Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

“Oh yeah, which one?”

“You wouldn’t know it — we don’t accept short stories. A trade one for beauticians and their shops. It’s good work, different, only twenty hours a week, so for me perfect Anything longer—”

“Wait, you were doing…”

“Hospital research.”

“I thought physical-therapy work.”

“Research, on hospital medical records, then writing reports on it. So the two professions aren’t too dissimilar, editing and before, if that’s what you meant.”

“No, I was just remembering you in your white hospital suit—”

“They made us wear it for some reason. Cleanliness. Show. Something, not that I minded. It made me feel like a doctor.”

“Every morning, while I was on my way to sub in junior high schools, you biking down the block on your way to work.”

“Now I just walk across the park three days a week. See? Perfect.” Her face. Darkened by the sun. Looks recent. They had a long vacation someplace, maybe overseas, Greece, but some beach, probably L.A. Black hair cut prettily over her face, well done. Everything well done. Nice voice. Real poise. Beautiful smile. Five years younger than I or thereabouts. I wish I’d met someone like her ten-fifteen years ago. It’d be the same I think. I’d still love her, she me. And to have a baby in November would be perfect after tenfifteen years of those kind of years. I don’t make anywhere near what Ryan must with his films, nor could afford the brownstone duplex they bought in the area a few years ago, according to Perry, but it would’ve worked out. Our surroundings would’ve been cosier. In three rooms instead of my two. More my style. She would’ve stayed close. Helped and comforted me, given me warmth, body to hold almost every night when I was drifting into sleep, something I need and love. Things I’d have given her as much of if not more. Baby husband love warmth comfort body, same person all those years and happy with it. Memories shared and made the most of. All that. Would’ve been great. What I want but it’s almost too late for that now isn’t it? I want it to have happened and still to be living through it. Now it’d take years. It won’t work. I’ve just about proven myself a loser with personal relationships. My last was disastrous. One before that almost worse. Before that only a little better. On and on back. Most women I’m now interested in say I can barely talk to them anymore. That my lovemaking’s become too rushed. That I’ve really lost the touch. That I’m too settled in my ways. That I ought to just have affair after affair and be satisfied with that for the next twenty years or till I tire of them and then have nothing but my work. So why do I think now I could’ve had something like that with someone like Ann ten-fifteen years ago or even twenty? Luck at an early stage in my relationships, that’s why. Plain luck.

“Well, it’s been fun chatting,” she says. “I’ll tell Ryan I saw you.”

“Do, and give him my best.”

We shake hands, mine out first. I look into her eyes to catch the color of them. Can’t because of the glasses except that they’re dark. I’ve recently found I can be with a woman for months before I realize I don’t know the color of her eyes except if they’re startlingly blue. I drop her hand and she turns to go. “The bike,” I yell.

Bike almost clips her as she crosses the street. Bike passes without slowing down. “Watch where you’re going next time,” I yell after it.

“She should’ve been watching out for me,” cyclist yells back.

Ann’s turned around to me, shoulders humped as if to say how dumb she was not to see the bike, waves, goes. I watch her from behind. She’s got an Ace bandage around her right calf. Maybe it goes all the way up to her thigh. As a support I suppose because of the weight of the baby or leg veins or reasons I know nothing about. Continues to walk. Her hair flops. Her shoes are flat. Her dress is black, shirt blue. It isn’t a dress but something like a pinafore or whatever it’s called with two straps over the shoulder that button right on top of the shoulder knobs and very loose over her body, also because of the baby perhaps, black probably because of the baby too. So she won’t look that pregnant, so the bulge won’t show that much. It worked. She walks. Is so pretty. Voice face smile niceness kindness lovingness warmth. I picture her coming home to me. Standing there on the sidewalk my eyes still following her, I do. I’m writing. She puts a key in the lock, then the next. I hear her and run to the door. My room would have to be somewhere near the front on the first floor. I open the door same time she does, key still in the lock. She laughs. She might say “You almost pulled my arm off.” “I wouldn’t do that,” I’d say, “I love that hand and arm too much.” All of this is too much perhaps but I’d say it, I’ve said it, and kiss that hand and maybe go right up her arm with my lips and take the key out of the lock for her and give it to her and then kiss her neck and mouth. I’d hold and hug her. Maybe not too hard because of the bulge. It’d be our apartment alone and I might say to her then “Let’s go to bed.” She might even agree. Seemed like nothing pressing for her now, probably not a workday. She didn’t have any packages when I met her so she wouldn’t, if she doesn’t pick up any on the way home, have anything to put down. I could even lift her up and carry her but that might scare her so I don’t think I would. Later she might say or before we get to bed that she met someone I know on the street. I’d say “Who?” and she’d say “You. I said I’d give you your regards. No, you said to give your best and I said I’d tell you I saw you on the street.”

Finally I become depressed by her. I walk around the room. I lie in bed. I try and read. I try to sleep. I look in the refrigerator. I open the bread box. I drink. I go outside. I walk the streets. I look in the apartment windows. I look at the store windows. I go to a movie. I leave the movie halfway through. Maybe quarter way through. I go to a bar. I sit and order a drink. I stand and set my beer down and go to the washroom though I don’t have to. I go because I want to walk through the crowded bar. I want someone to say hello. “Hey, how are you, what’s doing?” I want someone to say. Or someone who doesn’t know me but wants to speak. But no one says anything to me or looks at me as if they want me to speak. I take a pee anyway. I return to my stool at the bar. It’s taken. “That’s all right,” I say when the person who’s sitting there stands and says “I’m sorry, this yours?” The person insists. I say “Really, I don’t mind standing. I like to stand.” “Great then, for I want to sit,” the person says. The person gets her wine. She lifts the glass. I watch her drink. Watch her set down the glass and poke through her pocketbook for what? Cigarettes? A tissue? Or both? She pulls out a book. “No, that’s silly,” her expression seems to say, “reading in a bar.” The book’s a paperback. She slips it back into her pocketbook. Not her pocketbook. Her handbag. And the book’s a pocketbook. Not a paperback. There’s a difference. Or there once was. Or at least to me there once was and still is while to many people those two kinds of books might be and always have been the same. She looks at herself in the mirror facing the bar. The whole place is a bar but I’m speaking of the bar the people on the stools are sitting at. She has dark hair. Black. Dark eyes. Maybe black. Long body. Not long legs. Long body on top. Sort of short legs. Heavy legs. Big feet. Big for such short legs I mean. She looks at herself in the mirror again and sees me looking at her. She smiles. I smile. All in the mirror. She turns to me. “You caught me,” she says. “And you caught me catching you,” I say. “And you caught me catching you catching me,” she says. “And you caught—” “No, where I said it is where it ends,” she says. I think about that “No need to think about it,” she says. “Anyway, hey, how are you, what’s doing?” I say. “Hi.” “Hello. My name’s Rip and this is my hand.” We shake. “Is your name really Rip?” she says. “No, it’s Kip.” “With a K or a C?” “K as in Kip.” “Kip’s kind of a strange name for a man, though less strange than it would be with a C.” “Actually my name’s Tip.” “Tip’s an even stranger name than Kip with a K and much stranger than Rip, though Rip’s the most potentially menacing name of the three.” “My name’s really Lip,” I say. “Now Lip I like. A bit more sensual than Tip and much stranger and more sensual than Rip or Kip. But that the end of your names?” “No — Nip.” “Nip’s not as strange as Lip, though it is the most appropriate name of them all for this bar.” “My name’s really Zip.” “Quickest of the ips, Zip, even if its number of letters is the same.” “Whip’s my name,” I say. “Spelled with an H or without?” “With.” “Then Whip’s your most potentially menacing name so far and also the longest of them all ending with ip.” “No, my name’s Pip.” “Pip of a name Pip, but what really is your name as long as we’re speaking of it? Let’s skip Skip and I don’t flip over Flip and I doubt if it’s Drip.” “Sip.” “As appropriate for this place as Nip or Clip, though I don’t think it’s your real name.” “My real name is.” “Yes?” “Is.” “Yes, what is your name, sir, please tell me your name?” “What’s yours?” “Darlene.” “Hello, Darlene.” “Hi, Name.” We shake. “Can I buy you a drink, Darlene?” “No, but may I buy you a drink, Name?” “Yes.” “Do you come in here often, Name?” “Yes. But more often most recently, as lately I don’t have much to do late at night. Or rather, I’m a little too much by myself these days late at night. Or rather, something else.” “Spill it, Name.” “I’d like to and also to leave this place, Darlene. Would you?” “With you?” “Yes.” “No need to think about it. Lead.” “Where would you like to go?” “Let’s decide outside.”