Stephen Dixon - 30 Pieces of a Novel

Shuts his eyes: nothing. Opens them, flutters the lids, shuts them, and his mom comes. Dressed for travel, short-winded and frazzled, sweating, setting down a valise. “How I carried that, I don’t know.” How’d I ever carry that, I don’t know as a line? No. Gets up, dabs her forehead with a hanky, sits her in his chair, and kisses her cheek. “You leave me in the hot city. I’m not blaming you, I suppose nothing else could’ve been done, but I can die there from the heat.” “Mom, I feel lousy about it as it is, don’t make me feel worse. Can I get you a cold drink?” “And die from loneliness mostly, forget the heat. Just me and the girl who looks after me. She’s very nice but not company enough.” “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you how much, and wish I could make life comfortable and enjoyable for you always.” “As I said, it’s no one’s fault. But not to see you and your three girls for two months is something like death to me.” “We only left New York two weeks ago and I call you every day. And I’ve been reading the Times daily weather forecasts, though since the paper’s mailed here it always arrives the next day, and they haven’t said the city’s been that hot. In fact the weather the past week, according to these reports, and in the whole Northeast—” “Hot, I’m telling you, sticky and hot. If you’re out and in the sun for five minutes once it gets to be noon, you feel yourself boiling in your skin. I’d take one shower after the next if I was allowed to, but the girl only lets me have one a day.” “Anyway, you look great and you got to Maine on your own. I can’t imagine how.” “I took the plane. Got a limo to LaGuardia and a cab from your airport to here. I forgot how long a trip it is. Though I can understand why you take your vacation so far out of the way. Less chance for people to invite themselves for a night or weekend or just drop in.” “Believe me, that’s just a small part of it, and you and Sally’s folks are the exceptions.” “It was always what I looked forward to most all year, since you started coming here. One and sometimes two weeks, if I was a really good girl, in the country with just you and the birds and insects — they didn’t bother me — and of course your precious family.” “I didn’t think you were well enough to make the trip this year, just as you weren’t last summer. You have to know how that hurts me, leaving you in the city with no chance of relief. But now you’re here.” “Now I’m not, my darling,” and she disappears. Opens his eyes. Anything? He feels so sad; can he use that? Doesn’t see how, but has to be something there. Isn’t. “Signed, Desperate,” he says, his finger writing it out in the air. Thinks, Three days can get to be something like an incurable disease. Think. Nobody left, maybe the cat.

Shuts his eyes. The cat comes in. “No one will let me outside. I’ve scratched the doors and screens and walked from front door to patio door and back and then kept making my little wanna-go-out meows while pressed up against the door, and still no one can tell what I want. Or else they’re just too lazy to move a few feet to let me out.” “Why didn’t you say so?” he says, and goes downstairs. “Line,” he shouts, “you coming?” The cat bounds down the stairs. He opens the door and lets him out. “Thanks,” Line says. “Finally someone figured things out, but I had to talk in his language for him to,” and runs into the woods. “Don’t get lost,” he yells. “I don’t want to spend a few hours tramping through the woods shouting and looking for you. Line, I’m saying to stay close to home and I also want you to come back when I call.” The cat jumps out of the woods and stares at him. “No, I’m not calling you back now. I was just saying not to get lost, and I also want you to watch out for those killer coyotes. You hear them howling, run right home. Howling in the woods, I mean, but not from very far away.” “What do you think, I’m stupid?” and runs back into the woods. Opens his eyes, quickly closes them. “In fact the moment you hear any coyote-howling, from no matter how far away, come home. Whatever you do, don’t try and fight them.” The cat doesn’t reappear. Opens his eyes. Any of that good for a line? Tried — and the real cat’s name is Flash — but nothing there or that he can now discern. Anything else he can use for one? Can’t think of any, and his time’s up. Or thirty minutes is. Actually, just twenty, but he knows when to call it a day, or at least an early afternoon. So, later maybe, when he’s out walking or driving or swimming in the lake or even sitting back here, the line will come.

“Fanny, you still there?” he yells from the chair. “What?” she yells upstairs. “I can’t hear you.” He goes to the top of the stairs and says, “You can use the typewriter now, sweetheart. I’m done a little early,” and she says, “Why would I want to?” “You said you wanted to write a letter,” and she says, “What are you talking about? I don’t want to write a letter, not now anyway.” “I meant you wanted to type one, and she says, Type one? Why would I want to on an old typewriter that isn’t even electric when I can write one by hand in a comfortable chair somewhere?” “Okay, you don’t want to type a letter. And I suppose Josephine doesn’t want me to type out the new chapter of her novel,” and she says, “How would I know? Ask her yourself.” “Can you call her to the stairs for me, please?” and she yells, “Josie, come here, Daddy wants you,” and Josephine comes, and he says, “Did you want me to type the fifth chapter of your novel Amily?” “Yeah, I asked you before; did you do it already?” and he says, “No, but it shouldn’t take me long. You want to get it?” and she runs upstairs to her room and brings it out and gives it to him. “Your mother, I know, wasn’t also up here, right?” and she says, “Upstairs? That’s a mean joke, Daddy.” “I didn’t mean it as one, I’m sorry,” and she goes downstairs shaking her head, and he sits at his table, puts her chapter to the left of the typewriter, the side he always reads from when he types, and starts typing it: “It started on a cold, winter day.” Does she need the comma after “cold”? He doesn’t think so but types it the way she wrote it, except for the more conspicuous spelling mistakes.

HE GOES TO see her. Lets himself in, says, “Hello, it’s Gould, I’m here.” Woman who takes care of her says, “We’re back here, mister.” Goes to the back of the apartment. His mother’s in bed. Blinds are closed, room’s dark. “How come she’s still in bed?” he says, opening the blinds of one window, and Angela says, “She said she wanted to sleep.” “But it’s past noon, I came to take her out to lunch.” “She said she doesn’t want to go to lunch. I asked her this morning. She said she only wants to sleep.” “Did she have a rough night?” and she says, “No, it was fine. She might be tired from some other nights.” “Mom, Mom”—shaking her shoulder — and she opens her eyes, not the usual smile or glad-to-see-you expression, says, “Oh, hello. What is it? Not today, Gould, I’m too tired.” “But you can’t just sleep all day. You got to get out. You need air, you need food, you need exercise,” and she says, “I can sleep if I’m tired. Right now I’m no good for anything else.” “But we had a date for lunch. I told you yesterday. You like lunch. You’ll have a drink.” “A drink would be nice; would I be allowed to? But another time. I’m too tired for one now, and it’ll only make me sleepier.” “Have you had breakfast?”—raising the blinds of the one he opened — and she says, “The light. Please let me sleep. What am I asking?” “But look at the light; it’s beautiful. And breakfast. Have you had it today?” and she says, “Breakfast? Sure. I think so. Ask the girl,” and closes her eyes. “Has she?” and Angela says, “I made it for her, sat her up in the chair, two hours ago, right after I got her back from the potty. But she said she didn’t feel like eating and then started dozing on me, so I put her back in bed.” “This is no good, really,” and she says, “I know, but if she says she’s so tired? I didn’t think I should force her to eat. That’d be worse. When they’re tired, little here, little there, that’s the best, I found.” “I meant, sleeping all day isn’t good,” and she says, “Oh, that. I know that too but I didn’t see anything else I could do. But she’s not starving, you know. When she doesn’t have breakfast, she has a big lunch.”