Long Made Short

by Stephen Dixon

  THE CALLER

  My wife answers and says “It’s for you,” and hands me the cordless and I go into the kitchen with it because she’s working in the living room and shut the door and say hello and a woman says “Jack, hi, it’s Ramona Bauer,” and I shout “What, Ramona Bauer?—not my old friend Ramona,” and she says “That’s right, and my old friend Jack, how are you?” and I say “God, how are you, I’m fine, but how are you and what have you been doing?” and she says she’s still in New Haven, different house though, and has two children, girl in college, boy graduating high school, girl has been a delight her entire life and at the very top of her class since kindergarten and is already a fantastic scientist, boy has some emotional problems but nothing that won’t be solved, she and her husband are divorcing after being married close to nineteen years and together for twenty-two, and I say “Sorry to hear that, it must be a very difficult thing to go through, especially for the children,” and she says “Not as much as it’s been for everyone enduring the two of us living together the last five years, and if you’re saying part of my son’s problem is because of the breakup, that’s true but a small part of it and will also be worked out,” and I say “Well good, I’m glad. I remember your husband. He has an unusual Slavic name I could never pronounce or spell,” and she says “Kaczmarek,” and I say “Kaczmarek, I still wouldn’t know how to spell it without seeing it, but he liked to climb mountains and jump from airplanes, and was a radio producer or assistant to one last time I saw you, which was when I drove to New Haven when you were living together,” and she says “Now he’s a TV and movie producer—documentaries mostly,” and I say “Good for him. I also read the obituary of your mother and sent you a note about it through their old address,” and she says “You did? I never got it though my father was still living there till about five years ago,” and I say “He’s all right, I hope,” and she says “Ninety-one and still, last I heard, never a health problem and barely a checkup, knock wood,” and she raps something twice, and I say “Anyway, I sent the note,” though now I remember I wanted to and maybe even wrote it but never sent it out, and she says “If he got it he never told me—did you address it directly to me?” and I say “Yes, with probably something about my condolences to your whole family,” and she says “That was sweet of you—believe me, if I’d received it I would have replied,” and I say “That’s okay, it happens. How is your brother, by the way—still in films? Because I haven’t seen his name on one for it must be fifteen years, but then there’s few American films I go to though I think I would have caught his name in the ads if he had any billing,” and she says “Listen, less we say about him or any of my family, the better. I’ve sort of cut myself off from all of them, even my father—imagine,” and she laughs, “their little pip-squeak Ramona, the one who could always be bossed around and whom they treated as if she never and could never grow up. Well, they still treat me that way and I’m fifty-three, so I just said—this was in relation to my divorce when I told them—‘Fuck you, gang,’ and I don’t hear from them anymore, not even my oldest and closest sister and certainly not my wacko brother,” and I say “She—but you don’t want to talk about it,” and she says “No, what?” and I say “The oldest one, Denise or Diana, lived in Mount Kisco, didn’t she?” and she says “What a memory you have about things I like to forget. Dina still does—Ms. Stability—hasn’t moved or been upset by anything in forty years,” and I say “On Elderberry Street, number one-o-four or six,” and she says “Eight, but still, that’s fantastic and you even got the berries right this time,” and I say “I didn’t use to?” and she says “I don’t know, didn’t you? For I was only kidding, but what about your family—your mother?” and I say “She’s old and ailing and not altogether there sometimes—her memory of what you just tell her goes pretty quickly but she’s still good with the distant past—she’s living in the same apartment where you first knew me, though with a full-time companion,” and she says “What a dear woman—I’m sorry she’s not well—please mention we spoke and give her an extra big hug from me next time you see her,” and I say “Will do,” and she says “I’m serious—tell her I still think of her fondly and give her that hug,” and I say “I’ll probably see her later today—I do almost every day for at least an hour, so I’ll do what you say,” and I will tell her though more likely tomorrow but won’t give the hug—it would seem too silly: “Here’s a hug from Ramona Bauer, woman I was engaged to almost thirty years ago, remember her?” and passing on kisses and hugs even to my own children isn’t something I like to do, and she says “What about the rest of your family—your brothers and sisters, they all well?” and I tell her one died in a bicycle accident twelve years ago last week, one’s a fully recovered alcoholic now a social worker in alcohol abuse, another moved to Texas to open a macrobiotic restaurant and we hardly hear from her anymore, the fourth has been married four times in the last twelve years and has seven children and now seems to have taken up with the future number five—“I don’t know what she’s got but it’s something that hasn’t slackened,” and she says “Wow, some rundown and such woe, and your father?—because you didn’t mention him,” and I say “Yes, seventeen—no, eighteen years ago this January,” and she says “I’m sorry, but I’m glad your mom’s still around—she was a doll, treated me wonderfully, comfortably, one of the family.” “And my father didn’t, I know—well, mixed marriage and all, which we almost had with almost mixed children. Not that it meant anything to us but he sure wasn’t keen on it—he was from a very religious family and was observant himself till just a year before I was born when both his parents died,” and she says “I understand, I’m not saying that—anyway, all in the past,” and I say “Right, in the past, but you have to know that much as he protested, you won him over without even trying,” and she says “Oh, I tried all right—that guy was tough to crack.” “What I meant was your high spirits, brains, good looks and humor and stuff and that you were an acting success so fast,” and she says “Oh yeah, a big big success,” and she laughs and I say “What’s funny?” and she says “Nothing, or success—just nothing,” and I say “Okay…and how’s Leonard What’s-his-name—Stimmell, because I’ve a funny story about him,” and she says “Good ole Lenny, one of my other dearest old friends—I see him whenever I come to town, practically—he’s such a gas, and talk about spirit? Nothing’s gonna stop him but everything will,” and I say “You mean he’s still plugging away at acting without much success?” and she says “Thirty-plus years of the best bit roles in TV commercials and walk-ons in soaps and occasionally small to fairly good roles in hole-in-the-wall theaters and summer stock, and same wife, no kids—they’d interfere with his constant auditions and he said they also couldn’t afford them, Laurie still doing temporary office work while pursuing her opera career,” and I say “My story about him touches on that—his commercials,” and she says “You saw him in a waiter’s uniform at a restaurant and asked him for a menu when he was actually performing in a commercial?” and I say “It was at the Belvedere Fountain Café in Central Park—eight years and a few months ago, and he was resting between shoots; I remember it distinctly. My oldest boy was still in that little carrying sack over my chest—a Snugli—and probably snoozing,” and she says “Oh, that’s lovely, precious, and I can just see it, and we never even talked about your own family—are there any others?” and I say “My wife, a younger boy,” and she says “Two—you got your hands full,” and I say “Not so far, and yours turned out okay, or will—but Leonard…he told you he saw me with my baby?” and she says “Someone else I know had the same experience with him in a Soho restaurant—it’s hilarious how he’s typecast,” and she laughs. “But he’s such a sweetie—they should have had children when they could.” “And Myron Rock?” and she says “Three kids, two divorces, slew of groupies.” “I meant—but anyway, so you see him,” and she says “When I come in sometimes—he in fact said he got a nice letter from you regarding his last book,” and
I say “I saw it advertised and wrote him care of his publisher something like ‘Glad you hung in there, I couldn’t.’” “So you haven’t?” and I say “Gave it up for good some fifteen years ago, though I’m always reading it.” “Any success?” and I say “A few times at reading it.” “Ho-ho, but the one you wrote him about was his best, didn’t you think?” and I say “Flat, forced, fake and familiar and with a stupid commercial title—In Bed With Clark Gable or something.” “It was Hollywood Here I Come—his experiences screenwriting there, and a double meaning which you, the teacher, got, if not even a triple, but why’d you write him if you thought it so bad?” and I say “Just what I told you: because he stuck with it—crummy book but a book every three years or so and apparently able to live fairly well off his work, which I would have loved but didn’t have whatever it is to do it.” “So you never had a book published?” “One little measly one—I’ve plenty of copies I bought for a dollar each so I’ll send you one if you like.” “That’d be nice, thanks, and your friend Henry?” “Henry Greenfield?” “Yes.” “How’s he doing?” “That’s right,” and I say “I see him about once every eighteen months—he’s completely changed: skinny instead of stocky, shaved his skull, big beard, wears an earring and kiddy clothes and has become a visual artist—he made enough in antiques to retire—and he and Gilda split up after twenty-five years,” and she says “I liked her, lots of spunk and smarts, even if she didn’t care for me—remember?” and I say “Even where and when she said it—they and I were subbing together at a Bronx junior high school and it was on the train to work and she said ‘What do you think Ramona has against me?’” “I never had anything against her.” “I know, which I told her then—I think it was all out of envy—your profession, personableness, income and that you didn’t have to hack it out as a sub every day. Anyway, I see her now even more than I do Henry—he’s become a bit too odd, the new face and costume each time and hip talk and woman after woman after woman and each five years younger than the previous one till they’re now younger than his daughter, who’s first-year med school, by the way.” “How could it be—shy little Phoebe?” “Little Phoebe who’s about ten feet tall.” “In size?” “Both…but how’s your old acting-school friend Thalia?” and she says “Thelma—it was at her party, in fact, where we met, wasn’t it?” and I say “It was a friend of my brother Peter’s, which is how I came to it, and you came with Thelma, so maybe she knew the host or someone who knew him—that was some night, Christmas Eve, snowing, and you and I talked awhile and then left for midnight services at Saint Patrick’s because you wouldn’t mind praying and I’d always wanted to be on the line there outside with someone like you who’d cuddle into me because of the cold, and it happened—well, I’ve told you this before, nothing like fantasies realized,” and she says “I think you told me it that very night,” and I say “It was the same with my wife, almost same circumstances, but a New Year’s Eve party I met her at.” “Your brother invited you?” “No, he was dead by then—I was actually invited by the hosts and saw her, my future wife—” “What’s her name?” “Carolyn.” “And your boys’?” “Andrei and Daniel, two writers she’s written about and admires and even knew, I think—and fell in love at first sight there—I did—In other words, at the party I was immensely attracted to her and introduced myself or had someone introduce us—” “Surely you remember,” and I say “I introduced myself and asked whom she knew—something dumb like that—woman or boy friend giving the party and found out she came with a woman friend, as you had twenty years before, and was single.” “What would you have done if she wasn’t?” “Probably made a pass at her, which I think I was still doing then—I know I was: if I couldn’t get the whole works then maybe just a quick fling. Though looking back at it it’s not something I’ve liked in myself and don’t especially care for when men do it to Carolyn at parties and gatherings of various sorts.” “It’s happened that often with her?” “Four or five times I know of—she’s very pretty with an attractive figure besides whatever else she gives off.” “What do you do when it happens?” and I say “Well, she tells me it after, but once I overheard it. ‘You’re married?’ the guy said, ‘well that’s too bad’—something like that—a sort of wry disappointment, which I think is what I used to use, since it doesn’t completely cut you off, but with her, you see—this confusion the men have I mean—it’s also because she doesn’t wear a wedding band.” “Why not?” and I say “She lost it doing the laundry in our building’s laundry room.” “How long ago?” “Three years,” and she says “She should get one because then maybe fewer men would make passes and you’d be less agitated by it,” and I say “I’m not really agitated by it and I’ve made a couple of passes or approaches or whatever you call it to women with wedding bands—before I was married, of course—though truth is when I made them I didn’t look at their wedding fingers for a band, and besides, some married women wear it on the right hand Russian-style—I just looked at my own hands to see which one the band’s normally on—and some unmarried women wear the band as a precaution of some sort, a safety device—I’m not getting the right word, but some strategy.” “Certainly not a strategy to attract men.” “Well, some men might be more attracted to married women, less of a threat.” “The husband could be a threat if he’s there,” and I say “True, true, anyway, she wasn’t married, so didn’t have a ring and doesn’t now.” “But you seem happily married.” “Very much so,” and she says “That’s wonderful—Josh and I were too for a few years but then we should have split up ten years ago but didn’t because of the children.” “Must be difficult living with someone you don’t want to live with,” and she says “Oh, despite what I might have said we remained compatible, we’re still compatible, he’s a dear, fair very decent sweet guy—no arguments or complaints, never yells—just he was always uninteresting and invariable, if I can speak openly. If you don’t like this, please say so,” and I say “No, it’s all right, what?” and she says “No spark is what I mean and little to no curiosity outside of his own work and the one thing we were interested and involved in together, the well-being of our kids—maybe the first couple of years before we married he was interesting or living with him was or seemed to be, but after that, well… I just couldn’t see myself going through ten to twenty more years of a totally dull compatible marriage with a boring lifeless man and most of those years without the distractions of kids—I in fact thought it’d make me nuts—I know, I know, I’ve made my point all too clear and probably contradicted myself several times and sound to you repellently faddish, so excuse me.” “It’s not that,” and she says “Not what?” “Everything you said, and I’m sorry for what you both have gone through,” and she says “Don’t worry about that, Josh finally realized with me our marriage was a tremendous mistake and is much happier with the situation now, but can you—I mean, you can be sure, to get back to what we were originally saying—in fact I still wear it, left hand, but not anymore the engagement ring, to feel safer on the street as you said—but that gives away what I was about to say, which is that I always wore my wedding band, no matter what I thought of my marriage, and I also once lost it but bought a new one in days,” and I say “So you think it odd my wife doesn’t replace hers?” “Not odd or no odder than that you don’t encourage her to or get her a new one—after all, yours sounds like a wonderful marriage,” and I say “It is, with minor problems of course.” “Like what?” “Like what everybody must go through when they don’t go through real marital problems—minor, too normal to describe—but if I just went out and got her a wedding band it would have to match mine like the original.” “Not really; mine didn’t—though if you insisted, then just as easy: you show yours and they match it.” “I don’t have her size.” “Ask her—eliminates the surprise, but you forfeit that,” and I say “Who knows his or her finger size? For it wasn’t that simple when we got our fingers measured by the man we ordered them from.” “Then you go back to him and he probably has a recor
d of her size, so you can still pull off the surprise.” “Fingers don’t expand?” “If you get a lot heavier perhaps, but the way you spoke about her, she hasn’t.” “She’s actually lost weight, and she was never heavy, since we married.” “Then if she hasn’t lost a lot there should be no problem, or who knows, because maybe she likes not wearing one.” “What do you mean?” and she says “Some people don’t like wearing anything on their fingers or around their necks and wrists and so on.” “That’s what you meant? It didn’t seem so,” and she says “Then maybe I don’t know what I meant—really, what’s the difference? Because there was nothing to it,” and I say “Of course, that’s not what I was saying—by the way, how’d you get my number?” and she says “Well, it’s a story—I called your school—” “How’d you know I worked there?” “I bumped into Ronnie Salter a few years ago—that’s what I should have started with—” “Ronnie, how’s he doing?” and she says “Oh, gosh, I forget—driving a cab, maybe not that—a fire fighter, did he say? I really forget, but I asked him, or he just came out and told me where you taught, but the school always rang your office and nobody was in, till I finally got wise and asked for your department and called it and they said you had exactly two office hours a week and they couldn’t give out your home phone number, but it was listed in Manhattan Information under your wife’s maiden name, and they gave me it. I thought it’d be nice renewing contact with you—I hate losing touch with people I truly considered close friends—how many are there of those? And we go back nearly thirty years.” “More I bet, and that’s very nice of you.” “And so I thought we could get together again. I’d love hearing about you, your wife and what she does, and children and things,” and I say “No, it’s good and I want you to meet her and if we could get the timing right, the kids.” “I’d love it.” “You still get to New York regularly then?” and she says “From time to time, mostly on business.” “And what’s that?—but this must be costing you,” and she says “Don’t worry about it—think of all I’ve saved these years without calling you. I own a pottery shop where we sell and teach—I’ve a couple of women in with me,” and I say “You were interested in pottery, that’s right, almost as much as acting.” “Not only interested. For many years after I gave up acting it was all I did—study, dug my own mud. I even showed, not that anything came of it—so we both, you could say, went through the same thing, but I stuck with it though mostly now running the shop and teaching it, not something I especially enjoy anymore but I can’t for the rest of my life rely on Josh even if he wanted me to,” and I say “I can understand, you want to be independent.” “I have to be.” “Right, you have no choice—so, would you like to have lunch here?” and she says “Sure, it’s why I called, to see you and talk.” “What I mean is you’d have to come here, if you’re going to meet Carolyn and the kids, since we have no car and I never get up there.” “I know—I can’t plan anything for a couple of weeks but some time after that—let me give you my number and I’ve got yours and your office hours and one of us will phone the other,” and I take down her number and in case I lose it, I say, her address and she says “Well, I’ve really loved this, and when you see your mother please don’t forget that special hug from me,” and I say “I’m sure she’ll remember you, thanks, and I’ll be talking to you,” and she says “Same here, good-by,” and we hang up.