Stephen Dixon: Fall and Rise

But finally outside, showered, shaved and brushed, perfectly hairless face except for the long graying sideburns and one or two hairs curling out of my nostrils and also the small clumps in my ears, which seem to get a bit thicker each year, stiff straight still-wet mostly ungraying side and top hair so right now not a filament or strand out of place. Raining tadpoles and diagonals, sheets and dogs. Three-block walk to the station, salute to the ornate neighborly Central Park West doorman who tips his hat to me with a white-gloved finger while he whistles with a whistle for a cab. Flower stall under a Sabrett’s frankfurter stand umbrella by the subway entrance and I think Why not? and ask how much and for two bucks no tax buy five chrysanthemums and a fern frond, which he wraps in paper and then staples the top and bottom of when I say I’m going to Jersey by way of Amtrak. Downstairs, get two tokens and change and give my thanks and get skeptical eye contact back, though most times I don’t. Second flight down, shaking the closed umbrella as I go and spattering the graffito on the tile wall that’s calling our attention to the forthcoming carnage and war in Puerto Rico and El Salvador and how we must drive out all Hispanics and Semitics and gigolos and whores from New York. Not many people on the platform so could be a good ten-minute wait. Space for a slim-hipped and almost no-buttocked person on the one bench there and I almost sit. But the young woman I’d be sitting next to on one side is cracking and snapping gum which I can’t stand the sound, smell and sight of and the man I’d be sitting thigh to thigh to seems asleep and the type who might take offense at our nearness if he suddenly awakes and thinks it’s because of my dripping flowers or umbrella or something libidinous I did. Farther along the platform a man walking a ten-speed bike to what will be the first car, woman pacing back and forth carrying a typewriter case with I suppose a typewriter inside judging by her shoulder slump from the weight, a midget or someone I think would be considered a midget with that kind of forehead, hairline, face and height and whom I know as the efficient but sometimes belligerent cook of a Columbus Avenue coffee shop I’ve gone to on chillier days for coffee and soup, leaning against a pillar reading a weekly newsmagazine. The last person on the platform alternately looking at her wristwatch and the continually pouring whiskey clock above the bench that’s about twenty minutes late, till she sees me stick the flowers to my nose for a sniff and smiles to herself and drops her watch hand. Nobody looking potentially menacing, a thought I’ve had here before since the night two years ago I was mugged for the first time in my life under the same squeaking clock. I start to pull a book out of my coat pocket, but with two cumbersome things I’m carrying and both wet, push it back, look to see if the train’s coming, with my foot break up the puddle my umbrella’s making till it takes on the shape of a dinosaur, walk along the platform reading some of the things scrawled on the wall ads: “Lenin is the tool of the Marxistplace — Free the Soviet Block 11!!”—shouted out of the mouth of a once-famous jockey who’s promoting smart betting at OTB; “This ad makes asses of women by exploiting their asses”—ballooning out of the behind of a young woman modeling skin-tight designer jeans. I hear the rumble, look up the tunnel, see the beam, step behind the pillar the cook’s leaning against on the other side. As the train pulls in, my mouth makes the motion of a hello to him while his fingers are in his ears and he acknowledges me with a vacant nod. We get on. Sleeping man’s awake but stays on the bench. I keep the closing door open for a man running downstairs yelling “Wait, important date, hold the doors.” Stand till the express stop and though there’s an express waiting, catch the time on the cook’s watch and sit rather than change since I’ll spend the extra minutes I can afford to waste on this slower train. Across from me a woman’s bawling out two young girls. Nothing they do is right. The older one puts her finger on her nose and tries to look at it cross-eyed: not right. Younger girl plays with her shoelaces without untying them: not right. Older girl skims her fingers over the woman’s knuckles and then twirls the woman’s pinky ring — slap, “Act your age, you’re so pitiful dumb!” I’m reading one of the books of the Japanese poet’s poems I’m to collect and translate from but with all that commotion I can’t concentrate. Then the woman orders the girls to stand and they hold her jacket pocket-flaps and all go to the door as the train pulls in at Thirty-fourth and the woman sticks her head past the door and yells “Red.” A man says “Way to go,” and runs to the door and jumps on just before it closes. The woman’s smiling, kids look sullen, man’s laughing and shaking his head. She presses two hands of fingertips to his lips, man says “You’re all looking good,” and points to some seats and they sit, girls perpendicular to the woman and man. She says “I thought I’d miss you.” He says “I told you I know how to work the subway. How the beauty queens been?” “Fine,” “Fine,” the girls say. “They been awful and don’t let them convince you different, but now that you’re here they’re really going to be fine. Isn’t that so, girls?” and they say to him “Yes,” “Yes.” She puts a hand on his knee, other hand holds his two, her thumb rubbing into his bottom palm. He laughs and says “I know, me too. What’s it been, a week?” “Three days,” she says. “Three? Shoo. Miss you so much, feels like three weeks.” “Don’t exaggerate.” The older girl’s looking at my flowers and says “Mommy, can I ask that man what he has in his paper?” “It’s flowers,” she says, still staring at the man. Train goes. “I know, but what kind — live or dead?” Woman looks at me. “No, honey, you don’t want to be disturbing him. He’s studying.” My book’s closed and in my lap. “Mister,” the girl says, “what’s in there, flowers or a plant?” “I told you,” the woman says. “Now be good and be quiet and sit up like a grown girl,” and looks back at the man and rubs his palm. “Six weeks,” he says. “It’s okay,” I say to the woman. “They’re cut chrysanthemums,” to the girl, “so I suppose you can say they’re dead though they’re still very fresh.” “I know that, but what color are they?” “Yellow and red.” “Can I see them?” “Can I see them?” the younger girl says. “Tell them no,” the woman says. “Those kids will hound you till you hand them over to them.” “It’s okay — And I’d like to show you the flowers,” and they leap up, oldest one first, and come over to me and sit on either side, “but I’m going to a party and they’re for the host and I want the paper to stay stapled so when she opens it she’ll be surprised.” “What’s a host?” the older girl says, touching the paper on top, and I say “The woman or man—” “You don’t have to explain to them,” the woman says. “Don’t worry, I like children — The woman or man, though a woman can also be called a hostess, who gives the party, such as the woman who’s giving the party tonight.” “Can I come?” the older girl says. “Can I?” the younger girl says. “No, but”—“Did you hear that? Can they come,” the woman says to the man—“maybe if I open the paper a little you can smell the flowers even if you can’t see them.” I tear open a hole on top and they put their noses in it and take deep breaths and the older girl says “It smells real good, just like yellow and red flowers would.” “They do,” the younger girl says, “—real good.” “Do something to get them back here,” the woman says to the man. “I have no control over them sometimes.” The man takes out a roll of mints and says “Look what I got here, girls.” The girls run to him and each takes a mint he’s unrolled, sticks it into her mouth and puts a hand out for another. “So soon?” he says and they smile and nod and he starts peeling some paper back on the roll and the older girl says “No, I want to do it for you. What kind are these?” as she peels the paper back. “Mints,” and she says “But what kind?” “Why why why, what what what,” the woman says. “You always want to know so much till you wear everyone out including that nice flower man. Just accept they have a flavor and a hole in them and that should be enough.” “But there’s lots of kinds. There’s kinds I don’t like.” “Do you like these?” “Yes.” “Then these aren’t the kind you don’t like.” “Manure mint,” the man says to the older girl. He seems annoyed. “What’s manure mint?” she says, giving the second mint she’s unrolled to the younger girl. The train’s pulling in to the Fourteenth Street stop. “No more questions,” the woman says. “We have to go.” She stands, grabs the girls’ hands, man says to her “I’ll shoot upstairs and look first. Wait for me at the bottom here.” “You’re the boss,” and kisses the back of his coat on the shoulder and the door opens and steps are right there and he runs upstairs. Doors close and train goes, girls staring after me as I move backwards. Must still be raining or was till a minute to a few ago, hats and hair wet of the passengers who just got on. Train stops between stations and starts, stops, lights flash off and on, goes slow. I’m glad I’m going to a party. Haven’t been to one in months. Eats, drinks, best place to meet women they’ve been, maybe elaborate canapés I’d get nowhere else. Maybe Russian canapés and Iranian caviar because lots of Diana’s friends are Russians traveling here from abroad or Eastern Europeans or recent émigrés or Americans of Russian descent, so various confabular and linguistic concoctions I also enjoy. But one quick final line to walk with, as the train pulls in and I open the book without knowing what page it’s to and read in instantly translated Japanese “Storm-colored God who laughs a great deal as in children’s games.” Not a poem I was thinking of including in my collection but I read some more and think I just might. Title’s “Supernal Underground,” which will stay and maybe in the translator’s forward or the introduction to the poet and his work I’ll say where, when and how I chose this poem. Читать дальше