Stephen Dixon - Late Stories

Gets up, brushes his teeth, washes his face, exercises, dresses, goes into the kitchen. Oops. Forgot to shave, something he likes to do daily. Takes his shirt off so he won’t wet it, and shaves and then brushes his hair. Hasn’t had a shower, something he also likes to do daily, in a couple of days — could it be three? Would hate to think it was — but he’ll do it at the Y today after he works out, or here. Feeds the cat, changes his water, lets him out. Remember: he’s out, not in. Again: good practice, to remember that. Cat out, cat out, he tells himself. Has breakfast, washes the dishes, makes sure the oven and all the stove burners are off, puts on his baseball cap and goes outside and does some needed yard work. Is out there for more than an hour. At least it feels like it. Fills up four leaf bags with weeds and twigs and sticks, gets sweaty and tired and thinks that should do it for the day. Has to pee. Came on suddenly, even though he’s taking medication for it, though it’s a bit better now than it used to be. He doesn’t have time to go inside, so he’ll do it behind a tree. Puts his hand to his pants to open his fly, but it’s already open. Oh, geez. Won’t he ever remember? What does he have to do? he thinks while he pees. Maybe he could make. . no, there’s nothing he can do. On that score, he almost seems hopeless. But he can’t give up on it. Just try to catch it as many times as he can. Always, and he means always, never leave the house or a restaurant or any kind of store he’s been in a while and it has a restroom for customers, without peeing first, even if he peed just ten minutes before. Got it. A set routine he’s going to remember to follow, not that he hasn’t thought of this before. At least he still drives without forgetting to look all around him when he backs out of a parking space or makes a turn, understands most of what he reads, or as much as he did years before; has a good visual memory for lots of things, going all the way back to when he was a kid, and is still able to write and at times even do some tricky writing stuff. By that he means. . well, that he still comes up with something new to say in each piece and say it with what he thinks, though he might be all wrong in this, in a new way. It’s the day-to-day things he forgets a lot. Well, writing is day-to-day, page-to-page, till he’s finished the piece. But what was he getting at? Did he once again lose what he started out to say? Not important. Really, not important. What is, and maybe this is what he was getting at, is what he’s going to do about all this forgetting. Maybe he should talk it over with his daughters. They’re smart, practical, want the best for him. No, doesn’t want to worry or burden them with his problems, which is what his mother, when she was around his age now, used to say to him. What did he say when she said that? Probably something like “Don’t worry about me. It’s not a burden. You can never be a burden to me. I want to do everything I can for you.” So did she usually end up telling him? Forgets. If he does tell his daughters, they’ll say something like, “Daddy, you have to be more careful. You can burn down the house with you in it.” “I know,” he’d say. But keep it to yourself with them. He really doesn’t want to worry them. And there’s enough, when they’re here, that they can see for themselves. Then a friend. Is he really that close with anybody? Not since his wife died. He sort of pulled himself away. Even his sister? But what can a friend or his sister do to help? He knows she’ll say he should take ginseng tablets. She’s big on that and claims it’s improved her memory by fifty percent. He remembers saying something like “I don’t know how you can measure that, but if you say so, okay.” So there’s nobody, really. Think. Nobody. He goes into the house. Wait a minute. How about his doctor at his next annual checkup? But by that time he’ll forget he wants to speak to him about it. He always seems to forget what he wants or even thinks he needs to talk to him about. Too much time between thinking about it and the appointment. What he should have done is write it down in his daily calendar book for the day of the appointment. So for now, call his office and say he wants to see him sooner than his annual checkup, which he thinks is in March. It’s always in March. But it won’t do him any good. His doctor will put him on another pill. Then more upset stomach and worse constipation than he already has. That’s what the hell those pills mostly do. So again: just try harder to remember. Memory devices. Anything that can help. That’s really all he needs. His mind is fine. For a start, he writes “remember” in marker on a piece of paper, scissors around it and tapes it to the refrigerator door. Underlines it twice. Puts an exclamation point after it. Then writes “remember!” on another piece of paper, cuts it out and tapes it to the bottom of the bathroom window frame. Any other place? No, that should do it. He pees, doesn’t need to flush it — that he never seems to forget to do when he has to, nor put the toilet seat down — and is about to turn around and leave the room when he sees the “remember!” on the window frame. Zips up his fly. Later, for lunch, he puts the rest of the lasagna he made two days ago for dinner into the oven to warm up, sees the “remember!” on the refrigerator door and says to himself, “Now remember. This is important. Come back in twenty minutes to take the dish out. Twenty? Make it thirty, at 400 degrees.” The lasagna’s been in the refrigerator and he just turned on the oven and he likes the pasta ends crisp if not a little burned. He pours himself a mug of coffee from the thermos, goes into the living room with it, sits, looks at the clock on the fireplace mantle, moves the mug to the side table from the chair arm so there’s less chance of knocking it over, reads the newspaper and then a book — a good bio of one of his favorite writers; he’s really enjoying it. He listens to music while he reads, rests his head back in the easy chair and daydreams or dreams for what feels like a few minutes and then comes out of it or wakes up. Smells something burning.

He knew he’d hear from her soon, not about his wife’s death but just a phone call, since she hadn’t called for a long time. He answered the phone. She said “Hi, how are you? Just wanted to know how things are going.” He told her. She said “Oh, I’m so sorry. And here I blundered into the phone so cheerfully and full of hope. It has to be awful for you. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here for you.” “Thank you,” he said. “Right now, though, I can’t talk about it — it’s still too soon to — so I’ll have to hang up.” “I understand. Oh, my poor dear. Much love to you and your daughters.”

They’d been in touch for so many years. Twenty-five, maybe. For a while she called him about once a year, usually on or near his birthday. “I know it’s around this time,” she said a couple of times. He never called her unless she left a message on his answering machine in his office at school, and even then most times he didn’t call her back. For the next ten years or so she called him every four to six months, in his office but now a few times at home. Always to find out how he and his wife were doing. Abby said once “She’s just checking to see if I’ve finally croaked, so she can move in on you. You’re still a good catch, you know. Your looks, health, tenured position, writing, and our combined assets.” He said “Not a chance. With all the infusions and new medications and stuff you’re taking, you’re only going to get better the next few years, and she and I are only telephone friends. For some reason I mean something to her. I’m one of her oldest friends, she said. We go back more than forty years. One doesn’t have too many of those, so she doesn’t want to lose contact with me. Who else does she know who remembers her parents and the house she grew up in and her two Scotties? I don’t care much for her calls, but by this time I don’t know how to keep her from making them. But if you object, I’ll find some way to stop them.” “Why would I object? Anything that’ll happen between you two will happen after I’m dead. And it might even be good for you, a way to take your mind off losing me. And she’s still pretty and quite lively, you say.” “Well, that was a while ago, but what does it matter?”