Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

The apartment’s rented to an elderly woman but isn’t repainted, as the landlord says the singer only had it a few months. The first time Gould meets the woman she tells him that her husband recently died, she was like a full-time nurse to him the last six years—“That’s how much he suffered, and we couldn’t afford real ones”—and since there was nothing left for her to do in their suburban community and her kids were scattered around the country in towns just as dull as hers and anyway didn’t really want her, she decided to move back to the city she was raised in, “and especially this Columbia area, which is like a quiet sanctuary in a noisy fast-paced city, just the place to start out in again.” She often has tenants on the floor in for dinners she cooks. She invites Gould a few times and he always begs off. After the singer and Roland, he doesn’t want to go inside the apartment. And it’s not that he’s afraid the woman will ask him about Roland’s suicide. She’s already said she knows and nothing he says concerning it could surprise or scare or repel her after what she went through with her husband. Mostly, though, he doesn’t find her interesting or intelligent, so he thinks the evening would be very boring. “Nothing personal, I want you to understand,” he tells her the last time she invites him. “It’s just that I don’t usually have dinner, and if I do it’s usually very light and with my own kind of special foods and preparations and eating it by myself while I work,” and she says, “Please, I learned long ago not to take personally the idiosyncratic things people do. So if eating alone or starving yourself to death is what you want, I’m certainly the last person to try and interfere with it.”

THEY’RE SITTING AT a two-seater, having lunch in a restaurant’s enclosed patio on a busy avenue. It’s her favorite restaurant, favorite table position too: alongside the window, and his mother, looking outside, says, “My goodness, did you see that?” and he says, “No, what?” “That young woman, what she was wearing — she’s passing your way now. Is it permissible to go around like that in the city?” and he says, “I didn’t see her; she must’ve got in front of someone. What’d she have on?” and she says, “I didn’t hear,” and he says, “About it being permissible or not. What was she wearing — or not wearing, perhaps?” and she says, “Her shorts. They had long fringes or frayed threads coming out of the leg part, but were cut right up to here,” and she slices her hands at the top of her thighs. “Can they do that, walk around like that without getting told not to by the police?” “Oh, sure, that’s the style among many young girls today: cutoffs — they do it themselves, or if they really want to be extravagant they buy them new that way. Your granddaughters have shorts like that, though I think Sally cut the pants legs off for them,” and she says, “That was no girl, it was a young woman, in her twenties, possibly thirty,” and he says, “What can I tell you, Mom; that’s the age we live in,” and she says, “What do you mean ‘age’? That our styles are dominated by cheap women in their twenties and thirties who act like they’re thirteen and don’t know better?” and he says, “The age of showing off what you have, or what you think you have, anyway. I didn’t see this one so I don’t know if what she’s got is worth showing off. Even if it isn’t, and you’re saying it should never be, that’s the way it is today, I’m afraid. Here”—taking her glass off the table—“drink your drink. You know, though, we cheat a little on this; you’re only allowed one every other day, doctor’s orders — the alcohol doesn’t mix with your medications — so make the best of it. Certainly don’t leave it undrunk,” and she says, “Little chance of that,” and takes it from him, raises it, and says, “To long life, happiness, and better days,” and he holds out his coffee mug for her to clink and she says, “You’re not having one?” and he says, “Never before six or thereabouts,” and she says, “I’m retired, so I don’t have to worry. I’ve finished everything I’m going to do, have no energy left to start anything new, and whatever damage there is is done, right?” and she sips a little and puts it down. “It’s strong,” she says, smiling. “Maybe I should add some water,” he says, and she says, “What, and kill it?”

“Oh, I can’t believe this,” looking outside again, hand on her cheek and head shaking back and forth, and he says, “Another woman in cutoffs?” and she says, “No, this one is in a chemise, or what looks like one. But a real chemise, though worn on the outside and cut high. Or maybe it was intentionally bought too short for her or shrunk, so her navel’s showing, and almost see-through if I saw through it right: something for your husband’s eyes in the bedroom but not for anyone’s on the street. What’s going on today? No matter what you said, I don’t understand fashions at all.” “You didn’t wear anything like that when you were young?” he says, looking at the back of the woman as she heads north on the sidewalk. High heels, chemise or look-alike of one, if he’s sure what a chemise is — shirtlike underwear? — small waist, and large buttocks. Men passing don’t even look at her. He would if he were on the street and wasn’t with anyone — or was, and that person was looking somewhere else or, like his mother, encouraged him to look by what she said. “Sure we wore them, but underneath, and often as one more protection against the cold. Remember, we didn’t have thermal this-or-that or very good central heating. We didn’t wear shorts much then either, and the truth is they weren’t so easy to find. As little girls, if we had them, we were permitted to wear them at the beach or in the home, but never on the street. As adults, and I think my first grown-up pair my mother or an aunt made for me, we wore them at a summer resort or beach, with the trouser legs halfway down your thighs and quite loose, so none of your curves showed. This was still plenty revealing enough to draw stares from men, if that’s why you wore them and your legs were attractive, which mine were then,” and he says, “Why else would you wear them?” and she says, “To be comfortable in the hot weather, what do you think? That was the most important reason — we thought more of comfort then than showing ourselves off like slabs of butcher meat,” and he says, “Of course, we’re talking about late spring and summer in New York.” “That’s right. For the curves and displays of flesh, you had your bathing suits, ugly as they were, though we didn’t think so then, but only on the beach. And the shorts and tops only with proper lingerie under them, I want you to know, which meant the chemise inside, not out. But I guess everything goes today,” and he says, “Seeing what we’ve been seeing, I guess.”

Another young woman walks by outside, and his mother stares at her till she passes, then shakes her head and makes tsking sounds. “Why, what was wrong with that one? She looked okay to me,” and she says, “Her outfit. Around the rear, much too tight. Even with my poor eyes, I could see the crack, and I’m sure, up close, everything. She’s asking for it, I’ll tell you. Not just for wolf whistles and catcalls but to be propositioned and followed and pinched.” “So, maybe that’s what she wants,” and she says, “If you’re right and she wants that, to be pawed at and hounded by the worst scum alive, then what’s the world come to? You wouldn’t let your daughters …”—and she tries snapping her fingers, but they don’t snap—“come on, what are their names again?” and he says, “You know their names, what are you doing?” and she says, “I don’t for the moment; I’m being honest, I forgot them. Help me, what are they?” and he says, “Fanny and Josephine, or, to make it easier for you, Josie she also goes by, though never from me,” and she says, “You wouldn’t let Francine and Josephine dress like that if they were older, would you?” and he says, “No, but what could I do if they weren’t living with me, or they were but were over sixteen, which will happen soon enough,” and she says, “Sixteen? You mean eighteen, don’t you? But they should never go around like that, not even when they’re in their twenties,” and he says, “I wouldn’t like it, but after a while you have to give up control and let them take the consequences of their acts. But I’m sure they’ll be too smart to dress like that — I’m not so much referring to the one who just passed, who I didn’t think was dressed that immodestly, but the chemise one and the one with what you said were very high cut.” “Tell me, is it all just physical?” and he says, “I guess a lot of it is today, and probably always was, but now things have really come out … or maybe”—because of her perplexed expression—“I don’t get what you mean. What did you?” and she says, “Why, what did I say? I forget. This is obviously a bad period for me, not coming up with your daughters’ names and now this, but tell me again, what was it?” and he says, “You said, ‘Is it all just physical?’” and she says, “Then I did forget what I started out to say, because I don’t even remember saying that.” “Maybe you meant is life for these young people just physical? — the ones we see passing on the street here. You know, just dressing for one another and having sex and eating and shopping and mostly doing, when they’re not working, only physical things: sports, exercising, making the body look better, fitter, trimmer, more attractive, they think: flat abs, fat pecs,” and she says, “Yes, that could be what I started out to ask you… well, is it?” and he says, “Abs, for abdominals, by the way, is a word I got out of the paper yesterday in an article about that … and just that there was such an article, on the money spent because of the emphasis today on getting flat abdominal muscles, says something too about our dumb times. Anyway, I suppose for many of them it is just physical, and more now than ever. They think there’s a lot of competition, and if they don’t have much up here”—poking his head—“which is the tough part to get, right? — then they better look good. It’s easier than thinking, in a way, don’t you think? — I mean, exercising instead of reading a real book, not dreck, and trying to figure out what it says if it doesn’t come right away. But just think if they had a combination of the two, looks and brains, though actually the brains part might hurt their chances of landing a mate,” and she says, “I never see people carry books anymore, young people, or only a few. But then I don’t get out much. Look at that,” and he turns around to where she’s looking outside and sees two tall thin women approaching, models they look like, one wearing a translucent T-shirt with nothing under it: nipples and surrounding round areas are dark and breasts maybe a little smaller than normal-sized and the shirt’s very tight, and the other woman with almost identical long hair and tight white shirt but nothing showing through, and printed in two lines across a fairly flat chest, IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU’RE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH. “How can she go around like that, the blond one?” and he says, “They’re both well-groomed blondes,” and she says, “Then the taller of the two, with that shirt,” and he says, “You see what the other one had written on hers?” and she says, “No, what? — my eyes,” and he says, “Actually, nothing, something about dolphins,” and she says, “Well, they’re good animals, so that’s all right. Don’t ask me, though, what the taller one has in her head when she parades down the street like that. But seeing her — the shirt — did it excite you?” and he says, “Jesus, what a question,” and she says, “Be honest about it, because I’m only trying to understand why she’s doing it if it doesn’t do anything to men,” and he says, “I’m only one man and a lot older than most around here and happy with his wife, whatever all that’s supposed to mean. It’s interesting to see, and I’ve seen it before on the street, though maybe not someone so beautiful. Meaning, she’s already a knockout, so I don’t know why she has to do it. Anyway, it’s interesting seeing the reactions she gets. This time people stared, men and women both. With the chemise lady they didn’t,” and she says, “That isn’t what I meant with my question. But if you don’t want to answer because I’m your mother …” and he says, “It’s not that. If it excited me, I didn’t feel it, so maybe it didn’t. My eyes, though, they probably liked it for a couple of seconds, but so quickly that it didn’t register on the rest of the sensory system. They both — the two women — had crucifixes around their necks, did you see that?” and she says, “Big? Little?” and he says, “Average-sized,” and, to himself, Average-sized crucifixes on small to almost normal-sized breasts. “What’s it supposed to mean?” she says. “That they’re good Christians after all and only want Christian men to follow them and take liberties on the street and so on?” and he says, “Maybe they only wear the crucifix for its design and don’t even know what it represents; that could be more the case. Next week, after they’ve grown bored with the cross, an ankh, and the following week a Star of David, and the week after that a live snake. But I’m being too hard on them. My daughters would complain if they heard me. They think if someone does something to his body, even mutilating it, that doesn’t hurt someone else — forget the pain of disgust — it’s okay, and for me not to comment on it. I used to think that how you present yourself in appearance and physical gestures says something about your values and character, but I’m not so sure anymore,” and she says, “But that shirt with her breasts in plain view?” and he says, “She could see it as some kind of public equal-rights womanifesto. That if men can go around topless on these crowded commercial streets, which you see more of all the time, then women can too, but, not to push things too quickly because of the rabid counterreaction it might get, in translucent shirts.” “Translucent?” and he says, “Semi-transparent, then,” and she says, “I no doubt once knew that word, but so much of what was up there and easy to get to is now gone,” and he says, “Oh, since I’m just about older than anyone on the street or in the restaurant except you, and also because I drank too much for years and banged my head on hard objects too many times, maybe the same thing’s happened to me but worse, and I get half of what I think and say wrong. I can live with it, though,” and she says, “It’s true that occasionally I’m unsure what you mean and I don’t feel it’s always my fault.