Stephen Dixon - All Gone

“You can take your rest period,” guard Vernon says, coming into my cell with guard Simms, both of them armed. They walk me to the adjoining six-by-six-foot outdoor space. I look up at the other suns — the stars. It’s a clear night. The Big and Little Dippers are easily recognizable. Even the Andromeda galaxy can be seen. I’ve read all the prison astronomy books several times. I can identify every star formation on both sides of the equator, every significant star. I can make out planets. I can tell exactly what day of the year it is by how the stars are arranged. I could guide myself across any continent or body of water and come to the point a few thousand miles away I originally intended to get to just by following the stars. I could do all that. I learned all that here by myself. This outdoor cell is surrounded by walls several feet above my reach and on top of these walls are electric wires and there are lights all around my yard making the stars tonight a little tough to see and the two guards sit in the yard while I stand and if I stop for a second they always tell me to keep moving, now keep it moving, but the view is still something. My lawyer says the court ruling should come on my test case in a minimum of two years. He’s very hopeful the state’s mandatory death penalty law will be declared unconstitutional and that with a few years off for good behavior and a governor’s pardon I ought to be out of here by the time I’m sixty-five.

He hadn’t spoken to her in ten years when he decided to call.

“Hello.”

“Miriam?”

“Yes, this is Miriam Cabell, who is it?”

“Miriam Cabell now — I didn’t know. What ever happened to Miriam Livin?”

“If you don’t mind who is this please?”

“And Miriam Berman?”

“I asked who this is. Now for the last time—”

“Arnie.”

“Who?”

“Arnie — well, guess.”

“I’m in no good mood for games now, really. And if it’s just some crank — well my husband handles all those calls.”

“Then Arnie Spear — satisfied, Mrs. Cabell?”

“Arnie Spear? Wait a minute, not Arnie X.Y.Z. Spear?”

“The very same, Madame.”

“Arnie Spear the famous sonnet writer and lover of tin lizzies and hopeless causes and the world’s greatest raw green pea eater?”

“Well I don’t want to brag, but—”

“Oh God, Arnie, how in the world did you get my number?”

“I’m fine, thank you — have a little pain in my ego, perhaps, but how are you?”

“No I’m serious — how’d you get it?”

“I met Gladys Pemkin coming out of a movie the other night. She told me.”

“How is Gladys?”

“Fine, I suspect. Haven’t you seen her recently?”

“I’ve been running around so much these days I don’t see anyone anymore. In fact, the last time with Gladys must’ve been a good year ago.”

“Your name,” he said, “—Cabell? That’s your new husband, isn’t it?”

“Fairly new. We’ve been married two years now — or close to two. A lovely man — I wonder if you knew him.”

“Don’t think so. You happy, Miriam?”

“Happy? Why, was I ever really unhappy? But maybe I should toss this same ticklish nonsense back to you. How about it?”

“I’m happy. Very happy, I suppose. Really doing pretty well these days.”

“I’m glad.”

“What ever happened to Livin — your last?”

“That bastard? Listen, Arnie, I signed a treaty with myself never to mention his name or even think of him, so help me out, will you?”

“What happens if you break the treaty?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if let’s say we suddenly begin talking about him. Do you declare war on yourself and sort of battle it out until one or the other side has won?”

“I don’t understand. That was a figure of speech. And why would you want to talk about Livin when you never knew him? Anyway, tell me how Gladys looks. Last time I saw her it seemed she’d been drinking it up pretty heavily or at least on pills all day long.”

“She seemed fine. A little tired, perhaps, but not much different than the last time I saw her — which was with you, remember?”

“No, when was that?”

“I don’t know. About ten years ago or so.”

“I can only remember old events if I’m able to place in my mind where I was at the time. Where was I?”

“In this tiny coffee shop on Madison and Fifty-eighth. The Roundtree I think it was called.”

“No I don’t recall any such place.”

“It folded four years ago. I know because for a few months I had a magazine-editing job in the area and used to walk by the shop daily. And then one day it was suddenly empty of everything except a sawhorse and there was a For Rent sign in front. Now it’s a beauty shop.”

“Wait a minute. Not some incredibly garish beauty shop? With lots of pink and blue wigs on these wood heads in the window and with a refreshment counter in front for serving hot tea and cookies?”

“I think that’s the one.”

“Do you know, I once went there to have my hair set — isn’t that strange? It’s not a very good place, which is why I only went once. They dry all your roots out.”

“Well that’s where we last saw one another. The place has always been particularly meaningful to me — almost as a starting point in a new phase of my life. Because if it wasn’t for what you told me there that morning, I doubt whether I ever would’ve become so immediately conscious of my hang ups then to flee the city, as I did, and get this fine job out of town.”

“Excuse me, Arnie. You’re on that beauty shop still?”

“Don’t you remember? We met there for coffee — when it was still a coffee shop. It was an extremely emotional scene for me then — holding your hand, and both of us unbelievably serious and me trying to work up enough courage to finally propose to you. You very mercifully cut me off before I was able to make a big ass out of myself and told me, and very perceptively I thought, what a shell of an existence I was leading at the time and how, instead of trying to write fiction about a world I didn’t know, I should get a job and see what the world was about. I was so despondent after that—”

“Yes. Now I remember.”

“Remember how torn up I was? I was a kid then, granted, but it was very bad, extremely crushing.”

“Yes. I hated that last scene.”

“So after that, I quit school two days later and got a cubreporter slot on the Dallas paper my brother was on then, just so I could be away from you and the city and all. And later, I went to Washington for several local Texas papers and then the correspondent jobs overseas seemed to pour in, none of which I feasibly could have taken if I were married or seriously attached at the time.”

“Then things have worked out in their own way, right?”

“I suppose you might say so.”

“And you’ve also seen a lot of the world, am I right? I mean, Europe and such?”

“Europe, Central America, Rio and Havana and once even a year’s stint in Manila as a stringer for one of the TV networks. I’ve had a good time.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve been very fortunate for a guy who never had a thought of going into journalism — very.”

“It really sounds like it. There can’t be anything more exciting than traveling, I think. Besides the fact of also making money from it.”

“Even then, it’s not as if I’ve had everything I exactly wanted — like the wife and kids I always spoke about.”

“That’s right. You used to speak about them a lot.”

“Or the home. The even relatively permanent home with some grounds I could putter around with on weekends, for basically I’m a family and fireplace man and I’d be a self-deluding idiot to deny it. But I’ve been quite lucky all in all.”