Stephen Dixon: Long Made Short

He goes back to his table. Main course is at his place. “Cold now,” his wife says; “maybe we can ask one of the irascible waiters for a whole new plate.” She’s eaten what she’s going to eat of hers. “What is it, lamb, veal, pork, even a beef chop?” and she says “What’d you tell Ned?” and he says “And the sauce — did it look like that when they first set it down?” and she says “Looks congealed but it isn’t — it’s good, if you feel like eating,” and he says “Usual humble fare. How the best man obviously won, since it’s obvious, because he won, that he was the best man. And, you know, that I feel fortunate to have got this far in the award process, though I think I said ‘lucky,’ and with such a long book and little publisher and few reviews and really no ads anywhere,” and she says “Didn’t he write that up in the article he did of you when you were nominated and in almost those words?” and he says “So he’ll remember and won’t use it, or he won’t remember and we’ll both look like fools to the few readers who do remember, or he’ll just replace it with something comical and acute I didn’t say, because it’ll look better for me or the article if I did. Did say it, I mean. But hey, we’re supposed to be having a good time here, kicking up a storm, alienating the aristocracy. And what’s the difference anyway? For now that I’ve lost, the book’s a dead egg. No, dead eggs you can still scramble or poach, so it’s just flat-out dead, period, literally an unrefrigerated hundred-year-old egg even Chinese gourmands won’t eat,” and he looks at the publisher, smiles and says “Having a good time? I know I am,” and the publisher nods and motions with his wine glass as if someone just made a toast, and drinks, and Rob beams at his editor, and she says “Too bad they have no music. If they did I’d ask us all to get up and dance, even in a circle, holding hands, in the folk dance manner,” and he says “So we’ll drink and horse around instead, laugh so hard the other stiff tables will look at us with indifference,” and holds up his filled wine glass and says to her and the publisher “Till next year with a new work, okay? You both still game?” and the publisher says “What? I didn’t catch that, Robert,” and he says “Next year with a new book of mine, what do you say?” and the publisher says “Why not. You nearly broke me this year with this affair, though with all the publicity we stand to make some returns, so I’ll be further broke next. Because I’m having great fun. All you nominees reading last night, the dinner tonight, meeting other publishers when I could never call myself one till this month, it’s all been marvelous. Yes, we’ll all come back next year, same writer, same award, same time, even the same table — number six — write that down, Sissie,” and the editor says “I recorded it up here,” pointing to her head, and the publisher says “With too much to drink, which I expect, we all might forget. But does Robert have a manuscript ready for us?” and Rob’s wife says “Don’t worry about this guy. Living is writing, writing is living, even the stomach flu along with a death in the family and cramps hardly stop him for a day, so expect one every year and only occasionally every other year, till you yell uncle.”

The sitter’s sitting in the semidark when they let themselves into their hotel room. She whispers “I suppose, because you didn’t phone, that it wasn’t good news. I’m very sorry, sir. My fingers were crossed, and I even recited a brief good-night prayer for you with the children. I hope you don’t mind,” and he says “Right, no news is no good news at times, and, for all we know, prayers work against me, but thanks. How were they — the kids?” and she says “Disappointed you didn’t phone. They knew what it meant too and said things like they felt very bad for you, and I think for themselves a little also, since they said that if you won you promised to take them to FAO Schwarz tomorrow and give them each a twenty-dollar bill to spend. This week, one day after work, I’m going to look for your book in a bookstore, only I wish you’d be there to sign it for me,” and he whispers “Here, and this is in addition to your wages tonight, take the one I read from yesterday,” and asks her name and signs it “To Cecily Houston, who sat for us night this book lost the AFA, thanks and very best,” and says “I haven’t gone through it yet for typos, except for the pages I read from last night—580, nine down, ‘north’ instead of ‘nouth,’ 581, fourteen from foot, single quote mark before the double after the word ‘slug,’ but those I already wrote in when I was reading, plus a couple of commas for periods on those pages and the next and the word ‘entrenchment’ missing somewhere in the middle of 583. So I know there must be hundreds of corrections to be made, if not a thousand plus hundreds, which by all rights should foul up my sleep. The book, you see, first read in galleys by the judges of the award, was hurried into print early when the news of the nomination came out,” and she says “Galleys, like ship kitchens? I don’t understand,” and his wife says “Shh, you two — the kids,” and he whispers to the sitter “Really, it’s not important, an asterisk to this whole silly shebang.”

In bed his wife kisses his back, plays with him, and he says “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel like it; imagine, But my mind’s off somewhere, thinking about how I’d feel right now if I’d won, what I’d be doing and so on, worried about the morning and all the fuss and scurrying around me and arrangements being made and what I’d have to wear, even. Other than for the tux and old sports jacket and corduroy pants and single shirt and tie, I didn’t come prepared for that,” and she says “So you’d buy, for you get a ten thousand dollar check with the prize,” and he says “It takes me days to decide, and I could buy clothes so early in the morning? Because they’d probably want me for some network or local ‘Today’-type show around eight or nine. But would’ve been nice, no? Winning, I mean — fooling around with you too, of course — but also rejecting all that comes with the win, or most. ‘Sorry, but each appearance I make takes away about two pages of my new manuscript.’ ‘Sorry, but you can’t keep my fountain pen, nor will I sign the photocopy you made of my story; it does something to the nib.’ ‘Sorry, but I truly feel I’ve been overinterviewed’—‘prodigally, immoderately’ (I’d switch it around a bit)—‘supererogatorally, in excess of and over and beyond and above the call of blathering and dry cleaning my clothes,’” and she says “I can understand it. I’m a little sloshed myself from the evening’s excess. Did you take aspirins?” and he says “Aspirins and Alka-Seltzer. I bought some packs, knowing I’d drink and think too much, before we left yesterday. It’s probably been on the eleven o’clock TV and radio news already and in the newspapers — at least the articles have been written — and certainly over the news service wires. It could even be in the meTimes edition just hitting the streets, if there’s one between the city and late editions. I want to read about it tomorrow. I don’t, really, but I don’t want to duck around it either. Good, I didn’t win; life will be easier and my work harder. Pond, what a yuk. I wonder what he’s doing now. Probably entwined in a phone-off-the-hook all-time celebratory screw with his wife, even if they haven’t done it in years, let’s say. Sure they have, in that period of time just about everyone their age does, but this is a special night — brain’s burning and blood’s burbling and nerve endings are especially trembling. Or they could still be at the champagne reception at the Plaza. We could probably still be there too, but after ten minutes of it you also had enough, didn’t you? I never really asked. But talking elatedly with three people at once. And taking in with characteristic modesty for such an occasion the last congrats of the judges and AFF officials and some high-born or just gold-crusted AFF benefactors who forked over thousands to be at this fete, and maybe even some publishing brass — almost certainly his own — who tomorrow can go into work late. All of them, though, slobbering and sucking all over him. It’s the new Pond dance, everyone’s doing it. Or maybe he’s being prepared this very minute by a Sklosby publicity exec as to how to appear on TV tomorrow on one of those early morning news-and-nothing programs or midmorning-crisis talk shows. How to smile, how to look serious — no, he’s dour enough, so could teach them. But how to hold back on your remarks till the interviewer has made his full range of compliments about your book without having read it. ‘Though don’t fidget with your wrists or toupee,’” and she says “His hair’s real — thick with not a bald spot or single gray,” and he says “Well, to me it looked that way, all of one piece, or maybe I’m thinking of his writer’s beard, which looked pasted on. ‘But stare straight at the camera, Lem, and try not to move your head erratically and, for certain, don’t curse, even if the blips will cover it — lots of people can read lips. In fact, curse, though not big curse words, for the audience might think you’re looking down your nose at it. Oh, just be yourself, Lem; call the moderators by their first names, let them call you what they like, though don’t blink too much or spit. In fact, be yourself completely. Blink, belch, patronize, boast, butt in and spit. That’s what the home folks want from a writer — the real thing. Even have a parrot on your shoulder and come in drag.’” “Really,” she says, “go to sleep if you’re in no mood for making love. I thought it would help relax you, I still think it would, but maybe you can use the rest more,” and he says “It would have helped and of course be enjoyable, but I’m just too sour to. Too full of drink too, too keyed up. Too everything. Too eager to get back to my writing after two days. Too many aspirins and antacids in me too. Too pissed too, with rotten anger and revenge, the too-too creeps. I never should have gone to that stupid gala, squeezed myself into that plastic tux and those steel shoes. But boy am I going to dish it out to them now. My own publisher won’t even want it,” and she says “Shh, shh, sweetheart,” and kisses the back of his head, turns over on her other side, and he turns over on his side to face the back of her, fixes the covers on them, moves up to her, and they start making love.