How Best to Avoid Dying

by Owen Egerton

  “I was grumpy, but I got it out of my system,” he said.

  “Good. You look better smiling.” She handed him a white paper bag with the bear claw inside. “That’ll be $1.23.”

  “Would you like to spend the night with me?” he asked. Her bob haircut fell to one side and she squinted. Thurston noticed a spot of flour under her right eye, like a powdered mole.

  “You joking?” she said and smiled so slightly that it revealed itself only as a tensing of chin and cheeks.

  “My apartment is 803. I’ll be waiting.” He dropped two dollars and left.

  Thurston skipped up the stairs, amazed at his own boldness. He didn’t think she would come, but he didn’t care and he loved not caring.

  Once in his apartment, Thurston stripped down and jumped into his shower. He sighed loudly and let the hot water numb his back. In a deep baritone voice he sang, “I took a shit on his bed…ha ha ha…and I asked the doughnut girl to sleep with me…ha ha ha.”

  Thurston was just wrapping himself in a scarlet bathrobe when there was a knock at the door.

  “I brought you a bag of jelly-filled,” she said with that same slight smile. “I know you like raspberry.”

  “Good God!” He laughed out loud and closed the door behind her.

  They spent the next morning in bed watching reruns with the volume down and voicing the scripts themselves. Greg Brady became the new leader of Cuba, Matlock proved himself guilty of parricide, and Webster contracted an STD.

  For breakfast they picnicked on whiskey sours and leftover doughnuts.

  “I sometimes put Bavarian cream in with raspberry fillings,” Beam said. “You’re not meant to mix, but I do it anyway.” She pinched another piece of doughnut and licked her fingers.

  “Wonderful. Unorthodox.”

  At noon they made a tent from bedsheets and pretended that Thurston was Roald Amundsen and she was Robert Scott stuck in the midst of an arctic blizzard.

  “We must survive,” he said in his best Norwegian accent. “We must keep warm, even if it means…” Thurston raised one bushy eyebrow.

  “I know my wife will understand,” she said. “God save the Queen!”

  Amundsen and Scott embraced.

  Thurston loved how large his hands were against her shoulders, how small her waist was. She ran her fingers through the hair that covered his chest and belly. Kissing his shoulders, his back, his scalp, she slid over him like pilot fish around a slow shark. He felt like a shark. Too big, too restless, wanting to devour her—her youth, her giggles, her breathing. But she moved so quickly, he could only taste. And he was thrilled to discover her skin tasted like sugar.

  The next day there was a knock at the door. Thurston tightened his robe and peeked through the peephole.

  “Peter?”

  “Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?” Peter whined through the door.

  “Unplugged it. I’m busy with more trite, melodramatic writing.”

  “Oh, forget that. Haven’t you seen the papers? It’s a stir, a genuine ripple. Let me in.”

  Peter pounced in the room with newspapers under one arm.

  “Yesterday you made page one of the Times’ Metro section,” he said, dropping the papers on the coffee table. “Just an article, ‘Writer Loses It’ or something. But the Daily News printed a photo.”

  “You let them take pictures of it?”

  “You took a shit on my bed. I wanted revenge. But instead,” he paused, tucked his chin down to his chest and smiled. “I got us some great press.” Peter now used his chin to point over to Thurston’s computer. “Google,” he said.

  “Peter, I’m not sure what this is about, but—”

  “Google, damn it, Google.”

  Thurston slogged over to the computer.

  “Your name and feces.” Peter was behind him.

  Over a hundred and thirty sites listed out.

  …Helbs’ feces reminds us of mortality and art as a feeble escape…

  …He has absorbed his world, changed it as only he can and produced something unique. The stool is a scream of authenticity…

  …To see the watery eyes, hear the harsh chokes of the onlookers. No work of recent memory has evoked such a powerful response. Wrong or right is not the point. We are startled by Helbs’ shit and thankful for it…

  “You’ve got to do it again. I’ll review it. This could go places. I’ll be your agent. Your editor. We’ll be a team.”

  “Peter, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Please, Thurston. It’s new. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve had something new?”

  “It’s not new. Performance artists did it twenty years ago,” Thurston said.

  “But they did it as performance artists.” The title seemed to make Peter’s tongue itch. “You do it as a writer.”

  “Peter, no. I’m sorry. And I have to get to work now.”

  All that day Thurston Helbs sat in front of a blank screen. Every so often a word or sentence would briefly appear, but it was soon deleted. The Daily News lay beside him, and occasionally Thurston caught himself staring at the photo.

  Finally, as the sun set on New York City, Thurston typed a single sentence in 112 sized font. It read:

  I would

  rather be

  crapping.

  Late that night, dressed in all black, Thurston snuck along the dark streets.

  “I’m a superhero,” he whispered to himself. “I am the voice of the people.”

  Quickly and with great stealth, he made his way to the offices of HarperCollins. There before the tall, glass doors Thurston unfolded a letter he had saved for eight years.

  “Dear Mr. Helbs, thank you for the submission of your novel. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your work at this time. Good luck in your future endeavors.”

  No signature.

  There, in the cool night, Thurston tried to conjure up a movement. He pushed, squeezed, imagining the organs and muscles he was urging on. He pondered what food he had eaten that day. Had he dreamed of food last night? Would that slant his digestion? Before the final plod, he thought of kites. Red kites against a blue sky with no clouds.

  Over the next two nights he hit Knopf and Simon and Schuster with similar letters. On the third night he took a crap outside of The KGB Bar.

  He was disturbed mid-act. “Hey, you,” said a bearded man wearing layers of dirty clothes. “I was going to sleep there.”

  Another bed, Thurston thought as he raced away. How thematic.

  Then came more news articles, photos, interviews, fame. A scheduled book reading at a downtown Barnes & Noble quickly turned into a question and answer.

  “Is your defecating an analogy for your writing?” someone asked.

  “No, my writing has always been an analogy for my defecating.”

  “What’s next?” a young lady asked.

  “I plan to produce a series of samples which speak of change and stability. The path of undulation. It will be a larger, longer piece. Thus far I have given you only short stories. Next you shall have the novel.”

  “I was hoping you’d read from Night Eye,” Beam said as they climbed into a taxi.

  “I wrote those words years ago. I crapped today.”

  “But I love that book.”

  “I am no longer a writer. Novels are memory, past tense. Even when written in the present tense, it’s past tense. But craps…” He paused and leaned forward. “Driver, do you know who I am?”

  “Ah, yeah.” The driver glanced up to his rearview mirror. “You’re that shit guy. From the paper.”

  “That’s me. Ever read any of my books?”

  “Books? No, man, I’ve just seen your shit.”

  Thurston turned to Beam and grinned. They were approaching Thurston’s apartment building.

  “I’ve got to work till two,” Beam said. “But afterward I could bring by some chocolate with sprinkles. I mix the sprinkles in with the icing. Each bite is a sprinkle
surprise.”

  “No, thanks, I find sugar makes my feces gritty.” Thurston patted her knee. “Besides, I’m going to need some privacy. I’m working from home. I’ve decided the art is not in where I crap, but in the crap itself.”

  “Okay,” Beam said. “Call me up when you’re done.”

  They stepped out of the taxi. Thurston signed his name to a twenty-dollar bill and handed it through the window to the driver.

  “I’d keep hold of that. It’ll be worth more than twenty before long,” Thurston said.

  “I bet it’d be worth even more if you wiped your ass with it.” The driver said and sped off.

  Three days later Peter knocked on Thurston’s door.

  “I’m sorry, Peter. I can’t let you in just yet. Still on the big project. I see you found my drafts.” Thurston was staring through the peephole. Peter was covering his nose and mouth and gazing into a white cardboard box, which read Doughnut Palace. Inside were half a dozen fecal samples.

  “Brilliant, Thurston. These are better than yesterday’s. How did you get these colors?”

  “Artist’s secret.”

  “All right,” Peter closed the lid. “By the way, I just heard that Brown will be offering a new workshop in the fall called Defecation and Creation. And we’re being bad-mouthed by the whole Poets & Writers crowd, so we must be doing something right.”

  “Did you bring the laxatives?”

  “Yes, prescription strength. Oh, and it’s rumored that Norman Mailer was picked up while trying to poop on the front steps of the Village Voice. Sad really.”

  “Jägermeister?” Thurston asked.

  “Yes, yes. Your dark muse. I’ll leave it all by the door.”

  “Excellent.”

  “And one more thing.” Peter smiled into the peephole. “I’ve bought you a webcam. I want the world to see the process.”

  “Interesting.”

  Thurston stood in the center of the study, thinking. Then he nodded to himself and began pushing the shelves and chairs from the study. He carried out the books, the paintings, and his MFA degree from NYU. Lastly he dragged his desk out, scratching the hardwood floor as he did. Except for one solitary lamp and his personal computer, the room was bare.

  Next Thurston unfolded newspapers and spread them over the floor, making sure not to use any pages mentioning his name.

  Outside the window he could see the city wanting in, wanting to buzz the room with its own colors and noises. The sun was behind the buildings. The street was one long shadow below. Thurston shut the blinds, plugged in the webcam, removed all his clothes, and waited for inspiration.

  It was two weeks when Beam next saw Thurston.

  “You never called. I was worried,” she said after he opened the door.

  “I was working.” He let his hand drop down on his scalp with a light slap. She placed her fist to her mouth and coughed.

  “You can leave if you want,” he said, turning. She followed him in.

  “Why don’t we both go out for a while?”

  “I don’t want to.” He was wearing nothing but a wrinkled pair of boxers. His belly looked deflated, the firmness gone. He was mushy.

  The door to the study was open and Thurston knew she would soon notice his most recent work. Then she’ll see, he thought. Then she’ll get it.

  “Jesus fucking.” She put both hands to her face. “How many are there?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Oh, my God, Thurston, this one has blood. There is blood in your stool.”

  “There is blood in me. There is blood in the world. People are bleeding,” he said, spreading his palms and softening his voice as if he were explaining death to a child. “Don’t you see the progression? Don’t you see the arc?”

  “I see shit.”

  Thurston closed the study door. “Do you know my website gets over nine thousand clicks a day?

  “Because people are watching you shitting yourself to death.”

  “Then that is art as well.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Beam, I think you should leave.” Thurston walked to the door. “Return to your doughnuts.”

  “Thurston, please.”

  “Goodbye, Beam.” He opened the door. She hesitated for a moment, standing still in the doorway, and then she left. Thurston was now alone.

  Three weeks to the day after Beam left, Thurston made the tiniest poo of his life. A round little thing, smaller than a rabbit pellet. He looked down at it and asked it, “If all the good has been sucked from you, why do you help things grow?” He gazed into his faithful webcam, and then up to the ceiling. “Joyce, Buddha, I am empty.”

  Thurston closed his eyes. “Gloorp,” he said and died.

  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?”