Stephen Dixon - Love and Will - Twenty Stories

So I start something else. I find another woman. Or continue with the previous figure of speech. A woman finds another man. She gets him to pump into her when she’s ready to conceive. It doesn’t work the first or second or even the third time so she gets him to keep pumping into her every day and night till he’s sure she can’t do anything but conceive. He and she conceive. They do. I do with my woman and man. We conceive. I’m they. She has, I have, we do, a baby. Another one — our second — end of figure of speech. A fine figure of speech. An awful figure of speech. I’m not even sure it was a figure of speech. But we have, it is, I start, again and again. Work on it day and night, night and day, days and nights, and what then? What could I expect? It runs off. Leaves the house. It leaves us. Be more direct. Another unfinished — yes? Goddamn novel, that’s what it was. There it is. Why wasn’t I that specific at first? Now I have been, so what’s the dif? Ran off, left me, left us, gone, where to? The river. There it goes. Someone save it. Please, anyone, it’s drowning, I can’t swim, a man jumps in, woman too, he sinks but she swims a couple of strokes, says I can’t make it so far to get him and it both, swims back dragging the man with her to land. So I jump in with my shoes on, jump and swim but it’s gone, what can I say? Murky as this river is, this body of water is, this figure of speech is, I still dive and dive and dive till I decide the water’s too murky and I’ll never find it no matter how many times I dive, so I swim to shore, where I am now, drying off, manuscript gone.

So what do I do but start another one. Use my penis and vagina, testes and ova. Doesn’t work. Nothing produced. We’re infertile, she’s barren, I’ve little to no sperm count, she’s lost count, I’m barren, she’s infertile, whatever it is, or we are, nothing comes, though it’s fun, so damn much fun, but not another fetus, no more children, not even a part of one manuscript, I’m done, can’t last like this for that long without another one, so might as well chuck it all in, jump into the river myself, which I do, we.

Together we jump. Holding hands. What else is there to do now? Can’t do anything but what we can do I suppose, though I don’t know — I’m not very good with those — but anyway, it’s what we do, jump into the river, we know it’s over our heads, heard of others who’ve jumped into it from the same spot we did and sank ten feet or so over their heads, so we’ve jumped, hand in hand, not a very long jump, fifteen feet at the most, not even as long as that, twelve, ten, we jump, fall, end up in the river, sink, about eight feet so two to three feet over our heads, we’re done, wasn’t fun, drowning wasn’t, falling was quite a thrill, but drowning was dreadful, couldn’t breathe, choked to death, gagged when I lost my last breathe, I’m not sure if it was my last, drowning was agonizing, though, never again.

So I watch all this from my window. Watch the river through the only window of my apartment, a good apartment despite just a single room and its shortage of space and what might be called a dining alcove: right on the river, window with a broad view. Once though, it’s true, I threw my manuscript into the river, no one jumped after it. I sure didn’t. Just threw it out the window into the river. It can be done if the manuscript’s heavy enough and I give it a good toss. But that was it. Sank, didn’t float. None of the pages came up. Maybe somewhere one did, but never here, far as I know, and none was ever found anywhere else, far as I know too. Now I look out this window. Water. Bridges. River traffic. Ships, barges, tugs. A pleasure craft. Flock of geese or ducks go past flying south though at this time of the year I’d think it’d be north. Workers on the docks way off. Nearer me, and below, people on the promenade. Mothers, carriages, nannies, men reading on benches, and so on. Boys and girls skipping by and jumping rope. In the sky: planes, clouds. A beautiful day. White clouds, blue sky, setting sun. Quite a sight. And before me, nothing. Meaning in my typewriter or at the end of my pen, nothing. Time maybe for me to go. No. Out the window first. I look. I open it. Mild as it looks. The pen. From three stories up I throw it into the river. It makes a blip and is gone. Now the typewriter. Too heavy to throw. I go downstairs, cross the promenade, dump it over the railing. Drop it over, really. Plop. Gone. I thought it’d make a louder sound. A woman jogs by. “What’d you drop in the river,” she says on the run, “your newborn child?” Wow, that’s a strange thing to say. Even if she saw what I dropped and knew what I’d been thinking, which I’m sure she didn’t, a very strange remark. That woman must be crazy.

Earlier today he threw out his father’s old bathrobe and wants to tell—

She isn’t home by six and at seven he starts to get—

He dials her office and—

At eight the phone rings—

She unlocks the door around—

He kisses her, wants to know what—

She says “It was unfortunate but late this afternoon a lawyer from Abadine and Lynch”—

“I don’t care what the hell happened, the least you”—

“I’m sorry too, and I’m telling you, I would have called much sooner but”—

All right, that’s over, and he realizes he got overexcited when the right reaction—

“Are you still hungry?” he—

“To tell you the truth, Smitty, I only want”—

“Do what you want, what do I care, because nobody here”—

“Now listen, I don’t want to”—

“But two hours,” he says, “two”—

“I thought we went”—

“We did, but still — oh, what am I getting so damn upset”—

“That’s what I feel, though I’ve absolutely said my last on it tonight,” and she goes—

“Wait, we haven’t”—

He hears the shower—

He goes into the kitchen and gets himself—

In the kitchen he wonders if—

He opens the back door to his floor’s service area to see if the garbage—

Good, and he picks up the plastic bag and brings it back into—

He opens it and first has to take some garbage out before—

He shakes it out, wipes off a little meat sauce from—

He pours himself another drink and looks at the bathrobe lying—

It’s still wearable, so why did—

Because the collar’s so frayed and the cuffs also and the belt almost a string now and besides that—

When did his mother buy—

He remembers when his father was very sick and wore this robe and the spittle would—

He’d have to wipe it off the sleeves and the collar and the front—

“Dad,” he’d say then, “when you feel the drool”—

“I can’t help it,” his father would say, “I can’t help it, and it’s not”—

“You can make an attempt to help if you’d only”—

“Stop pestering me, stop ordering”—

How many years did he live with them then, helping his mother take care of him, and people, especially his sisters, saying he was too old to live home again but that they—

For the last year of his life his father was either in this bathrobe or—

First thing every morning he’d lift his father off the bed, stand him up, put the bathrobe on him, walk him to—

His wife comes into the kitchen, is in her nightgown, and says as she—

“Excuse me, but why’s the garbage”—

“I’ll clean it up, don’t worry”—

“And why’s the old robe”—

“I threw it out today and wanted to keep it thrown out but”—

“Why’d you”—

“I just didn’t”—

“It’s actually too worn to wear and probably has”—