Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“The answer’s no, naturally, to any coming by tonight. If you just want to tell the story why you think you have to come by, you can’t make it short?”

“I could but not effectively. But I probably couldn’t because — oh shit…excuse me, but my head just then.”

“What, hangover or something like that already?”

“Hurts, from being hit in the head before. On the head. I was. With a phone receiver but one cut off. I don’t mean to be confusing. I wasn’t cut off, on the phone, but the receiver was, from the phone.”

“If it’s that bad, go to a hospital.”

“It’s not. A scratch on top and a bump, and now a little dizziness and pain, which probably accounts for my sporadic disoriented tongue, though I got that out all right with the words I wanted. And I couldn’t begin to tell it — from before — because our five minutes are more than up. And the phone operators who cut in these days to ask for another coin — well, you can’t speak to them as people, you know, since their voices aren’t even recorded anymore, much less real or alive. They’re — they come from some new kind of computerized phonetic machine that creates operator voices or what we’ve been used to, and with the right regional inflections for whatever region, to respond to the multivarious situations they’ve traditionally had to deal with on the phone, though I’m sure the machine’s tinkered with periodically to let new situations in. You want a real live operator’s voice you have to dial Operator, and I heard that soon — ooh, wait. I’m a little lost there — my head again, which might be worse off than I thought. I wish I could sit. And lost you a little there also, I think.”

“Not if I got you right. I’m sure — but you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, my experience has been that if they don’t get you once your five minutes are up it’s because of some telephonic malfunction and not generosity on the company’s or any operator’s part, and you can talk on that dime long as you like. But do me a favor — get to a hospital immediately for that head?”

“Why? They’ll tell me I’ve a hairline fracture at the most and to go home and rest and that’s what I can’t do now. And let’s not chance the operator coming in. Once one does I won’t have time to give you my number, so please take it now.”

“Why didn’t you call Diana?”

“I did but nobody’s in or answering. And the five other friends in the city I could, who either didn’t answer or his answering machine did. With that one I gave the number of the booth phone I was calling from, but have since moved on. My mother I couldn’t — though I actually could. She’d forgive me for anything, as good mothers do. But I didn’t want to, as she lives alone, would get scared, doesn’t sleep well — only a few hours a day and usually at this hour, and I didn’t want to wake her.”

“No one else? No old women friends, a brother, sister, aunt who sleeps well?”

“Out of town or living out of town or impossible for the women friends.”

“Even so, there’d have to be twenty, fifty people to call before me, and a locksmith.”

“Locksmith I already tried, but I lost my wallet tonight, have no cash at home and I don’t have a check account.”

“Who doesn’t have a check account?”

“I pay three bills a month: rent, utilities and phone, and the last two every other month, so really two a month, average — all with money orders made out from money in my savings account. That way — though here, for the first time, it’s hurt me — I get my interest and also don’t impulsively spend money I don’t have. As for the other tenants in my building — nobody to go to. Either much too frail or old, one’s a dealer, another’s a man who illusorily accuses me of dumping garbage on his car and door, and one woman’s a drunk and, as my junior-high kids used to say, mental. I just don’t know that many people, many people as I know, and some I know I wouldn’t go into their apartments for any reason. And, impulsive as I am on money matters, or at least sticking to a system so as not to be, I was impulsive in calling you, in spite of the time I took to think about calling — what can I say? I, maybe because of the big lump and minor gash, but again, I don’t want to depreciate the main reason by giving neurological excuses, saw myself sleeping, with my head in an old clean rag, bleeding, on your floor. I shouldn’t have but I did, and with my last dime, not that it wouldn’t take another hour or two, which’d get me closer to daybreak and my keys, to borrow or beg another one. But I thought, it being my last dime would help persuade you to let me use your floor. But look, spilt head or not — split — if I’m anything — and that was an interesting slip — I’m—”

“All right, give me your number. Then tell me quickly this time how you hurt your head. A fight?”

“Stopping a robbery. And the number on the phone’s not clear. It’s — shit, who’d want to scratch out the number on a pay phone? Sorry, but it’s demented. Plug up the coin return with gum if you’re desperate to make some pocket money, because then at least the caller’s made his call, if he didn’t get a busy signal or Information. Though if he got Information and Information, after she gives him the number, sees his coin didn’t reach the coin tray, she can hook him into a live operator who can dial the number for him. But don’t, I’m saying, destroy the phone so it can’t be used for emergencies or scratch out the number so no one can call the caller back.”

“Are you telling me there’s no phone number there? Please, Mr. Krin.”

“It’s also my eyes, which is just part of the story, and Daniel or Dan. First my glasses got scratched. That was nobody’s fault but mine. But then, along with my head before and my wallet and keys going with my coat in addition to my valuable notebook, though only to me, is the only copy I own and perhaps in the whole country of one of the books of poems I’m to select from and translate to put into one big book of this particular poet’s selected collected — collected selected poems.”

“Who?”

“Jun Hasenai. Around my age. But you probably haven’t heard of him.”

“I suppose I should have, but I hate when people say that about writers I’ve mentioned and they haven’t heard of. I can’t read or hear about everyone.”

“No reason you should. He’s unknown here — few poems I’ve managed to place in little mags over the years — but pretty well known in several Eastern European countries. He’s major, style to get excited by, sensibility and themes to move and brood over and possibly transmogrify. I talk like a jacket blurb sometimes, but I really admire the guy’s work. I also like it that he’s lived fully but not maneuveringly and to keep his modest family life surviving he writes essays that are, well, eloquent and inciting and I eventually want to translate too, and translates Spanish and Portuguese novels and poetry and teaches Western literature in a high school for the physically handicapped and deformed. He’s a mensch and can be translated — he doesn’t only come across in Japanese. I just hope when I call him for another copy of the book, if one isn’t in a library I don’t know about here, he doesn’t think I’m a terrific bungler and assign his work to someone else.”

“I’m sure he won’t — not after the work you’ve no doubt put in and the feeling you have for it. But why not call his publisher for a copy rather than him?”

“Of course — thanks — I just hope it doesn’t get back to him.”

“Then have someone else call and give his or her address. But you shouldn’t be so worried. You have a book contract for it?”