Stephen Dixon: What Is All This?: Uncollected Stories

That’s how we felt, Mrs. Wilkerson.”

“Oh, do call her Edith,” I say. “Anything more than that, she’ll begin to mind.”

“We had three kids. Bing, bang and boom, that’s how quickly they seemed to come. But we’d gotten hitched too young. So, very amicably, no dillydallying with legal advice or anything, we decided, after we’d seriously talked it over, and have continued to honor our original arrangement once we knew the marriage was through—”

“Yes, yes,” I say, “that was you two, but with me it’s different. I still love my wife and think a reconciliation can be made.”

That’s absurd and a lie, Walt,” she says.

“Will you just get these men some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Jim says. “We just had breakfast.”

“I wouldn’t mind a cup,” Russell says.

“Heat up the Danish also. Please, they work hard and are probably hungry.” She goes into the kitchen. “Can I speak plainly with you guys, man to men?”

“Of course,” Jim says. That’s what we’re also here for.”

“It’s not only my tender feelings for her or that I can’t see myself suddenly living alone after so many years of marriage, kids, barracks, barges, college dorms and with my siblings and folks. Or even those six brief liaisons and now the one long one. But then when a woman tells you she’s never loved you and in fact could never stand you and you’re that and this when you always thought you were this and that, well—”

“You got agitated,” Jim says.

The windows. The everything. I even threatened to kill her and her lawyer both.”

“Shouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t I know. It’s all wrong. But man — a person, is only human. If we didn’t get excited sometimes, we’d explode. Or we’d be automatons, if that word’s still used.”

“Even so — three windows. It’s going to cost a lot. This house jointly owned?”

“She can have everything — that’s not my point. But only after I bust a little more of it up first.”

“No can do,” Russell says. The house has to be totally yours to destroy. Even if it is, if your destroying it is disturbing the peace of your neighbors, you’d be breaking another law and so can’t destroy your own house. It sounds unfair. You should be able to do with your own property what you want, right? But if you live around people, you have to show respect for them if that’s the norm of the land and the law.”

“Wait till your divorce settlement comes through,” Jim says. Then, if you get the house and still feel the same way, do it with as little noise as possible and staying within the building safety code. Bust up the whole inside if you want — we won’t stop you. The outside might be a different story. For instance, something like a very neglected lawn or façade that’s beginning to depreciate the property value of the rest of the neighborhood, I think they can get you for that too.”

Then I ought to swing along with the divorce, say all my threats were said in a fit of anger and I didn’t mean them, and try to get this house. If I do, I can do what

I like inside it providing I don’t cause too much of a ruckus or make the place structurally unsound and its exterior isn’t visually offensive to my neighbors. I got it. Thanks a lot, guys. I think that should be all.”

“We have to speak to Mrs. Wilkerson first before we leave,” Russell says. He goes into the kitchen.

“You like your job?” I ask Jim.

“Very much, and it pays okay.”

“Ever remarry?”

“Me, I freelance now and have plenty of fun.”

“You meet them at bars?”

“Bars, parties, friends’ homes, workplace and on vacations. No shortage of great ladies out there, I found.”

“Still see the kids?”

“On my days off. I take them or just visit. My ex-wife has a much better disposition to me when I get there, now that I’m gone.”

“You still don’t desire her when you see her?”

“Why should I? I have my own women now, she her men, so between us it’s all business and concerns and tales of the kids. When you first divorce you can’t believe you’ll think this way, but soon it becomes second nature with you no matter how hard you fight it.”

“Can I get that down in writing?”

“As long as you don’t ask me to do it in blood. Look, to me with your sense of humor and clear moments coming up more now than then, your problem is just emotional and temporary. Off the record, you’re still pretty young; not old, at least. So you have kids college age. So will I in twelve years, and you still got your energy and if you lose twenty pounds and keep jogging around a bit and let the hair on one side grow out and comb it over your head in a concealing way, you’ll have a good face and figure too. And living in this house and neighborhood must mean your standard of living’s way up there also, so you’ll survive. Better than that, you’ll thrive. Women go for guys with money to burn. Maybe we weren’t made for living with just one person all our life, something only this generation’s finding out.”

“Oh, they knew it in early Greece and ancient Rome.”

There you are; you’ve brains too. Think of your split-up as almost a renewed lease and blessing. But now let me ask you a few questions. You going to pack your bags now, go to the city and take a room there and let Mrs. Wilkerson live peacefully in the house for the time being? Because if you insist on staying and she presses charges to force you to leave, the judge, as they usually are with the wives, will be more sympathetic to her than to you.”

“Yes, I’m going to do exactly as you say.” I head for the door.

“Wait till Russell comes back. And don’t you think you should put on your socks and shoes?”

I get my keys off the wall hook and open the door.

“Now I said to hold it, Walt. That means stop right there.”

Their car’s blocking mine. Edith left the keys in hers and I get in it. Jim and Russell rush up to the car as I back out of the driveway to the street. “I said to halt,” Jim says. He unsnaps his holster.

“Don’t be a fool,” Russell says. “We’ll get him later.” I drive off, waving to them as I go. Edith is at the door. I drive down the street. There’s the tricycling McQuire kid and Gretchen raking her lawn. And the Beinstock triplets in their stroller, three of them in a row. Cute. Abe Eaton. Myra Skintell. Mrs. Nichols. “Hiya, Mrs. Nichols,” I yell out the window.

“Morning, Walt,” she says. Nice lady. Always there when we needed her or one of her children to babysit. All seemingly happily married couples and contented boys and girls. So Edith and I and our kids didn’t make it. Or at least I didn’t with them. So, that’s what happens sometimes.

I drive to town, park and go into the smoke shop where I know there’s a phone. Two men at the magazine stand look at me and then at themselves as if they think I’m a bit off. Sure, the bare feet and the only shirt I have on is an undershirt and it’s late fall. Well, so I’m doing something out of the norm, but not against the law, I don’t think. I say to them “You’d be in bare feet too and only this skimpy shirt if you went through what I did today. First my wife tells me about her six and one lovers. Next I knock out three front windows of my house and threaten not only her life but her lawyer’s. The cops are after me for fleeing what might be considered the scene of a crime, which is knocking out my windows and threatening my wife’s life or just escaping in her car, which might not be a crime if it’s considered jointly owned, but anyway, before they said I could go.”

“Shouldn’t you be going back to square things with them?” the younger man says.

“Mind your biswax, Pete,” the other man says.