Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

She thinks, bringing the phone into the living room in case he calls, Why did I let myself be convinced into it — to say “Yes, oh do do come up”? I didn’t say it that way, but hell. Oh well. Oh, probably not so bad. Bad, how can you say it’s not? But it’s not or not so bad. So he’ll come over. Not “so he will”: he’s coming over. So he will. And let him. Let him? Nothing now will stop him. So what? Really, so big deal what? Let him even take a shower Let him even wash his shirt and anything else he wants to wash and hang those wet clothes up. And if they’re not dry by the morning I’ll even iron them for him. Because what was I trying to say by my being so anxious about his coming here — that I can’t take care of myself? It’s just for the rest of the night. And I can quickly gauge people okay — some friends even think I have an acuity — and he seems more than all right. Story was a bit hard to believe, but he won’t do anything more than have a hot drink, clean himself, go to sleep, toast and coffee when he wakes up and leave. So set him up — blankets, sheets, pillow and case — on the couch. “Just take the cushions off and”—he’ll know how. Convertible couch is universal to just about everyone over thirteen. “Need me to make the bed for you? No? Good; I’m too tired to anyway, so goodnight.” He wants to chat, say “I’d like to, but tomorrow I’ve two tons of work.” And fresh bath towel; for one night he doesn’t need a washrag. Worse comes to worse, let him use mine on the sly that’s in the bathroom. No, with his linens and last week’s I’ll be doing a wash soon, so what’s a little washrag? And cats; hope he’s not allergic to them, but even if he isn’t I’ll keep Sammy in my room. If he has to wash his underpants and his trousers are wet and he has nothing else to wear — what else could he have? — to and from the bathroom or in bed, I’ve an old terrycloth robe androgynous enough where he won’t feel uncomfortable in it and big enough to fit him snug. Say “Anything in the refrigerator is yours,” and then go to bed. Suppose he’s a drinker? I’m really too tired to think so thoroughly about this. But don’t be shiftless; it’s in your interest: suppose he is. A real drunk, not just a once-a-monther or every-time-at-a-party overindulger, then what? He was knocking them down at Diana’s. So were we all. But if he is? Yes? Well, if he is? Damn, nothing but work for myself. She goes into the kitchen. Cabinet has a bottle of dry vermouth for someone who liked to make martinis for himself when she cooked dinner for them. Roberto; she couldn’t stand them herself. Literally like piss. Gin is finished. Why didn’t I throw the bottle out? and she shoves it to the bottom of the garbage bag and covers it with part of a newspaper so he won’t think she drank any of it tonight. Oh, get rid of the whole thing long as you’re at it, and she opens the service door to put the garbage out. Note’s on the door. Now what? “Mice have been sighted”—she looks down at the name; it’s from her next-door neighbor at the service entrance—“on the floor below and several above (10th, 13th, PH). Please dispose of your garbage (we will too, starting tomorrow when we get them…the market left them out of the order it delivered tonite) in plastic garbage bags that seal up with ties. Thanx. This is a very difficult note to write, as I’m for certain not blaming you for the mice. PS. Daitch’s has an excellent generic bag (2 ft × 2 ft 6 in × 1.2 mil) at half the price of the brand names, and it’s 2-ply. Best, Audrey Chang, 9C.” What can I say? She’s right, at least about plastic-bagging the trash, something we should have done long ago to cut down on roaches or kept in lidded pails out there, and she sticks the bag of garbage into a plastic shopping bag, knots the handles on top and puts it outside her service door. The Changs, with three children, his mother and a dog, usually have two huge paper bags of garbage and an empty carton or two by the service elevator, but just a doll box is there tonight. Back to the cabinet. Vermouth bottle is a third-filled and would take five more bottles of gin the way Roberto mixed them. She’s used a lot of it for cooking scallops or in a last-ditch gravy when the food cooking lost all its juices and got not irredeemably burned. Sherry in the cabinet to cook with also but not cooking sherry. She brings all these bottles — half-one of vodka, unopened one of Zubrovka her father brought back from Poland last year; she should put it in the freezer and take a sip of it and tell him how it is; nearly full bottle of sour mash or bourbon if there’s any difference — liquor she has just for guests — and two bottles of wine and a tiny one of cassis, to the pantry closet next to the service door. “Hello, Sammy.” Puts them deep into the lower shelf. “You want to help hide them? No? Yes?” He scratches his front paws on the service door. “Feel like skedoodling? Have to wait till summer, Babes.” She grabs his tail at the front and pulls it upwards, then tweaks the tip. Lots of white hairs float around them. “God, do you need a brushing.” Puts the ice bucket she got as a wedding gift — they got, get that straight, kid; Harris and she, Helene and Harris, the 2-H club at one time, another finer thing he refused her to use once he got so insurrectionally left-wing — tarnished, needs polish, tomorrow, along with Sammy’s brushing and nail clipping — and unopened box of wineglasses in front of the bottles. Unless he got down on his knees he couldn’t see them. She gets down on her knees. Even then. Nice job. And where’d she get the glasses? Ice bucket was from Diana — their first gift, delivered weeks before the ceremony. Glasses were from the wedding too. Got four to five boxes of them from different people and two or three boxes of brandy snifters. Must have been the gift to give that year or month — March, nice and icy — for we didn’t touch the hard stuff then and weren’t in any way real wine tipplers. Down to the last five wineglasses in her kitchen cabinet and this box she didn’t know was here. “So thanks, Mr. Krin, for being instrumental — well, just helping me find them,” and she winks at the pantry. He wants the two beers in the fridge and what wine’s left in the bottle in there, he can have them — they won’t do much to get him high. But they could keep him high. She opens the refrigerator. Pulls out the produce bin, snaps a carrot in two and chews it and drops the other half back into the bin. Better than a couple of her mother’s Mandelbrot that are in a coffee can in here or the ice cream in the freezer. Freezer , and she starts for the pantry. No, dopey, do it tomorrow when he’s not here. And four cans of beer, thought two. Puts three of them into that same pantry shelf. So, can of beer and maybe a glass of wine which by now is probably vinegar — won’t do much to him, but might make him think she’s not trying to hide any alcohol, and on the phone he seemed hurt from a head wound as he said and not high. Takes the linens and cushions off the couch. Wait a minute. He’s supposed to do this. Just do it, it’ll save time, no explaining: “Bed’s made, you know how to pull it out, there’s the kitchen, bathroom’s past that door, if you need a clock, there’s an electric one above the kitchen table, and have a good night’s sleep and goodnight.” She opens the couch into a bed, makes it, should she keep it open or closed? Close it, it’ll just look sloppy open and make movement clumsy when he gets here and make him think she’s insisting he get to sleep right away, closes it so it’s a couch again, puts a pillowcase on her one extra pillow, boils water for herb tea. Heck with it: she can afford a dozen Mandelbrots, and all this waiting and doing at this late hour is making her hungry. Whatever the reason for it, hunger is hunger and to be avoided before sleep if she can. She eats one, eats two more, re-covers the coffee can and shuts the refrigerator door. I don’t know how she does it. Works a normal workload as a caseworker, reads another twenty hours a week the most recondite books and magazines, sees a movie and play a week and goes to several of the art galleries around town and some concerts and all the new exhibitions at the art museums, yet still spends lots of time with my father and her friends and around fifteen hours a week in the kitchen making things like these. One day I’ll follow her around the kitchen while she makes them. I’ll have to follow her around three or four times before it sinks in, but I will. But maybe later on, when she’s dead, perish the thought, but everyone has to die, though if there was only some natural way I could live a full long life and still go before them, but when she is and they are, perish the thought, maybe the memory of her Mandelbrot and breads and cakes will be infinitely preferable to the actual stuff even if I’m able to bake almost the exact kind. Enough. What’s the point unless I want to goad a good cry? Great, right, what an only child has to share? And if it ends up childless, damn, hope you get a lifelong mate you love, bub, cuz if not it could be a lot to bear. Water’s boiling and she makes tea and sits on the couch with it. Now get here soon, Krinsky, and don’t for christsakes be cheap with my money and decide against a cab. Yipes. If he made good connections he could be downstairs. He’d ring the bell. She gets into pants, sandals and shirt and gets a five and five singles out of the dresser. Always tries to have that amount around the house in those denominations in case she has to take a cab from here or knows she’ll be taking one later in the day after she leaves. Doesn’t like drivers arguing they haven’t change for a twenty or ten or even a five, and then if she makes a stink, oh wow they suddenly find it, but if they don’t — to then have to give them one of those bills with no change back if she doesn’t want to wait. Gets her keys, lets the door lock and rings for the elevator. She has a police whistle on her keyring and holds it near her mouth. If he’s ringing her bell now, she’ll get to him in time. And hates, hates like anything to go downstairs alone at this hour, but nothing she can do about it.