Stephen Dixon: Gould

and mean it, and he also felt at times he was only going with her for the sex and that if she suddenly said “No more for a while” and the “while” meant a few weeks or a month or more he’d stop seeing her, cut her off quick, and he wondered what it was stopping him from loving her — her intelligence, he finally decided, she just wasn’t smart enough or didn’t have the kind of artistic and creative brains he liked, someone intensely interested, or just more interested than she was, in all kinds of art and could see it with a certain clearness and talk about it right, and she was also at times so bourgeois — that was the word he used to himself, for he knew it sounded so condescending — even if she was sleeping with him and enjoying it and even initiating lots of the little things when they had sex, and not just in music and books and that she thought all sorts of opera was funny — just the mention of it made her laugh — but in furniture and clothes and cars, that she really did like certain kinds of women’s magazines and TV, that when they walked out of a movie he’d hated for its stupidity and obviousness she’d say it was very good if not great — this happened several times — and also what she wanted out of life: to be an elementary school teacher; he said “Outside of the long summer vacation, which I think every job should have, how could you go to the same classroom day after day with kids?” and she said “Because I’d love to and feel it’s the most hard-working rewarding professional profession of all the teaching fields,” and he said she ought to at least try to be a college teacher—“longer vacations and you only get to be with adults”—and she said “Why, if I love kids better and think teaching them is a much more important job?” and he said “Because it’s deeper work intellectually and you’ll get challenged — your brains will — more, and you’ll have more time to do research and with the longer vacations and fewer classroom hours you might even eventually have more time to spend with me,” and she said “Oh, you’re saying we’re going to last forever and ever till death do one of us part? and I’m certainly not in the least— most remote way — talking of marriage here; Jesus, no! but just that we’re going to go on for a long time?” and he said “Why not, what’s to stop us? but we’ll see — one year at a time for the time being, but you also become, by being an education professor, if that’s the field you want to go in to, an expert on one thing and more well read, and I’d think your conversations would also be better — who wants to hear all the things that go on with kids?” and she said “You don’t like what I read now or our conversations?” and he said “I’m talking about the future; our conversations are fine, you’re very bright, much brighter than me,” and she said “No I’m not and you know it,” and he said “We’re equal then with you holding a little lead,” and she said “You don’t believe that either; and if you don’t like the way I am or think or what I want to do with my life, then the hell with you, mister, you can take a flying leap right now,” and he said “Wait, hold it, I didn’t mean it that way,” and she was crying and they were sitting at the kitchen table in her parents’ apartment, having cake and a special mint tea she bought and he thought here’s a chance to get out of it for good; just say “Well, that’s it then as you said, I’ve had enough of this,” and leave and never call again and if she called him, to just say “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything but that last time told me everything that was wrong with us and was the finish and that’s all I’m going to say,” but he looked at her and her mouth and her pretty face, beautiful really, though not the smartest-looking, and her small nose and long hair in a thickly corded braid and those greenish though sometimes pale-bluish eyes he loved looking at but were now behind the closed crying lids and her mouth again, lips which he once told her, or twice, three times, she could model for cigarettes, which he’d hate for her to do because then it might mean she’d have to smoke, or lipstick or straws or ice cream pops, they were so perfectly shaped and he got an erection and looked at her breasts but her arms covered them and at her legs and bulge in the calf where it crossed over the knee making it look even more muscular and thought when she squeezes his waist with those it actually can hurt and then that if he goes now that’ll be the end of their sex for the day, which they’d planned on without saying so for her folks were away for the weekend at some resort upstate and for the second time in six months he was going to stay the night here, and still seated he edged his chair up to hers and touched her face with his hand and thought what she’d like for him to do, since this is what finally stopped her crying the only other time which was over nothing he did or said but something she’d remembered from her past, someone dead, is hold her and he held her and said “Tears tears tears, who needs them and why do I incite them, right?” and without opening her eyes she said “I don’t know,” and he said “But I’m right about my being wrong, right?” and she said “Right, if you say so,” and he said “I’m right: I’m wrong, wrong, really wrong,” and kissed one lid and she opened it and smiled and he said “Your face looks crooked that way,” and she opened the other eye and smiled and kissed his hand now back on her cheek and they kissed and hugged and then made love. Then she called one night and said “I have to talk to you tonight and it’s not something I want to say on the phone, can we meet?” and he said “It’s Wednesday and I’ve got an important German exam tomorrow plus my job after and I’ll probably be working there late,” and she said “So what are you saying? — one night, if I say it means so much to me, you can come up here even if it’s that inconvenient for you, do part of your studying on the subway, and it won’t take long,” and he said “It has nothing to do with anything like your being very sick, something you just found out about?” and she said no and he said “Then that’s a relief, but I think I know what it is,” and she said “Don’t say it; I’ve said enough already and people around here got big ears,” and he said “Where’re you calling from?” and she said “The candystore on Jerome, but just come up now,” and they met at a coffee shop in her neighborhood and she said she was pregnant and he said “That’s what I thought it was, even before I thought it might be that you’re sick,” and she said “You’re a genius, is that what you wanted to hear? — well, you are,” and he said “It’s not that, it was your voice,” and she said “Listen, stop it, we have things to discuss, and whatever you say next, don’t ask how it happened or if there was even a possibility of another guy or I’ll go crazy — I’m already crazy enough over it, what a thing!” and he said “All right, take it easy, I wasn’t going to ask, but it is kind of perplexing how it could have happened, for we were very careful, weren’t we?” and she said “‘He won’t, he won’t’—you won’t, you sure about that? What a joke. Of course, you ninny, but we did it a lot when we were doing it, so maybe my protection can only hold so much or for so long — overnight, I’m saying — once, remember? Or when we were using yours you squirted a lot into it and some of it spilled over, but I don’t know — accidents in the making of these things at the place they’re made at. Or it could be that one day when I was so sure I didn’t need protection because I’d started bleeding, I did, and it was just nature that gave me a wrong signal,” and he said “You did ‘what’?” and she said “It needs explaining? I did need , I did need , but I’m only speculating with all these,” and he said “You’ve had a test?” and she said “I’m a woman, I know the signs, and yes, I’ve seen a doctor,” and he said “Okay, then what do we do?” and she said “If you don’t know, I have a solution. Through a cousin of his—” and he said “Who?” and she said “Someone, I’ll tell you later, I have the name of an a.b. man on Burnside,” and he said “That’s in the Bronx?” and she said “Yes, it’s a big avenue, cutting clear across it, almost — cast and west; this one’s on west,” and he said “What’s ‘a.b.’?” and she said “‘A.b.’ for you know what — to get rid of it, the a.b. man does — he performs them. He’s a real doctor, licensed, but does this on the side and we need three hundred dollars,” and he said “Where’re we going to come up with that?” and she said “You’ve told me you have some money saved,” and he said “I do, I forgot about that, a little,” and she said “How much?” and he said “A hundred twenty-five, maybe a hundred thirty-five — I haven’t had my interest posted in a long time, but no more than that, even with it,” when he had about four hundred, and she said “You take your hundred twenty-five or more, if there’s more — you’ll have to close your account, that’s all. And I’ll get my hundred and a few dollars and have to scrape together another fifty, and we’ll do it even-Steven: if I contribute more than you, then you owe me. But you’ll come with me for it, won’t you? Because if you don’t I’ll be afraid and mad, very mad, and you should be with me there and to take me home and this has never happened to me, so I’ll need someone like you,” and he said “Sure, what do you think?” but didn’t want to but would because if he didn’t she’d stop speaking to him, he was almost sure of that, or just stop sleeping with him, and he really was mostly going out with her to get laid, and if he did what she wanted she’d feel even better to him after that, not that she could do any more for him than she was or he’d even want her to. So she made the appointment, they went to the doctor’s office, the doctor said “Good, right on time,” and told him to go out for two hours and come back. He said “I thought I was supposed to stay — she wanted me to,” and then to her, since he really would rather be away from her during it, “Is it okay with you?” and she said “I don’t know, I don’t like it,” and the doctor said “Whether it’s okay with her or she likes it or not, it’s what you have to do, I don’t want any other person here during the procedures, for our own safety,” and he said “How do you mean, we in any danger?” and he said “Please, young man, valuable time’s wasting and if a minute more of it does I’ll have to ask the both of you to go,” so he left, said before he did “You’ll be all right?” and she said “I’m sure I will,” and gave him a scared, or maybe for his sake, a reassuring smile — he couldn’t tell which — went to a movie theater a few blocks away which he’d seen when they’d climbed out of the subway station, left in half an hour because he couldn’t sit there when he was feeling he wasn’t sure what, jittery, unhappy, guilty, not only worried for her but that they’d be caught by the police, sick in the stomach a little at what she was probably going through now, that she was there, legs strapped in, she’d told him what it’d probably be like and on something like an operating table, while he was watching a so-called serious art movie with people, when he looked around, looking at the screen so intently, walked around the neighborhood for about an hour and went back to the doctor’s building, knew he’d come back too soon but wanted to be there if just sitting in the waiting room while she was being finished up, buzzed the office from the lobby and the doctor said on the intercom “Yes?” and he said “It’s me, I’d like to be rung in, please,” and the doctor said “I’ll be done with my work in half an hour, sir, have a coffee someplace,” so he walked around some more, had a soda at a coffee shop, bought a paperback and read a few pages, went back; “Your friend is resting in the next room,” the doctor said, “but not to worry; she’s been there long enough and I think we can disturb her now,” and went into a room, came out with her with his hand supporting her elbow, she looked as if she’d been crying and said “I hurt so down there, but the doctor said it’ll all pass. I wasn’t out during it — not even a painkiller. He said the medical problems might really begin if he did one of those and he wanted me alert when I left and also so I’d be attentive to any bad symptoms. So I was altogether awake and it felt like I was having my guts scooped out,” and the doctor said “If it felt like that, young lady, it could only have been momentarily. I didn’t touch anything that didn’t need to be touched. You’ll be sore for a while, but that’s all,” and told her what to look out for: blood, hemorrhaging, severe cramps, and where to go if anything went wrong—“Not here but to a hospital, and just say you did it yourselves,” and Gould said at the door “Just one question, Doctor. When do you think, meaning in how long, we’ll be able to have sex again? — I’m only asking so she doesn’t take any chances with her body healing,” and she said “What a question — Forget he asked that,” to the doctor, and to him “How could you, Gould? I’ll know myself when I feel better, if I’ll ever even want to do it again after what I went through,” and he looked at her sharply, they’d given phony names and here she was using his real one, and she said “What’s the look for? Okay, okay, so I used your last name, I’m sorry,” and the doctor said “Not to worry, dear. Nobody gives me his right name and I could care less about it. And to me this ‘Gould’ could be yet another alias in a carefully concocted collaboration between the two of you to steer me away from your real names, and that could be par for the course too. Believe me, though: once you’re out of here I don’t know you and have never seen you and same, as far as it can be done, the other way around. As to your question, young man, it’s a legitimate one and something I should have addressed. Don’t have intercourse where there’s genital penetration till after her next period, even if that takes a month — So, that wasn’t too bad, was it, young lady? Now good-bye,” and they left, he helped her downstairs and on the street as they headed for the subway he thought over what he was thinking of saying to her and then said to himself “Ah, go on and say it, what’s the harm?” and he said “I can see how you’re not feeling good and what I’m going to say has nothing to do with anything today or tomorrow and so on, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold out on the intercourse for as long as the doctor said,” and she said “Oh, such urgency; such sensitivity; he even takes my current distress into consideration; what a man! As I already told you, sex is the last thing on my mind now, the absolute last, and if you mention it once more this week you’re guaranteed it never happening again between us and not as any punishment either but because you’re such a conceited heel.” They saw each other every weekend till summer; then she got a counselor job at a sleepaway camp, wanted him to come with her and he applied but the camp had nothing for him and he said he’d write her a lot and try visiting her on one of her days off. She wrote him less and less after the first two weeks and her letters had become kind of cold. She’s found someone else, he thought. Well, that’s okay, for he was seeing someone at the Catskill resort he got a waiter’s job at, though not anyone he felt deeply about; a waitress who covered his station and helped him set up when he was behind and put out for him whenever he wanted and was pretty and his age and fairly smart and who one day he might even get to like a lot; she was bubbly, compared to the other one, and not as dark about life and liked having fun more. He called his girlfriend at camp and she said “What is it? I’m only supposed to be taken away from my kids for an emergency and you must have said it was, else they never would have dragged me up here,” and he said “So I lied to speak to you; so big deal, my terrible sin, that I wanted to hear your voice so much after six weeks. So tell me, how come you hardly write anymore and when you do your words are just bursting with warmth, that’s all I want to know,” and she said “You asked, but you really want an answer?” and he said “Why else?” and she said “Okay. I’ve been seeing this man — the head counselor, if you want to know — and I felt bad about it because of you and didn’t know how to say it. But let’s face it: you never really loved me. You only said you did when I asked, but you loved my body more and only liked and appreciated the rest of me a little, maybe, isn’t that true?” and he said “If he’s the head counselor, why would they give you any crap about going to a phone?” and she said “You know that has nothing to do with what I was saying. I was talking about what I was to you before the summer, but by now that’s a moot point,” and he said “Oh, moot is it, moot? What the hell’s that, something you put on a trombone?” and she said “Are we going to start arguing again, and you extra stupidly, after not seeing each other for so long?” and he said “No. Anyway, before the summer, you were saying that you think you meant little to me. Well, not so, you were more than that, much more, and I’ll be honest and say I miss you a lot and you never know what can happen in the future too. My feelings to you could get much better, three times, four times, go sky high,” for he thought who’s he going to screw in New York when he gets back? Not the waitress. She comes from Hartford and will be in college near Boston and who wants to go up there every weekend or every other one or any time, no matter how much he might get to like her, since she’ll be with thirty girls and a house mother in a sorority house, so where will he even stay? Not in a hotel, on what he makes, and just the bus or train fare. But she said “Gould, there’s not going to be any future for us, I’m no seer but I see that and I’m sorry. And this fellow I’m seeing is serious about me and I think I’m in love with him too, so he looks like a much better prospect for the future than you,” and he said “Does he live in New York?” and she said “Close. Jersey; Trenton,” and he said “Do you know how far Trenton is from New York? How will you ever get to see him?” and she said “It’s at the most an hour and a half away by train and he said he’ll come in as often as I want. And he has his own apartment, so I can stay with him when I’m there,” and he said “Have you ever seen Trenton? I have, from the train. It’s a dump — seedy, ugly; maybe you’ll end up living there. Well, good, go on, but it’ll be the end of your intellectual or just spiritual life for good — shitholes like that tear an intelligent person down,” and she said “What would you know about what cities do? You’ve lived in one , New York. And I don’t plan to settle there and neither does he. He’s a law student and can get a job anywhere after, so long as he takes that state’s bar,” and he said “How old’s this guy?” and she said “Twenty-four, why?” and he said “Oh boy, older men, real experienced, I bet he’s had lots of girls — lots of counselors — it’s probably even why he took the job. Mr. Head Authority, lording it over his slaves; tells them to go down on him or they lose their puny jobs, and they do, the imbeciles, they’re too young and dumb not to. But good, you finally got someone who can teach you something about life, though whether you’ll like the lesson after a while—” and she said “You’re being asinine again. And about him teaching me anything, I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but if it’s what I think it is then you’re not only a big schmo but,” and she whispered this, “a pathetic jerk,” and hung up. He called right back and the man who answered said she was already halfway down the hill and he said “Well get her back right away. It’s about her father, something new,” and she came back and said “Yes?” and he said “It’s me again,” and she said “No kidding. What is it, though? I had to come back, just so they wouldn’t think I was having an argument with someone — this is the camp office, you know — or that I’d ignore something about my father being ill,” and he said “I called back, well, to apologize; seriously, I do. I’m sorry, I am a big schmo and jerk and probably even worse,” and she said “Fine, you know it, and I accept your apology. But oh gosh, you can be awful when you get mean,” and he said “You’re right, thoroughly and incontrovertibly, and I won’t get that way anymore, I swear not to, but we will get back together again, if just a little, when we’re back in the city — we’ll at least give it a shot, won’t we?” and she said “No, and that’s final,” and he said “All right, it was nice and you were great and we really went through something with that a.b. — you, most of it — and which I’ll never forget and I think it linked us in some way forever,” thinking maybe at hearing all that she’ll think of what they did go through and how he went to the doctor’s with her and paid half and everything and change her mind about not seeing him again, and she said “Yes, me too,” and hung up. He called her in New York a couple of times, her mother said she wasn’t home and she’d give her the message, but she never called back. Читать дальше