In the backyard of his brand-new, post-divorce tiny house, David Cale is stuck up to his armpits in a compost barrel. Is it possible, he wonders, for a human body to decompose while still alive? He feels one of the 100 red composting worms he ordered online from Uncle Drew\u2019s Worm Farm coiling python-like around his big toe. Or could it be the single earthworm he dug up in his vegetable garden just this morning and threw in with the others? It was fine and well for the 100 composting worms\u2014they were bred for such a life. But the earthworm perhaps had other plans for the day before being conscripted for hard labor. Now he\u2019s exacting revenge.<\/p>\n
Twenty minutes ago, David was interrupted from his reading by the chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee of a black-capped chickadee who\u2019d wedged her little leg between the solar-paneled roof and the gutters. Not owning a ladder, David climbed up on a compost barrel that stood against the side of the house. It seemed sturdy. But after freeing the bird, he adjusted his footing and somehow kicked up the lid of the barrel and fell through, sinking into the mucky compost. The barrel was tall and thin: just wide enough to fall through but too narrow to pull himself out of.<\/p>\n
The stench of decay floods David\u2019s mind with associations. Cold, impersonal darkness\u2026his body enveloped in dirt\u2026101 worms worming in and out of his hollow skull. Forty-nine years old, and what has he accomplished? A mediocre career selling bonds, a failed marriage, a seventeen-year-old son who\u2014well, who knows what Joey thinks of him now?<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s anything that David prides himself on, it\u2019s this: He cares deeply about the planet. You couldn\u2019t say the same about his ex, Robin, a vain, status-obsessed, advertising agent. Back when they were together, he forbade her and their son Joey from bringing anything sold in plastic into the house. Robin took to calling him \u201cBenito Musso-greenie.\u201d The extent of Robin\u2019s concern about humanity? How to make people think they need things they don\u2019t need\u2014things manufactured in sweatshops, things that harm the planet. For Robin, material success justified her existence. For David, it was a heavy crown. They compromised on investing in ESGs, but she viciously resisted any lifestyle change requiring the slightest sacrifice. Thus, their irreconcilable differences.<\/p>\n
Also, David hadn\u2019t been able to get it up in years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To her credit, Robin approached the problem with gentleness and delicacy\u2026 at first. She knew he was really upset about the planet, she said. She felt for him. But she was still a woman. She had needs. Besides, if he was feeling so low-down all the time, why not get help for it? Therapy? Pills? He didn\u2019t have to live like this.<\/p>\n
She suggested marriage counseling. Later she demanded it. During their first session, the therapist asked David if he understood why Robin was upset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do,\u201d he said. \u201cShe resents me for reminding her that our planet is fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robin huffed and puffed, and the therapist reminded David that Robin\u2019s complaint was actually a good deal more nuanced than that. \u201cShe\u2019s upset that, in your despair over climate change, you haven\u2019t been attentive to her needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing is\u2026\u201d he began. And then the words came tumbling out of his mouth like a poem he knew by heart. \u201cI think deep down I can\u2019t separate the mating act from the thought of bringing a child into this dogshit world of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you got snipped after we had Joey!\u201d snapped Robin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mind\u2019s a funny thing,\u201d he said, shrugging. It was a theory he\u2019d been kicking around for the past few months. Staring so long at the stark truth of climate change had simply mortified his sex drive. Did his body understand that he\u2019d gotten a vasectomy a decade earlier, or that Robin was past menopause? No. As far as his body was concerned, making love amounted to passing your seed into an environment that was hostile to human life. Which was a piss poor biological legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMark my words,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen coastal cities have all gone the way of Atlantis and all the great forests of the world have turned to ash, and whoever\u2019s left to tell the tale will need breathing apparatuses to survive\u2014We\u2019ll just see how horny you are then!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, you\u2019re both in very different stages of your sexual journeys,\u201d said the therapist. \u201cBut there\u2019s no reason to think it\u2019s a permanent problem. What I\u2019m hearing, David, is that you have a lot of perfectly understandable anxieties about the state of the world. I\u2019d recommend, however, that you work with an individual counselor to develop strategies for coping with those anxieties. In the meantime, the two of you might consider exploring the idea of an open marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d said Robin.<\/p>\n
Oh???? thought David, panicking. He couldn\u2019t breathe. His mind immediately conjured an image of Robin in bed with their neighbor Mike, a lifelong bachelor who hosted the neighborhood pool party every summer and whose pecs David had overhead Robin giggling about with the other women. In his mind, the two lovebirds were swaddled like babies in red satin sheets with black trim\u2014Mike laughing hysterically as Robin impersonated her neurotic and sexless husband. The two of them took turns wriggling their fingers to signify David\u2019s impotence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I love you anymore,\u201d David blurted out. \u201cWe should get a divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chicka-dee-dee, sings the black-capped chickadee, looking down on David from the nearby tree branch she\u2019s been perched on since he\u2019d freed her from the gutter. \u201cDear one, it pains me to see you suffering,\u201d she sings. Chicka-dee-dee-dee. \u201cI wish I could return the favor, but alas, I am only a bird.\u201d Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee. \u201cI hope that my presence is a small comfort to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
David hears the sputtering exhaust of Joey\u2019s old Mazda pulling into the driveway. Saved at last, sweet Jesus! He\u2019d forgotten that Joey was planning to swing by after soccer practice to check out the new house. The car door slams, and here come footsteps down the gravel path, the shadow of the gate swinging open across the green lawn\u2013\u2013and here\u2019s Joey: baby blue gym shirt, soccer shorts, the imprint of shin guards on his flushed skin.<\/p>\n
Seeing his father poking out of a plastic barrel like some sad, little Jack-in-the-box, Joey double-takes. \u201cDad? What are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did you\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was helping\u2014nevermind, can you just go in through the sliding door there and grab the lotion from the bathroom?\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey whips his phone out\u2014he\u2019s taking a picture, he\u2019s laughing. \u201cTell me how you got stuck again?\u201d No, not a picture, a video.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoddammit Joey, go get the fucking lotion! Now!\u201d<\/p>\n
Still laughing, still filming, Joey saunters over to the sliding door and disappears into the house. \u201cWhere is the bathroom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tiny house! There are like two doors!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, okay!\u201d<\/p>\n
David looks up at the chickadee, who still lingers in the branch. \u201cWhat a shame!\u201d she sings. \u201cChildren can be so ungrateful.\u201d A burst of affection for the little bird swells in David\u2019s chest. Yes, children can be so ungrateful.<\/p>\n
Though, if he\u2019s being honest with himself, he could have given the boy more to be grateful for. In decorating the new house, David had framed a picture from Joey\u2019s eighth birthday party\u2014laser tag. In the picture, Joey is all decked out in the target vest, looking like a Ghostbuster. David is pointing a finger gun at the camera. But the real story of the picture is in the rolled-up paper tucked into the waistband of his jeans, an article about offshore wind farming he\u2019d printed out from the internet to read while Joey and his friends did the laser tag thing.<\/p>\n
Joey returns through the sliding door, carrying a gray tub of margarine.<\/p>\n
\u201cBest I could find,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat? No! There\u2019s lotion in the medicine cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI checked there. This will work just as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFine, just\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey slathers gobs of margarine onto his father\u2019s chest and back. David wiggles and turns\u2026and then, yes, he seems to be moving, doesn\u2019t he?
\n\u201cOkay, just gently lower the barrel to the ground, and I should be able to crawl out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey starts to pull the barrel down the ground, but just when he\u2019s about to reach the ground, he loses his grip and David\u2019s head slams against the grass and then he\u2019s rolling, down, down, down the sloping backyard alternately glimpsing the blue sky and filling his mouth with grass and dirt.
\nOh, the look on Joey\u2019s face when he asked his dad to play a round with him! But David hadn\u2019t yet finished reading the article. Oh, the look on the boy\u2019s face when he said no!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t get that on video,\u201d Joey says afterwards.<\/p>\n
They are inside now, sitting on David\u2019s bamboo-and-hemp couch. David can\u2019t stop squirming. The constant motion assures his body that it is free.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut listen, Dad. There\u2019s something I came here to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know my girlfriend, Aniah? You met her at my game a few\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course! How could I forget? Great girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
David blinks and feels his breath rattling around his body like a pinball, even hears the pew-pew noises from the X-Files pinball machine at the campus laundromat where he met Robin thirty years earlier. He remembers her black denim mini-skirt and her matte lipstick.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad? Can you, like, say something please?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019d like to go back in the barrel now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWowwww,\u201d says Joey, slapping his knees and laughing bitterly. \u201cFather of the year! What could possibly go wrong with a dad like you to learn from?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want me to say, Joey? This is a fucking disaster. What about college? Your soccer scholarship? How are you in any place to raise a kid?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell…I was thinking I\u2019d defer my admission, for a year at least. I\u2019ll lose the scholarship, but that\u2019s life, fine. I\u2019ll go up to full time at the coffee shop, I\u2019ll\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
David\u2019s pulse is a war drum in his throat. Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd have you discussed\u2026 other possibilities?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wants to have it. And I do too.\u201d<\/p>\n
David closes his eyes to collect himself. He sees the earthworm poking its head out of his eye socket. In a nearly steady voice, he says, \u201cEven in the best of circumstances, bringing a child into this world, into this future, is just, it\u2019s pure horror.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas that how you felt when you had me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not!\u201d David recalls Robin\u2019s woo-hooing from the bathroom of their first apartment; how she came running out, waving the pregnancy test like a magic wand; how life had never felt so improbably wonderful as it did in that moment. The memory leaves a residue of joy that spreads across his body like a slow tide. It scares him.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s rising from the couch and turning away from Joey. He looks through the sliding glass door into the gloaming, the shadows, the silhouetted chickadee still fidgeting in her tree. Finally, he shakes his head and says, \u201cI think we should all\u2014each and every one of us\u2014hold hands and walk into a lake. Isn\u2019t that the decent thing to do? Give the orcas and polar bears and the earthworms a fighting chance at carrying on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really believe that, why bother with composting and solar panels? Why rescue a bird? Why prolong life on a doomed planet? You\u2019re still rooting for life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once again, David\u2019s mind returns to Robin and the matte lipstick she was wearing that day in the laundromat\u2014yes, and the smudged green eyeshadow and the candy-red glow of her bra straps beneath her Nirvana tank top. Boy was it something to lust after a girl like that\u2014and then, weeks later, to stumble kissing up the stairs to his dorm, to be thrown onto the mustard yellow futon, troubled by nothing but how to make bliss last forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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