Stephen Dixon: Love and Will: Twenty Stories

“Foreign language,” one of the transvestites said, sewing a button to his shirt. “I hate them. They should all be sent back on the boats tonight.”

“Has your dog a license?” the policeman said to Jersey.

“What’s your name, officer?” Jersey said.

“John.”

“My dog has a license, John, but it must have fallen off in the scuffle with this man,” meaning me.

“There was no scuffle,” I said to John.

“You’ve already proven yourself a liar,” Jersey said. “Now you should shut up.”

Just then a derelict walked over and asked me what was wrong. “Dispute,” I said.

“Got a quarter?” he said.

“Will you please leave me alone?”

“Just give me a quarter.”

“Get out of here,” Kip said, giving him a dime and shoving him off.

“I’m really at a loss what to do for you guys,” John said to me. “Kip?”

“You could press charges and we could take him in if you want,” Kip said to me.

“That won’t do any good,” I said. “His dog should be picked up by the ASPCA and tested for rabies. That way we won’t have to take the shots ourselves.”

“You’re not taking my dog there,” Jersey said. “He can’t even stand being cooped up in my apartment.”

“I’ll call in,” John said. He tried his two-way radio. It didn’t work.

“Don’t look at me, buddy,” Kip said. “Mine’s in the repair shop.”

“I’ll call from the pay phone.” I went with John to the drugstore across the street. While he phoned I bought a bottle of iodine, applied it to my wounds and then, back on the island, to Milos’s ankle.

A squad car came with its siren going and emergency lights twirling. “You buzzed?” the sergeant said from the car.

“We want to know what to do about the dog,” John said.

“You should have asked the desk for that.” He contacted the station house on the car radio. The station house said “Normal procedure, with or without a dog license, is for ASPCA to take the mutt and quarantine it for seven days. I’ll get them over.”

We waited. The station house called back a few minutes later and said the ASPCA drivers were on strike. “You fellows will have to bring the dog to the pound yourselves.”

“He’s not getting in my car without a cage,” the sergeant told the station house.

“Hold on.” Later: “No cages. All borrowed at one time or another, since no real need for them till now. We can get one by tonight. Take the dog owner’s name and address and tell him we’ll pick up the dog at nine sharp tomorrow when we have a cage.”

“He won’t give the right address,” I said to the sergeant.

“Also get the names and addresses of an immediate family member and his present employer,” the sergeant said to Kip.

“They’re all be phonies,” I said.

Jersey said to Kip “I don’t work now but I’ll give you three genuine addresses which I have the papers to prove them: my own, my mother’s and my best friend’s where I usually stay.”

“Which one will you be at tomorrow at nine when we come to pick your dog up?”

“My mother.”

“You be there now, you hear?” the sergeant said from the car.

“I promise. My mother’s a good woman. Not like me. I swear by everything holy and her name that I’ll be there at nine with my dog.”

“Bull,” I said.

“Faggot,” he said to me. “You’ll never get anything from anyone around here from now on. I’ll tell them. ‘Pull in your asses when you see him,’ I’ll say. ‘That faggot’s dangerous and mean.’—Can I go now?” he asked Kip.

“Let him loose,” the sergeant said.

Jersey walked away with his dog. His friends remained on the bench, talking about movies now: which ones they liked or disliked. The sergeant had said he’d drive Milos and me to a hospital, but suddenly his twirling lights and siren were on and he drove off.

“They were supposed to take us to emergency,” I said to John.

“I could get another squad car for you, but it might take a while. You’ll be better off by bus.”

“We have to go to the hospital and be treated now,” I said to Milos.

“Yoicher hyper caper.”

I jabbed at myself while I nodded, made a cross in the air and pointed downtown. He looked confused. I hailed a cab and urged Milos to get in with me. During the ride I asked the driver if he’d ever heard this language before and I said to Milos “Say something. Speak. Hospital. L’hopital, Milos,” and I pointed downtown and to my wounds and his bad ankle and nodded and he said “Yoicher caper hyper hyper” and the driver said

“No, I never have.”

Milos and I went to the admitting window of the emergency room of the hospital and I told the man there “We were both bitten by the same mangy dog and would like to be treated for possible rabies right away.”

He gave us forms to fill out and bring back to him when we were finished.

We sat in the crowded waiting room. One man waiting to be treated must have been in a razor or knife fight. His cheek and neck were slashed, blood was all over his head and clothes. Seeing me looking at him, the man beside him said “Window fell on his head. No joke. Second-story window, smash, frame and all down on us both, but it got him like in a horseshoe game and only grazed my arm.” Another woman must have run into a nest of bees. I don’t know where in this city. Maybe she kept her own hives. And a baby with a swelled-up belly and a young girl with towels wrapped around both hands. I filled out my form, took my wallet out and removed some identification papers and pointed to Milos’s pocket and he did the same. All his papers were written in letters I didn’t recognize. Then I saw a business card of a Hungarian restaurant on the East Side. “You Hungarian?” I said.

“Hungarian.”

I said to the waiting room “Anyone here speak Hungarian?”

A woman stood up. “I don’t,” she said.

Several people laughed.

“But I’m Finnish,” she said.

This time even a few of the sick and injured people laughed.

“But the two languages are somewhat alike. They’re both branches of the Finno-Ugric.”

“The Finno-whatwik?” a man said and just about everyone laughed.

“Then I need you here, ma’am,” I said when the noise had died down. She came over and talked to Milos and they seemed to understand many of the words the other one spoke and she helped him fill out his form.

Two men came in holding up a third. They sat him down. One of the men went to the admitting window and said “My friend there’s been shot.”

“Have you seen a policeman?” the admitting man said.

“It happened right in front of the hospital just now. Didn’t you hear the blast?”

“No. You should have summoned a policeman before you came in.”

“Hey Jack,” he yelled, “they want us to get a policeman first.”

Jack, sitting beside the wounded man, said “They’re crazy. First treatment, then a policeman.”

“First treatment, then a policeman, my friend says.”

“Can the person who’s shot fill out the admitting form?”

“He’s bleeding to death, probably dying. He got it in the stomach. We thought we were lucky that it happened in front of your place.”

“You can fill it out then, but you’ll be responsible for the twenty-dollar admitting fee.”

“I don’t write but Jack does, and between us we don’t have twenty cents.”

“Fee temporarily waived then,” and he stamped something on the form. “But your friend Jack must put his address and signature here so we can mail him the bill.”

A woman came in with a burnt arm and back. Her hair was singed. A path was cleared for her when she walked to the window and a few people held their noses as she passed. The admitting man said “Yes?” She tried to speak. She fell to the floor. He called for two aides over the public address system. They came out of the swinging doors in back and put her on a stretcher and carried her inside.