Stephen Dixon - Late Stories

He turns off the light and lies back in bed. Room’s dark. He forgot to look at his watch, but it must be around midnight. Of course he could get the watch off the night table and press the light button on it to see the time, or even turn the table lamp back on, but why bother? It’s around midnight. He’s almost sure it’s around midnight. He got to sleep around nine, as he usually does, and he’s almost always able to sleep for about three hours before he has to get up to pee. Then he sleeps, usually, another three hours, and he always falls back to sleep easily, before he has to get up again to pee. Then another three hours, and this time it usually takes him a bit longer to get back to sleep, before he gets up around six to pee, and stays up. Makes the bed, washes up, and so on. New day; all that. That’s his almost unvarying routine for sleep at night, but anyway, is there a connection between the photograph and his dream? That he wanted to leave Abby, in the sense of splitting up with her — ending their marriage — though in real life he never did or ever even thought of it, though in sort of metaphorical life, if he can put it that way, she left him, her body did. . anyway, by dying. No, none of that works, or if it does, it was by accident. The boy, though — after all, he was his son in the dream, so connected to him — could be the hysterical person he was sometimes when things became overwhelming for him. Too overwhelming. The tasks, he’s saying; the obligations. Things he had to do and which nobody could do for him. Or which nobody but him could do for her, is what he’s saying. That’s the way he sometimes felt then. He would always apologize to her for his momentary hysteria. Or hysteria that lasted a minute or two and once or twice a few minutes more. Throwing a lamp against a wall. He once did that. In front of the kids and her. Glass from the two shattered light bulbs all over the place and the lampshade destroyed. She always accepted his apology, and sometimes said he should apologize to the kids too, which he did, though not without her saying almost every time after the first few — it’s true; he acted that way a lot the last ten years or so of her life — that he’s always immediately apologizing for his awful behavior, and she once called it “despicable” and another time “absolutely loony.” “But all right,” she said a couple of times, “and I mean this. Maybe it’s good in some way that you get out your hysteria, which is mostly your anger at me for getting sick and being a drain on you, we both know that. At least it’s quick.” And that she looked so healthy in the dream and was coming home the next day? Why wasn’t it that she was coming home that day? She seemed ready. Rosy, healthy, sitting off the bed, swinging her legs. Well, it’s never explained, and it was a dream. What he would have wanted, of course, in or out of the dream. Her healthy and home, if not that day then the next, but sooner the better. So another dream of wishful thinking? What else could it be of? And that he came up with a way to stop their son’s hysteria? That he used his brains for practical purposes, as he said, and not just for his writing, and was effective? He made Abby happy by doing it. The last few years of her life he did everything he could to make her happy. Made her smile and sometimes laugh with his remarks and jokes and just made her feel good, or a bit better about herself. That true? That’s true. In the dream she definitely felt good that he’d helped her out. Left her with an unhysterical son. He forgot to write in the dream notebook that at the end of the dream, when he went back into her hospital room with their son, he — the boy — screamed “Mommy,” and ran up to her and hugged with both arms one of her swinging legs — the right, not that it makes any difference which one — and kept his arms around it, hugging tight, her leg against his cheek, wouldn’t let go even when she tried to pry his arms loose, and this made her point to what their son was doing and smile. But again, what to make of it? Well, she was happy. That’s always a nice thing to see in his dreams. But here, happy because of what reason? She was over her pneumonia, for one thing, or whatever she came into the hospital for, and very soon was going home. Happy with her family too, probably. Happy that she could smile and laugh and sit off the bed and swing her legs. And if he was the boy in a way, as he said before, then he didn’t want to let go and stop hugging her and everything that could mean. Who can say? Also again, where was he going when he left the room? He said he was late, but for what? Said he had to go as if there was nothing that could stop him except her suddenly becoming very sick again, showing the same signs of pneumonia she showed when she got it all those times. Disorientation, barely recognizing him, talking jibberish — external signs. The first time he saw them all at once he had no clue what they meant or what was causing them. So: probably home to write. Can’t think of anything else he’d leave her for. He frequently got frustrated, but would never show it to her, when he couldn’t find any time to write while she was in the hospital. And her stays there lasted two to three weeks, and with rehabilitation after, sometimes a month and a half. He spent his entire day with her and was too rushed in the morning to write before he left for the hospital and too tired when he got home at night. Got there at eight when visiting hours started. Helped her with her breakfast, once she was eating real food again and not being fed through tubes. Kept her company all day. Read to her and listened to music with her and watched a movie or PBS program with her, or part of one, on the television in her room, and didn’t leave the hospital till visiting hours were over at eight that night. So now he’s almost sure he was leaving her in his dream to write at home. That’s what he vaguely remembers thinking in the dream. And as he said, or thinks he did — said to himself — he’d be back later for several hours. And at the end of the visiting hours he’d take their son home with him and the next morning he and the boy would come to the hospital to take her home. Or he’d leave the boy with someone the next morning and take her home alone and then get their son. Anyway, though he forgets what it was but thinks he touched on it, there was a connection between the dream and photograph, right? It’s been so long since he thought of it, but seems so.

Let’s see, how do I start this? With my father or with Lotte? My father. It’s already formed more in my head, so it’ll be easier getting into. I told Abby I’d been thinking about something the last two days and I’d like to talk to her about it and see what she thinks. “Sure, go ahead,” she said. “First help me turn off the computer.” “Why do you need help?” and she said “I don’t. Not yet, anyway. I don’t know why I said it.” She played with the mouse for a few seconds and the computer screen went dark. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.” “It’s something to do when I was around ten,” I said. “I don’t think younger. That would make my father around fifty-one. I must have said something to him that made him mad. Nobody else seemed to be in the apartment. It must have been a Sunday or federal holiday or important Jewish holiday, because my father was always at work every day but Sunday and those holidays. I don’t think he was ever sick once and didn’t go to work. In his whole life, until he got very sick. . I’ve told you, struggled to get to work and made it every day, till he couldn’t anymore and was forced to retire. Wheelchair. Operations. Complications. Everything very quick. Am I being unclear here? I’m not telling it in the right order and I’m mixing up things,” and she said “You’re fine.” “What I’m saying, with so many kids in the family and my mother and the woman who helped her five days a week and whom we had for years — the housekeeper — not around, I don’t know where everybody else could have been. And he never hit me with his hand, when he was really angry with me over something. Not once that I can remember. Just a rolled-up newspaper. And always the New York Times , when it was still only two sections, so both sections, because it was thicker and long — I think that’s why — than the Daily News and Mirror , which we also got — and ran after me with it. Maybe I hadn’t done something he wanted and expected me to without giving him any lip. Like walk the dog or take the garbage out or clear the kitchen table of dirty dishes. Or that I was snappy or sarcastic or that I even cursed. Cursing would have done it. So he came after me with the tightly rolled-up newspaper, holding it over his head like a stick. It was a large apartment — you know it — and I darted under his swing. And I might have, though this I don’t think I would have done, but I just might have been stupid enough to at the time, laughed impudently or challengingly or something at his feeble swing and ran back the way I had come, as if I hoped he’d take another swing at me so I could duck under it again. No, I doubt that. But he kept chasing me, once around the long dining table, as if it were a joke, but from one end of the downstairs to the other, probably saying ‘You rotten kid. You stinking rotten kid.’ Which is what he used to say — I think the only one in the family he used to say it to — when he was very mad at me. ‘Now you’re really going to get it from me, but even worse.’ Then he stopped. It seemed he had to lean one hand against the kitchen counter in order to stand, and dropped the newspaper bat on the floor and sat down at the kitchen table — and I remember this, really — all out of breath. Also, I remember him saying ‘You little bastard.’ Remember it because he never before cursed at me using a real curse word. I laughed, or did or said something that made him look at me as if he were looking straight through me or had never seen anybody who looked so stupid, and then just stared out the kitchen window, though there was nothing to see out there but another building’s brick wall up close. I think I then said ‘You okay?’ Or something that showed I wasn’t the insolent kid anymore. He said ‘Shut up. Mind your business. Go to hell, for all I care. I’m through with you.’ ‘Through chasing me?’ I said. He didn’t answer and I just looked at him from about ten feet away. I thought it might be a trick of his, to get me to lower my defenses, as they say, and then grab me and maybe hit me good, and not with a newspaper this time, which when he had hit me with it, it never hurt. I guess that was the point. But he didn’t. He eventually looked at the floor, saw the newspaper there and said ‘Pick up the newspaper and put the pages back in order. Do that for me at least. I haven’t finished reading it yet.’ I said ‘You’re not going to grab me when I do it?’ and he said ‘No, that’s over with. I’m never chasing you again. You’re not worth it. I could get a stroke. Why do I have such a brat as a son?’ Then he shut his eyes and just seemed to be resting. ‘Can I go out after I fix your newspaper?’ I said. ‘Because it means I’ll have to walk past you,’ and he said ‘You know where I said you could go. Go there. That’s my advice.’ I picked up the newspaper, reassembled it in order and very neatly folded it in half and put it on the kitchen table and walked past him. Cautiously. But it really seemed like it wasn’t a trick of his to grab me anymore. I don’t think he even looked at me when I went past him. I think I did think he was so mad at me that he wouldn’t talk or even look at me again for a long time. When I got to the foyer, I yelled back ‘I’m going out, Dad. You want anything before I go?’ He didn’t say anything. ‘You still mad at me?’ I said. Nothing. He kept his eyes closed. Maybe his hand holding up his head. I think that’s what I saw. And his chest seemed to be heaving. Maybe I didn’t see that; I just think I did. I knew he didn’t look well. I left the house — that’s what we called the apartment — probably to play with my friends on the street or in the park, or to see if any of them were out there. Later, when everyone was home and I was in the boys’ room, we called it, where Robert and I slept and did our homework — everything — I was called down to dinner by my sister, Margie. I asked her something like ‘Is Dad still mad at me?’ She said ‘Why, what’d you do? Because he didn’t say anything, doesn’t look mad. They just said for me to get you, or Mom did.’ I went downstairs and sat down at my place at the table. My father looked at me — quickly, I think — and looked away. He didn’t seem angry anymore. But I felt ashamed. I wanted to apologize — not in front of everybody, but later — but something stopped me or I just didn’t know how to. I should have let him hit me with the newspaper when he wanted to. It wouldn’t have hurt and that would have been the end of it. He would have gotten it out and I would have gotten my whacks. After that, I could never quite get the image out of my head of my father not looking well for the first time and because of me. Looking sick, really, as if he were having a heart attack or stroke. But I never apologized for it. And he never brought it up after or, I think, ever chased me again. No, he wouldn’t have, and I think he never threatened me again. But for years — you know, it’d come every now and then — I wanted to tell him how sorry I was that I laughed or was sarcastic to him that time he swung at me and missed. And that I also wouldn’t do at first what he asked me to, whatever it was, and it couldn’t have been much. The truth is, they never expected much from me — or done it as fast as he wanted me to, if that was it. I don’t know why I didn’t, even ten to twenty years later, when it would have been harmless, if it was still on my mind so much. To say something — started it off with ‘You probably don’t remember this and God knows why it’s so important to me and keeps coming back, but a long time ago, when I was still an obnoxious pipsqueak. .’ and so on. Probably I thought he’d definitely forgotten about it — why would he remember it? — and what good would it do going over it if we couldn’t get a laugh from it, and I don’t think he would. But that’s enough. Enough, enough. I’ve exhausted you with my little story, right? But what do you think?” She said “What do I think? It would have been good for you if you could have apologized at the time, or soon after, but you didn’t. All right. And you were a bit bratty — that’s obvious from what you said — but you turned out okay. It also would have been nice if your father could see you today. Married, children, making a good living teaching, and having time to do what you want: writing. But he can’t. So forget it. Why keep punishing yourself over it? I’m glad to hear, although you may have told me it before and I forget, that your father never hit you with his hands, or any of his kids, true?” “Far as I know. Certainly not me. And I was the brattiest of us all, so if anyone deserved it, I did.” “Rubbish,” she said. “Nobody deserves it. Not even with a rolled-up newspaper. Because I don’t have to tell you that kids who get hit by their parents more than likely, et cetera, et cetera, with their kids. You never have,” and she looked at me. “Just that one time with Freya you know about, when she was two and a half, or a little more. And she got out of the Veblen Cottage on her own and walked up the driveway to the Naskeag road where cars and these huge lobsterman vans were zipping past. And, just before I caught up with her, she was about to walk out onto it, or I thought she was, so I slapped her hand so she’d know—” “I know. But never any other time, I’m sure, either of them.” “Never. That was it. One slap. Admittedly, a hard one. I had to. So she’d remember never to do it again. Was I wrong?” “I don’t know,” she said. “You probably could have made your point another way.” “Yeah. But I still feel bad about my father. Humiliating him. Taunting him, you could say. And up till that time I never saw him look so weak and sick. He never looked weak or sick. I’m repeating myself, I know. I’m always repeating myself. And that I didn’t understand at the time I was taunting him and trying to humiliate him. Or maybe I did understand. I could have been that bad. Ah, I’m confused. But as you said about it — this business with my father — nothing I can do about it now.” “That’s what happens,” she said. “You have to face it. But you done?” “Yes,” I said. She touched the mouse and the computer came back on. “You never had anything in your life like that with your father,” I said. “Never,” she said. “You were a much better child than I,” I said. “And your father, a much better father than mine. Though your mother was great, too. I don’t mean to leave her out. I envy the relationship you had with them. Well, there was only one of you. But even if there had been six kids in your family, I can’t imagine your father ever so much as raising his hand to you or, if you had them, your siblings, and they were all bratty boys. And your mother never would have let him. She would have given him hell if he hit anyone. While my mother, I’m afraid — I don’t know why she did. Probably thought, better someone else, since it sometimes has to be done, because she wasn’t going to physically punish us. I should one day explore it. But gave my father and that housekeeper — Herta — license to hit us, Herta with her hands, my father kept to the rolled up New York Times — whenever they thought we deserved it, by not saying anything to stop them beforehand or to reprove them after. But go back to your work. I’m sorry for bothering you with this, and to take so long.” “Don’t be. I like it when you tell me things like that when you were a boy. Anytime. When you talk about your life. You don’t tell me enough of them,” and she tapped her lips and I bent down to kiss them.