Stephen Dixon: What Is All This?: Uncollected Stories

“Herb?”

“What?”

“Herb!”

She meant business. He squatted down, for all he had to do was give her one more excuse and she’d jump down his throat even worse. People walk past? What did it matter? Yell, she could do better than anyone in the world. And the people? Already they started looking like he thought before. But he had no reason to complain. This wasn’t his avenue. It was stupid even thinking it was for a second.

He looked around to prove his point. A woman walked by with her very proper-looking blond daughter. Both of them had nice clear rich voices and were smartly dressed, their faces and noses handsome and small — but not in the air like some people. Still, some things he could tell: they didn’t want to mingle with you and for your own personal good you shouldn’t try to have anything to do with them. Another woman walked towards him, a small dog trailing at the leash she held. Now she he immediately knew he didn’t like — a real anti-Semite. He could tell just by her cold sour look like she had a stomachache and then traipsing past him like she owned the street. Because why did she look at him like that? Something she didn’t like? His wife? Her beaten-up old shoes? This man on his knee? She didn’t like that? Maybe she didn’t like anything. Whatever the reason, this street was city property, kept up with taxes paid by all of them, so if she thought she had any more rights on it than they, she was crazy. He, he’d tie, untie, retie, untie and tie again if he liked, and she could go and make faces at them all her life and see how much it bothered him.

He switched his weight to his other foot and began tying the shoelaces just as he’d been taught as a boy to tie them. The black laces wrapped easily around one finger, under the loop, under the loop again, and after pulling tight he had a bow — a good one. But as a boy he was always glad to have people watch him tie, especially when he first learned how and his relatives praised him without his mother’s coaxing. But here? Well, for one thing his wife appreciated it, and he guessed that was something. And then it was a good bow as he had said, like one he could hardly make anymore with his rotten fingers, and it was also much neater than when he’d done it as a boy, with the loops of the bow equal on both sides. He undid the laces on the other shoe, even though they seemed loose enough, and retied them also.

“How do they feel?” he said, patting the square fronts of both shoes and looking up.

“Eh?”

“I said how do they feel?”

“Fine.”

“Not too tight?”

“No, fine, just fine. Both are perfect, Herb.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“Just get the fuck out of here.”

“You’re firing me? Good. Because I can’t stand you and this place.”

“I’m not firing anyone. You’re quitting, and never come back.”

“I’ll come back for my paycheck.”

“Don’t bother. It’ll be in the mail.”

I go downstairs, change into my street clothes, throw my bowtie against the dressing room wall and step on it so the metal clasp breaks, leave the restaurant and head home.

On the next street a man says “Dig it, man, dig it. Right up here, ten bucks, satisfaction guaranteed.” He holds out a flyer.

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, man, dig it, no harm to look. Put it away for later.”

I take the flyer and read it as I walk. $10 , it says. Girls, muchaches, girls. Complete private sessions. No extra charges . On it is a photo of a nude woman sitting on a bed. Very young and beautiful, bandanna around her forehead, lots of pubic hair.

I put the flyer into my pocket. I’ve thought about going to one of these places and felt it would either cost much more than the flyer said or I was afraid of getting a disease or mugged or that the women were being exploited and I wanted no part in that. But now I don’t care what happens to me or who’s being exploited; I just want to forget the manager and job and looking for another one and have a good time. I only have about fifteen dollars on me, so what can they take? And for a disease I can always get a free clinic shot.

I go back. Man’s still handing out flyers, smiles and says to me “Go dig it, man,” and I open the door and walk upstairs. Second-floor door’s open and the room I step into is like a small lobby of a cheap hotel.

Woman behind a desk says “Yes?”

“Uh…”

“Want to join the fun? Ten dollars.”

I give it to her.

“And eighty cents tax.”

“Didn’t say anything about tax, not that I won’t pay it.”

“You mean the handouts downstairs? Look again.”

She gives me one. Where it says taxes included , it’s been crossed out. I don’t take out the one in my pocket to see if it’s been crossed out too. I give her a dollar and she gives me twenty cents change. “What do I do now?”

“Give your bag to the attendant there and come back.”

A man’s standing in front of an opened closet. He takes the athletic bag my waiter’s uniform and other things are in and puts it on a shelf.

“No tag?”

“Yours is the only bag like that,” he says. “It’ll be here.”

I go back to the desk and say “Now what?”

“You can’t do anything without a ticket. Here, give it to your girl.” It’s like a movie ticket. “Like to sign our guest register first?”

She turns it around and gives me a pen. Register’s also like a hotel’s. None of the names seem real. Bob Smith. Jack Brown. Joe. Dick D. Pegleg Pete . I sign James George , which is my real name reversed.

“I’ll let you in.” She goes through a curtain behind her and opens a door from the inside about ten feet away. I go in. She returns to her desk. Six women sit around a table in the middle of the room. They’re pretty and fairly young and either in leotards or brief swimsuits. There are benches against all four walls, and I sit on one. An older man is sitting on a bench across the room. He’s wearing a coat on this humid summer day and sunglasses with mirrors for lenses, and seems to be enjoying himself just by looking at the women.

Sit for a while, I tell myself. Don’t be in any rush. There’s just this guy and you, so you got a complete choice. Listen to how they speak and what they say. Make the right decision from it. Pick the one you think has the best combination of looks and personality and even intelligence and doesn’t seem abrasive and will be the most fun. Right after I finish thinking this I choose the youngest-looking woman mostly because she is so young and it seems as if this could almost be her first day here. She’s around eighteen or nineteen, less than half my age. She’s actually beautiful. More beautiful than any woman I’ve ever been with. Perfect features and skin. Long black hair, slim body in black leotards. Long muscular legs, tiny waist and small breasts. She looks like a dancer. She seems bored and isn’t talking with the other women. Radio music’s playing and she seems to be listening to it. I go over to her, tap her shoulder. She looks up. I give her my ticket. She stands, flashes a smile and says “Follow me.”

I follow her through the door to the lobby, past the checkroom and desk to a small room off a hallway. She shuts the door. “What do you want, half and half?”

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t been here before?”

“No.”

She seems disappointed and looks around. A bucket of dirty water’s on the floor. Looks like someone spit several times in it. She feels the water with her finger. “It’s cold. I better get some warmer water to wash you with.”

“Don’t worry, I’m clean.”

“No, I have to. I’ll be back. Sit down. Take off your clothes.”