Stephen Dixon - Love and Will - Twenty Stories

He got about fifteen feet down the hall and charged at the door.

She said.

He stopped.

He said.

She said nothing. Then she said, he said, she said, he said.

He got about ten feet down the hall this time and charged at the door.

She said.

He crashed into the door with his shoulder, bounced off it and fell down. The top hinge came out of the jamb, the door opened on top, hung on its bottom hinge for a few seconds while he was on the floor screaming from his shoulder pain, then came out of the bottom hinge and fell on his head and bad shoulder as he was getting up.

She said.

He pushed the door over, fell down on his bad shoulder. The pain was so great now not only from the first crash and then the door falling on his shoulder but the shoulder hitting the floor, that his body did a kind of automatic reflex movement where his legs shot out and his head and shoulders hit the baseboard. He screamed even louder.

She said.

He kept on screaming.

She said.

He held his breath, started crying. His head was bleeding but didn’t hurt. He looked at her sitting on the bathtub rim, got up, kicked the wall, kicked the door, screamed from the shoulder pain he already had and now more so from the kicking.

She said, he said.

She came out of the bathroom, looked at his head, looked at his shoulder, looked for a towel in the bathroom. The towels were on the rack now under the door on the floor. She grabbed the handkerchief sticking out of his pants pocket, put it in his good hand, put his hand with the handkerchief to his head wound, sat him on the toilet seat and went into the bedroom and phoned their doctor.

The receptionist said, she said, the receptionist said.

The doctor said, she said, the doctor said, she said.

She came back. The handkerchief was soaked with blood and he was whining and groaning. She ran down the hall, got a bath towel out of the linen closet, wrapped it around his head, put his coat over his good shoulder, got her wallet and keys, got his wallet and made sure his hospital insurance card was in it, held his good arm, walked him out of the apartment, down the three flights and out of the building and hailed a cab.

She said, the cabby said.

They got into the cab and started for the hospital. A few blocks from the hospital a car ran a red light and smashed into her side of the cab. The cab turned over and ended up on its wheels on the sidewalk. She forced his door open and the two of them stepped out of the cab, shaken but not hurt. The pain in his shoulder was gone. The towel had fallen off his head in the crash and the wound was no longer bleeding. The cabby’s head had gone through the windshield and was bleeding a lot.

They forced open the cabby’s door.

A pedestrian said, she said, the pedestrian said and ran to a public phone booth and dialed.

They carefully broke the glass around the cabby’s head, pulled him back into the cab, rested his head on the man’s coat. She took off her sweater and wrapped it around the cabby’s head. A crowd had gathered around them.

The crowd said, she said, the crowd said.

The pedestrian came back and said.

The police came in a few minutes and right behind them, an ambulance.

The police said, she said, he said, the crowd said, the police said, the doctor and the ambulance attendant said, the police said.

The doctor examined the cabby, signaled the attendant to put him into the ambulance.

She said, the doctor said, she said.

The doctor looked at her husband’s head wound and shoulder while the attendant and a policeman put the cabby on a stretcher and then into the back of the ambulance.

The doctor said, he said, she said.

The doctor got into the ambulance and the ambulance drove away.

The police said, they said, the police said, he said, she said.

A tow truck from the cab company pulled up. The tower hitched the cab to the truck, held up the bloody sweater and coat and said.

She said, took the sweater and coat and put the sweater into a trash can.

The tow truck drove off, the police drove away and the crowd broke up.

She said, he said.

He swung his arm and his shoulder still didn’t hurt. She touched his shoulder gently and it still didn’t hurt. He said, she shook her head. He touched his shoulder a little harder than she did and it still didn’t hurt. He shook his head and smiled.

She said.

He nodded, looked sad and said.

She said, he said.

She took both his hands and kissed his cheek. He kissed her lips.

A passerby said.

He said.

The passerby laughed, waved his hand at them and walked on.

She hailed a cab.

She said, the cabby said, he said.

The cabby shrugged his shoulders and drove off. They started to walk home. A scavenger picked her sweater out of the trash can, held it up, said, dropped it back in and wiped her hands on a rag. She picked the sweater up with a stick this time and dropped it into one of her two bags.

“Listen to this,” I say. “This guy comes in and says to me and I say to him and he says and I say and the next thing I know he does this to me and I do that to him and he this and I that and a woman comes in and sees us and says and I say to her and he says to me and she to him and he says and does this to her and I say and do that to him and she doesn’t say anything but does this and that to us both and then a second time and he says and she says and I say and we all do and say and that’s it, the end, what happened, now what do you think?”

“It won’t work,” a man says. His partner says “It will work, I know it will,” and I say “Please, gentlemen, make up your minds. Do you think it will work or not?” The first man says no and his partner yes and I clasp my hands in front of my chest hoping they’ll agree it will work and give me money for it so I won’t have to be broke anymore or at least not for the next year, when the phone rings and the first man picks up the receiver and says “Yuh?” The person on the other end says something and the man says “You’re kidding me now, aren’t you?” His partner says “Who is it, something important?” and the man says and his partner says “Just tell him to go fly away with his project, now and forever,” and I just sit there and the man hangs up the phone and says to us “Now where were we?”

“I was,” I say. “He was,” his partner says. “Okay,” he says, “Let’s continue where we left off from, though quickly, as I got a long day,” and we talk and he says “I still don’t go for it,” and his partner says “I’m starting to agree with you, now and forever,” and I say “Please, gendemen, let me tell the story over. Maybe it will be more convincing the second time around and I promise to be quicker about it,” and I start the story from the beginning: guy coming in, says to me, me to him, does this, I do, woman, what we all said and did and then the partner, not agreeing, phone ringing, call ending, my retelling the story. After I finish I say “So what do you think? Will it work?”

“No,” they both say and I say “Well, no harm in my having tried, I guess,” and the first man says “No harm is right except for our precious lost time,” and sticks out his hand and I shake it and shake his partner’s hand and say “Can I use your men’s room before I go? It might be my last chance for a while.” His partner says “Second door to the right on your way out to the elevator,” and I say “Which way is the elevator again, left or right when I get out of your office?” and he says and I say “Thanks,” and they say and I leave, wave goodbye to the receptionist, go to the men’s room on their floor, take the elevator down, go through the building’s lobby to the street. It’s a nice day, finally. It was raining heavily when I came in. My umbrella! Damn, left it upstairs, should I go back for it? No. Yes. What the hell, why not, it’s not an old umbrella, it’s still a good serviceable umbrella. And if I don’t get it I’ll have to buy a new umbrella at probably twice what the one upstairs cost me three years ago the way inflation’s going crazy today.