Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“I guess so.” I go to the basin and start soaping my penis.

“I’ll help.” She washes it for me over the basin on the chair, gives me a paper towel to dry it with.

Thanks.”

She puts on her shorts and shoes. I put on my undershorts and pants and sit down and take my socks out of my pants pocket.

“My socks were in my pocket—”

“What, honey?” She was putting her shirt over her head and didn’t hear me.

“My socks. I just wanted to explain. They were in my pocket because I already got undressed and dressed here once when another girl right before you — you weren’t in the main room at the time — she said I was too big for her when she was washing me.”

“Which one was she?”

“Girl in black leotards. Very young.”

“Very, very young with her long black hair brushed straight down in back? Very pretty?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know her name. No, you’re big all right, though not where you’re that unusual. Sure that was her real reason for refusing you?”

That’s what she said.”

“She must have never had a baby or be younger than I even thought, though I still don’t see why she should be so smug.”

“You won’t say anything to hurt her job. That she refused someone for what might be a flimsy reason?”

“She’s got no worries. Young and pretty like she is, she can turn away twice as many as anyone and still do better than most. Don’t feel sorry for her.”

I’m all dressed. “By the way, this is for you.” There’s a sign on the wall that says Tips aren’t obligatory but are welcome , and I give her three dollars.

Thank you, that’s very nice.” She puts it in her purse.

I go to the door. “Well, goodbye.”

“Let me leave first, honey.” She runs her hands through her hair, opens the door, says goodbye and goes. I wait a few seconds before opening the door and walking through the main room. The older man’s there smiling at the women. The woman I was just with isn’t around. The young woman in black leotards is sitting and talking with another woman. I smile at her as I pass. She flashes a smile back.

The checkroom man isn’t around. I take my bag off the shelf, wave goodbye to the woman behind the desk and start downstairs. A young man’s running up the stairs. I go outside.

“Dig it, man, dig it,” the man from before says, holding out a flyer.

“You already gave me one. It’s in my pocket.”

“Way to go, man. Best beauties in the West up there, so use it,” and sticks the flyer he was going to give me into another man’s hand. I head home.

When I get there I call the manager of the restaurant I worked in and say “If it’s all right with you, I’m feeling much better now and just think I got unreasonably hot under the collar before and want to come back tomorrow, all right?”

“Let me think about it. Okay. But no more getting so damn temperamental, or you’re through here for good, got that?”

“Right.”

“Same time tomorrow then,” and he hangs up.

There were no passengers on the bus when I got on it. “Forty grens,” the driver said, an unreasonably high fare for not a very long ride, I thought, and I grudgingly fingered through my pockets and wallet but all I could come up with was a five-tavo bill.

“Can’t change it,” he said. “And you know the state rules; no free rides unless you’re a bona fide disabled veteran or visibly pregnant, so I’m afraid you’ll have to get off at the next regular stop.”

“Maybe another passenger can change it.”

“Who’s to guarantee there’ll be other passengers? Sorry: no money, no ride.”

“But I have the money. It’s you who haven’t the change.”

The bus stopped at the corner and the driver pointed past the opened door. “See that bench? It’s been systems analyzed to be uniformly comfortable to the average waiting person for a period of up to an hour. Care has gone into the design, development and fabrication of that bench. The next bus is scheduled in thirty-three minutes, which is generosity on the state’s part seeing how around this time we don’t get but an average of one passenger per tour. And extreme generosity, considering how that one passenger hasn’t even the money to pay. The next driver’s name is Robinson, by the way, so if you’re feeling up to it, give him my regards.”

Someone had left the morning newspaper on the bench. “War in Kamansua progresses,” I read. “506 hostiles killed, enemy’s tally of 51 friendlies dead discounted. President Lax says peace is feasible. Senator Merose calls for investigation of existent sans-culottists in war industry. Senator Servin calls for investigation of unproductive visual and audio agipropaganda. Senator Fleetmore calls for investigation of insane asylums. Says all mental health money should be diverted to war interests. ‘Look at us: first in space, first in peace and defense, first in the technological arts, but still with more asylums than any state in the world. I say that if you’re not sane to begin with, then no treatment or institution is going to make you sane. I call for a war against the insane,’ he said to applauding colleagues. ‘Think of the cost, the state danger and disgrace. I say that if one’s emotionally ill — a euphemism for what’s more validly known as state immediocrities — then that’s his problem to deal and live with in another state, because now, as a unified people, in this indeterminable era, with all mankind to consider, we cannot afford to…’”

The next bus came an hour later, this one also empty.

I got on, five-tavo bull in my hand and explanation prepared. The driver called out the fare and said Intercom had warned him about me so I needn’t bother with useless words. “You’ve had time to get it changed.”

“It’s past worktime and nobody’s around. What I suggest is you ride me to my stop, and when I get home I’ll send Intercom a check for the fare plus whatever expense you think the state might entail in handling it.”

“Words, words. Worse, you’re making me run behind schedule and upsetting my disposition for future passengers.” He drove to the next regular stop. “You’re a lucky man to have come even this far. For all I know, it’s a subterfuge to con your way home without paying the fare — stop by stop via bus by bus with the excuse of having no change.” The door opened, I saw there was no chance in arguing with this guy, and I got off.

All the neighborhood shops were closed. There were no lights on in the windows above the stores. I waited for a hitch, none of the passing cars even slowed down for me, and forty minutes later another empty bus came along. It was the same driver who had refused me a ride nearly two hours ago. “Forty grens, please,” he said, giving no sign he recognized me. I began to walk home. The bus remained at the stop, its interior and headlights still on. A man across the street was walking hurriedly, head down as if bucking rain. I ran to him, and seeing me, he ran away. “Stop,” I yelled. “I’m no thief. I just want to change a fiver for the bus fare.”

He kept running, rolled-up newspaper flying out from under his arm. It was the afternoon paper. I picked it up and read the headline: “‘Victory at last,’ President says.” “Our state leader is a modern-day messiah,” the front page editorial said. And then Senator Fleetmore again — my senator, I only now noticed — thanking the Senate for voting overwhelmingly for his bill barring all future aid and development money for the treatment and cure of the emotionally ill. “Because we all know their only problem is being lazy and unwilling to work and thus survive. Since that is so, I propose incarceration rather than hospitalization. Or, to reduce state costs further, revoke their passports, hand them their extra-state traveling papers, and escort them to the exit gates. I fully expect the House to pass the bill, and the president assures me he’ll sign it into law tomorrow evening, as all of us feel the urgency in getting these emotionally ill — a term I use euphemistically, as they’re more scientifically known as—”