Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

He’s biting his lips and trying to keep his eyes on me while feeling around his wrist. I think I also broke his shoulder or some part of his neck. That top left side of him seems misshapen when before it didn’t. And he’s bleeding a little from it and from the lobe very badly. My own blood’s coming out from under my coat sleeve, but not much and mostly mixed with rain.

I turn over the older man. He’s been knifed in the stomach and chest, judging by the holes there and the blood on his clothes. “Sir?” He’s breathing and seems to be looking without seeing. I say to the other man “Stay where you are till we’re out of here, and then you better get out fast because I’m calling the cops.” He’s squeezing his eyes tight but nods. I fit the stick in my belt, put the older man’s hat in my pocket, sit him up, stick gets in the way so I toss it over the boulder, lift him over my shoulder and grab his legs in front and go through the bushes and start down the hill.

I set him against the cottage door and put his hat on his head. My own hat’s been lost somewhere and the top three buttons of my coat’s been ripped off. He’s a little guy, with his pants and hat way too big for him and his jacket sleeves coming down over his hands. Maybe I’ve been carrying him wrong and making him bleed more and damaging his insides worse with his belly and chest banging against my back as we walked. “Listen, don’t move. I’m calling the police from the phone here and will be right back.”

I run to the call box and pick up the receiver. No officer answers, so I say “Hello, is there a policeman there?” I do this several times, then say “Hey, where the hell are you? This is an emergency. Oh, damn,” and slam the receiver down. I run back, pick the man up and hold him in my arms and carry him toward the park entrance that way, stopping every hundred feet or so to sit on a bench with him in my lap. I look for a police car when I reach the street. A regular car stops and the driver says “Anything wrong?”

“He got knifed in the park. We better take him straight to a hospital.”

“Who knifed him?”

“Not me. Some man, I think. And if it was him — look, will you open your back door?”

“Not in my car. I’m sorry. It’s not the stains. I no longer trust anyone in this city.”

Then you shouldn’t have stopped.”

“I thought it was something else. A man carrying his son.” He drives off. I rest on the curb with the man in my lap.

“You both going to get wet that way,” a truckman yells, driving past and blowing his air horn.

I carry the man to the apartment building a block away.

“What are you bringing me?” Frank says.

That Dr. Melnick.” I go into the lobby and reach under the man’s knees and ring the bell and try to walk in as the sign says, but the door’s locked.

“Since he had the robbery,” Frank says.

The peephole opens. “Yes?” a woman says. This man’s been knifed,” I say, raising him in my arms a little so she can see his face. “In the park. He needs help fast.”

“Call Roosevelt Emergency and say you want an ambulance immediately.”

“I thought the doctor could help till they come.”

The doctor doesn’t handle emergencies except for his own patients. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“Could you call Emergency for me? He’s been knifed in a few places and it’s been a long time.”

The peephole opens. “If I do, they’ll ask me to identify myself and think the man’s one of the doctor’s patients, and he’d be responsible. It’s best you call. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“I’ll call,” Frank says. “Stay here, sit on the bench, even, but just see no delivery men or strange types sneak by. They’re all to go through the delivery entrance around the side.” He goes through another door in the lobby.

I lie the man down on the bench. “Just take it easy,” I say. “We’ve an ambulance coming.”

The elevator door opens. “What’s this?” the elevator man says.

“Frank went to call for an ambulance. This guy’s been knifed.”

“I better get a mop.” The elevator rings. He gets in and takes it up.

A delivery boy chains his bike to the canopy pole and comes in with a box of groceries.

“All deliveries are supposed to be made through the side entrance,” I say.

“You work here?”

The doorman Frank told me to tell you.”

Then mind your own business. It’s raining outside, can’t you see? What he do, pass out?”

The elevator door opens and two women walk out.

“Will you go around the service entrance with that?” the elevator man says. “You’ve been told before. I’ve told you myself.”

The service door’s locked.”

“Bull, it is. Around. Around.”

The boy puts the box into the bike basket, covers it, unlocks the bike and rides off.

“Is he a tenant?” the older woman says.

“Person from outside who had an accident,” the elevator man says.

“Frank’s phoning for an ambulance.”

“If he was hit by a car, you could have broken his bones even more by carrying him in here.”

“I didn’t. He and Frank must have.”

“He was robbed and knifed in the park,” I say.

That’s terrible. And he’s bleeding. But Frank’s taking care of it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the elevator man says.

Then could you see about my car? It’s a long gray one and should be around now.”

He goes under the canopy and says “It’s pulling up, Mrs. Phelps.”

“I hope he recovers,” she says to me. She opens her umbrella, the other woman gets under it with her, and they go to her car.

They’re on the way,” Frank says, coming into the lobby. The police, too, when I said it was a knifing.”

“Is your phone a pay one?” I say.

“Go through there and ring the elevator bell. Say you want to use the house phone and I’ve given you permission to.”

I ring for the service elevator. It comes, the delivery boy and another elevator man inside. I go to the basement with them and dial my home.

“Where’ve you been?” Jane says. “I think Jim’s really got pneumonia. His temperature’s not too high, but he’s coughing much harder and having trouble breathing. The reception said Dr. Blum will call back in a few minutes and might come over. You shouldn’t have gone.”

“It’s just a bad cold or virus. They’ll give him something in the office, and by tomorrow it’ll be over like the last times. Be more independent, will you? And listen. I found that man. He’d been knifed and is in real bad shape. The guy who did it, or another one, got me in the arm too.”

“Oh, my God. Bad?”

“I haven’t had time to look. Can’t be much if the bleeding’s stopped. An ambulance and police are coming. We’re in the lobby of the same apartment building you and I were in before.”

Then the doorman’s there. You’ve helped enough. You belong here with the baby, and if Dr. Blum comes he can look at your arm.”

“My arm’s nothing. And there’s that doctor on the same floor here if I need one, remember? Also the ambulance doctor. If they want me to go to the hospital with the man, I’ll call you from there. If not, I’ll run home. Keep Jim warm. Put the vaporizer on if you have to. I’ve got to go now, Jane.”

“It’s always everybody over us.”

“Not true.”

The ambulance people and police are in the lobby. A police-woman asks me several questions. The man’s wrapped in a blanket and wheeled outside.

“Can I go with him?” I ask her.

“What for — he your friend?”

“No, I told you. Just that I’ve been with him so long I want to see how he turns out.”

“You come with us and we’ll write up a detailed report with the detective, and then you can go anywhere you like.”