Free Nebraska by Ron Hansen Page B

He couldn't move his fingers. He came out of the kitchen with the bite wrapped.
    I mean, do you think I could live with that? Huh?
    She looked at him mistrustingly.
    He threw his things in the back of the jeep, brushed off snow, and started it. His dog leapt at the jeep windows, scratching the paint, then barked at the caking tires. He put the gun on the seat beside him, and the rubber mask over it. In his rearview mirror he could see her chasing him.
    He could brake and throw the jeep into reverse. There'd be a bump and a screech from her. She'd lie in his tracks, shakingwith agony. He could then back up over her. The jeep would raise and lower.
    He did not do that. But he drove away thinking nothing was too awful for her. She deserved the worst.
    He swerved his jeep to the front of a small grocery store. He shut off the engine. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel for a minute, then put on his rubber mask.
    His dog slept on the bed in the cabin.

The Sun So Hot I Froze to Death

E veryone is busy here. My wife, Susannah, is wearing a string bikini and a straw hat as she cultivates her victory garden, polishes the watermelon, claws at anthills with a pitchfork. The kid is at his swimming lessons inhaling chlorine and water again. Our housegirl, Mutt, is being joyfully molested in her basement room. And I have a science-fiction story rolled into my typewriter and pages next to it that are just okay. We're big on summer projects.
    Along the sill of my window are the ragged tops of green trees and the gray Long Island Sound. All above that is blue. On my desk is an expensive briefcase I haven't shut, emphatic letters I haven't opened, masterpieces I'll never read. The first line of my short story is: “There was once a good guy who was held prisoner by stupid beings on another planet for three years.”
    It seems like longer. My hero is despondent. He's skin-your-nose sad. At one point a top-dog Tripid suggests he stop brooding, forget whatever's making him so gosh-darn miserable—they talk like that on Planet Dumb—and compile a list of all the reasons he has to be happy despite everything. It's a tremendous success. It turns out my hero is pleased about a lot of things. There's plenty of parking spaces for his car, somehow his socks are always clean, the Tripids serve him buttered popcorn that never seems to creep down between the sofa cushions.
    The list really cheers him up.
    So: I find my wife desirable. The kid wants to be an astronaut. Mutt gives me a wink now and then. Besides this glorious summer house, I have a six-room apartment in the city that's right on a subway stop. I play squash at noon and haven't chipped a tooth yet. I have only a little trouble sleeping. I am not a writer by profession. Susannah always manages to bring out the best in my performance. I can mix a great martini without a jigger, haggle with garage mechanics, dig burnt muffins out of a toaster without unplugging it. And there are no euphemisms in this house, no toodles or potties or number twos—it's “Dad, my penis is caught in the zipper!” that the kid screams down the hall.
    But.
    The plumbing is bad here. When most people flush their toilet, it makes a ferocious sound like Wush !Ours goes wickle wickle. In my own house I'm ashamed to go to the bathroom. Also, the drain in the tub doesn't suck anymore. Hair and scum and a squashed water beetle float around in a pool when the shower's on. To wash your feet you have to close your eyes. And the double sink in the kitchen. Whenever Mutt lets out the dishwater, a soup of vegetables and eggshells churns up on the other side. “Dad,” the kid yells. “The sink's throwing up again.”
    Mutt diets and tans, drinks tea and reeks with lotions. She wastes away on her lounge chair with aluminum foil angling sunlight at her as she poises a glaring reflector underneath her chin. Her bones are like Tinkertoys. My wife wails, “Please please eat something, dear. We're responsible for your