Stephen Dixon: 30 Pieces of a Novel

They might have done all the preliminaries somewhere else — in the parking lot or under a towel or blanket at the pool — and had only come here to finish up because it was so far out of the way. And maybe they didn’t know that walkers used the road as a shortcut between Piermont and the pool — they wouldn’t if they didn’t live in the area — or even that someone from the pool or town might want to take a long walk on it for exercise or because it was so quiet and shady or maybe it was a good spot to watch birds. Or they knew all that or some of it but thought, What, one or two walkers or hikers or bird-watchers every hour or so? Anyway, the car was parked in the middle of the one-lane dirt road, so if a service vehicle or police car was coming from either direction it would have had to go around it off the road. And if one was coming from the pool area it would have gone around the passenger side — or that’s the side he would have gone around if he’d been driving a car — and the person in the passing car would have seen the couple doing what they were doing, if they still were, and then what? The couple could have been arrested if it was a police car that passed, and who knows what would have happened if one or two park workers caught them at it? Getting closer — he was about a hundred and fifty feet away now — he thought, Maybe the driver’s a bird-watcher and is out with his field glasses somewhere or even looking for birds from the car. Or he could be hunting for wild mushrooms — he’d heard that the Palisades, which this area was part of, had some pretty good edible ones — or went to a nearby spot he knows from previous years where mushrooms are. Or he could be collecting firewood for the winter — lots of spare wood in these woods, and they were woods — but then he’d almost certainly have driven off the road to park out of sight so he could gather the wood secretly, since you’re not supposed to take anything out of a state park except maybe berries and mushrooms, if even that. Then he saw a human figure — he was about a hundred feet from the car now, and his eyes were bad from any long distance — a man, and as he got closer he saw him facing the opened front passenger door and looking as if he was peeing. If you are going to pee in the woods along a public road, he thought, better to do it that way, with the door blocking anyone coming from the gate direction from seeing you do it and your body blocking anyone from seeing you peeing who was coming from the pool. And if it was a walker coming, even a jogger, since joggers probably ran on this road too, the man would be able to see that person from hundreds of feet away, if his eyes were good from that distance, and by the time the person got close, unless the jogger was really moving, his peeing would be over, though the man didn’t seem to be stopping for him. Now he was maybe twenty feet away and not knowing which side of the car to walk around — the one he’d normally take would be the right, but he didn’t want to pass the guy peeing — when he saw legs hanging over the seat, no pants or skirt or shoes or socks on, though the person might have underpants or a swimsuit on, since all he saw was from the knees down. And the man did seem to have his hands on his fly, or one hand on it and the other extended into the car toward the seat, but he couldn’t see if his penis was out of his pants. What the hell’s going on, he thought, this guy harming or killing someone or dumping a body or what? Gould stopped, didn’t know if he should turn around and go back or just walk quickly past the car on the left side and keep going, but wanted to get away from here, a few hundred feet away, at least a hundred, and then look back at it from there, not that he’d see much with his lousy eyes, for he’d left his distance glasses at the woman’s home. But then he thought maybe someone was being hurt, though he doesn’t hear anything: cries, pleas, things like that. By now he’d walked backwards to the pool about fifteen feet, stopped, and didn’t know which way to go now or what to do. Then the legs started moving, it seemed, the feet a little, and the man, who hadn’t looked this way once, moved in closer till he was between the legs and up against the seat, with both his arms in the car now looking as if they were pressing down on something, and Gould thought, My God, that’s a woman in there and they’re fucking; what a schmuck I’ve been! And right here; who the hell does that? Well, screw them, I just want to get home — and started to walk past their car, since why should he go back and around the long way and all that just because they chose here to do their humping? As he got to the right of the door, walking on the side of the road in some weeds and clumpy dirt, so that he had to look at the ground a couple of times to make sure he wouldn’t trip over anything, and ready to say, Excuse me, if the man suddenly turned around and caught him looking, he saw the woman, shirt on but almost up to her breasts and her legs spread apart, lots of black hairs on the side of her vagina that he could see and even a little of that outer lip folded back or some part like that, back flat on the seat and head raised a few inches and staring warily at him and then sort of dopily with her eyes almost closed as she was jammed hard by the man but giving no sign she was in any harm, guy with his tank top on and pants up but belt and pants buttons undone and going in and out of her slowly now and for a moment all the way out by an inch, and then after a few seconds straight in again, hands splayed on the seat on either side of her waist, bracing himself perhaps or just a place to put them, girl with her head on the seat and eyes totally closed now and smiling. Something cool blew through Gould, where — maybe because of the humidity too but probably at just seeing what he’d never seen any two people do in front of him and just the open and eventually oblivious way they were doing it and the point they seemed to be at in the act, or he would be, and the forest air — he had to catch his breath and really felt dizzy for a few seconds and stumbled back onto the road once he was past the car and for a while walked with his hand clutching his neck. He turned around when he was about fifty feet away, thinking that if the guy was looking at him now he’d just quickly turn around and continue on, and only saw the guy’s head through the window, still moving back and forth like before and never glancing at him, but nothing of her. It could be, because of all he’d taken in, that he’d stopped for half a minute or so by the car, but he wasn’t aware of it. But Jesus, he kept thinking as he walked, never saw anything like it even in the few pornos he’d seen; just two kids, the guy maybe seventeen, eighteen, the girl fifteen or a little more, blank to everything else when she stopped staring at him, for then she looked as if she was doing it out of duty or for money or just for the sake of the guy or maybe she was high. Thought of them the whole way back, her bush, shine on the guy’s penis, vagina lip or skin or whatever it was folded over, and her dreamy-to-transported look and smile, sometimes feeling his penis through the pants pocket and pulling it, rubbing the head, knowing if he stuck his hand inside he’d find it wet, wanting to tell his woman friend what he saw but she wasn’t back, realizing when he got to her front steps that he hadn’t worked up a drop of sweat.

Made himself coffee, sat on the porch in the swing chair and opened the newspaper, unconsciously began playing with himself through his pants, went inside and sat at the kitchen table and unzipped his fly and started jerking himself off to get rid of the tension and stop thinking of them, but then thought, Don’t throw it away, save it for when she gets back when maybe he can get her to make love soon or even right away. Story about what he saw won’t hurt. Maybe even just coming right out and saying it’s made him hot, remembering and then telling it, so would she mind much if they did it now, as a favor or just because he’s almost never felt so rutty, and thinking of the couple isn’t all there is to it, for of course there’s her too, on the couch or floor or bed, though he’d love, even if he knows this is screwy and a silly thought and there’s no chance they’re going to do it this way, on a car seat in a remote grove with all those forest smells and sounds around, or in a different position than them if she can come up with one, for though he knows it’s being done in cars all the time he’s never till now known for sure how. Anyway, convincing her that it would be better now or an hour or two later than after her daughter comes home, if it was August, when they’d have to be more inhibited and could only do it in bed, with their usual last sex before he left the next day, unless she’s just started her period and thinks she’s already too messy, as she’s sometimes said.

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