrambled inside, pulling his knees to his chest in the darkness.

Arnie did his best to slow his breathing and not make a sound. The synthetic spit started to freeze, making his pajamas and hair crunchy. After nearly an hour, Arnie poked his head out of the doghouse. He expected to see flashing reds and blues in his driveway, but instead it was just a Honda Acura that he did not recognize. He crept up to the house and peeked through the window. There in his living room knelt Peter Wicks putting the finishing repairs on the Who's-A-Housewife Egg Scrambler. His wife and daughter looked on with admiration, both cradling mugs of some steamy beverage. Arnie started to cry.

His feet were stinging from the snow, but he hardly noticed. He did notice how his wife smiled as Peter Wicks refilled her mug and how safe and happy his daughter looked. His daughter was yawning, her eyes closing, her body curled on the couch. He watched Peter Wicks lifting her tiny body and carrying her up the stairs, his wife following, reaching out and touching Peter's back. He had seen this before, this family, on television or in a film, with the red and gold tree lights on, and the hot mugs still on the coffee table. Arnie waited, but no one came back down.

This living room. Paintings and candlesticks. Furniture and glassware. Framed figures he couldn't quite make out. These had all meant something, he was sure. He was no longer crying, but he was sleepy and cold. He could knock. Ask to come in. He would sleep on the couch, he didn't mind. In the morning he would lend Peter a robe and they would laugh about the previous night as Willa prepared scrambled eggs for all of them.

But that might ruin the gift.

Arnie looked up and saw that the stars were unreal. The night was still. He had forgotten. He had forgotten that smells and sounds change by the hour and that there is a silent center to a twenty-four-hour day. A silent moment around which the other hours spin. The one moment is still. He was still, too still to breathe. The stars, the moment, and Arnie.

He would give them a night. Give them a morning and then come home. Arnie walked back to the doghouse and crawled in. He lay on his back in the dark and listened to hear if snow was falling.

Sometimes puppies just die, you know. Sometimes that happens. Things break, sometimes. That's okay.

He couldn't hear the snow, but he knew it was falling. Falling slowly. It was very cold now and everything felt strange and heavy. Arnie watched as the roof above him disappeared and the snow fell upon his face. The rising sun made the air gold and the falling flakes shine. The house disappeared as well. Wall by wall. He and his wife and his daughter and Peter stood together in the snow, naked now, all smiling at how silly it was they had ever worn clothes, ever built walls, ever wrapped gifts. Skin disappeared, muscle, bone, finally blood.

HEART THONGS FOR JESUS

Hey! Hey! St. Matthew's Youth Group! We're in hour twenty-eight of the lock-in and we're still going strong. We are
rockin'
the
lock-in
! I haven't slept, have you? Anybody? Susie, I saw you dozing during the movie. How anyone can sleep through
The Passion of the Christ
, I don't know.

I've ordered the pizza, and we've got more Red Bull chillin' in the cooler! And upstairs in about ten minutes, St. Matthew's very own music pastor, Pastor Tim, will be running the karaoke machine! Yeah! Now, Pastor Tim has asked that we keep the song choices a little more edifying than last year. So none of that hip hop. Bradley, I'm looking at you.

Now, there's something kind of serious I want to rap on you about. I warned you we'd be doing a bunk check and, well,
we did. And we found something. We found a BeDazzler. And it had been used…on the bottom region of a pair of blue jeans.

I don't want to say whose they are. It doesn't matter. This is an issue that affects all of us.

Girls, when you put shiny things on your bottom, or you get those little tattoos right above your bottom, you're saying: “Hey look at my bottom. Stare at my bottom. Maybe even
touch
my bottom.”

I've seen you girls with your gym shorts with “juicy” or “hot” written on the backside. I don't want to read that. I don't. Unless your bottom says “Property of Jesus,” it shouldn't say a thing. I'm serious. Your body is a temple of God's and your heart is the entrance. But you girls are putting up a big neon sign saying, “Hey, forget the front entrance, I've left the back door wide open. Come on in.”

And guys, you are just as bad with your cologne and Axe body spray. You know what that is? Pheromones. You are chemically convincing someone to want to fornicate with you.