Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

IN THE CAR, heading for kindergarten, Fanny seated beside him with her lunch box and a tiny flexible Disney character on her lap, “Now we’re on the peaks of Tunisia, making for the wee seaweed-green beach,” and she says, “What do you mean? It’s freezing today,” and he says, “Imagination, you gotta try using it,” and she says, “Are we late for school?” and he says, “We’re going down a big hill, that’s all, and on time, and after coasting on the crest of it, or cresting on the coast of it — okay, the first one, you like accuracy, one tap for the brake, two taps for a little squeeze,” and taps her shoulder twice, a private signal between them, and she smiles and squeezes his arm, and he says, “What a babe,” when he realizes the brake tap didn’t slow the car any, and he taps it again, thinking maybe the first tap was too light, and it’s not slowing but going faster, and he jams his foot down and nothing happens, and he says, “Oh, shit, the brakes, they’re not working, what do I do?” and she screams and he yells, “Put your foot down — your voice — shut up!” and thinks, Emergency brake, and puts his foot on it and the car screeches and starts stopping, and he thinks, Curb, and steers the car right and goes over the curb — when he hoped it might stop the front wheels — and into the bushes and through about twenty feet of them, car slowing all the time, before a thin tree stops it. He looks at her. She’s crying but all right, no cuts or blood, window’s intact, no broken glass, and he says, “You didn’t bang your head or any part when we were stopping, did you?” and she shakes her head, and he says, “Oh, God, now I can cry too,” and starts crying and continues to for a minute or more, hands over his face, when she taps his shoulder and he doesn’t respond and she squeezes his arm twice and he thinks, The signal? and looks up, thinking what a crazy time for her to want to play their game, for when she squeezes him first he’s supposed to tap his foot on something twice as many times as she squeezed him — he doesn’t know how they came to that ratio, maybe their heights — and she says, “It’s over, Daddy, car’s stopped. If it won’t work now, can you walk me to school? I’ll be late,” and he says, “The engine,” and turns it off and has her come out his door because hers is blocked by bushes.

HIS WIFE’S GIVING her a bath, he takes pictures of the two of them in the tub; then she says, “I’d like to shampoo but not in the tub with her; can you look after her till I come back or, if she wants to, just get her out and dry her?” and he puts down the camera, sits on the tub ledge, and his wife steps out, dries herself, and goes down the hallway to the other bathroom, and he says to Fanny, “Mommy wash you good or are you just in here for playing?” and she says, “Come in to play with me,” and he says, “I’d have to take off my clothes and I don’t want to. Anyway, I don’t like going into dirty water. I like for my water to start out clean and then for me to dirty it. Or if I’m giving you a bath but am in the tub with you from the beginning, then for us to make it dirty and soapy together,” when the phone rings, he yells “Sally, you in the shower yet?” and she says, “I’m on the toilet; let it ring,” and he thinks how he hates to let a phone ring — who knows who it can be, something about his mother or something important concerning work? — when there’s a big splash behind him — he’s been facing the door since the phone rang — and he turns around and she’s under the water, only her feet above it, and he shoves his hands in, water’s murky, he can’t see her, and quickly feels around and gets her under the arms and jerks her out and holds her up so he can see her face, and her head’s slumped and her face has the look of a drowned person, or what he’d think would be one, water running out of her mouth and nose, the eyes looking lifeless, and he holds her upside down over his shoulder and slaps her back and she coughs and he slaps it again and says, “Cough, cough some more,” and she chokes and he holds her right-end-up in front of him again and she spits more water out and he says, “You okay? Speak to me,” and the shower in the other bathroom’s going and she starts screaming and he says, “Jesus, you gave me a scare, what were you doing? Shh, shh, it’s all right, you’ll be okay now,” and hugs her to his chest till she’s only sobbing quietly. “And please, sweetheart, don’t tell your mother”—sitting her on the toilet seat cover and drying her body with a towel—“if you do she’ll never want to leave you alone with me anymore; you hear me, you hear?” and she nods, and he dries as much of her hair as he can and powders her and puts her bathrobe on her, she sobbing all the time. “What’s the matter?” his wife says, standing at the door, hair wrapped in a towel. “And how’d you get your clothes so wet?” and he says, “Splashing … Fanny. And boy, that was a speedy shampoo. How’d you do it so fast?” and she says, “Was it faster than usual? Didn’t realize. I guess I didn’t think you’d want to be left with her so long; it can be boring if you’re not in there splashing with her. Why’s she crying? What’s wrong, dearest?” and he says, “Maybe she was in there too long and the water got cold, or the air was when she got out,” and lifts the rubber disk off the tub drain — regular stopper doesn’t work — and the water goes. “I fell in,” Fanny says to her, and he says, “Oh, just a little, and maybe that’s what the crying is, but I always had her hand.”

HE’S WAITING FOR the light to change on Amsterdam, cars roaring north past him, on his way to see his mother, got off the bus on Broadway, unfolded the stroller, and strapped Fanny in; now she’s sleeping peacefully, head to one side, hair spilled over her face and both hands holding a shaggy stuffed animal, when a sudden breeze moves the stroller a little and he grabs the right cane-shaped handle with one hand and then a terrific wind and he’s about to grab the other handle when the stroller’s lifted a few inches off the ground and he lunges at it and misses and it’s blown into the avenue and lands on its wheels a few feet away and starts rolling farther into the avenue as he runs after it and he grabs one of the handles and looks around, he’s about ten feet into the avenue and no cars are near him and he pulls the stroller back to the sidewalk, cars and trucks going past fast and a couple of them honking at him no doubt, stupid man, taking a kid’s life in his hands like that, why doesn’t he wait till the light’s green before crossing? He clutches the handles with both hands, backs up to a store window, can’t believe it, where’d such a wind come from, how could it be so strong to lift a stroller with a kid in it? It means he can’t let go of the stroller for a second when he’s outside, or not till he’s absolutely sure the air’s calm and only when she’s about ten to fifteen pounds heavier, but never on the street no matter how heavy she is, never. It could have rolled farther and would certainly have been hit by a car or truck and that would have been it, she would have been mangled and crushed, all her bones broken, the worst that he could think of and then some, head split open, limbs torn off and carried a few hundred feet, or maybe the stroller, with her strapped in it, carried or dragged a block before the car stopped if it stopped, and then other cars running over it and maybe even dragging the torn-off parts. Light’s green but he stands there clutching the handles, shaking; wind’s died down to nothing, or nothing he can feel, maybe it’s because of where he’s standing, up against a building, but maybe he’s become numb, maybe that’s it, from what just happened, but get off this damn Amsterdam, he thinks, it’s a wind tunnel here, calm now, you think you’re free of it and can push your stroller where you please, when it can suddenly pick up with even worse force than before, and he starts to cross but an approaching truck gives him the long horn and when he looks across the street at the traffic light he sees he’s walking against it, “And with your kid,” the driver yells out the window, “you fucking idiot!” He gets back to the sidewalk and waits till the light’s green, always holding the handles tight. Then he starts across, eyes on the light and street, freezes when a car enters the avenue from the side street, but it’s going to let him pass, he can make out a hand inside waving him on, and he mouths his thanks and runs across to the sidewalk and up the curb cut and looks at her, but she’s slept through the whole thing, same position, hair blown over her forehead a different way, but not a peep.