Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

“Don’t you talk to me like that.”

“I said shut up,” he says to her.

“And I’m telling you this is as much my store as yours and even more so, as it’s in my name. And I want him to phone for the police for whatever it is that happened out there.”

“I better go somewhere else,” I say.

“You’re damn right,” he says.

“No. Go no other place. Use our phone. It’s mine — in my name — and in the back there, right down that aisle.”

“Use the phone and you’re flattened,” he says, his hand in a tray of wrenches on the counter.

I head for the door. The woman runs after me. “I said you can use the phone.”

“But I don’t want to cause any more trouble and also get killed for it.”

“Trouble between him and me is nothing new. Besides, he’s a blow-hard — all wind and words. So use the phone.”

“No.”

“He’s smart,” the man says. “Here’s a dime, sonny. Now get the hell out of here.” He throws me a dime and I catch it.

“Coward,” she says to me. “Idiot,” she yells at him.

He picks up a wrench and comes over to her. “Don’t be calling me an idiot.”

“All right. I apologize. You’re not an idiot.” He relaxes both arms to his sides and walks away. “You’re a big moron and stupid son of a bitch.”

He rushes at her to hit her with the wrench, or it at least looks like that. She runs. I freeze. But I just about froze before and watched and now three people are near dead out there. The man runs past me after the woman. I grab the hand that holds the wrench. “Get his other arm and we’ll trip him,” I yell at her. He hits me on the back with his other arm or hand. I fall. He lifts the wrench over my head and yells “Meddler, meddler,” and comes down on my shoulder with it and then my neck. Both times it seemed he aimed for my head. Something in me broke both times. He lifts the wrench again.

“Don’t,” she yells.

He turns to her. I start to crawl to the door. He comes after me. “Leave him,” she yells.

He turns to her. I’m still crawling. He steps over to me with the wrench raised.

“Stop,” she yells.

He rushes her and hits her across the face with the wrench at the same moment she sticks a chisel in him. I don’t see where she got him. Somewhere high up. They both fall. They don’t make sounds. I crawl out of the store to the crowd. The ambulance and police still haven’t come. I grab a man’s ankle and shake it. He turns. “Oh my gosh,” he says. “What happened?”

“In there.” I can’t point. “The hardware. Two people are hurt. Maybe dead. The man hit me twice with a wrench and then the woman with a wrench, but she much worse than me. She stabbed him to protect me and herself. Take care of her. Then me. The man should come third. Or rather, call the police, for I never could. Help for all six of us. I’m sure that girl never called. They would have been here by now.”

“He wants us to phone for help,” he says to the crowd.

“You go,” a woman says to him. “He told you.”

“I haven’t any change.”

“Use the phone in the hardware store,” I say. “In back. Straight down the middle aisle.”

“You don’t need a dime?”

“Maybe you do. I thought it wasn’t a pay phone, but maybe it is. But they must also have a regular business phone that doesn’t take dimes.”

“I better take a dime just in case.”

“Two,” I say.

“Two dimes then.”

“Two ambulances. For the trio in the street and the couple in the store and me.”

“The stabbed man doesn’t need help anymore.”

“The one in the street?”

“Maybe the one in the store also,” a woman says.

“That would mean only four people need help,” the man says.

“We’ll still need two ambulances if they’re the triple kind,” I say.

“The lady doesn’t seem to need help either,” a man says. “The one in the street, I mean. She doesn’t seem to be breathing.”

“Check,” I say. “No, just go in the hardware store and call the police. Don’t tell them how many ambulances we’ll need. The ones I’m thinking of they might be out of. Just say six people are seriously hurt. Also, if some of you would turn me over now and put something under my head. A jacket. But gently. Rolled up, and not the jacket that’s under the head of the woman in the street.”

“I wouldn’t touch him,” a man says. “You might do more damage than not.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m uncomfortable, in pain, and know what I need. I give you permission.”

“For his own good I wouldn’t touch him. His shoulder seems broken. So does something with his neck the way he’s keeping it.”

“Wait for the ambulances,” several people say in different ways.

“Phone,” I say to the man.

“I don’t want to go in the store. The man with the wrench might be up and ready to clip the first one to come in. For all we know, you could have been the one who provoked him into using the wrench, and he might think the next person to come in his store is the same.”

“I didn’t provoke him. I only went in to call.”

“Maybe you’re right. The courts will decide if it has to come to that. But I’m not going in there. Anyone know where the nearest phone booth is?”

“Three blocks south on this avenue,” someone says.

“One block north,” I say.

“The dime,” he says. “I’m all out.”

Several people search their pockets and handbags.

“In my shirt pocket,” I say. He takes out of my pocket the dime I was going to call with before and goes. “I think someone else should go in the hardware store to also phone the police and see about the couple.”

“You think he’s going to get distracted like that ten-year-old girl?” a woman says. “He’s a grown man.”

“I know. But I’d like the double assurance that help will come.”

“Look. I know him a long time, that fellow who went. When he says he’ll do something, he does it.”

“That’s not the way I see him,” a man says. “He’s owed me ten dollars for two years now and always says he’s paying up and never does. I’ve given up on him and don’t even ask him anymore.”

“Well, I know him as a very dependable honest man,” she says. “Always pays his rent on time. Never a bill due on anything for more than a day or so.”

“Not him. Two years he’s owed me. For supplies.”

“Then you better go in the hardware store and call the police,” I say to this man.

“Right.” He goes into the store.

“You know who you just sent to call the police?” a man says to me. Several people laugh. “The worst thief of them all. He’s going to steal from that store everything that isn’t held down.”

We hear sirens. It seems the ambulance is going to pass. A man runs into the street and waves at the ambulance to stop. It’s gone.

“Someone else again must be sick or in trouble,” a woman says.

“Or that siren’s on just so they can get through the traffic quicker,” a man says. “They have that advantage over most of the other cars and use it.”

I turn myself over on my back.

“You shouldn’t do that,” a man says. “You can hurt yourself worse.”

I put my good arm under my head. Everything hurts. “You know, it’s possible those people who went to phone could all be unreliable.” I say. “I think someone else should call.”

“How many do you want?” a woman says. “If they are reliable and too many people phone the police, they’ll think we’re cranks or crackpots and never send anyone to help. Three’s enough.”

“Three are plenty,” a man says.

“Three for what?” someone new in the crowd says.