Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“Didn’t he just say he knew our work well?” Phill says to me and I shrug and look to the side. Someone’s cigarette smoke’s coming my way. I hold my breath and look back. It’s broken by my head, a little of it goes in Jane’s face.

“…didn’t say ‘well.’ And if your wife or you hadn’t adopted the other’s surname, I’d know which one of you works in what much better.”

“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t — I hope you don’t think I was saying it aggressively. Just my sick sense of whatever you call humor again, which likes to work against me.”

“Same here — unaggressive, though no one could ever accuse me of humor. And whichever of those two media you do work in, let me say I admire it tremendously.”

“Thanks. And I think I can say the same for us for your work too — in all your literary forms.”

“Even the porno novels?”

“You don’t write those that I know of.”

“See? Told you I had no sense of humor.” They all laugh. I smile.

“And this is Daniel Krin, Alan,” Diana says, “before you get into an endless trialogue about art buying and inflated reputations and phalli and pornography. But if you are thinking of buying someone, you’d be wise to scoop up these two soon. Value of some of their older work has quadrupled.”

“She’ll say anything for a friend,” Jane says, “and because she knows we’re dying to go to Machu-Picchu.”

“Will she? — Hello, Mr. Krin.”

“How are you?” We shake hands.

“I’m fine thanks I guess, and you?” and laughs.

“Just an expression. ‘How goes, adios, I’m well, thank the Lord, by jove and gum.’”

“Of course. My bottled-up processes — this time the incoming. Seriously now,” to Phil and Jane, Diana nipping my elbow and slipping away, “and all pornography and priapic testimonials to the rear for the time being unless you’re lusting to discuss them, which one of you works in rubber?”

Diana’s greeting some people at the door or maybe they’re leaving. That can’t be her. She’s at the other side of the cheese table, behind a tall unused samovar, brushing crumbs off the cloth into her palm, taking my bouquet to the bar, dumping the crumbs into an ashtray and accepting a sip of wine from a man and sticking one of the flowers minus most of its stem into his lapel. Diana have a twin? I put on my glasses. Woman who doesn’t look like her much. Hair the same though. Graying, snipped short, shampooed sheen, and an almost duplicate purple turtleneck jersey. I listen for another minute, say “Pardon me, folks, I think I see over there my long lost brother,” and walk off. “What was his name again?” Alan says and Jane knows but Phil forgets. I meet her, though not yet. She was standing in the center of the room where I am now. I don’t know when she came in. I doubt she was here yet. Room’s very noisy and crowded now and was probably like that when she got here. I think I would have spotted her right away or soon after. My glasses were back in my pocket but she wasn’t that far away when she did come nearer where I needed them to see her. White coarse blouse buttoned to the neck, Russian-type blouse’s stiff inch-high collar, lace where the cuffs end and as a collar fringe, large unobscured forehead, lots of fine kind of copper-colored hair knotted on top of her head, long neck, bony cheeks, big wide-awake eyes that later turned out to be a sea-green, taller than most of the women there, long skirt, so I couldn’t see what sort of shoes she wore, but around five-nine. I suddenly get the call and set my glass on the bar and make my way to the bathroom, saying as I go “Personal emergency, please, in a rush,” relieved to find it free, also combed my hair in there and splashed water on my face and dried it, for it had become uncomfortably warm in the living room, won’t be too long now before I see her. Maybe she was at this moment approaching the stoop or climbing the steps. I didn’t ring her in. Didn’t ring in anyone since the beginning of the party. She must have rung the downstairs bell though. Or someone leaving or entering opened the door as she was coming up the stoop or about to ring and let her in or maybe the door had been left open intentionally, forgetfully or because of some door-check failure. By then there must have been too many umbrellas in the hall for the one holder. I wonder what Diana thought when she took my bouquet off the table and put it at the back of the bar away from the bottles and glasses. Glass he stuck them in is okay and more than enough if maybe too much water. But why’d he place it where hands on all four sides reaching every which way could easily spill it? Coatrack must be filled by now. Rubbers and boots lined up or strewn around the hallway floor and wall. Probably around this time that someone wrapped a woman’s coat around mine and my sweater got knocked to the floor or put some other place, which could be what helped me forget when I left that I’d come with one, being quite high by then and not automatically seeing it on the shelf above my covered coat. Don’t know why remembering I had an umbrella presented no problem, though probably because the holder was right outside the door. Bell rings. One every minute from the time I got to the party it seemed. Just about now I said to a man by the bar something like “You know, these recurrent bell-rings remind me of a Japanese play I recently read where the single principal in it is from start-to-finish answering ten different doors for hundreds of imaginary guests and talking to himself about who’s probably ringing and what person and group and then troop he just let in and found an unoccupied space for. And whom, if he sees her at the door, he’s going to do everything short of shooting to keep out.” The man I said this to, after relighting his pipe and looking as if he thought over what I said, says “I saw a play like that once. A short one, on a long double bill, and both by the same famous Rumanian, who I think became famous because of that play. But this one had two characters in it who talked to each other continuously.”

“Mine’s got to be derivative then, since its world premiere was last year. I know the play you mean, unless there are two famous Rumanian-born Frenchmen who wrote very similar plays. In mine there are no chairs in it. The setting’s one empty room eventually packed so tight with guests that by the end of the play many of them are sitting on ceiling crossbeams and hanging from wall hooks, while the doors are still being opened by this one principal on stage.”

“The actor.”

“Or actress. Because in the book of this playwright’s selected plays the role of ‘principal performer’—as she called it — is supposed to be played by an old man and young woman at alternate performances, though the sex and age of the person he or she wants to keep out stays the same.”

“I’m sure my play didn’t have those instructions. But what did you mean before by ‘imaginary guests’?”

“Actually, it’s the ringing that’s imaginary, the guests only conceivably. The audience sees them or at least sees what the principal performer thinks he or she’s seeing.”

“I think I heard about that play. Is it the one where the actor or actress finally asks the audience to get out of their seats and then out of the theater so the guests who are pouring in can have somewhere to sit and stand?”

“Not in my playwright’s play, though it’d be a better ending. And now I’ve lost what I was originally saying.”

“The intercom ringing. Leading to the absurdity of most modern dramaturgy. But there’s another one. You heard it. I know I did, if I’m not imagining us at this wonderful party and the bell ringing repeatedly. No, we’re both here and the bells are real and the party’s wonderful. You know Alan Merson there?”