Stephen Dixon - Love and Will - Twenty Stories

“It was only last year — this week’s his anniversary. And he was all right as a person, not great — I don’t want to lie to you. But thanks.” He patted the man’s back and got into his car. He backed up, pulled away and saw in the rearview mirror the man waving at him.

Man’s waiting in the service elevator right next to the passenger elevator. Someone comes — a woman, hopes it’s a young one, through the front door or from one of the apartments upstairs or on this floor — he’ll step out behind her with the knife, threaten her with it, take her in the automatic elevator rather than this hand-operated one to the top floor, walk her up to the roof, knife always on her throat, he always behind her and threatening softly but with a real scary tone in his voice “One scream and I’ll use it; make even a move from this knife or to see me and I’ll kill you,” take her to a good dark out-of-the-way spot on the roof — all depending what lights from the other buildings’ windows are on it — and rape her. She’ll never see his face and his voice won’t be his own. She doesn’t put up a fuss, he’ll leave her there gagged and tied up. He’s scouted out the building. Not many tenants come in or leave their apartments this late, but it’s worth the wait. Someone will come. Lots of single women in this neighborhood, so has to be a few in this building too. But on Saturday night, most, he bets, will be with men friends. One won’t though and that’s who.

Tenant on the eighth floor. Can’t sleep. Something’s up. Hasn’t always been right when she thought something bad was going to happen, but enough times she has. It’s not from any crazy imagination she’s thinking this. The winos were really loud tonight. Few more bottles and things smashed on the street or whatever they’re smashed against than usual too. And a couple more souped-up cars and motorcycles than she’s used to racing past her building too. Why don’t the police do something? If it’s because they don’t know of these things going on or they’re too lazy to patrol or can’t because of cutbacks, then why don’t people call them more? This city. She turns the TV off. Get some sleep.

Young woman’s mother in Connecticut. Thinking about her daughter. She went to New York to do graduate work in painting. Took an apartment with another young woman, a friend from college. But the building’s bad. Filthy, poorly maintained, bell system that doesn’t work; a firetrap, she’s sure. Even if some of the neighborhood’s okay, and some of the river buildings even elegant, and as co-ops or rented apartments, quite expensive, much of it’s very bad. Welfare hotels. Cheap rooming houses. Awful-looking men and women on the street day and night. Little park nearby where men drink and some dope and urinate in the open and make vulgar remarks to passing women and all sorts of other things. Beggars. In the Times she’s read of break-ins and muggings and seen a city crime statistic chart that put her neighborhood near the top. Worried.

Man in a cab going acrosstown. Should have got out of the cab and escorted her upstairs. Didn’t like the looks of her building and block. But then he hardly knows her. She might have thought he was being funny in a way — forward, not funny. And he had this cab, was in it, did only promise to take her to the street door, or rather: just see, while he sat in the cab, she got inside that door, and then he might not have got another cab after he left her building or not so fast. Could have asked the cab to wait while he saw her to her apartment door. Now he thinks of it. But she said she’d be all right. He did ask. And he’s sure that no matter how hard he insisted on taking her to her apartment door, she would have said no. Still .

Woman’s in the lobby, presses the elevator button. Light above the elevator door says the car’s on the top floor, the eighth. Slow elevator, takes days to get down. She doesn’t like waiting in this creepy lobby. Anyway, her friend Phoebe will be upstairs and they can talk about tonight. The man she met. He was nice. Took her home in a cab, wouldn’t let her share the fare with him. She wishes she had accepted his suggestion and let him walk her to her door. But then she would have had to invite him in. And offer him a coffee or a beer, when really all she wants to do, if Phoebe’s up — she’ll be up — is talk a little with her and go to sleep. Elevator’s about here. It’s here.

Man thinks now’s the time. She’s a good-looking one. Long legs, big ass. She’ll screw well. He’ll screw her well. He’ll screw her till she cries for more, more. He steps out. She turns around. Knife’s out. Damn, she saw him. “Don’t say a word or I’ll kill you right here.” He gets behind her and puts the knife to her neck. Opens the elevator door, knife always against her neck. “We’re going to the roof. I know this building. Don’t say a word, make a peep — nothing — don’t even sneak a look at me again or you’re dead. I know how to get out of this building easily so I’ll be out of here before you hit the ground. Now get in.”

She gets in. She doesn’t believe this. What should she do? This is a dream. A nightmare. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. Think, think. That knife. It pricks. They go up. He pressed eight. He said “roof.” Maybe someone will stop the elevator on the fourth floor, fifth. There’s only one outside button for each floor. No down and up buttons — just one, and if you press that button when you want to do down and the elevator’s going up, it stops. Please. Someone.

It’s too late to call her, her mother thinks. She’d like to. She wants very much to speak to Corinne, tell her how worried she is about her. Tell her that Dad and she will give her a hundred dollars a month extra to find a better building to live in. Two hundred. It’ll be a sacrifice for them, but it just shows how anxious they are about where she’s living now. If she’s going to live in that city, she’ll tell her, then it has to be on these terms. Of course she could say no, she likes where she’s living now, took months to find and then paint and set up, doesn’t want to take any more money from them than she already is and so on, and they really wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. It’s too late to call. But it’s Saturday. She dials. Corinne’s phone rings. If she answers it, or if Phoebe answers it — she hasn’t once thought of Phoebe, for instance how she’d take to Corinne’s parents subsidizing most of their rent — she’ll apologize for calling this late, but both will have to know she only has their best interests at heart. That’s not enough. She slams down the receiver. She can wait till tomorrow? Has to, since Corinne will see her anxiety at this hour as bordering on mania. Just another nine or ten hours. Eleven’s okay to call on Sundays for women that age. Even if they’re with men friends who stayed the night, which, let’s face it, could well be the case. She goes upstairs to wash up for bed. Her husband says from the bedroom “What’ve you been doing? I heard you slamming the phone down, picking it up, then slamming it again.” “I only slammed it once. I was worried about Corinne. Worked it out in my head though, so it’s now all okay.”

Roommate at a party downtown. Wonders if Corinne’s home by now. She’s sure she’s expecting her to be there when she gets home. Note she left will explain it or should. Something like “Aaron called. Sudden invite to big bash at a south of Soho artist’s loft and wanted me to join him. I know. Swore I’d grind away at the books all weekend and maybe never see Aaron again, but what, dear, can I say?” They have a phone here? If so, she’ll call Corinne and say she doubts she’ll be coming home tonight, and she should try to do that before two. She’s just about never seen or heard Corinne up after two. “Excuse me,” to a woman she thinks is one of the three people giving the party, “but is there by any chance a phone in this place I may use?” “As long as it’s not to out of town,” the woman says. “Positively not.” “Actually, if you’re a good friend of either of the other hosts, you can make that call to as far west as Columbus, south as Washington, and as far north as Boston, let’s say.”