Stephen Dixon - Love and Will - Twenty Stories

“I could still find out if the dog had rabies if you knew when and where the accident took place and what they might have done with the dog’s body.”

“Her dog didn’t die either. He ran away. Ballpark. Jersey let her go when she got in that rich queer’s car. ‘Freedom,’ she says to Ballpark, ‘that’s your new name,’ and Ballpark runs off.”

“Is that the truth now? It’s kind of a life and death situation for me that I know.”

“I don’t know Jersey anymore. I don’t want to. She’s a mean mother. You saw. Lie and cheat, cheat and lie. I hate them all. And all her friends too, rich or poor.”

“Can you at least tell me where she was staying or give me the name and address of someone who might know?”

“No. No one knows. And if I see her I don’t speak to her or say hello. I’ll say nothing. I’ll walk past. Besides, I hear she’s gone to Las Vegas for good with a gambler who gave up his wife and kids for her and now only likes gays. A laugh. Because Jersey’s no gay. That’s true.”

I called Mina that night.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but Lewis who?”

“The fellow who was bitten by a dog the same day as you.”

“Of course. You know, I told that story about us to my roommate and she said that only happens in movies where we get married the following week and a month later regret racing into it and have major calamities and breakups together but live happily ever after for life, though of course she was only kidding. How are your bites?”

“They haven’t found the dog.”

“That’s terrible. Mine’s healing nicely. And so far the dog seems okay and I’m even planning to adopt it, since that poor car driver was crippled and can’t take care of it anymore. You going to take those treatments? It’s been two days.”

“I think I’ll wait it out. Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

“I’m afraid that person I said I’m sort of seeing I’m sort of engaged to now, so I don’t think I can.”

“I’ll call back next week to find out about your dog and you. Maybe by then you’ll also have changed your mind about me.”

“I don’t think so, but thanks.”

The police never found Jersey or the dog. I called Mina again after our incubation period for rabies was over and her roommate answered and said “Mina? That rat skipped off on her honeymoon to Bermuda and left me with her two stinking retrievers and a third one that bites people coming any day. Who is this?”

“Lewis.”

“Of the dogs?”

“Yes.”

“She left a message for you, Lewis, that she told me to read to you if you call again. It says ‘I didn’t know your phone number nor last name so I couldn’t call you with what I forgot to remind you about the last time you called. I was also in too much of a rush to get off on my honeymoon trip to wait the two days the hospital said it would take to locate your records. But I want to make sure, if that dog that bit you isn’t found, that you phone the Hungarian man to tell him a lot of people would think it advisable for him to take the ten to fourteen day vaccine treatment for rabies.’ That’s it. So long.”

I’d completely forgotten about Milos. I called the restaurant number he gave me and the man who answered said “No Milos, sir — tonight. Can’t speak English please. Tonight.”

I called back that night and the restaurant owner said “Milos is in the kitchen now washing the dishes. He’s doing a fine job here and not suffering any rabies or illnesses we can see. Want me to have him phone you back?”

“No thanks.”

Today was a day of meeting people I know.

My Christmas job was over till next year. I finished another sonata last night. I didn’t feel like looking for work just yet or starting another composition or hanging around the house all day cleaning, doing the laundry, shopping for groceries, none of that. So I slept late, had coffee, browsed through the who’s-who-in-contemporary-music book while the eggs boiled, and after breakfast decided to take a walk downtown.

The first person I met was the old man from the first floor. It was right outside our building. He beeped his horn. I turned and saw him in his parked car, the windows up and motor running. He often sat there like that, reading, singing, sleeping, not doing much. In the eight years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen him with another person. He rolled down his window and said “You get any heat today?”

“Some.”

“Boy, my place is an icebox. Can’t understand it. We’re all fed from the same boiler and pipes. That’s why I’m here. And last night my fuse blew and the box is in the locked basement and the landlady wasn’t answering her phone. After sleeping with an electric blanket for fifteen years, I couldn’t get in three winks. So what, right? And getting too cold for me. See ya,” and he rolled up his window.

The next people I met were from the block and immediate neighborhood. I must be acquainted with a couple of hundred people from around here including neighbors, supers, kids playing, shopkeepers, city service people, people from the bars and stores and the local street winos and summer domino people and the like. The seven or eight I met till I finally got out of the neighborhood I either smiled or waved to or said “Hey, how’s it going?” and they said “Fine” and I said “Good” or they said “How are you?” and I said “Fine” and they said “Good” and that was our conversation. Occasionally when I’ve said “How’s it going?” someone would stop to tell me. Usually it was the blues. Today the only person who stopped me was the owner of several remodeled brownstones on the block. I nodded as I passed. She grabbed my arm and said “Those people.”

“I looked around” and said “What people?”

“Those people. There. Look at them,” and she ripped a sign off the lamppost which said there was going to be a block party with guitar entertainment at the corner church one week from tonight: free admission, bring cookies, wine and soda sold. She’d been in a Nazi death camp and had numbers on her arm and a few times had told me how the Russian soldiers liberated a boxcar of women she was in and raped all of them and shot half of them and shaved off all their body hairs and carved Cyrillic letters into their montes veneris and heads. She said, tearing the sign in two, “All these committees are nothing but pseudoliberal gudgeons or Reds.”

“Who knows,” I said, “and try and have a nice day.”

The first person I recognized outside my neighborhood was someone I went to school with at Music and Art and Juilliard. He was entering a bank. I yelled out his name. He didn’t hear me. I followed him in and joined him on the teller’s line. “Hey, Enos.”

“Buddy old boy,” and he kissed my cheek. “God you look good. What’s new? Still in their pitching?”

“No sell or soap though. But you’re strong. Mr. Jingle, name up in brights.”

“Let me tell you about it.”

“Great if it’s what you like. How’s Lola?”

“Where you been? She unloaded me for my lyricist and took the girls. Third page in the Post . Don’t you read anything but scores? I’m with a new chickadee now. Young. Great flautist. Really does those scales. Gomes from a fine family of virtuoso pipers that go back to Prince Kinsky and Rasoumou. And anti-marriage and big knockers that Lola never had. Remember? Flat, like everything else about her. I’m going to snap a time shot montage of those tits with me blowing and playing on them and send it to Lo just to make her seat sweat. You married?”

“Nah.”

“Teaching?”

“Those kids were nuts. Throwing the music stands at me, pouring mucilage between the keys. Screw it. Even for money I wasn’t going insane.”