Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

Anna was back on the couch. Down to her last drag, she blew the smoke through her nostrils and snuffed out the cigarette in a tea-stained saucer she’d been using as an ashtray.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but you couldn’t have used the ashtray? I eat off that plate.”

“It has that paint and plaster in it and I thought it’d burn up.”

Oh God, he thought, how this skinny, frightened-looking woman has stayed in the building and resisted the real estate people so long remains a mystery to him. She’s obviously cleverer and stronger than she makes herself out to be, and is probably out to profit from her stay as much as he is, but he still has to hand it to her for sticking with it-though for the life of him he’ll never tell it to her face.

“You’re so quiet,” Anna said. “Anything wrong?”

“No.”

“You think they’ll come back today? They’re getting pretty persistent.”

“Depends what you told them yesterday.”

“You ask like I caved in to them.”

“Just curious, that’s all.”

“Well, for one thing, I told them nothing. They just talked, and I’ll tell you something: they were very gracious, very gracious indeed. Hats off on their laps and everything — you should’ve seen them.”

“Nice clothes I know they got.”

“Dandies like that in my living room, I ask you. Even being so polite to ask me if I’d mind them smoking.”

“So what happened after?”

“‘ Mind? ’ I told them. ‘I should mind? Smoke all you like,’ I said.

‘Me, I also smoke.’”

“I meant, what they say about getting you out?”

“You know: the same old story. If I leave they’ll give me bonuses to knock my eyes out.”

“What are they giving now?” he said.

“I didn’t ask. But they mentioned fifteen hundred, maybe sixteen. They weren’t too definite.”

“Four thousand they’ll give at least — but what’s the difference? To me it wouldn’t matter what they offered.”

“Same thing I told them. I like the Upper East Side, I said, and a place like this I couldn’t get nowhere else, so horses it’ll take to move me to Brooklyn.”

“What they say to that?”

“First, that I’m your stooge — and which I’ll tell you I didn’t like hearing such a lie. And two, that if they wanted, they could have the city down our necks before we know it — and with no promises they’ll then give us what they originally offered. They said the city’s very sympathetic to them, with half their planned apartment house already half-rented out.”

This I can believe,” he said. “All the city wants is property taxes — that’s all; no concern for the little man — and bigger and more classy the building, more the tax.”

She nodded, got another cigarette and tamped it on her thigh. Bert stood up after she lit it, and walked to the window. He hated the stench of tobacco, especially cigarettes. She waved a cloud of smoke away from her, and said “Truthfully, Mr. Samuels, how long you think we can hold out like this?”

“I don’t know. Indefinitely, maybe.”

“I don’t think I can do it that long. It’s almost December now, and soon it’ll be much too cold with no radiators going, five sweaters and heaters or not.”

“So give up then — go!”

“No need to get so excited.”

“But it’s obvious you’re caving-in to them. So just do it and be done with it I say.”

“Be done with what? Please, be reasonable.”

“So don’t then,” his voice toning down.

“I’m not. For look, some rights I got also, no? Throw me out into the street, who do they think they are? Build for us cheap you think they could do instead.”

Rights my eye, he said to himself. But ask her to give the real reason she’s holding out, and she’ll say with this big innocent look “Me? I should do that?” If she’d only admit the truth once, he’d probably tell her why he’s staying too. It’d be good getting it off his chest to someone, and then united in purpose like that they might be able to drive the relocation fee up to five thousand.

“Did they say anything more about me?” he said.

“Some. They said ‘You know him well?’ and I said ‘Well? For thirty years I know him, and very well. A nice man, quiet and friendly’—that’s what I told them.”

Thanks.”

“It’s the truth. Then they went on about how you’re all the trouble. That they think you’re crazy and for my own safety I shouldn’t be in the same building alone with you, and how they can’t even speak to you anymore, since the last time when you threw them out. Crazy, I said, you’re not. And for you to throw them out I couldn’t understand.”

They accused me of holding out only for the money, which you can understand made me upset.”

That they told me also. Something like you’ll get no more than you deserve and what’s the going rate. What did they offer you if I can ask?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“How much, though?”

“Same two thousand they offered two weeks ago.”

“You’ve been offered two thousand? Then I’m going to get two thousand. Moving costs excluded?”

“Maximum of three hundred,” he said, “but if it costs less I can’t keep the balance.”

“Keep? Just watch me try to move for three hundred with all my furniture. ‘Brooklyn,’ I’ll tell the mover, and he’ll laugh in my face.”

They say anything else about me?”

That was it. It was sort of like you wasn’t living here in a way.”

“Not living here? Oh, I’m living here, and they know it full well. Excuse me a second.”

He strutted into the kitchen, put water in the kettle, and set it on the stove. Gas and electricity and water they still had, thank God, he thought, but only because he was smart enough to contact, after the city didn’t get back to him, a tenants’ protective organization, saying how he thought his unhumanlike landlords were about to shut everything off.

“You know what especially made me uneasy,” she said when he got back, “was the way they blamed me for pushing back the demolition date. I mean me, I should do that?”

“Doesn’t bother me none.” He put his cup of tea on a side table and sat down.

“Yeah, but yak-yak-yak they went on about the extra workers’ costs and that from their own pockets it’s coming.”

“Don’t believe a word they say.”

“So from whose pockets does it come from — yours? Mine? I don’t like it.”

“Forget it. Just tell yourself you’re right.”

“I tell, I tell, but what good’s it do if my heart still goes out to them some? I know deep down they’re wrong, but like my late husband I always believed business is business, you know? And here they already paid for the property — two brownstones and this building, no less — which must’ve cost them plenty the way this neighborhood’s changing.”

“Quadruple they’ll get back, those cutthroats.”

“Maybe. But in a way they’ve acted all right with us and been fair to the other tenants here. I mean, give in a little, Mr. Samuels.”

“Give in, you ask me?” his voice rising.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You have the nerve to ask me to give in?”

“I told you that’s not what I meant.”

“Listen, I know exactly what you meant. So if you’re going to be talking like that, better you do it somewhere else.”

“And somewhere else I will.” She stood up, smashed her lit cigarette into the saucer and started for the door.

“You should get your head examined if you think I’ll stay in this room another minute with you.”

“Now what I say?” he said, thinking maybe he was too rough with her this time. He reached for her arm, but she pulled away and grabbed the doorknob.