STORY INTERESTING FACTS By Adam Johnson Interesting fact: Toucan cereal The topic of dead wives came up a just so you’re clear, I’m going to dis- bedspread to my plunge and deliver. few months ago. My husband and I cuss the breasts of every woman who It’s okay if you can’t make sense of talked about it while walking home crosses my path. Neither hidden nor that. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t from a literary reading. It was San flaunted beneath white satin, her grasp it either. The most vital things Francisco, which means winter rains, breasts were utterly, excruciatingly we hide even from ourselves. and we’d just attended a reading by a normal, and I hated her for that. The local writer from her short-story col- story she read was about a man who Adam Johnson won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for !ction for his novel The Orphan Master’s lection. The local writer was twenty- decides to date again after losing his Son. His story “Teen Sniper” appeared in the something and sexy. Her arms were wife. It’s always an aneurysm, a car ac- March 2002 issue of Harper’s Magazine. taut, her black hair shimmered. And cident, or a long battle with cancer. Photograph by McNair Evans STORY 61 Cancer is the worst way for a !ctional you shower, and you can towel like a I knew better, but still I asked wife to die. Anyway, the man in the crazy woman but still they drip. him: “How long would you wait?” story waits an appropriate amount of Before my husband won a Pulitzer, “Wait for what?” time after losing his wife—sixteen we had a kind of deal. I would adore “Until after I was gone. How months!—before deciding to date him, even though he’d packed on a many months before you went and again. After so much grief, he is exu- few pounds. And he would adore me, got some of that twentysomething berant and endearing in his pursuit of even though I’d had a double mastec- kayak sex?” a woman. The !rst chick he talks to is tomy. Who else would want us? Now I shouldn’t say shit like this, I totally game. The man, after all this his readings are packed with young know. He doesn’t know a teaspoon of waiting, is positively frisky, and the Dorothy Parkers who crowd around the crazy in my head. sex is, like, wow. The fortysomething my man. The worst part is that the He thought a moment. “Legally,” widower nails the twentysomething novel he wrote is set in North Korea, he said, “I’d probably have to have a gal on the upturned hull of his !ber- so he gets invited to all these func- death certi!cate. Otherwise it would glass kayak. And there’s even a moral, tions !lled with Korean socialites and be like bigamy or something. So I’d subtle and implied: when love blos- Korean donors and Korean activists have to wait for the autopsy and a soms, it’s all the richer after a man and Korean writers and various pil- burial and the slow wheels of bureau- has discovered, !rsthand, the painful lars of various Korean communities. cracy to issue the paperwork. I bet fragility of life. Well, secondhand. Did I leave out the words “beauti- we’re talking twelve to sixteen weeks.” Applause, Q&A, more ful” and “female”? “Getting a death certi!cate,” I say. applause. “You’re so sensitive to the Korean “That has got to be a hassle. But experience,” the beautiful female wait—you know a guy at city hall. Like I said, it was raining. We Korean socialite says to my husband. Keith Whatshisname.” had just left The Booksmith on Oh, he’s good about it. He always “Yeah, Keith,” he says. “I bet Keith Haight Street. “What’d you think of says, “And this is my lovely wife.” could get me proof of death in no the story?” my husband asked. Ignoring me, the beautiful female time. That dude owes me. A guy like I could tell he liked it. He likes Korean socialite adds, “You must vis- Keith could walk that death certi!- all stories. it our book club.” cate around by hand, getting every- I said, “I sympathized with the If I could simply press a button ev- one to sign off in, I don’t know, sev- dead wife.” ery time one of them says that. en to fourteen days.” To which my husband, the big- But I’m just tired. These are the “That’s your answer, seven to four- gest lunkhead ever to win a Pulitzer places my mind goes when I’m tired. teen days?” Prize, said: “But . she wasn’t even We’re four blocks from home, where “Give or take, of course. There are a character.” our children are just old enough not to variables. Things that would be out of This was a year after my diagnosis, need a sitter. On these nights our Keith’s control. If he moved too fast or surgery, chemo, and the various in- eleven-year-old son draws comics of pushed too hard—a guy could get in terventions, injections, indignities, Mongolian invasions and the civil trouble. He could even get !red.” and treatments. When I got sick, our rights movement—his history teacher “Poor Keith. Now I feel for him, at youngest child turned herself into a allows him to write his reports graphi- the mercy of the universe and all. horse; mute and untamable, our cally. (San Francisco!) Our daughter, at And all he wanted to do was help a horse-child now only whinnies and nine, is a master baker. Hair pulled grieving buddy get laid.” neighs. Before that, though, she went into a ponytail, she is #our-dusted and My husband eyes me with concern. through a phase we called Interest- kneading away. The horse-child, who We turn into Frank’s Liquors to ing Facts. “Interesting fact,” she is only seven, does dressage. She is the buy some condoms, even though our would announce before sharing a horse who needs no rider. But talk of house is over#owing with them. It’s wonder with us: A killer whale has my children is for another story. I can his subtle way of saying, For the love never killed a person in the wild. In- barely gaze upon them now. Their lit- of God, give up some sex. sects are high in protein. Humming- tle outlines, cut like black-and-white My husband hates all condoms, but birds have feelings and are often sad. cameos, are too much to consider. there’s a brand he hates less than oth- So here are some of my interesting My husband and I walk in the ers. I cannot take birth-control pills facts. Lupron halts ovulation and is rain. We don’t hold hands. I still feel because my cancer was estrogen recep- used to chemically castrate sexual the itch of Vinblastine in my nail tive. My husband does not believe predators. Vinblastine interrupts cell beds, one of the places, it turns out, what the doctors say: that even though division. It is a poisonous alkaloid that the body stores toxins. Have the effects of Tamoxifen mimic meno- made from the leaves of the periwin- you ever had the urge to peel back pause, you can still get pregnant. My kle plant. Tamoxifen makes your hips your !ngernails and scratch under- husband is forty-six. I am forty-!ve. He creak. My eyebrows fell out a year af- neath, to just wrench until the nails does not think that, in my forties, after ter I !nished chemo. And long after snap back so you can go scratch, cancer, chemo therapy, and chemically your tits are taken, their phantoms scratch, scratch? induced menopause, I can get preg- remain. They get cold, they ache I flex my fingers, rub my nails nant again, but sisters, I know my when you exercise, they feel wet after against the studs on my leather belt. womb. It’s proven. 62 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015 “You think there’d be an autopsy?” “What about your Native Ameri- I ask as he scans the display case. “I can obligations?” I ask my husband. can’t stand the thought of being cut “Wouldn’t you have to wait a bunch up like that.” of moons or something?” He looks at me. “We’re just joking, He is silent, and I cringe to think right? Processing your anxiety with about what I just said. humor and whimsical talk therapy?” “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know “Of course.” what’s wrong with me.” He nods. “Sure, I suppose. You’re “You’re just tired,” he says. Darwin Panama young and healthy. They’d want to The rain is more mistlike now. I open you up and determine what hated the woman who read tonight. A warm weather hat with Australian struck you down.” I hated the people who attended. I styling, hand woven in Ecuador from A small, citrusy ha escapes. I know hated the failed wannabe writers in toquilla !ber. Water resistant coating, better than to let these out. the crowd. I loathe all failed wanna- braided kangaroo leather band. He says, “Plus, if I’m dating again be writers, especially me. Reinforced 4½" crown, 3" brim. in seven to fourteen days—” I ask, “Have you thought of never?” “Give or take.” “Never what?” Finished in USA.