Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

Looks at her. On her back again, hands under her head this time, eyes closed. He looks at his mother. She’s looking at the trees behind her, then turns to him. “Oh, there you are; I didn’t want to disturb you. You seemed very deep in thought, almost troubled. Are you?” “No. And you were napping before and I didn’t want to disturb you . Feel okay?” “Of course, why shouldn’t I? Just because I’m an old lady who’s gone to pot and who should probably put an end to herself before she gets worse? But tell me; I was looking at those trees there. Why do you think they’re all painted black? It’s very unusual, isn’t it? Not just for the park but anywhere.” “They’re not painted. You asked me that same question before, Mom.” “And what did you say?” “You tell me.” “Please, dear, don’t make fun of me; it isn’t right.” “I’m not; this will help you concentrate better the next time you want to ask that question. What did I say before, after you asked me why do I think the trees are painted black?” “I don’t know and I won’t pretend I do. What did I say? That I was getting daffy and should be put in a home?” “I said they weren’t painted.” “They’re not? This one right behind me, for instance, isn’t painted black or some other dark color?” “No; it’s the natural bark color, and it’s nowhere near being black.” “Well, that’s odd. It has to be my eyes, then. One I can hardly see out of; the other one, everything I see through it is dark and dim.” “So that’s obviously the reason,” he says. “And we both know there’s an operation to correct it but that Dr. Brenken — your personal physician, not your eye one — doesn’t want you going through it: too many risks.” “I know,” she says, “because you already told me, right? It’s what I want to do, but you don’t want me taking chances.” “Both Brenken and I, yes.” “Who’s that?” “Your doctor, Brenken, the one you see for checkups and stuff. The eye surgeon’s leaving the decision up to him.” “But if I have a heart attack and die on the operating table, what of it? Living without seeing, and with everything else about to go on me too, what’s the point in life?” “Come on, for a woman your age you’re in remarkable health. And you can see, just not well.” She waves dismissively, looks away.

He looks at the woman. She’s sitting up, has sunglasses on, and seems to be staring at the ground between her legs. Sunglasses must have been in her pocket or in a case clipped to some part of her clothing he couldn’t see. Continues looking at her, wondering what she’ll do if she looks his way and catches him. Continue to look at him? Look at him angrily, if he can see that through the sunglasses, and then look away? Smile? Probably what she did before: give off no emotion, just look away. Stares at her legs. When they’re in that caret position, he’ll call it, they always look better than when they’re on the ground straight out or standing up. Women that age have the best-looking bodies. The ones in good shape, that is. Better than girls in their end teens or very early twenties, though for all he knows she could be twenty, twenty-one. So what’s he mean then? That usually women around twenty-five or so, which by her face and the very thing he’s talking of he thinks this one is, have the same flat stomachs and firm busts and so on of the teenagers and early twenty-year-olds but a roundness to their shapes the others don’t have, and that maybe mid-twenties is when a woman’s body peaks. Ah, he’s really not too informed on the subject, so best he keep that speculation to himself. He imagines making a pass again. She has sunglasses on this time. What would he say? Frisbee again. “Excuse me, miss, but I saw the Frisbee— noticed —and wondered if you’d like to toss it around a little. I haven’t played in a while, but my mind suddenly started going back when I saw it lying there—” She’s taken off her glasses and cuts him off with “I want to lie on the grass in peace; I got to be bothered every time by some guy?” “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, but to be honest it’s partly because when I saw you looking at me before, I thought—” “Saw me looking where? Were you sitting someplace around here? Because if I was looking in your direction it was probably at the scenery behind or around you. That’s why I come to the park and to this particular part. Not only because it’s quieter and cooler but to see the trees, the birds, and to relax with none of the typical hassles.” “Well, you had a Frisbee—” “The Frisbee’s my business why I have it.” “Sure, of course, I misinterpreted it somehow, and I really did want to toss one back and forth—” She’s looking at him with the expression Will-you-please-get-lost-or-do-I-have-to-call-a-cop? and he goes. When he walks away he looks around to see if anyone nearby heard or saw him getting brushed off. Nobody on the benches closest to her is looking at either of them, so either they didn’t hear or are being discreet.

“Look, that’s called a dog walker,” his mother says, pointing to a young woman walking a dog. “I never knew such people existed till someone told me of them. They get paid.” “Why do you think she’s a professional dog walker and not just a woman walking her dog? I always thought real dog walkers walked four or five dogs at a time, seven or eight, even, I’ve seen.” “No, she’s a dog walker who gets paid.” “But how can you be sure? I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just curious what you think distinguishes her from a regular person walking her dog.” “I’m sure, I’m sure,” she says, “but you don’t think she is? Maybe I am losing my mind if I can’t remember who told me or even now if anyone did. No, I’m sure someone did. I don’t make these things up.” “Listen, maybe you’re right. I’m in fact positive you are. I’ve heard of dog walkers but didn’t know that some walk only one dog. Now that you mentioned it, though, it makes perfect sense they would. Some people have so much money today, especially around here — Central Park West — that they can afford anything. A walker for each of their dogs if they have more than one? — you got it, whatever the fee.” “A dog for every walker?” she says. “I don’t get it. What are you saying?” “Listen closely, Mom. I’m saying that some people, if they have two dogs, will then get two dog walkers to walk those dogs individually, or the same dog walker to walk the dogs separately.” “Now I see,” she says, but it doesn’t seem she does by the down-in-the-dumps look she gives him, so he says, “You’re all right, right? My talk about dogs didn’t bother you?” “No, why would it? But what specifically were you saying? Oh, better we don’t talk about it. You’ll think I forget everything, when I don’t,” and she leans back in the wheelchair and slowly closes her eyes.

Looks at the woman. She’s lying mostly on her side and looking at him through the sunglasses. Or is looking his way, since all he sees are the dark lenses, no eyes. He imagines her coming over to him. He’s been sitting alone where he is now. She’s thinking, I see a guy who looks interesting, he seems by all his looking at me that he’s interested, then I can make a pass at him as well as him doing one to me. If I see right away once I talk to him or even when I get near him that he’s gay or a nut or not interested and that I’ve misinterpreted his glances and even the direction his looks went or find out he’s been playing some sort of flirty game with me and has nothing else in mind but fooling me into thinking he’s interested, I say, “Sorry, I thought you were someone I know; it must be my dark glasses,” or say nothing but just walk away. So she comes over. He sees her coming and doesn’t know what to make of it. She seems to be looking at him and heading his way, flicking the Frisbee against her leg, but maybe she’s going to go right past him. She stops beside his bench and says, “Excuse me, but bad as this introductory remark must sound, about as unartful and unimaginative as one could be, I just can’t think of a way of putting it different: don’t we know each other from someplace? And don’t crack up at what I said either, or I’m really going to be mad at you.” He says, “I won’t, and not to my recollection, our knowing each other. Because where do you think it was?” “Funny, but I thought someone introduced us in the park last week. At this Frisbee game over there where the kids are screaming, or you just came in on it and after we were playing awhile we got to talking. I think we were even on the same side.” “I know that’s not it. I like to play Frisbee a little, or did — last time must’ve been ten years ago. But I would you like to have a catch now? Is that what they say, ‘catch’?” “‘Throw it’ rather than ‘catch.’ Or ‘toss’ as the next best thing, if you get tired of saying ‘throw.’” “I meant as the noun, when you’re practicing or playing around with the Frisbee,” and she says, “That’s what I meant too. But yeah, I brought it out here hoping maybe I’d j get some exercise with it. So, you want to?” He asks if she knows a good spot to throw it and she says, “Follow me,” and he gets up, takes his book, and she leads him to an open area about fifty feet away from the nearest group playing or person sitting on the grass. “Okay,” he says, “what do we do, just throw? I think I remember how it’s done.” “Sure you do. No one forgets once they get the knack. Flick it like this,” and she demonstrates without releasing the ‘ Frisbee. “Now let’s step back about fifteen feet.” “Each?” “Each. We’ll start off nice and easy, and if we start clicking we’ll move back even farther. Now I’m not saying I’m great at it, I want you to know”—both stepping backward—“but I can throw it without a wobble most times and snatch most anything within reasonable reach, behind or front.” “So it’s all in the wrists, that it?” he yells, making the throwing motion with his hand, and she says, “No, I don’t think so,” and laughs. What’s funny? he thinks, nodding and opening his mouth as if he’s laughing. Sex? She’s out here primarily for that? Meets a guy through the phony line about knowing him from someplace but not having a better way of putting it at the moment, and the Frisbee’s to see if he’s athletic enough for her, isn’t too clumsy or something, and doesn’t drop after a few throws. “Ready?” she says, when they’re about thirty feet apart, or forty or so, and he says, “Let her rip.” She throws. It’s for him what would be a perfect toss, gliding smoothly and straight toward him but goes over his head by about two feet and lands some ten feet past him. “Sorry,” he says. “You should have leaped for it, or at least run back and got under it. I kept it up long enough.” “Thanks, but I’m no pro basketball center or cheetah.” He wants to get it right, practices flicking it a few times; she yells, “Come on, get rid of it!” and he lets it go. It wobbles from the start and flops about fifteen feet in front of her and rolls to the side on its end and down a hill a little so she has to chase after it. “Sorry.” She says, “Hey, who told you you can play? No throw or snatch. You’re getting old, man, old.” “Thanks,” and, under his breath, “Up yours, ballbreaker.” “Only kidding,” she says. “You’re okay, just a bit rusty. One’s coming to you; mind your head,” and throws another perfect one but right to his chest. He reaches out for it, and it bounces off his fingers—“Sorry again”—and picks it up angrily and sends it flying without concentrating on throwing it right. It spins well but too far to her left to give her any chance of reaching it. “Big improvement in the aerodynamics, but you’re not there yet,” she says, and flips it to him gently and he catches it. “Now we’re hot,” she says. Again he just lets it fly without thinking of how to throw it and it’s a graceful one a few feet over her head. She backs up, waits for it to drop, and turns her back to it and grabs it from behind. “Great, two in a row,” he says, “and fantastic catch.” “And good basic throw also. You had it hanging up there long enough for me to get creative.” They throw it around like that for about twenty minutes. Then, tired, he says, “Okay, I give up, you win,” and makes a calling-it-quits motion with his hands. She says, “A few more, but from much farther out. Let’s really strut our stuff.” She signals him to step back, which he does, till they’re about thirty to forty feet apart again, since they’d moved closer and closer to each other once they’d started. She flips it to him; he wants to let it sail past and fall to the ground but grabs it on the run and almost in the same motion whips it back to her; she makes another fancy catch, this one with her arm behind her neck. Back and forth a couple of dozen times or so and then she says, “Now I’m bushed and drenched; let’s get a cool drink and wipe ourselves off. You did good, my man, really good,” when he comes up to her. “What’s your name?”