Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

Sylvia, running and screaming hysterically all the way from her bedroom upstairs, leaped on David’s back and tried to pry him off Georgie. “Let go of him, you big boob. Let go or you’ll kill him,” and she scratched and punched David from behind till he rolled over in a semifaint and lay face up on the floor, peering at their crystal chandelier, when she slammed a heavy ashtray on his head.

He remained on the floor, pretending to be unconscious. Through a slight parting of his eyelids, he saw Georgie sit up and take a Scotch on rocks from her as he whispered if she was going to call the police as she had said.

“Not the police, but the unemployment office you can bet on it. You want him to get away with what he did to us?”

Georgie shook his head and drank.

“And if he is so dumb as to blab on us,” she said, wiping his face with a towel and running her hand through his hair, “we’ll say ‘Sure, we know that horrible young man. Met him at the state office building myself and tried to mend his ways and lead him back to the Lord’s path. Then we saw the Devil was hopelessly inside him, laughing at us, besides Mr. Knopps’ being one incorrigible pathological liar himself.’”

“But who we going to have work for us?” Georgie said. “Even if Abe coughs up, we won’t have enough money for long, and I’m in no condition now to find a job.”

“A woman. Women are more dependable and gullible, carry out orders better and take more guff. And there’s a lot less chance they’re potential maniacs and killers, as so many of these overpressured students seem to be.”

“Make her a blonde,” Georgie said. They’re always prettier and get away with more, and they’re weaker in spirit, I read someplace.”

“And this one I’ll find at the city art museum. We want a cultured one. I’ll put on my old lady’s costume, Grandma Moses mask and go up to some starry-eyed single girl and make small talk about beautiful paintings and such. Then I’ll bring up somehow all the antique jewelry I have, that being the rage among girl intellectuals and artistes these days, and say how I don’t need it, my being old and not so attractive anymore, and it would be a sin to sell it, since it was actually given to me and I don’t like profiting from anything I got for free. And once she comes to the house, I’ll give her the jewelry, you’ll take a nice photo of us, just to prove she was here, and then I’ll contact her and say that unless she does us a small favor, I’m calling the police to report she stole the jewelry from me. I’m sure a beautiful young woman will be able to do a job for us that five Davids couldn’t carry out.”

“Ten Davids,” Georgie said. “Twenty Davids, even. Now you’re using your brains, sweet. Now we’re really going to hustle us up a pile of cash.” He told her to pour herself a Scotch and then raised his glass for a toast. “To beautiful young women,” he said.

“To beautiful young women,” she answered, “and no more brilliant young men,” and they clinked glasses, gulped down their drinks and, laughing and giggling excitedly, poured themselves another.

David stood up, feeling the bump on his head, where she’d hit him with the ashtray, and with his handkerchief, wiped the back of his neck, which she’d opened up with her two-inch fingernails. The Peartrees kept on drinking and laughing, giving no indication they knew he was still in the room. He grabbed the bottle of Scotch away from Sylvia, guzzled straight from it, and yelled “Bastards, hypocrites, swindlers, animals. You’ll never get away with your new scheme — not in a dozen years,” but Sylvia only cupped her free hand to her ear, asked Georgie if he recognized the kind of bird that was cooing from the tree outside the loggia window, and pulled out an unopened bottle from the case of Scotch underneath the couch and poured them each another.

David left the house with the Scotch under his arm and drove away. He didn’t know where he was going, except to first pick up some documents and papers and a few books and clothes at home. He was free of them, though — that he could tell and that was the important thing. The loss of his job and their seven hundred dollars, his possible imprisonment and dreamlike academic future, didn’t mean much to him anymore. His security was an illusion as Sylvia had said. Though maybe some university in Paris or London would take him in with a criminal record or even if he was still wanted by the police in his own country. They do weird things in Europe, like give their top literary prizes to known murderers and bank robbers, so he didn’t know. So, good, that was where he was going, if he could somehow find the means to get there and stay alive till he does.

Night. Blooming night. Bleeding night. Here it is. On him again. Dusk to dark. He has to do something quick. Pulls down the shades. Even with his lights. In his room. In every room and every place in his rooms. Under the covers. Inside the closed closets. Behind his book. Can’t escape it. It’s still out there. Where? Turn around. Who? He. What? Night. Don’t you see? Everywhere night. Damn you, night. Another damn night. Dark. Stars. Moon. Moons. Galaxy and clouds. Meteorites. All that. Can’t stand that. Enough.

He goes upstairs. Climbs flight after flight. First he left his apartment. He reaches the roof. Door locked. Damn door to the roof locked. Padlocked. Hates that kind of lock. That lock’s not legal by city law. Read that some place. Could turn this walkup into a firetrap. Landlord, you’ve done something illegal. Lots. But this? Why this lock at this time and place? He walks down flight after flight of stairs.

He goes outside. First he passed his apartment. It’s a city street. So a city block. Row of attached brownstones on both sides of the block. Avenue up the block and avenue down. He’s lived on this sidestreet for years. A typical city sidestreet. Typical for this city, he means. Twenty-five to thirty five-story buildings to a side. A ten-to twenty-story apartment house at all four ends. Parked cars. No parking spaces. Manholes and streetlamps. One to two people walking on the sidewalk on each side. He goes into the next building’s vestibule. Door to the building’s interior is locked. He rings all the tenants’ bells on the mailbox. One person says “Ruth?”

“Yes,” he says.

That’s not Ruth. Go away.”

Click. She’s gone.

Another answers back on the intercom “Who’s there?”

“Delivery.”

“Delivery, hell. I’m not expecting anything.”

“I mean special delivery. Mail.”

“My eye. I’m calling the police.”

“Do.”

“I will.” Click.

He goes into the next building’s vestibule. That door to the interior’s also locked. He rings several tenants’ bells. One person ticks back without asking who’s there.

He walks up flight after flight of stairs. Five to be exact. Five’s a lot. He reaches the roof. No padlock. Good landlord. Just a hook. He unhooks. Landlord who obeys city laws. He bets the tenants here even get hot water and heat on wintry days. And a fuse box that can be found and windows that don’t fall out as one of his did this year. For three days he waited for the windowman to come. The landlord said he’d called for one. When the windowman didn’t come, he put in the window himself. Windy three days. Learned something though. How to put in a window. He asked the hardware store man how. The man didn’t know but gave him the phone number of a windowman. The windowman said measure your window frame, get glass cut quarter-inch shorter than what you measured on all four sides, get glazier points and a cold or brick chisel, and you got it made. A paint scraper will do to push in the points, the windowman said. The windowman was right. It worked. A window. That didn’t rattle or fall out. But now he’s on the roof. Night. No stars or moon. City. Lights of this city. Other apartments. People cleaning, cooking, talking, watching television, playing, making love. Night not so dark because of the city. But what did he come up here for? Answer that. Who? He. Had a purpose. What? To destroy night. To forget night. No. He doesn’t know. Yes he does. He came up. Why? To look at night. No. Came up. He came up. To what? To somehow efface night. Erase night. Which? Both. But how? He had a theory. Not a theory. A solution. He had something. Now nothing. Night again. That’s it. He had a theory of a solution he would try out up here tonight. He’d yell. That’s what he was going to do. Yell. Just yell. Yell away night. So he yells.