Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“Night. Damn stinking night. Smelly night. Here again, night. For what? That’s what I’m asking. Why? Why you damn night? Damn starless night. Damn darkness. Damn whatever you are and look like. For what? I’m asking. Me. My name. My history. My present. Everything. Why? Why night? Why day? No. Just night. Day I can take. But night. Why do you come and always come and never stop coming and stay for as long as you stay? Answer me that. I want an answer. Why do you come and come and so often? Every day around here, which is often. Too often. Damn often. Night. Damn you, night. I detest you, night. Can’t stand you, night. You depress me. I’m depressed by you. Night’s depressing. You are. I get. And sick by you. Your darkness, Your length and stars and starlessness. Your moons and no moons and meteorites. This nothing to do almost but but sleep and read at night. Night. Why night? I used to love you so, night. If not love than tolerate you, night. But now? Not now, night. You miserable night. Why these miserable nights? Why this night? These nights. Nights. Night? Damn you, do something, night. I can’t stand another night of you always being around me, night. Of your always sure to be there night after night. Of another sultry night. Any kind of night. So do something, go somewhere, I’m ordering you to, night, night, night.”

But no use. It’s still there. Moon even comes up. He goes downstairs. First he puts the door hook back in its eye. Then he goes downstairs. Flight after flight.

Now is the time for all good men to Now is the time for all good men One day she decided she had She’d had enough of the desert and him and packed to leave. Suddenly, a man jumped out of a fifth floor window I was walking under. His folks came to dinner. I was rowing by myself across the ocean when I saw He called his brother. “Jim,” he said, “there’s something very important I have to tell you.” She took her dog out for a walk and saw the same man she’d seen the last few times walking his dog. A boy was standing on a balcony waving down at me when the balustrade broke. I was holding my father’s hand through the raised bed rail when he made that noise in his chest and seemed to expire. They were getting bored with each other. They both knew that. We both agreed we were getting bored with each other. We spoke about it. Talked. One day. Yesterday. We talked yesterday about how we were getting bored with each other. We were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. It was morning. Soon after we woke up. This morning, they’d got out of bed and washed up and dressed and he made the bed and tidied up the room while she made them breakfast, and now they were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when they both agreed they were getting bored with each other. All right, enough of getting into it. Now let me get on with it.

The truth now, Lou, and only the truth, so help you God,” I said, “what do you think of our living arrangement so far?”

“I was wondering when you’d speak,” she said. “Not specifically about that. But it’s been at least five minutes since we said a word to each other.”

“You haven’t said anything in that time yourself.”

That’s what I said. We. But I’m usually the one to start the conversation. If it wasn’t for me we’d almost never speak.”

“Anyway, you’re exaggerating. It can’t be five minutes since we last spoke.”

“We haven’t said a word since I poured our coffee, right?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“And your coffee was nearly boiling hot when I poured it, right?”

“Not ‘nearly boiling hot.’ The water boiled and you poured it into the pot and after it dripped through you poured the coffee into our mugs. That would hardly make the coffee nearly boiling hot. I’d say it was quite hot. Barely sipping hot. But surely not nearly boiling hot.”

“All right, it was barely sipping hot. Both of us sipped it with difficulty right after I poured it into our mugs, or you did; I just watched you and saw by your expression it was too hot. But since that time you told me the coffee was too hot to drink, we didn’t say a word till we were able to drink it normally, and both our coffees are black.”

“True. So what’s your point?” I said.

“I can’t believe you don’t know it by now.”

That it would have had to take at least five minutes for our coffee to get from the barely sipping to easily drinking state?”

“I’m no heat or time scientist, but from my experience with coffee I’m sure it takes at least that long to get to that drinkable temperature it reached when we started talking again.”

“I agree.”

“So what I’m saying, of course, is that for five minutes we didn’t say a word. And we sat next to each other all that time, not eating or reading but just glancing at each other or around the room and occasionally barely sipping the coffee.”

“You’ll probably next say it’s because we’re bored with each other. Have nothing or very little to say to each other. But it could also be because the coffee’s much better than usual today, not that it isn’t very good every time you make it.”

“Don’t try and get off the subject with flattery. Especially about my no-better-than-average coffee.”

“It’s always better than average. And I’m saying what I feel. Your coffee today was damn good. I don’t know if it was a new blend or different grind or what previously untried thing you did with it. I know it wasn’t a new pot. So maybe we were just using those silent five minutes thinking about this great coffee.”

“Were you?” she said.

“A little. For about fifteen seconds. But we might’ve been musing about other things. Our different work. Your daughter. What we dreamed last night. And we didn’t get much sleep and we’re both usually pretty listless the first half hour after waking up, so we probably didn’t have the energy to speak.”

“We’ve always spoken — I’m saying, ‘just about always’—more than we do now in the morning no matter how tired we’ve been. Tomorrow we might even speak less than we did today. There’ll be six-minute silences soon, then seven, no matter what the coffee’s like in temperature and quality or how long we’ve been up or slept.”

“If the coffee’s really bad tomorrow, I might have something to say about it.”

“You don’t like my coffee,” she said, “you make it.”

That’s not what I meant.”

“Anyway, after you’ve said whatever it is about the coffee tomorrow morning, you, and probably me too, won’t have much more to say to the other. In other words, each day we’ve that much less to say, it seems, so why do we bother staying together when we’re obviously bored with each other?”

“You’re bored with me?”

“Please, you’re not bored with me?”

“Answer me first. I asked it first.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to answer you first.”

“Just answer it first, then.”

“Only if you then answer me back honestly,’”

“I promise,” I said.

“Yes, I’m bored with you. Now, are you bored with me?”

“Yes, I’m bored with you, or with myself…”

“No hedging. Be honest. You promised. You’re bored silly with me, period.”

“No, I’m bored with myself, comma, and because I am, I’m also bored with everything and everyone else. This is someone else’s philosophical statement or Indian-or Chinese-religious belief, which I always felt was much too simplistic for me before, but feel it applies to me now.”

“No matter whose statement it is or what land it comes from, we’re bored with each other and have to separate.”