Stephen Dixon - Time to Go

To other things. That’s what my finger landed on. I closed my eyes, shuffled the three pages and spread them out on top of the dictionary on my right side and put my finger down on page one’s second to last line. It actually landed on To other, so maybe I should have been true or something to what I said I’d do and just put down To other. Nothing much has come of the experiment so far, so maybe that’s what I’ll do right now.

To other. To other what? Two other what? Not either of those Whats but just To other. But To other what? That wasn’t a good idea. Or maybe it was but I just happened to land on the wrong words or one of the grouping of words least conducive or adaptable or malleable or whatever to start something going on the page. Maybe no grouping of words from those three pages would have started something going just then, but how could I ever know? I couldn’t. So it’s ridiculous thinking about. All I can conclude is that something might have started some other time with that grouping or any grouping of words from those three pages or even a single word my finger might have landed on, but didn’t when I tried it before. So try it again. Not blindly putting your finger on one of the pages, though I could also do that, but with To other, as now might be that Other time.

To other. Tother. Tuther. Tether. The wind is wet. I like that best. Or rather, I like it better than the rest. Wind is wet. I am wet. I am not. Not wet. I’m. Writing The wind is wet. I’m sitting here writing The wind is wet and Wind is wet. Magna’s downstairs writing whatever she’s writing. She’s writing something. Her typewriter’s going. She’s angry at me, or rather, she still might be if she’s still thinking about the spat we had about half an hour ago and which was most if not all my fault. Seems difficult for something to be All my fault. Anyway, I lied. The wind is wet wasn’t the first thing I wrote since I came back from France — I wrote — where is it? — I wrote — I’m going to look for it now — I wrote — just before I started this piece — This time I’m going to make it work. I’ve ruined all my other relationships. I know what I did. I knew it while I was doing it I didn’t even put in a period. I just stopped writing it and threw it away. I didn’t throw it away though would have if I had a waste basket or large paper bag or something like that here to throw it in. I put it at the right end of this table thinking that later I’ll go downstairs and get a paper bag, as the one waste basket in this cottage we’ve rented the last three summers has been beside Magna’s desk, and put in all of today’s trash: eraser pencil shavings — first thing I did when I sat at this table was sharpen two eraser pencils — and discarded manuscript pages and the like. Used tissues and pieces of toilet paper, since I’ve the start of a head cold and know I’ll be blowing my nose. In fact I’m going to blow my nose now with a tissue, not because what I just wrote gave me the idea to but because I suddenly have to.

I just blew my nose and put the wet tissue at the right end of this table and will put it in the paper bag along with the page that starts with This time I’m going to make it work, and probably along with these six awful pages I’ve written so far and whatever I might add to them. The tissue is wet. The wind is wet. This awful piece or whatever it is is wet. The ground outside’s wet. Coffee I’m drinking or just was is cold and wet. I just dried my nose and eyes, which were wet, with a dry tissue I made wet. I’ll also put that tissue in the paper bag when I get it. Oh, put on your glasses, tie the laces of your wet sneakers so you won’t trip going downstairs and the two cats when you come downstairs won’t think the flicking lace tips on the stair boards are the nails of a dog as they’ve thought several times before. Or just take off the sneakers, since they are wet, and put on your loafers and go downstairs and say something nice to Magna. Say you apologize. Say you’re sorry, very sorry. Say you’ll try to see that it won’t happen again. Say you’ll do your very best. Say you had a dream last night you want to tell her, Is it all right? If she says yes, say in the dream she said An FBI man told me they’ve done a thorough report on you and that you are fou, and I said A fool? and she said You know what I mean: that vous êtes fou, crazy! and I said So what does that mean to you: that you don’t want to continue living with a fouy man, a crazy man? and she said Yes, you being fou is just one of the many things that make me not want to live with you anymore, and I said Ah, the hell with it and walked out of the hotel and along one of those narrow barge roads by the Dordogne feeling very depressed and thinking what will I do, commit suicide here in France? Because I can’t live without her. I need someone like her to tell my dreams to and many other reasons and she’s the last one left, and the dream ended then. I woke up. The room was black. I didn’t think it was a room but a cave. I felt for Magna. She was on her side, her back to me. We had what I thought was an animal hide over us and were lying on soft ground. I looked at the ground. There was a little light on it now and it looked like water or mud. I reached out to feel it. It felt like water. I felt the small rug on the floor though didn’t think yet that the floor was a floor and rug a rug and the rug felt like grass. I don’t remember falling asleep here, I thought, but maybe everything I remember before waking up was a dream. Then how’d I get here? How do I get my food? Who’s Magna? I turned to her. The hide became the top sheet covered by blankets, the soft ground a bed. I could see windows now. We were in our rented summer cottage, not a cave. All this while I was awake. I pressed into her from behind. Got or had an erection. I wanted to talk to her about my dream and maybe to make love, but she seemed to be sleeping. I pressed the erection against her thighs from behind and put my arm over her under the blanket till my hand covered her breast. She didn’t move. I pressed into her a little harder, put my lips against her neck and blew softly on it, thinking that might awake her. Few seconds later she said I can’t right now, what are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? I said. I didn’t get closer to you to make love, just to be warm and safe. I want to go back to sleep too. You have no consideration, she said. I didn’t know you were up, I said, So I didn’t think you’d feel me. Not feel what, she said, Your blowing on me? How could I not feel it? Who blew on you where? I said. I didn’t blow. If you felt my breath on your neck it was probably because I was breathing through my mouth while falling asleep, that’s all. No consideration, she said. Oh, none at all? Then little, she said. I’m sorry, I said, I’ll move away and stop breathing, and I moved to the other side of the bed. All you want to do or just about always when you’re in bed, no matter how I feel or what state I might be in, is make love. Because you knew I was sleeping. I’m exhausted. I’ve jet lag. We’re six hours behind. It’s really six or eight in the morning, not midnight or two or whatever time the clock says. I know and I’m sorry, I said. Christ, she said. Oh the hell, I can’t sleep with you constantly complaining when I didn’t mean what you think I did and making me feel even worse than I should, and I got out of bed, said We’ll work it out in the morning, went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch with my raincoat and one of the cats on top of me. About an hour ago she said I think we better speak about last night. We were having breakfast, hadn’t talked much. Polite talk. Pass the this, etcetera, while she read and I looked out the window. Oh, skip all that. Talk, argument, anger, tears from Magna, I walked out of the room, up here, she left the cottage and came back twenty minutes later and went to her desk and started typing, is, I’m typing, and that’s where I am now. The wind is wet. It sounded so nice. I thought it would be a good beginning. I wanted to write, when I sat down, something about why I’m always fighting and lying on and off with women and making myself so hard to live with. I wanted to explore that particularly and why I want those characteristics in me to stop. But I wrote slop: This time I’m going to make it work. Then nonsense: The wind is wet. Then what followed right up till this. Forget the writing: I should go downstairs now to try to work things out. Not because I can’t work well up here so long as I know Magna’s sad and getting if she’s not already fed up with me, though if my work did improve because of it I’d certainly be glad, but because I want more than anything and as much if not more than I’ve wanted with anyone to stay with her and be loved by her and because I eventually want to find out why I do some of the wrong things I do and what I can do to change them. Something like that. But I’m going to do it. Meaning, I’m going to go downstairs now.