Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

I start to the top end from the middle. The place I called the top end that first time I reached it only because I started out that first time from what I thought was the bottom. But it wasn’t. And the top’s not the top. And the top’s not the bottom and the bottom’s not the top. The middle’s the middle, though, or as close to it as far as I can tell. And all the places I couldn’t see from that so-called middle point I just left haven’t changed too. And going a ways farther, all’s the same too. Maybe things will start changing or have been changed by the time I get a quarter way from the top end. I reach that three-quarters’ point, or as close to it as I can tell, and still nothing’s changed. Maybe some of what’s ahead will change or has been changed when I get halfway into the top quarter or a quarter way into the top eighth. But nothing’s changed. Neither the halves of thirty-seconds or sixteenths of sixty-fourths. That’s the same and that’s the same too and that and this and everything I pass. They’re all the same. I reach the top. It’s the same too. What to do?

I’ll stay here for the rest of my life. To go back would be foolish. Maybe things take more time to be changed than I thought, so why not this place over any other? But I find after a long time that if I only have a day left in my life I won’t be able to stay here for the rest of my life. That foolishness is easier to live with than boredom. So I start back. It’s all the same, of course. No new breakthroughs in between. I dig. I claw. I tap for hollow spots. No new breakthroughs in between. It’s the same. But I mind less now. I begin to like what I come to expect. No, that’s not so. I just accept. I reach that so-called middle point. I could turn around now and head back. I could go back and forth between middle point and top end or between any two points including the two ends, but what would be the point of all that? I haven’t been for the longest time to what I first called the bottom, so I continue to that end. Things might have changed. Or better: For the longest time I haven’t been to the bottom of all the places I’ve been to, so there’s probably a better point for going there than anyplace else.

I reach the bottom end. I decide to stay where I first began. I stay. I want to go. I try jumping in place so as not to go. I try walking inches away and coming back. I try walking in circles, crawling in figure eights. I try jumping in circles, crawling backward in figure eighty-eights. I try everything I know and can do. All the numbers. All the positions. All the movements and combinations of numbers, positions and movements. I say stick it out as long as you can. I say why stick it out as long as you can? I try, though. I stick it out. I can’t stick it out any longer. I go. I stay. I return. I rest. I reach. I stay. I stick. I go. I jump. I walk. I rest. I try. I crawl. I reach. I stay, go, return, walk, run, reach, rest, combine, stay, jump, crawl, try, rest, reach, stay, stick, go, combine, return. I try the thirty-seconds. The sixty-fourths. The one hundred twenty-eighths. The two hundred fifty-somethings. The five hundred something-somethings. It’s the same. No change. It was never so good as it was when I first was at those two ends and for that entire first run. It was next never so good as it was when I first returned to that bottom end and during the second run. It was after those never so good as it was when I first returned to that top end and during that third run. I think about all those for a change. I think about it all till I’ve thought about it all, and that too becomes unchanged.

Dirk drove to Helen’s house to pick up their son. It was his weekend with Roy — once every other, which he and Helen, without lawyer advice or court decree, had congenially agreed to a year ago, when they separated and she filed for divorce — but she had different plans for today.

“Donald invited us to the city for the weekend. Roy can’t wait, as Donald’s been telling him what great wooden planes they’ll make and how much fun Roy’ll have sleeping in the balcony-bedroom setup Donald’s built in his studio. But what happened to your phone? I called before, around the time I figured I wasn’t going to hear from you. Called collect, but the operator, checking with her records office, because at first I refused to believe what she said, told me that as of yesterday, your phone’s been removed. Why? What puzzles me most is that you paid good money having a phone installed, and one week after it’s in and when you really could’ve used it, you have it removed. Weird. I’ve definitely made up my mind, Dirk: Sometimes you’re absolutely weird. Were all sorts of incoming wrong numbers getting you down, as they did in L.A. last year? Maybe I’m being unfair, but you at least had that phone for two months, which suggests you’re getting better, which means progressively worse. My point is that Roy could’ve reached you if you had a phone, and now he has to wait for you to call. Next time, I suppose you’ll have your phone taken out the day after it’s installed. And the time after that, if any phone company is insane enough to let you have a phone, you’ll ask the telephone serviceman to remove the phone right after he’s packed up his installation tools to go. But, admittedly, all that’s your business now,” and she yelled down the hall “Roy? Is your knapsack packed? And your daddy’s here.”

Roy came out of his room, his unhitched overloaded knapsack hanging from a shoulder by one strap. He rushed up to Dirk, kissed him, said “You coming to San Francisco with Mommy and me?”

Helen said no, “Your father has once more made the mistake of driving down without first calling.”

Roy talked excitedly about his trip, how sleeping in a bedroll at Donald’s was going to be like camping out in the woods. “And he says I can look out the windows there and see mountains and ocean and even look through a telescope to the stars. Do you want to sleep with me?”

“Dirk has his own flat in San Francisco, which you can probably stay at next weekend, if he doesn’t mind.” She looked at Dirk for confirmation as she sipped from her mug. “Want some tea? You’ve that old desiring expression again. I didn’t make enough for two, but if you think you need it for the drive up I’ll put more water on.” She went to the kitchen — Roy to his room to find his cowboy boots — and returned with two smoking mugs of tea. His was very sweet, just as she liked it, with two to three tablespoonfuls of honey in it, the liquid well stirred. “Is something wrong with the tea?” she said. She sipped her own tea as a test, seemed about to spit it back, swallowed, said it was too tart, too lemony, “Uch, it’s just awful,” and they exchanged mugs.

“You like it tart, I like it sweet — our respective predilections, if you like; natures, so to speak. You like the shade, New York snow, barely endurable Eastern winters, depressing poetry, music and films, and decomposing flowers to paint. While I like the sun, warmth, California spring, summer and everything happy and silly that goes with it, including getting a tan. You always put down that silliness in me. No, not always. We got married and everything was nice for a couple of days and then you suddenly became stern and critical, you very definitely changed then — and started doing your unlevelheaded best to kill off my own silliness. What do you say about all that now? Donald’s very much like me, in a way: Opposites now detract. Sometimes he’s terribly silly, does cart wheels in the street; more than that: just dumb, foolish, indescribable things — he gets along with just about everyone. He’s able to cut off his equally serious work almost immediately and simply have a gassy time. And so far, he and Roy get along great. He’s teaching him about camping and carpentry and all kinds of ocean-creature things and even how to write out their names on your old electric typewriter. All three of their names apiece, including the Mister and Master — Roy wouldn’t settle for less. Roy,” she yelled, “will you move it along? It’s past noon.”