Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

On the way home she points to two men walking past holding hands, and he says, “Same march and mood, maybe: backup support. But don’t point, please; they might see and say something,” and she says, “I don’t think they’d care; they had eyes only for each other.… Look at her,” she says on the next block, about a young woman on Rollerblades with a biking outfit and helmet on, or maybe it’s a special Rollerblades outfit or they’re so close to being the same or are the same that it’s sold in sports shops as a Rollerblades-biking outfit, but so tight he can make out the genital pubic hair pushed down. She glides by them so fast that he’s sure she didn’t see his mother pointing or hear what she said, and he says, “Did you mean — though again, don’t talk about it so loud — her outfit or just that she was on Rollerblades or roller-blading on the sidewalk so fast when she should have been on the street?” and she says, “Don’t pretend to be dim, for what do you think?” A little boy in Pampers walking in front of his parents: “Cute as he is,” she says, “you’d think the least they could do in a so-called civilized city is put shorts over his diapers. But I’m from the old school. Scolds like me won’t be around long to annoy people with their outdated sensibilities and rules and complaints,” and he says, “No, no, just about everything you said so far about what you saw has some validity to it. But there’s little we can do about it, and you certainly don’t want to make a scene in the street. As for the kid in Pampers, or even if they were real diapers — I’d actually prefer it if they were; better for everything, the environment and the cotton industry and the kid — well, as for that, it didn’t bother me, I don’t know why. Maybe I’d feel different if it had stuff running out of it,” and she says, “That’s partly my point. With a pair of shorts or pants over the diapers, you’re covered for that and don’t have to subject passersby to even thinking it could happen,” and he says, “Okay, I see, and a point worth taking,” and she says, “You’re only trying to make me feel good now, and it won’t work.”

They get to her building, he helps her out of the chair, carries it down the areaway steps while she holds on to the railing at the top, then helps her downstairs and wheels her inside. She says she wants to nap and he gets her on the bed, says, “Want the blinds closed?” and she says, “If you could,” and he closes them and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch, though I’ll call to find out how you feel first.” She smiles, shuts her eyes, looks peaceful as if she’s already asleep, face without the strain it had from almost the first minute on the street.

NO LINE COMES. He sits for a long time, waiting and sometimes working, but no line comes. He walks around the house, people in it see him and say, “What are you doing?” and he says, “Shh, I’m thinking,” and thinks, Let a line come while I’m walking, but none does. Outside, in: none. Opens the refrigerator and takes a slice of cheese out of the wrapping the pound of Swiss came in and shoves it into his mouth and thinks, Okay, you’ve been satisfied, your hunger at least, so let a line come. Goes upstairs, sits down at his card table again, and says, “Line, come … now. Okay, then line … come … now.” Says, “No line wanna come? Okay, later.” Goes back to the refrigerator and stuffs two more slices of Swiss into his mouth, thinks, Now I’m more than satisfied, I’m sated, so let a line come. One comes best when I’m hungry, but that didn’t work, nor when I was just satisfied, so let it come when I’m full, overfull, have had too much cheese and really, considering … considering what? I was going to say, “considering the breakfast I had,” but I didn’t have any: just black coffee and half a toasted bagel with nothing on it, so just too much cheese. Sits at the kitchen table and waits; none comes. Takes out his pad and pen and tries working: nothing. Let line come, he thinks. Line, you come! Says, “Let the line in. Let the great or any kind of line come in and be in and be anything it wants to be, but just to be, that’s all, and I’ll take it from there. Line, where are you, where art thou, wherever you are or art, yoo-hoo, let me see you, so come. Calling all lines. This is Gould to line: come in, please; over. Now line, come now. This sec. This is the sec for all good lines or just any kind of line to come. Or come in the next few sees or so, I won’t mind. Hey, I can be a patient man regarding lines, just test me. Or come in the next thirty sees, but sooner if you can, though later if you want — don’t want you to think I’m pushing you — but please, not too much later. My heart, my heart — only kidding. Or really come when you want, but come now. I mean really come when you want but, if you can, come now or soon. A minute, two, line to start a whole thing with — there, cat’s out of the bag, now if only a line was — but come. Okay, I’ll just wait,” and thinks, Okay, wait, go upstairs and sit at your desk and wait, and goes upstairs, sits at the card table, and shuts his eyes. Shutting my eyes might help it come, he thinks, and keeps his eyes shut when they want to open. Thinks, What do I see? Maybe what I see will be the line to start the whole thing off with. “Cat out of the bag” one? No. I see my daughters. Then just one: “Hi,” the youngest says. Is that the line? Opens his eyes and writes Hi , and it isn’t. Just one word, is it even a line? Well, by his standards it is, and even if it isn’t he’d take it if it were the one. Try two. He writes Hi, Daddy , and it isn’t. Try more: and he writes: “Hi, Daddy,” one of his daughters says, and he looks up; it’s the younger, she’s at the door holding some manuscript pages and says, “Could you type these for me?” and he says, “What is it, sweetie, because I’m busy,” and she says, “Chapter five of my novel Amily,” and he says, “Emily?” and she says, “No, Amily, for ‘I am,’ get it? ‘Am’ for me and ‘ily’ for an end to a name like Emily but not that. Someone told me ‘Amily’ also sounds like the French word for friend, and the Amily in my novel is my friend, or has become one since I started writing about her, and she’s a very friendly girl and I hope will become the friend of the people who read her,” and he says, “You mean, your readers,” and she says, “The readers of Amily, the book, my novel. You know who she is. You typed all my Amily chapters,” and he says, “But she wasn’t named Amily before, was she?” and she says, “First she was Amelia. And once she was Emily, and in another chapter she was Emma, or in two of them. But they all sounded so ordinary for a main character’s name, and there were already too many Emmas and Emilys and one Amelia in books and stories I read. So I thought, Why not Amelia with an E for the first letter? But that didn’t look right as a name — it seemed too fake or false — so I ended up with Amily, which has parts of all those names and also the French word ‘friend’ and the English word ‘am,’ for ‘I am,’ though the novel isn’t about me, it’s made up. All of that I thought of after I finally took Amily, which I got by thinking and thinking of a good name. I sat hard in my room, or rather I thought hard while I sat in my room,” and he says, “At your desk?” and she says, “Yes, and the name just came, and when it did I knew it was the right one from now on.” “I like it,” he says, “a name I’ve never heard of but really should have. Because you’d think, after thousands of years of different first names, parents would have made it up by now or formed it from some other name or thing—’friendship,’ as you said, but in French, or some word in English. Amity’s the only one I can think of now that has a-m-i in it, which must come from the French, which probably comes from the Latin —amicus, is it?” and she says, “I wouldn’t know, what does it mean?” and he says, “Well, amity means friendship, and amicus, if I’m right, probably means the same thing or something close to it — friend, friendliness, fried foods? But you’re allowed to do that with names, make them up when you write novels and stories, don’t ask me how I know.” “But you will type it?”—waving the pages — and he says yes and she puts them on the table he’s sitting at and he says, “Though not right this moment, you understand,” and she says, “I’ve time. I won’t be starting the next chapter till tomorrow,” and leaves and he writes, The line, the line, did it come, is “Hi, Daddy,” for instance, the line? It isn’t. Does any of that stuff with his daughter have the line in it? It doesn’t .