Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

But that’s not tonight.

And I’m not at some other part of the world but New York.

And a good thing it is for me too. As I’m tired, grimy and thirsty and I’d hate right now to be talking to you so far away from my own kitchen, shower and bed.

Worse came to worse, you could always babysit for Tim while we’re out trying to avoid him, and celebrate his second birthnight with him and later wash up and sleep on our couch.

If I spent the night with you all in another part of the world, I might not have the time and means to get back to my job and room in New York.

You could make it your job to get back to your room by doing your yo-yo tricks in the streets.

But if I swallowed my yo-yo, the country I’d be stuck in with you might not carry them.

Then carry a few dozen extra with you and make your plane passage back by introducing the yo-yo craze to that country.

How does one go about introducing a yo-yo craze to a country? Does one say “Yo-yo craze, this is country. Country, I want you to meet yo-yo craze”?

I think it would be protocol in the host country to first introduce the country to the yo-yo craze and then the yo-yo craze to the country. After that, every five years you could reintroduce them the same way and become financially set for life.

But in those five years when I’d be away someone else might reintroduce the country to the yo-yo craze, and when I came back it would be old hat.

You’re not missing my point? But say you were a couple of days late after the five years were up and someone got there before you with the reintroduction, start an old hat craze in that country.

You think I also have those in my mouth?

I didn’t even see an old jacket, which is why I said I envy you so much. No matter how well I take care of my teeth, I get one to two cavities a year.

With me, no matter what I do, I can’t get cavities.

I don’t know why you’d do anything to get them. Though if you ever do get a cavity, I’ll give you the name of a good dentist. If he’s too busy to take on new patients, I’ll try to give you my teeth with cavities in them in exchange for the equivalent of your perfect teeth. If by some luck I don’t have cavities this year, I’ll give you my old fillings, which you can then tell my dentist you want repaired or replaced for me.

I wouldn’t have any place to put your fillings.

Since you swallowed your yo-yo, you could put the fillings in your cheek.

I would if I could loop a string end around one of them and this filling could spin out of my mouth and unwind and rewind like a yo-yo so I could do my walk-the-dog trick.

My dentist wanted to give me the unwinding-rewinding kind of fillings, but gold’s the best I could afford.

Gold’s rustproof, so it might taste a lot better than iron after a while and yet be just as digestible. But I think it would still break a front tooth or two if I lost control of it in the rewinding.

Now I see why you tried to get cavities. So you could always have fillings around in case you swallowed your yo-yo in a country which doesn’t carry them and where you didn’t have the foresight to carry any extras in.

You’ve got quite a memory.

Oh, I forget plenty of times. Like how Phil acts when it gets way past six and I’m not home when he’s babysitting alone and he’s past booming out curses to all my names.

I suppose the best thing then would be for you to get right home.

The very best thing would be for Phil not to get so upset after an hour of babysitting alone, so I wouldn’t have to worry so much about rushing home.

Then I suppose the next best thing after that would be for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you’re still not home.

No, I think the next best thing after Phil not getting so upset after an hour of his babysitting alone so I wouldn’t have to worry so much about how upset he gets and have to rush right home, would be for me to simply go home.

Then the next to the next best thing, if the next best thing is your simply getting home, is for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you’re still not home.

No, the next best thing after my simply getting home, is being home.

Then the next to the next to the next best thing, if the next to the next best thing is your being home, is your not worrying so much about rushing home.

No, I’d still have to worry about it.

But it would still be the next to the next best thing if you didn’t.

It’s so far from reality that there’s almost no reason for me to even think about it or for you to catalogue it. And I really have to go.

That’s the next to the very best thing on your list.

Is it? You mentioned my memory, but I don’t know how you kept track. Anyway, right now it’s the only thing.

If it is, then there isn’t a list and thus no next to the best thing or next to the next or next to the next to the next best things.

You might be right. It’s become too confusing to me with all these nexts and bests and not-nexts and thuses. And it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all been very stimulating. That must sound insensitive and forced. It’s not easy talking the ordinary way with you. But I am married and have a child and responsibilities and a home and am loved by a man I’m in love with and who’s the father of my child, so I’ll have to do the only thing or the next to the very best thing or whatever thing or next you said it was on my list or list turned non-list and just go.

It’s not that I don’t want to have a child or responsibilities or a home, but I’m not married and right now have no prospects of such or am even seeing a woman, and I don’t want to go.

So stay.

I think I will.

Then, nice talking.

Same here. But may I carry your bike up the stoop?

I don’t see how you can if you stay.

I’ll come back.

If you come back, you still haven’t stayed.

Then I won’t stay. I’ll just carry your bike up the stoop to the building’s vestibule or ground floor hallway and then come down again and go.

The bike’s not that light. But carrying it up the stoop’s good exercise for me after riding it back from work so lazily. I can do it myself.

I know, but I’d like carrying it up for you.

You’re supposed to let women do what they can for themselves these days.

I know what I’m supposed to let women do these days, and what I want to do for this woman right now.

Look at you. You can suddenly get so serious.

Bike-carrying’s serious business for me.

I’d think yo-yo carrying’s the business you’d be more serious about. For no matter what the country you’re in does or doesn’t carry and no matter how many extra yo-yos you might carry in, it doesn’t seem possible you could ever swallow a bike.

Should I leave it in the hall here or carry it to your apartment?

The landlord lets me keep it here. Was it heavier than you thought?

I never thought it would be heavy.

Did it turn out to be heavy?

It turned out to be light.

Not as light as your yo-yo, though.

Truth is, it’s the yo-yo that’s not turning out to be as light as I thought. Maybe it wasn’t made of wood after all.

Laminated plastic perhaps?

One of your favorite flavors, if I remember, but I suddenly don’t feel too good.

You’re not serious again.

I am serious.

Probably you should take an antacid when you get home.

It’s more than that.

A doctor?

A doctor wouldn’t take me.

A city hospital?

I don’t know if I could take a city hospital.

The emergency room of a private hospital would certainly take you, wouldn’t they? But then you’re not really ill.