Watch Out for Deer

If I told you I enjoy torturing my husband, Earl, would you think I was a monster?

If you answered already, shame on you. Life is not black and white, and you should hear my story before rushing to judgment—especially the part about Earl’s secret.

First off, Earl thinks he’s brilliant. To be fair, he is pretty sharp. If he’d been born into a family in a big city, he might even be a professor or something. He’s a barber on Main Street in our Wisconsin town. Everyone loves the vintage feel of the place, the free coffee in Styrofoam cups, the eggs he sells from our backyard chickens, and the homespun wisdom from the devout Christian barber. He only accepts cash, and he cheats like a felon on our taxes, but that’s no reason to hate him. Depending on your moral code, you might even admire him.

Wait now—Earl came into my room to give me a sponge bath. He’s wiping my ass. Judging by the way his grill is twisted up like that bitter beer face commercial, he hates it. I laugh so hard, on the inside, every time he has to roll me over and clean me up. You should hear him curse. So many F-bombs. One time, he even puked. I never thought I would find the smell of my own shit so endearing. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, it is funnier than rodeo clowns on acid.

My room is our second bedroom. Earl still sleeps in the master, where I used to sleep with him. But I’m not complaining. I won’t let myself feel sorry for my predicament because self-pity is an emotion for losers, and I’ve always been a winner, like when I was prom queen. In fact, I give thanks every day in my gratitude journal. Like this story I’m telling you, it’s more of a mental journal than a physical one.

I have one of those deluxe beds where the head and the foot move up and down independently with a button. Not that I’m able to touch it. Against the far wall is a chaise lounge thingy with a brown corduroy cover where visitors sometimes sit. Above it is a framed print of the Ice Bowl, when the Packers beat the Cowboys on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. When they prop me up, I have no choice but to stare at it all day.

Sometimes the scenery changes, though. Like a month ago, when Earl led his mistress to the corduroy couch and started getting busy with her. He kissed her all over, nice and slow and tender, then lifted her skirt with bad intentions. After all that hullabaloo, he couldn’t get it up. Probably a case of shy pecker due to guilt. He kept looking over at me, like he expected me to object. I lay there stone-faced the entire time because that’s all I’m able to do. I imagined Bart Starr looking down and laughing at Earl’s limp dick. It was the most excitement I’ve had in months, since the accident.

I never saw that mistress again, although I suspect he might have a new one.

The accident is another testament to Earl’s cleverness. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been a schemer, working the angles. It happened about six months ago, when our marriage started going sideways. I was planning to leave him. He knew it, but I knew he knew, and I told my friend Heidi as an insurance policy in case he got any ideas.

Hold on—Heidi is here. Lucky for me, she’s my home care nurse now. She only comes three times a week, because that’s all Earl can afford. He’s kinda broke on account of all the expenses and the loss of my income.

Heidi is my court-ordered security blanket, after a welfare check found that Earl was neglecting me. I was malnourished and had bedsores that gurgled pus like the hot springs in Yellowstone; at least that’s what Heidi said. It’s not like I felt the sores because I’ve been a quadriplegic with a traumatic brain injury ever since the accident.

If I could use my hands, I’d be making air quotes around the word accident, because it was all premeditated by our genius Earl. His dipshit insurance agent brother told him about a case where two women were driving at night, a deer jumps out, flies through the windshield, and decapitates the woman in the passenger seat. Now, if you’re like most people, you would’ve thought that’s a one-in-a-million shot because everyone hits a deer sooner or later, and they hardly ever crash through the windshield. But not our mastermind Earl. He hears this story and thinks it could be the perfect crime, a way for him to get my life insurance money and bury his dark secret forever. You see, I’d caught him cheating, and the divorce wasn’t gonna go his way. Not only was he looking at losing the house and the barber shop, but he’d go to jail for a good long time if I spilled his secret.

It almost worked out the way Earl smarty-pants planned. One Saturday night, he pretended to make nice, took me out for a queen cut prime rib at the supper club out on Highway 173, where the deer are always running. On the way home, he tried to hit one, but the critter was too quick, so he swerved and struck a four-by-four post holding up a Deer Crossing sign. The shattered post flew through the windshield and struck me in the head.

The trouble for Earl is that it didn’t quite kill me. I’m still here, and now I am his round-the-clock pain in the ass. His brother stopped over a few weeks back, and Earl tore him a new one about the plan going sideways. Brother says it wasn’t his plan; he just told Earl about the insurance claim for the headless woman. What do you call two doorknobs arguing about a plan gone wrong? Hilarious!