Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

“Now I’ve seen everything,” his mother says, at the same time trying to cut a bacon strip in half, and he says, “Pick it up and eat it, it’s permitted,” and she says, “I don’t like the grease on my fingers — you can’t get it off with a napkin and I don’t feel strong enough to go to the washroom,” and he knows he’s going to have to cut it for her, so do it while the bacon’s still warm, and cuts the two strips into several pieces and looks outside, not expecting to see anymore whatever it was she’d pointed to, and sees a young nicely shaped woman with shorts halfway up her buttocks. “That one, Ms. Short-shorts?” and she nods. The woman’s standing about ten feet from the window, talking to a couple, with maybe three inches of cheeks sticking out. “It’s funny,” he says, “but I wonder if she knows that that’s exactly what prostitutes wear, downtown, in the wholesale meat district, when they’re standing at a corner or walking around looking for customers — shorts like that where a lot of the buttocks show.” “When did you witness that?” and he says, “A year ago, last June. Remember? I parked the car a few doors up from your building, was going to take you to lunch, and when we got outside the driver’s window had been smashed in and the radio and some clothes stolen.” “No, I don’t remember, but it was done by a prostitute in shorts like hers?” and he says, “No, there are prostitutes where they sell meat wholesale, packers and slicers and such along the Hudson around Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets. See, you’re right, I often do make myself unclear. I should’ve explained right off that that’s where I got the car window replaced a year ago: in the area where these women hang out,” and she says, “Why’d you go down there for it? Not to look at the women, I hope,” and he says, “I checked the Yellow Pages for car window repair shops. There are plenty of them specializing in it, since there are so many cars broken into, and the one along the Hudson was the cheapest and, as it claimed in the ad, very fast. Took less than an hour. They lived up to their word.” “So you think the woman who was standing there is a prostitute from your meat area who’s worked her way uptown?” and he says, “Of course not. That’s just how some normal nonprostitute young women dress today. Though the fashion could have been influenced in some circuitous way by the street hookers, or maybe the hookers were influenced by Hollywood’s depiction of them, since there’s been a lot of films and TV stuff on prostitutes and their pimps and johns. But again, with a young woman like her, to attract men and maybe also, with some of them, women, with the part of the body she thinks is her most attractive, and also maybe her legs. She had nice legs from behind, you have to admit that, so maybe she thought an attractive possible mate would say hello to her, turned on by those legs and her outfit and the buttocks showing,” and she says, “So what’s that say about life today? that’s what I want to know,” and he says, “Well, it doesn’t make things look good or hopeful, and I don’t think they’ll get better soon. Women like her aren’t going to go from dressing like that to reading Tolstoy and thinking deeply about things, though they might, after looking like hookers and thinking like ninnies, go to a convent or more likely a Buddhist retreat — though who wants that? That’s seesawing — and, quickly filled with the new diversion, on to some different vacant thing,” and she says, “I don’t understand. Either you’re rambling again or you’re discreetly giving me another word for something prostitutes do with their clients, seesawing and diversions and such,” and he says, “No, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she will go on to Tolstoy—’Get thee to a Tolstoy’ might be her inner command — and some kind of deeper thinking about life. What they’re doing, showing, and mutilating could only be temporary — meaning the stage of doing that. Then they settle down and sit in restaurant patios like this one and watch people, as we’re doing, walking past in provocative clothes, though by then what they see might be much more extreme than what’s out there now, but only relatively so.” “What do you mean: men and women prancing around nude in a few years, or not nude but just with their genitals exposed? Or, if we’re really lucky, only nude from the waist up, but completely?” and he says, “I don’t think for women it’ll get to that, or so soon. Maybe one exposed breast on especially hot days — there might be street signs saying it’s permitted when the temperature rises above ninety — and in any season or weather at private parties and clubs. Or two exposed nipples but not the rest of the breasts, so some sort of specially designed shirt. Or just the breasts but not the nipples — pasties, but without the sparkles and tassels, though for evening wear, high fashion might say with. But who can say? And men coming to parties and restaurants, and when they take their jackets off they have no shirts on. Maybe just suspenders, or pasties, or only a shirt collar and necktie, like comedians in old-time burlesque. But I think that’s as far as it’ll go in the next few years.” “I’m glad my life is almost over. I don’t want to live in a world like that,” and he says, “It’s easy to ignore, or should be: just turn away, or, like my kids say, if it’s physically harmless to everyone else — forget what it does to the person doing it — it’s okay. But of course not everyone will go around like that. There’ll still probably be a normal unisex wing in each department store to get regular clothes, or what we’ll think of as regular,” and she says, “Now you’re kidding me, aren’t you?” and he says, “Okay, maybe I am.”

She’s about to stick a tomato wedge into her mouth and he’s about to say the wedge is too large to take in all at once, when her eyes bulge, she drops the fork to the plate, and he thinks, Something wrong with her? and she says, “I can’t believe it,” and her face relaxes, and he thinks, Oh, outside again, I can’t look, it’s getting too repetitive and embarrassing, and she says, “Here I thought I saw everything, but not this — I didn’t even think of it as a possibility,” and he says, “Let me guess without turning around. And which way is he or she walking, away from you or toward?” and she says, “Neither, and it’s not walking. And it’s they because there are two of them, young women, one a little butchlike so almost a man, kissing passionately on the lips and with their arms around each other and embracing hard.” “Oh!” and he turns around quickly. They’re rubbing each other’s behinds too. People have to walk around them, not noticing, it seems. But of course most are pretending not to notice. Or they think it’s normal in a way if they think the butch one’s a man: she’s dressed a lot like one: long baggy pants, men’s shoes and leather belt, and man’s plaid short-sleeved shirt. Also her watch and the keys hanging off a belt clip. “Now that is unusual, I have to say that,” he says. The couple disembrace, just stare at each other lovingly as if they’re going to do that awhile, and then kiss passionately again. “But not so unusual because of what I think’s the reason for it. Meaning, the chances of seeing it today — and tomorrow and the next day, if I’m not mistaken — are a lot greater than what they were a few days ago or will be a few days from now. Because I saw posters on lampposts the last few days announcing what it says is an International Dykes March tomorrow. That’s what the posters called it; I’m not maligning them by using that word. So no doubt lots of lesbians and their supporters have come into the city from all over the world to march in it; it’s going to start at the U.N. complex and end up here with a rally in Central Park. So you have a greater number of them in New York than usual — a gay ladies’ convention of sorts. And they feel freer and more powerful than they ever have because of their numbers and the message behind the march. And they’re also maybe feeling gayer, meaning jollier, because there is such a large gathering of them, almost like a party, that—” and she says, “Let’s get out of here, will that be all right? It’s too late in the lunch to switch tables to one inside, but I can’t take seeing any of this anymore. People with dozens of rings in one ear, one man who passed with what looked like a big fishhook in his lip, though I might have seen wrong. I neglected to point out those — I thought you had enough — besides all the tattoos young people are polluting their arms and shoulders with, and it seems one girl an entire side of her face,” and he says, “Some of those wash off in a few days. My daughters told me that, when like you I brought up the subject,” and she says, “Well, that’s good to know, something temporary; the best news all day. And I’ve eaten plenty, more than I normally do at home. Because who knows what we’ll see next on the street. Two people copulating on top of a car, I’m afraid,” and he says, “Now you’re talking like me: exaggerating. But if you want to leave, and this is upsetting you so much, we’ll go. You ate a good lunch. The doctor said you’ve lost too much weight lately and should eat more, and you had rolls, most of your bacon, they gave a nice side order of it, and two eggs,” and she says, “Everything was very tasty.” “And the lettuce and tomato and shaved carrot sliver that came with it, or the tomato other than what’s still on your fork. Good. That’s almost a lunch and dinner for you. And a nice balance of foods too — meat, veggies, eggs, butter, and bread — and lots of water, which he said he wants you to drink. We can go somewhere else for coffee and some fruit dessert,” and she says, “No, this whole window picture show all of a sudden has nearly sickened me and I want to go home to my room and rest.” “You’re tired?” and she says yes. “You want to use the ladies’ room before we go?” and she says, “Oh, God, no, even if I did, who knows what I’d find in there,” and he says, “I’m sure that behavior’s only confined to the street,” and she laughs, and he asks for the bill, waitress says, “Everything all right? You didn’t finish,” and he says, “No, there was a lot,” and pays up and gets the wheelchair to the street, pushes it open and locks the wheels, and watches it as he walks his mother to the door and outside. “My pocketbook?” and he says, “You didn’t bring one,” and she says, “Why not?” and he says, “You didn’t need one,” and she says, “I used to pay, after your father died,” and he says, “Well, those days are over; now it’s my turn,” and she says, “Then for my tissues,” and he says, “Before we left the house, I put some in your shirt pocket.” “It could have been stolen, the chair,” she says, sitting in it, “leaving it alone outside for even a short time,” and he says, “It’s an old one. Damn, it was Dad’s, so who’d want to take it?” and she says, “Why? Who can say what disgusting things they could think of doing in it,” and he says, “Now you’re going too far, Mom, and it’s no good for you; way too far,” and she says, “Perhaps, but if not, what then?” and he says, “I’ve no idea what you mean,” and unlocks the brakes and starts pushing her.