Test Wands and Landscaping

A version of this story placed in the PEN America Center 2013-2014 National Prison Writers Contest. I believe it could have done better, but I listened to someone who was supposedly more advanced than myself in a literary sense. Bullshit. Won't fall for that again. But, I am not bitter. As a result of finishing near the top, I gained a professional writing mentor (and a little cash), the wonderful and talented, Katherine Hill. Have you read her? You should. Better than wasting your time reading my bullshit.

Test Wands and Landscaping

Mark stopped for a beer after work. He had three. He buffered himself from the guilt by telling himself he would drink them from a glass so they would go down quicker. He played a game of pool and ate a dozen hot wings. Then he hurried home.

Mark stepped through the front door to find Heidi sitting on the couch. Wads of tissue scattered from the couch to the floor to the coffee table. It looked like someone had mangled a bouquet of carnations. Her legs pressed a throw pillow to her chest, and her arms wrapped around her legs. In her right hand she held a crumpled tissue, and in her left was one of those white, plastic test wands, the kind you see in the television commercials with the happy, love-struck couples. Easy as one two three. “Heidi,” Mark said, and took a seat in the chair next to the door.

Heidi looked at the plastic in her hand, and then she looked at Mark. He bounced his eyes between the gurgling aquarium pump and a Rolling Stone on the coffee table, slipping glances at her face in between.

“Heidi, I'll do whatever you need. Whatever you decide, I'll be here,” he said. “I'll get another job. Whatever it takes.”

She didn't say anything.

“I understand, you know,” he said.

“Understand what?” She reached for the box of tissue. “Tell me what you understand,” she said. Not loudly or angrily, just a question.

“I know things haven't been perfect lately,” he said.

Heidi blew her nose and threw the tissue at the pile on the coffee table. It missed and landed on the floor. She went back to the wand. She stared at it. She used both hands to slowly twist it, face up and then face down.

Mark thought about the bar. He wished he had stayed.

Heidi stood and straightened her sweatshirt. She collected the tissue wads from the table and floor. “Dinner will be late tonight,” she said. “Around seven.”

“I'm not sure if I'll be hungry,” Mark said.

Heidi went down the hall towards the bathroom. Mark waited until he heard the door close and the water turn on, then he went out the backdoor.

Mark sat on the screen porch, smoked what was left of his cigarettes, and stared at the bare spot on the lawn in front of the porch. He had tried everything from seed blends for shade to high traffic blends and several fertilizers. It was the only spot on the lawn where nothing grew, and he eventually gave up. Plumes erupted from chimneys getting their first use of the season. The air left a campfire taste in his mouth. He thought about walks in the woods and fishing, roasting marshmallows on summer nights when the only thing you had to worry about was running out of firewood. He walked to the gas station when his cigarettes were gone. He returned with a fresh pack and six cans of beer. He went back to his chair and sat. He smoked and drank. He watched the sun go down, daydreamed, meditated on the smoke from his cigarette and the sounds of the crickets.

The door slid open and Heidi stepped onto the porch. She carried her purse to the table and sat in the chair across from Mark.

“Hey,” Mark said.

“Hey,” she said. She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “I didn't realize it was this chilly. I should have kept my sweatshirt on.”

Heidi reached into her purse. She pulled out a small, hand-blown glass pipe and a baby food jar. Mark looked away and lit a cigarette. Heidi lit the citronella candle that sat in the center of the table. “Jesus. Might be time to empty that ashtray, don't you think?” She said.

“I just emptied it.”

“So much for slowing down. I thought you were trying to quit.”

He drained a can of beer, then reached to the floor for another can and popped it open.

“I see you're slowing down your drinking too,” she said. “Are you still going to meetings?”

Mark took a drag, exhaled, and watched the smoke filter through the screen. “I see you're slowing down your pot smoking,” he said.

“I'm not the addict.”

He started, then got stuck. All he managed to get out was, “I'm not.” He thought about the syringe and bag of dope he had found in his tool box earlier in the day. He couldn't figure out where it came from. He's not one to misplace things like that. “Yeah, pot isn't addictive,” he said. “Just ask the millions of people who can't get through the day without it.”

Heidi picked her pipe back up. She packed the bowl of the pipe with marijuana from the baby food jar and smoked. Mark smoked his cigarette and drank his beer. It has been this way for months. No love or hate. Mark wanted the extremes back. They both sat, silently hating the other one's habits.

Two big maples sat at the back of the yard. The last bit of daylight hit the nylon clothesline stretched between them, turned it into a glowing beam. Mark could hear it vibrate. “I almost killed myself,” he said.

Heidi exhaled a cloud. “What the hell are you talking about?” She said.

“Three weeks ago. Over there,” Mark said. He pointed to the back of the yard. “That night we were fighting, after we came home from your mother's. I wanted to hang myself. I took the clothesline down and threw it over that big branch.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “I made a noose,” he said.

'Jesus Christ, Mark,” Heidi said. “Why the hell are you telling me this now? Are you serious? We weren't even fighting. Why didn't you come talk to me?”

“We weren't talking. I was sitting out here thinking about killing myself and you were in the bedroom crying. Maybe it wasn't fighting. I don't know what it was.”

“Jesus, Mark.” She stood and walked to the screen, looked out at the sky. “I don't even know how to respond to this. We weren't fighting. Kat had me upset. My daughter thinks she gets a new father every three years and I can't always figure out what to say to her. How do you talk to a three year old about things like that?” She said. “It doesn't mean we were fighting.”

Kat, short for Katherine, is the product of Heidi's previous marriage, a six year on again off again relationship that left behind debts, an apartment to clean up, memories--some good, some bad, all painful-- and a daughter. The physical aspect of the relationship ended with the death of Heidi's husband.

“Well, that's what I called it. Maybe I was wrong.”

“You're the one who always says to take my time working through these things and you would be there for me when I needed you,” she said.

“I was high. I even got the ladder out of the shed,” he said.

“That's great, Mark. I thought you were done with all that shit.”

“I thought I was too.”

“Why are you telling me this? You don't think I have enough guilt to live with?” She said.

He didn't tell her everything. He didn't tell her how he had pictured himself twirling in the morning breeze, shrouded by leaves as they spiraled to the ground. He didn't tell how he had imagined her falling to her knees, crying, asking out loud what she could have done better. In his mind she would be devastated. He didn't tell her that he could hear the people in town talking about how this was the second one.

“I don't know,” he said.

“This isn't all my fault,” she said. “You don't exactly come running to me anymore.”

Heidi sat back down. Mark drained his beer and opened another.

“Why didn't you come talk to me?” She said.

“I don't know,” he said, but he did. He didn't want to tell her because she wouldn't believe him. Because she knows he would never do it. He didn't want go through with it, he wanted to attempt it and have her find out.

“So what stopped you?”

He snubbed his cigarette out and lit another one. He looked at her, expecting the grimace he usually got when he chain smoked, but it wasn't there. “I'm not sure about that either,” he said.

Hey turned inward, back to their vices, sat in silence.

Heidi broke the silence. “Did your friend ever come by? The arborist?” She said.

“Yeah. Saturday, when you were out. That one over there,” Mark said. He pointed to a dying wild cherry by the side of the yard. “That one is close enough to the power lines that they will take it down for free. All you have to do is call the power company. This one,” he said. He pointed to the tree he had debated hanging from. “The big silver maple. See how the trunk looks like it's one and then splits? There's two trunks in there. Two trees that look like one. It's called a codominant trunk. He said there's a membrane and bark growing in there between the two, and that one growing to the side will eventually get pushed out and fall.”

“Jesus, it's right over the bedroom,” she said.

“He said it might not be for another ten years, but it will happen,” Mark said. “He said it should be dealt with in the next year or so to be on the safe side.”

“Christ. How much is that going to cost?”

“Not sure. He said to talk it over with you and give him a call,” Mark said “He'll work something out with us. I can work with him, since he will do it on the weekend, so that will bring the labor down. The wood has a little value too, if we want to deal with splitting it.”

“I don't know. It's a lot to think about,” she said. She stood and collected her paraphernalia into her purse. I'm going to get ready for bed. Don't forget to blow out the candle.” She stopped before entering the the door. “Come talk to me if you need to, okay?” She said. “There's food in the oven.”

“Okay,” he said.

Mark finished his cigarette and walked around the house to the driveway. He opened the trunk of his car and opened his toolbox. He went through the garage into the house. He locked the bathroom door and laid everything on the counter. Water, spoon, needle, cotton, lighter, dope-- all he needed.

It didn't hurt, hadn't since the first time. That's what people always ask. Once your body knows the payoff, it ignores the needle.

He finished and rubbed the blood from his arm, licking where it had already dried. He rinsed the needle out and cleaned up the rest of the evidence.

He sat down on the toilet. The box the pregnancy test came in and the two test wands lay in the wastebasket. She had taken both, hoping for some miracle of a mistake, but she knew. Mark knew. They had had sex on the Fourth of July while they were drunk, and she hadn't had a period during the three and a half months since.

Mark picked up both the test wands. He looked at the result windows. Both were negative. He shook them. He tapped them against each other. They stayed the same. He had been sure they were positive. He dropped them back into the wastebasket.

His eyes sagged. They were getting harder to keep open. His face had the pleasurable itch of heroin. He tried to focus on the the ornamental soaps and bath salts in the caddy next to to the tub. Leaf and flower shapes. Frilly exfoliating sponges. The things women use to keep themselves from smelling like men.

He got up from the toilet, went to the tub and lay down in it. He thought about Heidi, about the time he sat on the ledge of the tub and shaved her legs while she relaxed in the warm, soapy water. About kissing her wrinkly feet. Her nipples popping through the bubbles. The shower head dripped. He wanted to feel like this forever. He wanted to close his eyes and never open them. Just the tub and Nirvana.

His stomach curdled. He stood up, turned, knelt in front of the toilet, and tried to vomit as quietly as possible.

He rinsed his mouth and left the bathroom.

At the end of the hallway was a picture of Kat and her father. A black and white photograph taken at the playground. Big, happy smiles. Dried roses from the funeral taped to the frame. The bedroom doors sat on either side of the picture, and Mark could see the slight movement of the blankets rising and falling with inhales and exhales. He could hear the contented snores of a worn out toddler. He looked back at the picture. He wanted to talk to the guy, ask him if he knew what was going on. Did he approve or disapprove? Could he help? Would he? Other questions.

Mark took a last look at the picture and went back to the screen porch.

He sat at the table, lit a cigarette, and opened his last beer. The candle had extinguished itself and he couldn't see much beyond the porch. He could hardly hold his eyes open. He thought about waking Heidi to talk to her.

Mark stood, stumbled on opiated legs, and stepped off the porch into the backyard. The absence of a moon and the cloudiness of his head made the short walk difficult. Twice he almost fell before arriving at the shed. He groped for the string that hung from the light, found it, pulled it, and went blind. He blinked until his eyes adjusted and began his search. He moved the lawnmower, some dusty shovels, and a rake. Cobwebs landed on his head. He scratched his hand on a nail and paused to lick the blood. He found what he was looking for.

He lifted the twenty-five pound bag of grass seed out of the shed and dragged it across the lawn to the bare spot. He scattered handfuls of seed. He walked to the side of the house for the hose, stopping by the porch for his beer and cigarettes. He sat next to the bag of seed and lit a cigarette. The moon was coming out now. It was a beautiful night. He raised the hose, held it high above the bare spot. He adjusted the nozzle to a fine mist so he wouldn't wash away any of the seed.