Stephen Dixon: All Gone

About my ex-wife, child in Georgia, Rochelle, Lee, friends, schools, religion, work and sex habits. Past compulsions to get lots of attention, later desires for almost complete goody-goodiness and anonymity. “When did you change?” “When my brother passed out and drowned?” “That doesn’t jell with what I’ve got down you already said and the chronology.” “Then I don’t know. Or I’m still not sure. But I don’t care how much I’m not sweating anymore, I’m even more confused now than when I first came in here and don’t see how all this talk’s going to make me improve.”

They put me on a special diet. Try another drug as the one I’ve been taking turns out to be bad for my kidneys. Ask if I’ll consent to staying a minimum of ten more days. I have to phone my boss and tell him I won’t be coming in for two more weeks and he says then in that case he’s going to have to let me go.

“All right then, you want to be unfair, be unfair. I’ll be in this Monday nine on the nose.”

“Tell you the truth, I got a new guy who does twice the job as you for a lot less starting money. And you took off too many sick days when I knew you didn’t have to and weren’t such a hot worker, so maybe you better not come back at all.”

“Now you’re making me mad. Everybody there knows I never took off when I wasn’t absolutely dying, and for my extra overtime for the company I never once thought to be paid. Look, I’ve been told here to express my feelings more so I’m expressing them, for you know yourself you always said I was a hundred percent straight and honest and one of your hardest workers and for that praise I never had to ask. ‘Damn good worker’ were your damn words.”

“You must’ve been hearing things then too. By the way, what’s your room number so some of your former fellow employees can send you a bouquet?”

“What’s that crack supposed to mean?”

“You don’t like flowers? Then a joint card with all their signatures or maybe a basket of fruit. They told me to ask in case you had to stay.”

“Nobody there wants to send me any card or fruit and you know it.”

“They don’t? I’ll tell them that and you can be certain they won’t. Take care of yourself, Bo.”

“Sure, you give a damn. Just don’t forget to put down that you fired me, you cheap bastard, for when I get out of here I want to walk into some unemployment checks.”

“No skin off my pecker, tough guy, but for reasons of your kind of sickness or just any, I don’t know if they give,” and he hangs up.

Rochelle comes every other day around six. Sits with me. Says “You look better and seem to act better, you feel better too?” No. “Then you don’t want to stay here longer?” Yes. I stay three more months. They give me plenty of pills, see that I swallow them and hope I’ll continue to take my prescribed medicine once I leave here, “though remember, don’t mix them with alcohol or you can die.” After the three months I don’t feel that much better but think it’s time to go. My hospital coverage is up. My ex-wife writes she’s ready to get the court to take away all fatherly rights from me for either unsoundness of mind or non-support. Rochelle has already told me she met another man and I shouldn’t try and contact her anymore, and nobody I know takes her visitor place. Lee sends me a handmade get-well card once a week right up until the time I leave.

“You know, you really aren’t sufficiently cured yet,” the therapist says and I say “What can I tell you — I haven’t the money to stay.”

“You can be readmitted involuntarily and become a ward of the state, which in residency terms means you’d have to stay here until we say you can go.”

“No, I think from now on, with a more responsible and positive attitude and meaningful job and more openness to people and no expectations about what I deserve out of life or preconceptions of what normalcy is…”

I’m given a month’s supply of medicine and names of a few free group sessions in the city and return to my old neighborhood. My furnished room’s been rented and what belongings I have are with the super downstairs. “Keep them,” I say. “For I think if I’m really going to change my way of living and looking at things, I’m going to need a new apartment in another setting with better furnishings and wardrobe.”

“If you change your mind by tomorrow morning, they’ll be out front on the street.”

I call up a friend. “Bobo, how are you, I heard what happened, tough luck, pal, as we always thought you were sitting on top of the world and had it made.”

“Truth is, I’m still not sure how it happened, but I think I know how it won’t again. I’m looking for a place to stay for a short while till I get back on my feet.”

“You want me to put you up here?”

“I’ll be direct; that’s what I had in mind.”

“Can’t do. Booked solid with sweethearts all this week. Why don’t you try Ken?”

Ken and Mary. Of course. Nice couple. Old friends. Ken says, “Fine with me, let me speak to Mary.” Comes back on the phone: “She says no deal.”

“Okay. No problem.”

“It’s nothing to do with where you been. She’s still got this gripe against you for the way you treated Claire.”

“What do you mean? Claire slept around and kicked me out of the house and wanted the divorce, not me.”

“Listen, they speak on the phone. It’s not only your missing kid payments for most of the year, but also the slow, subtle and maybe unintentional way Claire says you nearly drove her mad. She’s got the shrink bills and mental bruises to prove it. Even your little girl had to go to one for a child.”

“Could be true. Maybe I forgot how bad I was or like they say, repressed it so I’d forget. But I’ve already sent them most of my cash, just as I’m going to make good on all my old debts and not return to my mistakes and alibis of the past, so believe me everything’s going to work out great for me and tell Mary I can understand how she feels.”

“That’s the spirit. Look, try Burleigh. His lodger left last week.”

I phone Burleigh. Says “Sure, for one-fifty a month.”

“I’m broke. Give me time to get a job and pay.”

“Money on the line, Bo — I’ve got to live off what I get for rent. If it’s not you then from a singles renting agency I can get a guy or girl for two and a half bills a month.”

Several other people. Finally a friend of a friend who I heard might be renting says I can sleep on the floor for the night, but that’s the best she can do.

Following day I’m out early looking for work. “In these times? Where you been? Factories are folding left and right or moving out of here, city’s in hock up to its ears. Take a dishwasher job if you can find one, because with your skills, experience and education, that’s about the best you’ll get for the next two years.” Unemployment says “If you are eligible for insurance, not for another three weeks.” She wants me to fill out more forms. I say “Just a second, got to go to the men’s room,” stomachful of nerves from the lines and ugly walls and all her questions and suspicions and I leave the building through the rear. I’m in a spot. Few dollars in my wallet. No likeable relatives with spare beds or money, friends with anything to lend. I get on the subway to try and convince that woman to let me stay two more nights on her floor. Suddenly I’m confused. Difficult to explain. Short of breath. I take two of my pills dry as I was told to do with outside emergencies when I’m feeling this distressed. For a few seconds I think they’re stuck in my windpipe and try coughing them up. “Ach! Ach!” People looking at me with that look what’s with him? Newspapers, magazines. Not so sure where I’m heading or presently am. Rush hour and with each door closing we’re more crammed in. Horrible photos of victims, survivors, oppressors, refugees. Local passing stations going the opposite way I want telling me I’m traveling uptown. Next ride’s a long one and when we stop I shove my way out to slap my face and blow my nose and breathe. Bags? Have any? On the platform I say “Say, buddy, not so fast, will you, for can you tell me—” but he runs upstairs. “Miss?” She too. Now nobody. I sit on a bench. Station attendant approaches same time as the next express. He says something but I don’t hear him past the train’s screeching wheels. Broom and dustpan with a long stick at the end of it, sweeping up wrappers and papers, dumping everything into the trash can by my bench. Doors open, close, people breeze by, platform empty again, then quickly filling up.