Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

Why, what?

You continue to call me. Because you know I won’t call you?

It could be I like speaking to you.

You call this speaking to me? You enjoy this? That’s so silly. You’re silly.

I’m going to hang up on you if you say anything more derogatory than that.

Hang up, then.

Just don’t say anything more derogatory than silly. You may call me stupid, ignorant, foolish, dumb ox, hateful, aggravating, insufferable, all the others, but not, and I repeat, not silly or very silly. I don’t want to be called silly or very silly.

What would happen if I did? You’d hang up?

I promise.

Then you are very silly.

No, I don’t promise, because I feel you’re about to call me very silly.

Now that’s the first clever thing you said since your first call today.

Then I must sound very stupid to you at times.

Oh, very. At other times, extremely. And a couple of other times, profusely. But sometimes, no. You have said clever and even witty things before, but not since that first call.

Dark dank cave with only a warm bed in it, after you said you didn’t like sunlight — that wasn’t anything but stupid to you, right?

Wasn’t that in the first call? And I didn’t say I disliked sunlight. And the remark wasn’t clever, no.

Bad eyes?

Bad eyes? Oh, yes. Old, old joke. What about your having a minor physical ailment in your insides to get out of going into the army — no guts.

That’s very funny.

Of course it isn’t. The reason I said it was to explain when I first heard it. Years ago. When I was a freshman or sophomore in college and the older boys were still fairly successful in being rejected by the army—

Deferred from.

Deferred from for physical reasons they made up or exaggerated. Let’s see — another one.

All right. So my bad-eyes joke wasn’t funny.

No no, wait a minute. There’s one more the boys used to tell. That’s right. I’ve stomach trouble.

You’ve stomach trouble. I see.

No, you don’t see. You’re not supposed to say anything, in fact, except maybe an oh-yes, but certainly not an I-see. That could lead to your bad-eyes joke again. But after you do say something to my stomach-trouble line, I say yes, I get sick every time I think of myself in the army.

Not bad.

It’s said differently, I didn’t tell it right. I never could.

None of us can.

No, some can. But there’s one more and then I’ll stop.

Please, no more. I don’t think I could take it. I’ve stomach trouble also. I get sick every time someone tells me a bad old joke.

Okay, bit of a joke theft, but you’re getting there.

Few years with you and I’ll be a real comedian.

It would also probably save you a few thousand dollars in phone bills, but don’t let me give you any ideas.

Oh, I couldn’t see us communicating any other way but by phone, even if we lived together a couple of years.

Lived together? Say, really now, just put that notion out of your head.

No, listen. The idea is for us to live together for two years but to only communicate by phone. In other words, being the phone addict you obviously think I am, if you wanted me to go out for groceries, let’s say, you’d pick up the phone, even if we were only ten feet from each other and this was a one-room apartment we shared, and dial the other phone in the place, and I’d pick it up and you’d tell me what you want at the store, and we’d talk like that. What do you think?

I wouldn’t see any reason for it.

Now you’re the one with no sense of humor.

I think a sense of humor has to have some sense. In this one, it’s just projecting your fantasies a bit, wouldn’t you say? Besides trying to intrigue me.

That’s legitimate.

Right now, it isn’t. Look, to be honest with you there is someone else. I don’t want to go into it, but someone, and whatever he thinks of me, someone.

He craps on you, right?

I’m not going to answer that.

Why not? If he doesn’t, say so.

I give up. Goodbye.

Don’t go.

He calls right back.

Jane?

Right after this call, I’m phoning the phone company to take out my phone.

I don’t like being hung up on.

Then don’t call me.

Even though I’ve hung up on you, I think it’s an exceedingly wrong thing to do. You could be nice.

The nicest thing I could do for you is convince you never to call again.

I wouldn’t have. And this will be my last call. Only you sounded — something in your voice and what you said — a little sad, so I called back.

What bull. And I’m not sad. I can handle my own affairs quite well.

But he does crap on you, right?

Give up, my friend.

Biff. And give up I will. I told you, my last call. But he does, and that’s always the case. With me, I mean. Whenever I’m interested in a woman, she’s not. She’s interested in someone who isn’t interested in her, and he probably with someone else who’s not interested in him, and the same with someone to her, and so on and so forth and ad infinitum, absurdum, exhaustum and dum de dum.

The dum de dum I like best. But that isn’t always the case and not necessarily the case with me now.

Not necessarily but not absolutely not.

Not absolutely not, then. Or not the case absolutely in perpetuity for all time then, not. It just isn’t so. And it’s still not your business.

I don’t believe you, but maybe that’s my problem. What I wanted to add though is that it’s also reversed for me too. When a woman likes me, I’m usually not interested. Not because she’s interested in me, but that the ones who get interested in me I’m not interested in to begin with.

Never?

Almost. With you it’s the other way around.

I never said I wasn’t interested in you, Biff. Just not right now.

Why not? Let’s forget all the others. We’ll just go away, or stay here, but develop something, become friends. Talk and have fun and anything you want to do anyplace you want to do it at.

That’s very generous of you, but again, I can’t right now.

Then when? Because we could just go, that’s what I’m saying. I could pick you up in half an hour.

Impossible.

Then an hour.

Impossible till one day I tell you it’s not. When, who knows? Most likely never. If you can’t accept that, stop calling.

Will you call me if I don’t you?

For the time being, no. Things have to be settled first.

Like that guy who craps on you? You like being crapped on?

I don’t like the word, expression, meaning or even the implication or symbolism or anything else about it in any tense or form. Don’t mention it again, please.

That this fellow craps on you?

Biff?

I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I felt like saying something mean.

You feel like that a lot. That’s why you shouldn’t bother with me. It can’t be healthy for you. And if you like me like you say, then don’t bother with me. Find someone else.

There isn’t anyone else.

First you have to find her.

I’d love to. You think I like making a fool of myself on the phone? I only do it because I think you’re worth it to go through all this crap with you and letting you see what’s really inside me.

That’s a line.

You joking?

A trick, an act, a masculine stunt. A universal ploy, then, used by men and women alike, said for your own gain. Me, me, me. It never ends. I can’t even say goodbye.

He calls back.

Call me once more and I’ll pull out my phone. I mean it. Leave me alone.

He calls back.

I thought you were going to pull out your phone.

And you with your last call ten calls ago, what about that? Anyway, I thought it would cost too much having my phone repaired. And what excuse could I give the phone company — some maniac wouldn’t stop calling me?