Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“I know his work.”

“Fine fellow, fine work.”

“I don’t want to say anything. Undoubtedly he’s a fine fellow.”

“But you are saying something. Excuse me, I see someone I know.”

He goes over to a well-known painter, they clap backs and begin talking. The Times Sunday magazine did an article on the painter not long ago. I like a lot of his work but don’t consider it art. I consider it what? Illustrations. I said that to a couple of people at this party and before it. Nobody agreed with me. One person bristled and said “Where do you come to say that?” and I said “This might sound mindless and maybe makes no sense, but I like what I know.” She said “It makes no sense or not enough for me to want to think any more about it,” and the conversation stopped for a minute while we both, when we weren’t looking at the other looking at our feet, looked at our feet. Diana has several of his works on her walls. All inscribed to her, one from thirty years ago. It says “Sleep sheepishly Dee,” which could mean a number of things but has no connection from what I can see to the illustration, which is more like a child’s cartoon, and with its colors from play crayons, of the Staten Island skyline during the daytime and about ten ocean liners lined up to go out to sea. He’s taller than his photographs. Could that be correct? Taller if his photographs were lifesize and he was standing in them erect. Balder also I notice passing him on my way to the couch, with what seemed to be real hair in his photographs being real hair combed over his head from the back.

I sit and take a carrot stick off an end table plate. Diana sits beside me and says before I can put the carrot into my mouth “You can’t sit on a couch at one of my parties or even in one of the easy chairs so early. If you were elderly, lame or a single to multiple amputee and one of those amputated parts was a leg or foot or even recently one to so many toes, yes, but now I want you to move around and mix. Or stand in one place and have more cheese. What’s wrong? You’re not having fun.”

“If I don’t I won’t be invited to the next one, that it?”

“Don’t be silly. To me you’re practically an honored guest.”

“Honored guests rarely get the same honor twice.”

“I can honor them once and practically honor them another time and then invite them when others are actually and practically honored. But now you can honor me by getting up and socially enmeshed.”

“I just want to sit here and draw attention to myself and look around. You’ve a very interesting attractive group and Jane’s a doll though Phil’s a bit too driven, ass-kissing and affected to become a real artistic success.”

“Phil has every right to want what he hasn’t quite won but has long earned. The rest are everything you say but don’t want to be looked at just yet by someone sitting on a couch. Timing’s very important for a good party. Someone sits and stares before the right time comes, he makes people uncomfortable or close to it. Also, the right person or couple must usually be the first to sit. A stranger sits, particularly one who doesn’t come with a big rep or hasn’t yet made a terrific hit, the more frequent guests get the impression he’s not enjoying himself, which makes them doubly uncomfortable: his staring and apparent discomfort. Right now everyone here — if he’s to be stared at — wants it to be done by someone standing up and, allowing for variations of shyness or boldness and height, face to face. I wouldn’t expect you to know this, being part social animal but mostly hermit.”

“Hey, take it easy, for what am I doing that’s so wrong? You said someone will have to sit on the couch sooner or later, so why not me? Some people are the first in space. Others in the hearts of their partymen. Someone might be the first to get drunk tonight, another to break a valuable plate. I don’t want to be any of these, and even if I did want to I couldn’t be the first in space. So isn’t it better if I’m to be the first in anything—”

“You’ve a smooth protective and circumventive sense of humor, which could be a first-rate unctuous one if you did more to thwart people from detecting how protective it is. I’ll be back in two minutes. If you’re not off the couch by then or joined on it by anyone more than my cat, I’m moving it into the hallway and you can sit out there for as long as you like.”

“Deal.” I hold out my palm for her to slap. She looks at it and leaves. I bite off half the carrot stick. Someone sits on the couch’s other end. An actor I’ve seen in lead roles on public TV. He’s also worked in theater and movies. I smile and say hello. He nods, sets his glass down on the cocktail table, spills a little of it, “Shit!” He gets up for what I suppose is a napkin. “Here, use this,” taking out my bandanna handkerchief.

“I have one of my own, thanks very much.”

“I didn’t mean I’d think you’d use yours. Excuse me,” removing a scrap of chewed carrot off my lip, “the carrot. Because believe me, I’ll have to wash it some time after I get home, since I already wiped something up with it tonight, and wine leaves a nice smell.”

“Does it? Wouldn’t think so. What it does leave is a gorgeous stain, at least the piss I usually drink. I’ll get a paper towel,” and leaves.

He’s a good actor though I’ve never seen him in a movie or on the stage. He goes to the bar, gets a fresh glass of wine and a napkin for the bottom of the glass. Movies and TV have to be different than theater: many takes and the entire part doesn’t have to be memorized. I don’t see him anymore. Maybe they’re tougher than theater just because of those many takes and that the scenes aren’t filmed and taped in sequence. I don’t know much about those fields really, but can surmise. Accessible to so many women, but all those casting calls and waits. Bell rings. Cat weaves around lots of feet as he heads for the bedroom. I put on my glasses. Can’t see the cat but bedroom door crack widens an inch when nobody’s that close to it, so must be him going in or a draft. More people. Four to five greeted by Diana at the door. Just popping by, I overhear, on their way to wherever it is people go these days in evening dress, one saying “Rain’s frozen me stiff — what I need’s a drink,” and makes for the bar, tapping shoulders, poking triceps, startling some people when they see him in a tux. Maybe now she’s somewhere around. Coat hung up, umbrella snugged beside mine in the holder perhaps. It was, so there had to be some room left in it, and seeing her take out hers when she left is another reason I didn’t leave mine behind, or maybe only she tried squeezing her umbrella into the holder or someone leaving had just taken out his. Actor hasn’t come back. If they’d met, which they might have, and arranged to meet another time, they’d make a very handsome couple, though I doubt she’d enjoy knowing him after a week. That And-who-might-you-be? look and no smile given back, though could be he thought I was gay and he’s demonstrably or questionably not. I hear him from across the room. “‘It’s outrageous,’ he said, ‘and I simply won’t stand for it,”’ and a moment later everyone around him laughs. I don’t know why. Wasn’t an impersonation of a notable politico let’s say. Maybe he made a motion to sit. That’s an old slapstick shtick that could always do it, though I might be underrating his intelligence and overestimating his age, and I didn’t hear his entire remark. My glass is empty. I bring it down from my lips. Frozen man’s reaching below the bar where I suppose he knows or assumes the hard stuff is. I don’t remember emptying my glass. When I watched the crowd around the actor laugh or frozen man poke his way to the bar? I put the actor’s glass on the end table, wipe up the mess he left with my handkerchief and smell it. He’s right. Don’t know why I said it’d make a nice smell. Stupid, but something more. Policemen and performing celebrities as well as psychiatrists at parties and maybe even brain surgeons or all doctors and also scientists doing encephalic research make me uneasy at times and overeager to please. What else can I do for you, like your shoes and socks shined? Wine’s left a white cloud on the wood that won’t wipe off. Not my fault but someone who had only watched me when I wiped it might think it was, but I’m sure Diana or her cleaning women will know how to get it out. Should I tell her? I look at my lap. No matter how large in the crotch I buy my pants or how dark they are, my genitals still show through. Maybe I wear the wrong kind of underpants. This isn’t much fun. Should I get up and if up go to the door or bar? But I don’t want to go so soon. A woman might still come in whom I’ll want to meet and what do I have cooking at home? Bell rings. And drink his. In the Himalayas maybe one can still get a liver-eating amoebic disease. I pour his wine into my glass.