Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

I enter the room and he leaves. Then he enters the room and I leave. Then I’m about to enter the room as he’s about to leave it, neither of us steps aside so the other can pass, and we stop at the door’s threshold, facing each other. I say “What do you say to enough of this?”

“Enough of what?”

This entering and leaving, reentering and releaving. Let’s have it out completely or make up without having it out completely, but one way or the other or even some other working-out.”

“What other working-out?”

“One not one of the two I just gave you but a new one I haven’t yet worked out. I’ll just say I’m sorry and you also say you’re sorry, and then, all made up, we can both go back to that room or both be outside it, but at least be in the same place together at the same time.”

“I don’t see any need for making up with you.”

Then you don’t see any need for saying you’re sorry for what you did or any need for being in the same place at the same time together when we want to be?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do you say it now?”

“Yes on the first, maybe only a maybe on the second. I see no reason for saying I’m sorry for what I did, though I do see the advantage, since we both live here, of thinking we can be in the same room together without getting on each other’s nerves. But it was your fault alone, so you’re the one who has to apologize, not me.”

“I don’t see it that way. I say it was as much my fault as yours. And that if we both admit that through a mutual apology, we’ll have made up and then we can stay in the same room together.”

“I can’t admit anything like that because I don’t believe it.”

The heck with you then,” and I try to get by him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he says.

“Around you, where I was heading to before, so I can get into that room.”

“I’d also like to be in that room. So would you please turn around and go into one of the other rooms? Or stay in the hallway here or go outside or do whatever you want to wherever you want to do it? But not in that room till you apologize for starting the argument before, because until then I want to be in that room alone.”

“But that’s the room I want to be in and the only room I can be in to do the things I want to. It has the books and television set and fireplace, and I want to find a book and read it with a fire going and the television on but the sound turned very low. I don’t want to explain why I want the sound turned very low while I read, but I do, it’s my privilege why I do, and also my privilege why I don’t want to tell you.”

“You want to know something?” he says.

“If it’s that you’re going to accept the mutual apology idea I proposed, I do.”

“No. It’s that we’re about to get into a bad argument again.”

“Oh, we’re not in one now?” I say.

“Now we’re still discussing things in a relatively unquarrelsome way. But you want to know why we’re about to get into another bad argument? Because you insist doing something you know is impossible for me to allow you to do, which is the main reason we got into the last bad argument that led up to all this. Now please, for both of us, turn around and go into one of the other rooms or outside or anyplace else, but leave me alone in that room.”

“Why do you say I’m the one responsible for this argument we’re getting into? Because I want to be in a room I pay half the rent on? Because I want to read a book among the many books in that room that are mostly mine? Because I want—”

“Neither of those, nor the third one you were about to give: the television set, which I know you paid for so is all yours. But because you insist on being somewhere that you know will anger another person who also wants to be there. And last time—”

“Don’t give me any last times,” I say.

That too. Last time you also refused to listen to my reasons, which was just another reason we had that bad argument. But the last time I was about to tell you of—”

“I said to stop with those last times.”

“Right,” he says. “Because what you just said is another reason why we had that bad argument the last time, and why we’re starting to have one now, which I’m sure you’ll say we started equally and I’ll say you started alone. Because last time you also told me to shut up about the previous last time and wouldn’t let me go on—”

“I don’t want you to go on now because—”

“—because you didn’t want to hear me explain reasonably and extra rationally, as I’m doing now, that you—”

“I didn’t want you to explain, that last time and the time before that, because you—”

“Because I—”

“Shut up,” I say.

“Because I was making sense, that’s why. I made sense that last time and I’m making sense now. But you can’t stand anyone who makes sense when you’re feeling really argumentative about something.”

“Now I said to shut up. I’m in fact warning you to shut up.”

“Don’t threaten me. That’s what you did the last time, and I won’t be threatened, just as I wouldn’t the last time.”

Then shut up and stay that way. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorry about what? That you won’t argue rationally? That you won’t let me speak what you know is the truth about you? That you won’t take responsibility for the bad arguments we have when they’re solely caused by you?”

“I’m warning you.”

That I won’t bow down to your warnings and feel frightened by your threats and shut up when you tell me to, and all that? I’m to be sorry for any of that? That’s ridiculous.”

“I warned you,” I shout, and I hit him in the face with my fist. He goes down. Last time I only pushed him hard and he fell back but didn’t go down. I lean over him. His eyes are closed. I kneel beside him and ask if he’s all right. He says no. I say “Nothing on the outside is bleeding.” He says “Something in my mouth is, but nothing much.” I say “Open your eyes, let me see them.” He says “What do you know about eyes when a man’s hurt, but I think I’ll be okay.” I say “I’ll get you water.” He says “Please do; not too cold.” I get him a glass of water. He sips a little, rinses it around in his mouth, spits it back into the glass with some blood. I say Think you can stand now?” He says “I think so, no thanks to you,” and I help him up. When he’s on his feet he says “What you just did, hitting me, was unforgivable.”

“It was your fault.”

“Again, ridiculous.”

“I hit you, but you provoked me, so it was as much your fault as mine.”

“I didn’t provoke anything, and certainly not a fist to my jaw. All I was doing at the time was talking rationally to you.”

“But you knew that continuing to talk to me at the time, and probably talking rationally was worse than any other way, would only make me madder. You knew I was already mad. You knew I had a temper. I’ve exhibited that temper several times, to you and to others, though never so violently. Anyway, let’s just say it was a little bit more my fault than yours.” He shakes his head and I say Then forty percent your fault and sixty percent mine, but no more than that.”

“A lot more.”

“Eighty percent mine then and twenty percent yours. For you have to accept some responsibility for my having hit you.”

“None. It was a hundred percent your fault, just like the last time. It’s always your fault.”

“Not so.”

“Always. Always.”

“Go to hell.”

“You the same.”

I grab him by the shirt. He says “Let me go this instant.” I let him go, turn around and go into the kitchen and put water on for tea. He goes into the room with the fireplace, television set and books. I go to that room a minute later and when he sees me coming he gets up to leave. I make way for him at the door just as he makes way for me. We pass each other. This time I hear the front door slam, so he must have got his coat and hat and gone outside.