Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

On the remaining school mornings I’ll wave to her if she’s looking my way, but nothing more outgoing than that. And next time at a store, if I happen to be near enough to speak frankly with her, I’ll apologize for what she might have thought was my presumptuous behavior on the street yesterday and explain I honestly believed she was the young woman I used to be a substitute teacher for and I wasn’t coming on with a line. She might then say she likes comparisons even less when she hears the same one a second time, and walk away. Or she could say she realizes mistakes are made and comparisons are inevitable and so it might have been she who was somewhat abrupt that day, and walk away. Or she could say “Will you please try and combat these impulses you seem to get of stopping me every time you see me to speak about yourself and this junior-high-school girl?” Or she could say “Listen, I’m actually the one who should be doing the apologizing, for the truth is I am Judy Louis but for unexplained reasons, which still seem unexplainable to me, I didn’t want to admit it that day. Perhaps because I wasn’t feeling right with myself or plainly just detested myself and you gave me the most ideal opportunity available of momentarily denying my very existence.” Or else “I was really in a rush that day and had no time to talk and surely not about that stifling school, which is the one part of my past life I most urgently want to forget.” And the truth might also be that she hasn’t a boyfriend and only said that to end our chat and discourage me from developing further interest in her. Maybe then I could propose the coffee or beer. If she consented, then at the coffee shop or bar I could suggest we have dinner that night. She could say she has a previous engagement though not one she couldn’t break. We could also see a movie, at her door kiss good night. Forget the kiss and previous engagement: she accepts my dinner invitation outright. The next weekend we could drive to a lake for the day or shore if she likes and bring a picnic there and that evening have an open-air lobster dinner somewhere and if she lives alone she could later invite me in for a nightcap. More likely it would be then we’d first kiss. Because on our first date I’d be ultrareserved and even gallant without seeming like a fop. As I’m sure she’d still be a bit wary of me from my having followed her to the corner when she was waiting for the light and next morning yelling good morning to her across the street and then waving to her whenever I see her those remaining school days and speaking openly to her in a store if it’s in a store I bump into her. The weekend after that we could plan to camp out I’d bring the sleeping bags and just in case there’s a bug problem I’m sure I could also borrow a tent. In a month I could ask to move in with her or if she’s with her parents or roommate we could look for our own place. But I’d prefer going abroad with her for around six weeks. Ancient hotels, inexpensive bistros and cafés. Light and dark native beers and stouts and all the time drawing a chronicle of our trip: everything from the rickety buses and flying buttresses to Judy dressing, undressing, sipping cafés au lait in big fluffy beds. We could return by ship if the fare’s not too steep, rent a flat in this neighborhood so I could be near my school and folks. And maybe after a while we could get married and have a child or get married without having a child or have a child without getting married but living together, loving one another, subbing for most of the year and drawing, engraving, maybe trying my hand at woodcuts and aquatints. I think this will happen one day though I don’t think the woman it will happen with will necessarily be her.

My wife dies. Now I’m alone. I kiss her hands and leave the hospital room. A nurse runs after me as I walk down the hall.

“Are you going to make arrangements now for the deceased?” he says.

“No.”

“Then what do you want us to do with the body?”

“Burn it.”

“That’s not our job.”

“Give it to science.”

“You’ll have to sign the proper legal papers.”

“Give me them.”

“They take a while to draw up. Why don’t you wait in the guest lounge?”

“I haven’t time.”

“And her toilet things and radio and clothes.”

“I have to go.” I ring for the elevator.

“You can’t do that.”

“I am.”

The elevator comes.

“Doctor, doctor,” he yells to a doctor going through some files at the nurse’s station. She stands up. “What is it, nurse?” she says. The elevator door closes. It opens on several floors before it reaches the lobby. I head for the outside. There’s a security guard sitting beside the revolving door. He looks like a regular city policeman other than for his hair, which hangs down past his shoulders, and he also has a beard. Most city policemen don’t; maybe all. He gets a call on his portable two-way set as I step into one of the quarters of the revolving door. “Laslo,” he says into it. I’m outside. “Hey you,” he says. I turn around. He’s nodding and pointing to me and waves for me to come back. I cross the avenue to get to the bus stop. He comes outside and slips the two-way into his back pocket and walks up to me as I wait for the bus.

“They want you back upstairs to sign some papers,” he says.

“Too late. She’s dead. I’m alone. I kissed her hands. You can have the body. I just want to be far away from here and as soon as I can.”

“They asked me to bring you back.”

“You can’t. This is a public street. You need a city policeman to take me back, and even then I don’t think he or she would be in their rights.”

“I’m going to get one.”

The bus comes. Its door opens. I have the required exact fare. I step up and put my change in the coin box.

“Don’t take this man,” the guard says to the bus driver. “They want him back at the hospital there. Something about his wife who was or is a patient, though I don’t know the actual reason they want him for.”

“I’ve done nothing,” I tell the driver and take a seat in the rear of the bus. A woman sitting in front of me says “What’s holding him up? This isn’t a red light.”

“Listen,” the driver says to the guard, “if you have no specific charge or warrant against this guy, I think I better go.”

“Will you please get this bus rolling again?” a passenger says.

“Yes,” I say, disguising my voice so they won’t think it’s me but some other passenger, “I’ve an important appointment and your slowpokey driving and intermittent dawdling has already made me ten minutes late.”

The driver shrugs at the guard. “In or out, friend, but unless you can come up with some official authority to stop this bus, I got to finish my run.”

The guard steps into the bus, pays his fare and sits beside me as the bus pulls out.

“I’ll just have to stick with you and check in if you don’t mind,” he says to me. He pushes a button in his two-way set and says “Laslo here.”

“Laslo,” a voice says. “Where the hell are you?”

“On a bus.”

“What are you doing there? You’re not through yet.”

“I’m with the man you told me to grab at the door. Well, he got past the door. I tried to stop him outside, but he said I needed a city patrolman for that because it was a public street.”

“You could’ve gotten him on the sidewalk in front.”

“This was at the bus stop across the street.”

“Then he’s right. We don’t want a suit.”

“That’s what I thought. So I tried to convince him to come back. He wouldn’t. He said he’d kissed some woman’s hands and we can have the body. I don’t know what that means but want to get it all in before I get too far away from you and lose radio contact. He got on this bus. The driver was sympathetic to my argument about the bus not leaving, but said it would be illegal his helping to restrain the man and that he also had to complete his run. So I got on the bus and am now sitting beside the man and will get off at the next stop if that’s what you want me to do. I just didn’t know what was the correct way to carry out my orders in this situation, so I thought I’d stick with him till I found out from you.”