He had gone down the stairs nearly every day for decades. “I have to say that I’m not certain how wise it is,” his wife said, which was the closest she could come to calling him an idiot. But his tools were down there, hung on pegs along one basement wall, curated in drawers beneath the pegboard, and after he did whatever job he was doing—fixing the door to the porch, tightening the screw on one side of the lighting track—he returned the lucky wrench or screwdriver to its rightful place. He lingered. Something about the place, the slightly sour smell, the limited light leaking through the slot of window, was profoundly therapeutic, an invisible pill. And then one morning he turned the knob, moved forward to the landing, lifted a foot to proceed to the top step, and felt something in his brain flutter. It was a half-second lapse tops. But that butterfly threw everything off. He missed the step fully. He rose into the air, unaccountably thrilled. The thrill receded. Gravity insisted. He knew what was likely next, a rude lights-out against post or floor. On the way down, he didn’t think about himself, not at all. He thought briefly about his wife. He hoped she would remarry. He checked off others: son, daughter, brother, one old girlfriend he had seen from time to time throughout his thirties. Mostly he thought about the tools, and how happy he was not to see a single stray left crooked out on the counter.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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