Stephen Dixon - Gould

Flew to Lisbon (cashed in the savings bonds his mother had bought him twenty years before), slept with her that night and it went well for a while. He had her for two nights, Brett for two, they bussed and trained around Portugal and Spain together. Then Brett hooked up with an old girlfriend for a week and he and Evangeline and Brons hitched from Salamanca to Zaragoza, where Brett met up with them. Then it was time for those three to leave; he still had a week. They had a chartered flight back; his was regular round-trip fare. Why’s he think all this info’s essential? And he’s never been good with facts, stats and grammar and things like that; he knows where people were in a room and what they did and generally what they said. He got angry a few hours before they were to go to the airport, said some things, she said some; he remembers the scene vividly: she was sitting in the sink peeing, he was packing Brons’s things, Brons was napping on their bed (they’d made love on the floor while he was asleep), Brett was in the adjoining bedroom. They argued (she jumped off the sink, wiped herself and put on her pants); he jostled her (more a tap), she hit him (fist against neck), he grabbed her chin and squeezed it and said “You fucker (bitch, bastard, stupid cunt), why do you think I should take that without heaving you across the room?” She spit in his face and said “Oh so brave; let me see you just try it.” He squeezed her chin harder till she screamed. (He knew what he was doing was all wrong, that he should apologize, say he doesn’t know what the hell came over him, that he doesn’t even know what started the goddamn argument, anyway, forgive him, and then leave the room and walk around the city for an hour, buy them going-away presents, etcetera.) By this time Brons had his arms around his legs and was trying to drag him away from his mother. Brett burst into the room. “Ladies, gentlemen, please,” and pried Gould’s hand off her chin. “You maniac,” she said to Gould, “we’re going just at the right moment,” and he said “You’re right, on everything, just as I’m wrong on them. But why am I bothering with any of you? This has all been a dopey sham. A woman shouldn’t be shared — that’s my problem or what set it off. We’ve been so freaking hip about it. Oh, you get to stick it in her, oh, I get to do it next, two for you, three in column four, oh aren’t we all so nouveau classe.” “What?” she said. “Every time you hit the sack with her,” to Brett, “it drove me nuts. Now I went over the peak. I couldn’t stand your goddamn sounds through the wall. You had to make them, knowing I was in the next room sleeping right up against your wall? You had to shout, you had to say ouch, ouch? She’s a slut, we’re both pimps, the three of us are flaming exhibitionists, and you’re a dumb asshole for agreeing to the arrangement in the first place. Once she left with you she should have stuck with you. It hasn’t been good for Brons besides,” and she said “And what you’re saying now is? As for who’s the loony hypocrite, we won’t even vote.” “Shut up, you bastard (fucker, bitch, slut, stupid cunt, A-I manipulator). Shut up, shut up!” She spit at him again, punched his chest. “Ladies, gentlemen, please.” He grabbed her chin. Brett said “Jesus, did you have to?” and jumped on him, threw him against the wall. Brons was bawling. “This is so sad,” Gould said, “I’m such a wreck, everything couldn’t be worse. How’d I get to this? I’m sorry, sorry, forgive me,” and got on his knees and rested his head against Brons’s shins. “Get off me. You’re crazy,” and he said “I know, I’m so ashamed, to you most of all, but to all the rest. Ah, enough,” standing up. “I’m hopeless. I hate everything. Deals, contracts, egos, appetites, it’s all getting to me. Nobody else here may be a sham but I certainly am.” He punched the wall and when Brett said “Stop, you’re gonna cost us a fortune,” he threw a radio across the room, ashtray to the floor, picked up a chair to smash it against something but put it down and sat on it. Manager was called. He said “It’s all because I don’t want to be so solely alone again.” Didn’t know why he said it. Never really minded traveling alone. Had been looking forward to it after they left: Granada, Seville; they hadn’t been there and he’d wanted to go. Toledo, the Prado, to sit in what he’d heard was a small square room there filled with tall El Grecos. He yelled “The freedom of the open road is hell. Ah, that’s so asinine,” and clenched his eyes closed and grabbed his head. “He was never like this,” she said to someone. “Never melodramatic; in fact, bewailed that state. A schmuck sometimes but never so sophomoric. Maybe cracking up was the best thing for him; he was always too judgmental and tight.” “That’s unfair,” Brett said and she said “You’re probably right. Please get our bags downstairs. You help him, Brons. No good-byes, let’s just go. He’ll pay for everything he breaks,” to the manager. “Otherwise, we’re all paid up.” She quickly threw the rest of her and Brons’s things into a duffel bag, made for the door, said “Wait, I can’t leave him like this,” and he thought She’s going to say she wants him to come to California soon as he can. That it wasn’t all his fault and she takes most of the blame. That she still loves him and he doesn’t have to think this is the end of them. Even if she won’t mean most of it, it’ll give him hope through the next week. “Please get a hold of yourself, Gould. I feel somewhat responsible for you but not that much where I’d miss my flight. I don’t have that kind of cash to blow. And if you didn’t like the arrangement, you always could have said. Take care. I don’t quite know why it happened today, but like you I think it stinks,” and left. “Bye, Gould’s” from Brons and Brett at the door. The manager, with a young nervous elevator operator on both sides of him, said “Pardon us, sir, but we don’t wish you to remain. The radio was old so we won’t ask and we’ll also excuse the glass. Now, can you go?” He’s reached an age, he wanted to say to him, where he should have his own children. You, a Spaniard, know about that. One’s own children and a good wife can stop a man from unacceptable behavior like this. A job like yours too: full-time, relatively well-paying, respectable. He’s become a leech on people for lots of things: money, emotion, having a kid. Something snapped that won’t again. His life’s become ugly and he must start changing that today. Okay, settled, he knows what’s the problem but he’s not sure how to carry out the solution, but one thing at a time, yes? and ran past the manager and his men — should have said he was sorry to him; he’ll do it later, but everything can’t come that fast — out of the hotel, walked around for hours, had lots of coffee and saw some sights, they were gone now, plane had taken off, were probably still discussing him, but don’t let that stop you, went back to the hotel to pick up his things, someone had packed them for him, asked for the manager, he’d left work for the day so Gould wrote a note: “My apologies, señor, my deepest and most respectful. Thank you for being so courteous, understanding and just plain nice about the whole matter. I’m completely ashamed and shan’t repeat that behavior again.” Changed his departure flight from Madrid to Marseilles. Bussed to Aix-en-Provence; met a woman there on vacation for two weeks and started sleeping with her. He was getting healthy; when the woman said that as much as she adores him this is only a summer fling and she’ll return to her husband in a week and never see him again unless she comes to America on business or they meet by chance, he said he understands, that was the arrangement from the start, he’ll regret when they separate but it’s been a wonderful few days so far and it isn’t over yet. “What a marvelous disposition,” she said in French; “so clear and clean and where there’s no rancor or stain. Normally, a man would demand I stay till he has to go, that I lie to my husband why I’m delaying my return and then desert me in a few days, having won an uncontested contest with my husband and triumphed over my compunctions and better instincts or make a tearful tirade and spectacle when the time came for me to leave.” “I used to,” he said, “but learned.” They went to museums and concerts and chapels designed by artists and restored homes of famous painters and composers, discussed art, philosophy, religion, books, music and the more serious European movies; Evangeline never wanted to talk about things like that; thought all conversation about art was “for faggots” and that America made the best movies and subtitles ruined your eyesight and good music started with Dixieland and jazz and books were for falling in love with and not trumpeting your highfalutin views and philosophy was unreadable when it wasn’t laughable to read and religion you should just shut up about even if you’re a believer and looking at art in books was better than on walls because you didn’t have to tramp around huge stuffy buildings and try to peer over people’s shoulders to see it. “That’s because of your height,” he said; “so get in front, no one would mind.” He’s never been so nuts, he told himself repeatedly, so let that be a lesson to him: it was terrifying and painful. Sure, when he was eighteen he was a depressed kid on and off for a year and contemplated suicide, or entertained that idea but was never serious about it and it was probably more romantic and hormonal than anything else, because it suddenly disappeared, and when women broke up with him when he was in his twenties he used to make some terrible scenes, punching doors, throwing things across rooms, once even threatened to slap the woman he’d been briefly engaged to when she called it off, but doesn’t think he ever felt so icy and hollow inside and partitioned from the world as he did that day: there were voices in his head for hours that said “You’re crazy, that’s all there is to it, good-bye, cuckoo bird, you’re now never gonna get out of your cage, mission accomplished: over the line for all time because an enormous wall’s been built on it that you can never climb over, you’ll have to be attended to forever or stay on powerful calming drugs but always in locked institutions where your keepers occasionally beat and bugger you and with no chance to be playful and creative and sexual with women again, all that’s been erased or will be, so what can one say: it’s too late and you shoulda seen it coming.” The preventive solution? Forget what he came up with that day, that was only to get him through it. You just got to be aware of what you do and say and work your darndest at what you like pursuing and don’t make unfair demands or expect success or the good things to last and bad ones never to happen and better to be hurt than hurt someone and gratitude is good too and politeness and genuine kindness and living alone has its pluses and drawbacks but things change, try not to have too many illusions and preconditions and musts, just be someone — well, he was going to say be someone others can come to and count on rather than warded off by his often being frazzled or on the border line of falling apart, though for the time being best he just take care of himself. It’ll all take time; you can’t be razed or destroyed in a day except by some devastating drug. Also the job, his own place, living normally or just quietly and simply but not obsequiously and never greedily, and independently and eventually the wife and kids will come. Why’s marriage so important? Oh, for most of the old reasons and he knows so little and so much is too complex to make all the decisions himself and he’s also tired of going out looking and even hunting, and kids he’s always loved.