How to Recycle Tracy Rizk
Milky Ways Liz thought maybe this would be the last time. She went down the steps to the basement with a bulging trash bag slung over her back. Paul was crouched on the floor, already spreading out the week’s debris on the damp cement. He was frowning. “This isn’t good enough,” he said. Liz shrugged and sat down next to him. She loosened up the knot and emptied her black bag. Her hand sifted through the pile of cans, wrappers, and cardboard boxes. “All right,” Paul sighed, “we should start.” He helped her onto her feet and they walked toward the corner of the basement, where a mass of junk stood large and rickety under a single dusty 60-watt light bulb. Three Styrofoam cups had come unstuck from its side and rolled under the workbench. Liz knelt down and retrieved them, assuring Paul that they would glue them back on. The sculpture had come to tower over both of them. It hugged the walls and masked the brown-stained rectangular windows. It was leaning slightly to one side—close to tipping over. Paul scrambled to glue some baked bean cans together to add on to the bottom for reinforcement. When he was done, he lifted the quilt that covered the base of the structure and wedged the cans in. “This thing is going to shit,” he said. It hadn’t, in fact, turned out the way Liz had planned. She had suggested the idea in an attempt to combine two of the Top Ten Tips from her Guide to a New You and get the whole thing over with. The project would allow her to both “Do Something Creative with a Loved One” and “Give Back to the Environment,” which would mean that she would have seven of the Top Ten down. Already more than halfway there, she figured it would be smooth sailing from then onwards. Six months had passed since she had started taking the selfhelp book to heart and her life was still in about the same place as it had always been. Now, she wanted nothing more than to give this whole thing up and go back to a good old-fashioned arts and crafts class. “I’m going to start with the wrappers,” Liz said. She balled her right hand into a fist and used it to flatten the 79