Stephen Dixon - Love and Will - Twenty Stories

There are two doors at opposite ends of the hallway: 4F and 4R. I knock on 4F, step back to the stairs, ready to run down them. No one comes to the door. I ring the bell this time and knock, get back to the stairs, even a couple of steps down them. Nobody answers. Then I hear the vestibule door close and someone coming upstairs. I look down the stairwell. The hand on the banister seems to belong to a woman. She passes the first flight and is walking up the second.

“Hello?” I yell down the well.

“Yes, you speaking to me?”

“Do you know who lives in 4F? Because before when I was on the street—”

“Excuse me, just a second, I don’t hear too good: my ears. Wait till I get to your floor.”

She walks up the second flight, around the landing and is now at the bottom of the stairs I’m on. An older woman, around seventy, old clothes, hearing aid, holding onto the banister for support, limping upstairs. “Now what is it you want to know?”

“You see before, I was on the street, few minutes ago at the most, when I heard this woman in 4F here yelling ‘Help, save me—

“Oh her. She always does that. You must be new in this neighborhood.”

“I don’t live in this neighborhood. I was just taking a walk.”

“A walk around here?” She’s two steps from me now. I get against the wall so she can pass. She stops. “Why would you want to take a walk in this neighborhood? There’s nothing to see or do once the stores and factories close for the day and they been closed for three hours. She’s the only excitement we got on the block, and her racket like she screamed to you almost every day. ‘Help save me’ my eye. She’s crazy, you know.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Crazy as bedbugs. Ever see a bedbug?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. My homes, even as a kid, poor as we were then and am, have always been spotless clean, though I bet hers haven’t. But that’s the expression they use. Bedbugs must be crazy or move in a crazy motion, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think that’s it. They sort of dart round and round when the covers are suddenly thrown off them or lights go on, or maybe that’s only roaches. Anyway, if she’s that crazy, I guess I better be going. False alarm as they say.”

“False what?”

“Alarm. An old expression also. Like a fire. Someone puts an alarm in, firemen come—”

“Oh yeah, I remember. Okay, nice talking to you.”

I start to walk downstairs. She steps in my way. Door opens above me. 4F, where the crazy woman is. I turn to look. Another older woman, looking much like this one, same features, same kind of old clothes, though one on the stairs has on a coat and hat.

“Hello there,” woman above me says.

I look back at the woman on the stairs thinking 4F’s talking to her, but she says “I think she’s speaking to you, dear.”

“Me?”

“Hello there,” 4F says. “Won’t you come in and help me, save me. I’m quite calm now.”

“Why don’t you?” woman on the stairs says. “She’s very nice. Give you a good cup of coffee or tea if you prefer and interesting talk. I know. I’ve heard it over and over again till my head aches.”

“No thanks,” I say, and then trying to pass her: “Excuse me.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“Outside for sure.”

“Oh, you must be crazy as bedbugs also to think you can. You go straight upstairs, dear. Me and my sister have great plans for you.”

“The hell you do,” and I push past her. She hooks her foot around my ankle. I try catching myself but can’t and as I start falling downstairs she shoves me hard from behind and I fly over a few steps, stick out my hands and land on them and slide the rest of the way down, my head bumping on every step. I lie there awhile, whole body hurting, head and hands bleeding, several of my teeth out and lips split I think, and then try standing.

“You coming quietly or need help, dear?” she says above me.

“No, I got to go,” and make it to one knee.

“Last time,” and I say “I already told you,” and she comes down on my head with something like a stone a few times and I drop to the ground.

Next thing I know they’re carrying me into an apartment. Next thing after that I’m sitting on a couch, arms and legs bound, head wrapped with a bandage, the two women washing my hand wounds. The one who yelled out the window to me says “Listen, why you giving us such a big fuss? We just want you to hear our little story, and then if you’re a good boy and hear it all without squawking, we’ll let you go. Now here’s two aspirins to take care of the pain that must be in your head and mouth.”

She puts them on my tongue and her sister gives me some water to swallow them and after a few minutes of watching them bandage my hands I fall asleep.

They don’t tell me any stories or let me go. They just keep me there and go about their regular routine it seems, shopping and cooking, ironing and cleaning, embroidering and watching TV, when they’re not taking care of my needs.

They give me their bedroom and I’m always bound in ropes, even when I sleep, usually my arms and legs both, and carried to the various places I have to be carried to to eat, bathe, sit, rest, go to the toilet and other things. At first I shout and complain a lot about my predicament, calling them crazies, harpies, sadists, and they say “Don’t use such ugly words around the house,” and slap my face and hands and gag me and a couple of times wash my mouth out with soap. I shout and complain much less over the next few weeks because the slaps and gags hurt and the soap tastes awful, but every so often I have to let it out of me and I get more of the same.

They never talk to me or treat me like an adult. “Want some more foodie, Charles?” they say and I either nod or shake my head. If I shake my head they still put the food on a spoon and jam it against my lips till I open them and eat the food. Once a week they sit me in a bathtub with my arms and legs tied and bathe and shampoo me. “Close your eyes or they’ll burn,” they say, and I do because if I don’t they’ll let the suds run into my eyes till they burn.

Otherwise they mostly ignore me. They turn the TV on and we all watch it or just I watch it while they put away groceries or read or play cards. If they talk about the TV show or what they read in the newspapers that day, they never include me in the conversation. When I try to get in it, just to talk to someone as an adult and maybe pass the time faster, they say things like “You know the old adage, Charles: Children should be seen and not … what?” If I don’t answer them they say “And not what, Charles, and not what?” and hold their hands above my face ready to slap it and I say “And not heard,” and they smile and pat my head. If I still try to get in their conversation they always slap and gag me.

Once a week or so I ask “When will you tell me your story so I can go?” and they say “Be still.”

“Then when will you just let me go?” and they say “In time, dear.”

“How long is that?” and they say “In time means in time, now you want the gag or to get slapped or maybe both?”

If I then say “Then just tell me what the hell you’re keeping me here for,” they say “Now watch your tongue, Charles, or you really will get gagged and slapped and maybe more.”

Twice I yelled after they said that “Okay, slap me, gag me you old crabs, you hags, you crazies, you homicides,” and they ran over to me and shoved the gag into my mouth and slapped my face and pulled my hair and knocked me off the chair and kicked me in the chest and head and then carried me to my bed and said “You’ll be let out and fed when you get to have better manners to people in general and respect for your elders in particular, which might be only one of the reasons we brought you here,” and locked the door and didn’t open it till around the same time next day.