Story Focus: "How to Kill"

First off, I wanted to thank everyone who participated in the conversation on Monday. It seems talking about unbalance between the respect given to male and female writers strikes a chord. Who'd've thought women had opinions about things?!

At any rate, I had an awesome time hearing from everyone, and if you're joining us now and missed Monday's post and subsequent comment conversation, feel free to check it out. And you're still welcome to leave your thoughts in the comments section, of course. The conversation is still rolling on.

Today, I want to focus on a reading of a specific story from Cut Through the Bone, one that continues to chew at me since I first read it a couple months ago, and now, mining the book and my brain for things to write about here, continues to gnaw and gnaw. "How to Kill" (which you can read in full at Hobart) is a story about a relationship trying to make it in the wake of an abortion. We're never told whether at the time of the abortion the girl was okay with it and is only just now regretting it, but I get the feeling that's not the case--that she wanted the baby, but he didn't.

Ethel's language in this story is masterful in its subtle layers. With each read of "How to Kill" I find another phrase that hints at the hurt and anger that roils beneath the skin of this nameless narrator. The first line, how careful she is not to break the yolk, only becomes truly apparent once the conceit of the story is revealed. Later in the story, how Matt pushes away his plate, "the left overs looking violated," and I can just see the yolk, now broken and running, perhaps smeared around the plate with toast, a couple corners of crust resting next to the remains of the ketchup, deep red. I don't think I need to explain the underlying metaphor there.

I don't want to belabor the gender-card here, but I can't help thinking of Kyle Winkler's comment from Monday, "My masculinity has been severely tweezed, judiciously slit-up, and decidedly analyzed thoroughly, and better in some instances, by women more than men," in relation to my own thoughts and response to this story.

It's easy to read this story, think simply, "That dude's a dick," and move right along to the next story. And you'd be right. And you'd be wrong. But, I think that dude is hurting--in the only way he knows how: tough silence.

Regardless of his relief after the abortion, he still obviously cared about the girl: went with her to the clinic, reassured her, helped her home and in to bed where he laid with her. You see, I knew a guy once who was simply a dick. I tried and still try to extend some ounce of grace to that guy, but I can't. Unlike Matt in the story, this guy did none of those things. This guy didn't do much more than offer to pay for half the procedure. We were out for beers when he told me all this. I'd known him a few months, seemed like an okay dude, at least a dude I could laugh with and drink some beers, feel a little bit like I had a pal in a new city. After this night, I never drank with him again.

Years ago, I thought I was going to marry a girl, and then I didn't think I was going to. A couple weeks after we talked about this, she called again. She said, "I'm late." I said, "I'm terrified." She said, "Me, too." And we did what we thought was right. We gave it another chance under the banner of that common terror.

Once the decision was made, we breathed easier, laughed more. We were both able to convince ourselves that my initial leaving was frozen feet, that maybe this would work. We welcomed the term "expecting" into our lives with talk of baby names and what books I would read to our kid before bed. And just as our terror left, her blood came.

We laid in bed for days, my warm hands resting on her belly, a warming pad. Her body was wracked with cramps and sobbing. I brought food and drink to the bedroom, but we hardly ate any of it. I got a call from my boss, fired for a couple of no-call, no-shows. I wasn't about to leave.

Of course I left, a few months later. I grew quiet and tired, sullen. Spent hours at the computer writing. Started stepping out for band practice before she got home so I could spend more time alone, less time dodging the conversations about our devastation, until one day, I packed my sedan with what little I cared to own, and left a note.

Reading "How to Kill," I hated Matt, and hated seeing myself in him. But also, I recognized myself just as easily in the narrator, who seemed to have no choice in the matter of the abortion. This girl and I, we didn't have any choice. Her body made the choice for us, and all we were left with was the question, "What would have been so terrible about us having the baby?"

I wonder sometimes if men shy away from this fiction because of the way it exposes us to these quiet desperations that we'd rather ignore, because it's easier for to externalize our conflicts with old men and the sea and fist fights and shooting lions and drinking beer in our front lawns. Like Kyle said, often times it's female narratives that most deeply expose who we are as men, perhaps because they are not us, but observers, able to render us more true than we allow ourselves due to our egos or ingrained perceptions of how we are supposed to act as men. I don't know.

All I know is I'm glad for stories like "How to Kill," stories that render me true, allow me to see both sides of myself. It's not that reading this story has changed my life, nor do I think it'll change yours. But it does what all good stories do--provides a mirror through which you can examine who you have been and who you are, and decide who you want to be.