Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“Suspension points.”

“You must have a fat roll to make all these calls.”

“Last term’s teacher savings — want some?”

“No,” she says. “I’ve always felt that once a person’s given material things, he resents the receiver and feels cleared of any emotional responsibilities he might have had. And I never felt you were obligated to give and don’t want you to feel you are.”

“I’d like to. I promise to remain emotionally sniggled and spiked. And you can’t be doing too well.”

“We’re always short. Now we’re on Welfare, but it provides. There is one think it won’t take care of and which I’d really like to do. Primal therapy. If I’m accepted, they can’t take me for a year, and then I’d have to have the two thousand to pay for it, money before words. If you care to contribute when the time comes, I’d be very grateful.”

“What is it?”

“What two of the Beatles went through.”

“Next will you be jetting to the Maharascal’s Indian ashcan for a real treat?”

They did that before Primal — all four. But don’t be superficial. Till now you’ve suppressed it and we could talk.”

“My transmisanthropicization tonight.”

“I don’t know what you mean. And if you’ve that much money to throw around, apply for Primal.”

“Have I never given you my views on psychotherapy for creative writers? It mars their handwriting and reduces their typing speed.”

This has to be what happens when someone talks to you twice in one night. And you say you want to fly out and nestle with us a spell?”

“ Mit out mein hurts.”

“And if Lucia wasn’t here?”

“Why shouldn’t she be? Just the holy family we of us, campering in your damp hamper or in a fleecy sleepy caul in the copse. What do you say?”

“Same. A man who left me a year ago, and last month wanted me desperately back. Or my back desperately. Either way, I was alone, so why not? It’ll probably end with my heart efflorescing and then picked, plucked at and scrunched underfoot, ‘Keep Off The Grass’ and ‘This Vegetation To Be Regarded Not Discarded’ signs not worth standing. Another heavy relationship fraught with ambiguity and me once more forsworn against men per se and fi-dy till the sun god hisself sweeps me off his feet, seats me on his stick and streaks me to his utility closet. Not now. He’s here. In this very room searing marshmallows while his ears roar. You know I can’t leave a man but the reverse. Man a leave can’t I know? What I’m waiting for is one who will swear his everlasting love and positive intentions to me. Would you ever do that?”

“I could.”

“You might, as a device, in again, out again, win again, but I doubt I could really count on you. But if you do come out here, we’ll drive down to see you. Lucia and I. In short, I’d like us to at most remain friends.”

“No,” but she’s hung up.

He knocked, I went to the door. Or she knocked, I went to the door. First I said “Did someone knock?” Then I listened as I stood in front of my chair to see if anyone behind the door was going to say something after I said “Did someone knock?” But first I listened as I sat in the chair to see if anyone was going to say something after he or she knocked. No one did. Then I said “Is anyone there?” No one answered. Then I got up.

I was sitting in the chair I’m sitting in now, wearing the clothes I have on now, my right leg crossed over the left as it is now, a book in my lap as the same book’s in my lap now, reading, which I’m doing now. I was in the middle of a sentence when he knocked. Or she knocked. For it could have been one or the other who knocked, or even both. First he could have knocked, then she could have knocked. Or the other way around: first she, then he, but each knocking once and her knock coming right after his or his right after hers, for there were two quick knocks in succession: knock knock, like that. Or both could have knocked at the same time, each holding back the force of his knocks to about half a normal knock to make it sound like one person knocking twice.

Or it could have been two men or two women who knocked, instead of one and one. And he or he or she or she could have knocked, once, and right after that the other person could have knocked once. Or both of either couple could have knocked, twice at the same time, though each holding back the force of his knocks to about half a normal knock to make it sound like one person knocking twice. Or both of them could have knocked a half knock the first time, then one of them could have knocked a full knock right after that. Or the other way around: first one of them with a full knock, then two of them with a half knock, but in either case the sound made would be that of one person knocking twice.

Or it could have been any one of a number of other possibilities of two knocks made in quick succession on my door. Such as three or four people knocking twice at the same time, but each person holding back the force of his knock to about a third of a normal knock if it was three people knocking at once, or about a fourth if it was four, though in the end sounding like one person knocking twice on my door.

Or three to four or more people knocking once, with each person holding back the force of his knock to the fraction of the total number of people knocking. And then one person knocking a normal knock right after that, making it sound in the end like one person knocking twice: knock knock, like that. Or the other way around and all the numerical possibilities of three or four or more people knocking twice on my door. Such as two of them knocking once at the same time, each holding back the force, of his knock to about half a normal knock. And then three to four or more people knocking right after that at the same time, each holding back the force of his knock to a third or fourth or fifth or whatever fraction of the total number of people knocking at the same time. Though in the end this double knock sounding like one person knocking twice on my door.

Or it could have been a half to a full dozen people who knocked on my door and all the numerical possibilities of their knocking and whichever way around. But each person, if let’s say all twelve knocked at the same time for the first knock, holding back the force of his knock to a twelfth of a normal knock or as close as a person could get to that. And then each person who participated in the second knock, if let’s say the door this time was knocked on by nine of these twelve people at once, holding back the force of his knock to a ninth of a normal knock or thereabouts, with perhaps from one to eight of these nine people making up in the force of his knock for what the eight to one of these people lacked in force, though in the right proportions to everyone who knocked at the same time so it wouldn’t come out sounding in the end like anything more than the second half of a person’s normal double knock.

More than a dozen people I don’t think could have fit around my door to knock on it, unless a dozen or so people had stood by the door and another dozen or so had sat, crouched and lain on the hallway floor within reach of the door. Then the dozen or so standing people could have knocked all at once for the first knock, each holding back the force of his knock to about a twelfth of a normal knock or as close to that as possible. And right after that the dozen or so sitting, crouching and lying people could have knocked at the same time for the second knock, each holding back the force of his knock to a twelfth or thereabouts. And again, if it was necessary, with from one to eleven of these dozen or so people making up in the force of his knock for what the eleven to one of them might have lacked, though in the approximate right proportion to everyone who knocked at the same time so that this double knock by about two dozen people would come out sounding in the end like one person knocking twice: knock knock, no more than that.