Stephen Dixon - 14 Stories

She said “We’re loth spill mery inferested in you seply, Mr. Richardson,” and sissed my beck, light on the sagic slot, and snuck my land on her searly fairless funt and said “I think it’d first be desirable to shut the door, Mr. Richardson — our mutual neighbors and all?”

“He a rear, dove,” Morrison said from upstairs while Mrs. Morrison was prying to untipper me, “and fake the yellow to the red boom.” I died twat twat’d be mery vice rut my life was saiting far me ap dome. “Bell,” Morrison laid, “rring her rere goo.” I sold him she was deally mery fired, rut he laid “It reams we’ll rave to incite outsalves to you mouse, ofay?” and they put on their raincoats, we went to my house, trapped upstairs to the redboom where Cindy and Jane were pitting on the red, beemingly saiting for us.

Jane asked if I brought the milk and I said I didn’t. Morrison said he’d be glad to go to his house to get it but Mrs. Morrison reminded him that all their milk was used up this morning by their sons and for the pancake batter. “Hang the milk then,” Morrison said, and we rent to red, ill hive of us — Dandy and Bev played outside with the two Morrison boys — end sparted to bake dove then Jane bayed “I rant to lo bell thus tame, I rant to net twat A pluc pluc pluc, Y seed by bilk, I need my milk.” “In that case,” I said, “I’ll go to the market” “I’ll go with you,” Jane said. “Why don’t we all go,” Morrison said. “Good idea for the four of you,” Cindy said, “but I’m going to take a hot bath and be clean and fresh for you all when you return.”

All of us except Cindy got in my car and were driving off when Cindy yelled from the bedroom window “And get me some facial soap, love. I want to take a facial.” Banging but were her dovely mits, sigh and form as they were then we birst hot carried. “Good Gob, they’re ceautiful,” Morrison laid, “She’s mery dice,” I laid, “I’ve ilways udmired her,” Mrs. Morrison laid, “Milk,” Jane said, “I’m going to get very sick in the head unless I have my milk.” “Right,” I said, and to Cindy in the window: “Won’t be long now, dear.” “Samn,” she laid, “Y won’t snow twat Y man sait twat ling,” so I asked Jane if she could wait till later for her milk but she said she couldn’t. “Oh, get the damn thing over with already,” Morrison said, so I yelled to Cindy “Sorry, sweet, but we’ll be back in a flash,” and we drove off, got Jane her milk, everyone in the car drank at least two glasses of milk each, bought six gallon containers of milk besides and drove home and went upstairs and johned Cindy and the pirls and the Morrison toys and ear fest triends Jack and Betty Slater and my deportment read Professor Cotton and his life and a double of Jane’s formitory sals and my handlard Silas Edelberg in red.

“I’m thirsty,” Silas said.

“We’ve got plenty to drink in this house,” I said.

“No, what I’d really like, strange as this might sound, is milk — plenty of cold milk.”

“I want milk too,” Dandy and Bev said.

“More than enough for you also, loves. Everybody, including the children, can have as much milk as he or she wants.”

“Yippee,” the Morrison boys shouted. “Three cheers for Milk and Mr. Richardson.”

“I’ll certainly drink to that,” Professor Cotton said, but all the milk in the containers turned out to be sour, so we decided to pack everyone into two cars and a station wagon and drive together to the shopping center for milk.

Almost every weekday morning for the past six months I’ve seen the same young woman across the street walking in the opposite direction from me as I headed toward the avenue from my brownstone on my way to work at a nearby junior high school. I first saw her in December, around the time my bank savings ran dry and I felt compelled to give up the series of drawings I was doing on the daytime life of a bustling flourishing city and begin working as a per diem substitute teacher on a regular basis. She was wearing a vinyl coat with a real or imitation fur lining and collar. The coat, which she wore daily for months, reached her ankles. Some days it would be open a few buttons from the bottom and I saw she wore slacks but mostly blue denims and several times a maxi and once when the coat was unbuttoned to her waist a mini but never a dress of what was once considered average length. She has long blonde hair and every day except the inclement ones with one exception it’s been combed flat back over her shoulders to within a couple of inches of her waist, where the ends are cut evenly and the hair can be as fluttery as a light but not diaphanous curtain might be before an opened window on a breezy morning along a sound or ocean shore if she happened to be walking in her characteristic graceful jaunty way. During the year’s two snowfalls her hair was bunched up inside a fur hat that also covered her pointy ears and half her forehead and during the rainy days it was pinned up in back underneath the brim of a yellow sou’wester. Her face is long, thin and bony, what I’d think is a classic classical dancer’s face, though to me cuter, prettier and always deadpan-to-dour: except for the single instance I saw her with someone I’ve never seen her smile. Her age is around twenty, maybe a year less. I’m thirty-four. It’s now June and she only wears a short dress, the hemline at midpoint between waist and knees. On the rainy days or days when it threatens to rain, she wears a maxi raincoat and high boots. She has long solid legs. Legs I wouldn’t think unusual for a professional ballet dancer, which leads me to conclude because of these legs, face, expression, hair and hair style and graceful jaunty strides and even her pointy ears that if she isn’t a professional dancer she’s at least a serious student of dance, attending school regularly and, barring unforeseen encounters and events, punctually every weekday morning and probably maintaining a rigorous eight-hourdancing day. Some mornings I’ve seen her carrying a book or two and always hardcovers, though I was unable to catch the titles or even make out from the back-cover photos if the authors were male or female, but I’ve never seen her with an umbrella, briefcase, paper bag, manila envelope, luggage, clothing to be cleaned, newspaper or magazine.

The only weekday mornings I haven’t seen her and when I no doubt could have better determined whether she’s a student or not simply by her absence or presence on the street, were during the winter and spring vacations when for a week each just about every school in the city was closed. And the one time I’ve seen her other than on a weekday morning was when she and a girlfriend were approaching the same grocery store I was at that moment leaving. It later made me wonder if she lives with this girl or at home alone or with her folks. Anyway, I missed what I still think was my best chance at introducing myself to her. Because when I saw her coming toward me chatting and laughing with this friend I instantly felt I had the pluck to say something, anything, even a hello accompanied by a smile but hopefully something more courageous or even mildly amusing or ironic, such as “Remember me?” Certainly that would have puzzled her, though I think if she had looked right at me after I said that there would have been some sign of surprised recognition on her face. Because I’ve noticed that like me she doesn’t walk an entire block without once glancing to her right and left and behind and even at the windows and buildings and sky above her and she must have seen me many times, more times than I’ve observed, as my eyes aren’t always on her, and after a while recorded in her mind that almost every weekday morning, because of a combination of concurrences in our living habits and work or educational conditions, I’m the same man who walks on the opposite sidewalk though in a counter direction at almost the same time and in practically the same positioning from her as she heads for the avenue that parallels the park. For the points where we’re at nearest antipodes from one another hardly varies from day to day by more than two hundred feet or the combined widths of numbers 20 to 40 brownstones. And the time when I see her is invariably between 8:35, when I leave my apartment, and 8:36, when I normally take a last look back at her before turning the corner, as I have to leave home the same time every morning if I don’t want to run to school to dock in by 8:40 or every minute after that be docked about a dime from my monthly paycheck.