Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“Question,” he’d say. “What the hell am I doing back in college after graduating six years ago. Forget it; I know.” He was here on a much-coveted creative writing fellowship for a year that carried with it a three thousand dollar stipend and a chance to meet book and magazine editors from the East, scouting for new writers. He’d also come to meet female students, all tanned and blond and built for the beach. But he hadn’t had much opportunity to meet them. The English Department parties he’d heard fantastic stories about before he got here, were almost nonexistent, and the one he went to — the first one he futilely drove around looking for in the hills above campus for an hour — was boring and stuffy and he felt totally out of place. And because he wasn’t going for a master’s like the nonfellowship students in the graduate writing program, he only had one three-hour class a week. Each of these workshops the past two quarters was composed of intense-looking and opinionated students and some professors’ wives. The exception, this past quarter, was Miss Prettyface Louise, a senior — she was allowed into the class because her fiction and criticism was on a level with the graduate students, the teacher said — who sat with her thighs locked and breasts high and eyes demurely down. He could go for her and would call her now if she wasn’t betrothed.

“Question,” he said to himself. “Why’d he drive to campus just to sit in this cafeteria for two hours? You really want to know? I haven’t met any women at the Dunes — they all seem to come in with guys or in groups of women that want to be left alone — and I thought this place would be a good one to, since I’d also been told writing fellows were considered choice company and prize catch by a lot of the unattached literary-minded women on campus. If I met one, or really anybody here to talk to, and I could convince this person to come with me, then on to the Dunes for burgers and beers. For you see, I’d become almost a nightly regular there and want to show the bartenders and barflies that I don’t always have to come in alone.”

Maybe he should call the other writing fellow and invite himself over. B.J. Aimlace was married and quite sympathetic to Lenny’s loneliness out here and often said he had a standing invitation to visit them anytime he liked. They lived more than an hour’s drive over the mountains, in a rented house facing the beach with an ancient redwood growing out of the living room roof. Lenny had been there once, during the first quarter. B.J.’s wife, who after dinner shared a hashpipe with her husband, which she said always made her feel more congenial if not beatific, suddenly swung around to Lenny and said “I loathe you.” Just like that. “I truly loathe you, Lenny Polk. You’re so infuriatingly straight.” Mercedes was English, and her long articulated drawl on the word “loathe” made her opinion of him seem that much more virulent. B.J. lit up some more hash, shrugged when Lenny again declined to take a toke — he’d told them he was frankly afraid of drugs like these and could never see himself driving home along winding roads turned on — and passed the pipe to Mercedes. Lenny didn’t say anything to her about her remark; he only smiled helplessly at both of them as if there were no excuse for his loathsomeness and lack of courage. Then he whispered to B.J. if she’d been serious. “She’s more likely just after your ass,” B.J. said. “I am not,” she said. That’s a big fat lie.” “Believe me, if she truly loathed you she would have fled to the bedroom and singly sulked.” Little later, Lenny said he was getting tired, thanked them for a delicious dinner and great time, and sat embarrassed while they stood waving goodbye to him from their porch for the ten minutes it took to start up the car.

He stared at his book for a few minutes. Then he turned the page, though he hadn’t finished it yet, just in case anyone was watching him. At the next table, which was a flaming red, a very attractive girl sat down with a mug of tea. A heavy girl with bad skin sat across from her, biting the top off of a tall chocolate freeze.

“So what did you think of him?” the attractive one said.

“Who?”

“You know — him, the lead, the one with the brows.”

“Oh. I thought he was cute.”

“You mean great.”

“Yes, great. That’s the word I was looking for. I also liked the way he moved.”

He wondered what movie actor they were talking about. Or maybe it was someone in the university’s graduate theater program. If it was a movie actor — brows? Doesn’t immediately register — then he’d probably seen the picture. There were four theaters in town and he went to just about every movie they played. Movies were an effective way to horn into people’s conversations, mentioning from the next table he’d overheard them and apologizing for what could be considered eavesdropping, but he’d seen that movie and enjoyed or had some problems with it too. He also always tried to toss in something clever and perceptive so these people would have more of a reason than similar moviegoing to ask him to join their discussion and perhaps later their fun. He’d done it successfully last spring in a Paris bar favored by Americans. A Smith student who’d just sat through two straight showings of Dr. Strangelove in French and was dying for someone to clear up a lot of what she obviously missed in the film. She thought his comments elucidating and brilliant, especially when he explained the more hidden scatological meanings of some of the characters’ names. Later that night they made love in his cramped hotel room, which he’d been living in for several months while he tried to find a job and learn French, and the following morning she left with her college chorus for a concert in St. Paul’s in London. If she’d given him her correct American address and last name he would probably go home now and write her a long funny letter or lonely poem.

The heavy girl finished her freeze, snapped the plastic spoon in two, and stood up. The other girl stood up too, glanced past Lenny as if searching for someone in particular, and they walked away. She hadn’t touched her tea.

He’d call Louise. Her dorm was nearby and they’d already met for coffee three times in the evening, though never for more than twenty minutes. He was at the stage where he thought he might take her hand and hold it. Through one ridiculously juvenile pretext or another — There’s something there that needs to be brushed off”—he’d touched her wrist and once even her cheek and kept his hand there a few seconds, and so far she hadn’t objected.

A girl answered the phone.

“Is Louise Robbins in, please?” he said.

“Nope. This is her roommate Penny.”‘

“Louise?” It suddenly sounded like her. “Is that you?”

“Daddy? Uncle Rootie? Father Travers? Who is this? Penny Wolfgang, speaking.”

“It’s me, Louise, Lenny Polk. What gives?”

“Oh, hi, Lenny. That routine was for someone else. How are things?”

“Just fine. I was around campus and thought you might like a quick coffee at the Union.”

She laughed.

“You see, I was first going to see a film at University Aud,” he said. “Part of that Ukrainian film festival they’ve got going every Thursday night. And then I got caught up in a book, and thought—” but she was still laughing. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, why?”

“You were laughing. Listen, Louise, if you can’t meet now, would it be too past your curfew to meet me in the next couple of hours?”

“I can stay out till two if I really have to.”

“I thought eleven was the latest.”

“No, two. If I really have to, I can sign out for three and have a friend sign me in by morning. As it is, you caught me in bed.” She giggled, as if she’d said something naughty. “What I mean is, I’m in my jimmies and about to sleep into bed. I mean, sled into sleep. I mean — I’m high.”