Time to Go

by Stephen Dixon

  “I’d wash its eyes first. That’s almost the first thing they do after the birth—to prevent infection, I think.”

  “Right. Eyes. Clean. And boy he’s a big beaut. I’d say around nine pounds. And why don’t I like the name Gene? You relaxed now? Yeah, baby’s just fine. Well, you know, you just about always associate the name you’re going to give your kid with the people in the past who had it, and I once had a Gene in my class—that right, the—”

  “I’m still in your class. I haven’t dropped out but I am thinking of it again, though it wouldn’t be the courageous—”

  “Well, this kid Gene—all right, not a kid—a student—was kind of a pest. Not just extrapolating too much in class and hogging a lot of the talk. But lauding me one minute, damning me the next. And on the students’ evaluation reports of their teachers last year—for the course guide they publish for themselves? I got one comment that was so nasty and cheap—that I was only in teaching for the money? Remember that one? ‘Mr. Taub says he can’t teach writing, that we can only teach ourselves. So why is he at this university then? I’ll tell you.’ That my chairman wanted to speak to me about it, because he said one of the deans had called him—not that I gave a goddamn—and you know who I think wrote that report?”

  “I hope you’re not saying it was me. I know who wrote it—or at least have two good possibilities, since I think it was a combined effort—but I of course can’t give their names.”

  “Not only that, this kid Gene likes to take his shoes off in class, and he doesn’t wear socks. And he occasionally picks his toes or plays with them during most of the class, which wouldn’t be so bad if he sat at the other end of the table—bad for me I mean—but he always sits a seat or two away from me. I’ve hated this habit of his but never said anything. Okay, I’ve given plenty of reasons why it can’t be that name, so enough complaining. And baby’s nice and comfy now. Cord’s neatly tied, face and body thoroughly sponged. He’s as clean and healthy as can be. What a kid. Want to feed him now?”

  “I don’t think your wife will have much luck feeding him so soon, with a bottle or by more natural means. And what about the placenta? Has it come out yet? If it hasn’t at the next contraction you should get her to push.”

  “The placenta, honey. Has it come out yet?”

  “You’d know if it had. It looks like the raw horsemeat they feed the lions in the zoo. I was there when my mother had my youngest sister. I watched the entire delivery—special permission for siblings sixteen years and over—she was a change of life baby, in case you’re wondering—and my parents also told the doctor I was pre-premed. And she couldn’t feed Ramona for two days, till the milk came. Even after that it was rough for weeks.”

  Magna’s standing by the door. “What are you yelling about a placenta for? Who’s that?”

  “Gene you-know-who. Here, take the baby and see if it will feed, honey,” and lodging the receiver between my shoulder and neck, I pretend to give her a baby.

  “Are you really talking to a student that way? You don’t want him to think you’re insane. You shouldn’t get so close to your students. Dinner will be ready in three minutes. Spaghetti’s already in and you like it al dente.”

  “Make it softer tonight.”

  She leaves. “But you were saying about me, Mr. Taub?” Gene says.

  “Whatever it was, I got to go. Nice talking to you.”

  “But if you had the baby and she’s feeding it or is trying to, you have time to talk a few more moments, right?’”

  “About your work?”

  “More about the principles involved in writing and technique overall. Because, quite truthfully, not once have I ever fully agreed with a thing you’ve said about technique, as much as I admire—”

  “Oh stop that nonsense and leave me alone. I’m busy and I wish you’d see that and I shouldn’t have joked around with you on the phone in the first place and I’m hanging up now, Gene.”

  “Oh say, a real conclusion. A hanging-up. My teacher is going to hang up on me. What finality.”

  “Not on you. I’m simply putting the receiver down. My dinner’s ready. I’m very hungry.”

  “You’re right and I guess I have taken enough of your time. Too much, probably. You’ll have to excuse me.”

  “Sure.”

  “And my offer still stands, despite all the things that went between us. You need a driver of your car or someone to drive you in his car—”

  “You return the bicycle?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t want you to get in trouble or the bicycle owner to think his or her bike was stolen.”

  “Very kind of you. You were always a very kind guy. You always have something nice to say about everyone’s work in class. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but there it is. And come to think of it, since we do disagree so strongly about the principles of writing and because I did take you already for one term, maybe I should drop out of the class while I still have time.”

  “Maybe that’s a good idea. Do what you think best.”

  “You do want me to drop, though, don’t you?”

  “No, you’re okay. You cause a little excitement in class that I kind of like. And also having you there as an adversary sort of my countering your ideas as much as you countering mine. Something like that. You can understand if I’m not too articulate tonight.”

  “I don’t know if I like being used in class like that.”

  “You aren’t, entirely. Listen—”

  “And if you really didn’t like my playing with my toes, as you called it, why didn’t you just say so? I’m not addicted to the practice.”

  “I was hoping someone else would before me. But the class is too damn tolerant.”

  “Except for me.”

  “Dinner’s on the table,” Magna says at the door.

  “That was my wife. She says the placenta’s ready to come out but she wants to do it in the bathroom where it’ll make less of a mess than in this room. So, must go, Gene. Goodbye.”

  “I’ll wear socks from now on and won’t take my shoes off once. I’m staying in your class, in other words. I also like the exchange of ideas we have and—”

  “Anything you want.” I hang up.

  “You okay?” I say to Magna.

  “No, there’s another one,” holding her stomach. She looks at her watch. “The last three have come more regularly. I think we should go soon. First eat up. You’ll need the food. I’ll be resting in the bedroom.”

  I walk her to the bedroom, then go to the dining room and start eating. Phone rings. “I’m not going to answer it, Magna,” I yell out. “Don’t answer it either.” Phone keeps ringing.

  “I’m all right enough to get it,” she yells back and she goes down the hallway, picks up the receiver, says “No, Professor Taub can’t be disturbed, Gene. He’s eating the placenta and it’s bad luck to stop the father in the middle of that rite…I’m feeling fine, Gene, thank you, and you’re wrong—I’m telling the absolute truth.”

  Wheels

  A man wheels his child. Wheels or pushes? he thinks. She’s in the stroller and he wheels her to the shopping mall about a half mile from his apartment house. At the supermarket in the mall he’ll get a quart of skim milk for his wife and the green can of Similac and food for tonight and deli for lunch and fruit and cellophane tape she said she needed and bran muffins and low-fat cottage cheese and the pint or quart container of yogurt, depending on how heavy he thinks the total load will be, and also something to cook for the cats for the next few nights she said, turkey legs if they have, turkey wings she knows they always have. He’s also to pick up the prints at the camera shop at the mall. His wife said they’re mostly of his daughter alone or with his wife’s mother when she was here last weekend. If the weather holds he’ll then wheel her to the little park near the mall for a half hour to an hour. He’ll carry the food and photos in the canvas bag he has her diapers and things and a complete clothes change
in, while he pushes the stroller with one hand. Every block or so he’ll switch hands. He’ll sit on the bench in the shade if it’s available. If it’s not, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, since it’s been available since he’s gone to that park to sit on it, and it’s the only bench in the shade there and he doesn’t like to sit in the sun. If the baby sleeps while he sits, he’ll read. If the baby isn’t asleep by the time they get to the park and doesn’t fall asleep soon after, he’ll play with her: stand her on his knees and on the bench seat, keep her, balanced as she stands and holds on to the top of the bench or tries to climb up the back slats, let her pull his handkerchief—which he’ll put there for that purpose—out of his shirt pocket or jingle his keys but not put them in her mouth, cradle her, make funny faces for her, show her the photos of herself—if they’re ready—to see how she’ll react to them, give her the teething ring to play with or chew, hold her high under her arms and fly her down to his lips or to where their foreheads can touch, hold her not upside down but at a downward angle where the blood doesn’t suddenly rush to her head, so she can rip grass from the ground.

  He looks down at her as he wheels her. She turns around, smiles at him, turns back around. She has on three layers of clothing. It’s sunny but a little cool, so he doesn’t think she’s overdressed. Her undershirt, stretchie, jogging outfit he supposes it could be called—looks just like the adult ones—and a sweater, but because only one button will stay buttoned, it could be too tight. So, four layers on top, three on the bottom. No, four there too if he counts the rubber pants, and he should since they can make her genital area very warm. Because two of these clothings don’t cover her from the top of her legs down, he doesn’t think the bottom part’s overdressed. But her shoulders are bunched up with clothing. Undershirt and probably the jogging jacket under the sweater must have inched up and she looks humpbacked from behind. She also has a baseball cap on. He bought it yesterday in the variety store in the mall, sewed it smaller in back and cut off the “Little Slugger” patch over the peak. “They had no pink baseball caps,” he told his wife and then a couple of people in their apartment building who commented on a blue cap for a girl, “and the red ones they had,” he only told his wife, “didn’t come in size small or they were all out of them.” He didn’t ask. He should have perhaps—red would have been better—but he doesn’t like to ask sales people for things he can’t see or find. Then they go through drawers and display cases or into the stockroom and usually come up with nothing and he always apologizes for their efforts. His wife liked the cap but said “People will say this proves you wanted a boy,” which would be untrue; he just wanted a safe delivery and a healthy child. So he bought the last size—small blue cap because neither his wife nor he liked the typical sunbonnet or baby’s white hat.

  But her clothes bunched up in back. It reminds him of his father when he wheeled him through Central Park. He lived with his folks then and wheeled his father almost every mild Saturday and Sunday through various parts of the park. Sometimes across it—they lived in the West Seventies—to the Metropolitan Museum and once to the Whitney. His father didn’t like the paintings there but did the elevator—”Nice and big,” his hands and expression said, “—never saw such a big elevator in my life.” “It’s for the paintings,” he told him. “Oh,” his father’s expression said, impressed. And the Jewish Museum, but it was closed because it was Saturday. “Should’ve known,” he probably told him because he really should have known, and if he did say something like that, his father probably raised his shoulders signifying “No big deal.” And the Guggenheim—maybe on that same day because the two museums are so close—but his father got scared at the top of the ramp where the elevator let them off, gestured that Will might look too intently at one of the paintings and forget the chair he was holding and it could roll out of control, so they took the next elevator down, looked at some prints on the ground floor and left. “You want to try to get our admission price back?” his father gestured, and Will either shook his head or said no.

  But his daughter’s cap from behind. His father wore what he called a fishing cap, though he never fished in his life. “I eat fish, I don’t fish,” he used to say when he could still speak. Beige, perforated, a long peak, when the cap wore out he always bought the same exact kind. There was a store near his office that had been selling that cap for forty years. When his father had to give up his office because of his illness, Will went downtown to buy him that cap. So both sports caps for nonparticipants in those sports and both to keep out the sun. Their hair’s similar also. Very fine and thin and light. His father had little hair—he was bald on top—but the sparse side hair was almost white by this time. His daughter is blonde and doesn’t have much hair either. She’s not bald—just that it’s thin and fine and only grown two to three inches. It’s also the way she’s slumped. She’s in the sitting rather than the reclining position of the stroller—a Maclaren Buggy, English, very sturdy and safe. Except when he hung the canvas bag filled with groceries on the handles, which the Maclaren instructions advised not to—the stroller isn’t built to support such a weight on the handles; it falls backwards. It fell over twice with her in it. Once she hit the back of her head on the sidewalk. There was no bump or bruise but he was scared that day that she might have been hurt worse than she seemed. She cried for several minutes, didn’t smile for an hour. He observed her carefully the whole day for signs of a concussion. At night he got up several times to make sure she was all right. He does that occasionally—every second to third night—but that night did it every couple of hours. Touched her temples, felt her forehead and hands for warmth, held his hand an inch over the back of her head to feel the body heat, listened for breathing and movement. He told his wife about the accident. Not the first one, since their daughter wasn’t hurt. But he did the second time so she wouldn’t put anything heavy on the handles. He should have figured that out after the first fall, but he didn’t. Also told her so she’d observe their daughter for any signs of illness. His wife said she’d never hang anything heavy on the handles. “The instructions said specifically not to. It can’t support too much extra weight there. I asked you to read the instructions when we bought it.” He didn’t and still hasn’t, not that he knows where they are now, though she might. She puts lots of things like that away, also the cartons that things like strollers come in, in case they have to be sent or brought back. When they lived in her apartment in New York they didn’t have the room to. But he knows how to open and close the stroller in seconds, and what else could go wrong with it?

  But she’s in the sitting position. Canvas bag with her things and his book hanging on one of the handles. Seated like his father in the wheelchair, which only had one position. So both vehicles have handles he holds. And because she is in that position—less comfortable, it seems, and not as easy for her to be in as the reclining position—she has to use her backbone more to sit up—she slumps over a little to the side. As his father slipped to the side in his wheelchair. But he was always to one side or the other in the chair, never straight up for more than a few seconds. He didn’t have the strength to sit up. And both strapped in at the waist, she with a seatbelt that’s part of the stroller, his father with a thick terrycloth bathrobe belt that Will tied around him and the back of the chair. He’d press his father’s hand and say “Squeeze hard as you can,” just to see what his father’s strength was that day, and his father would usually give a little squeeze to almost none, then a look which said “Well, what can I do? Not the grip I had when I was pulling teeth all day.” Never a look though of “Boy, life is hell. Don’t ever grow old. Kill yourself or have someone do it for you if you ever get as sick as I. Plan for it ahead of time, in fact. Even put away over the years a lethal dose of sleeping pills for that day.”

  His father liked the park better than the museums. Museums he tolerated because Will wanted some variety in these outings. But his father liked most of all to face the sun and just sit in his chair overlo
oking a big field or meadow, with Will on a bench beside him, and read the Times, which will put on his lap and turned the pages for him, or watch people playing and going by. If he made in his pants Will wanted to get him home fast as he could. That happened just about every time they went to the park. Sometimes when they passed a park restroom will said “Do you think you have to make one or two?” and his father usually nodded. “Which one?” and his father usually put his hand over his crotch. Will then wheeled him into the restroom and helped him urinate into the plastic urinal he brought along in a shopping bag with other things, which he then emptied into the toilet. Or stood him up, walked him into the stall and sat him on the toilet if it was clean. If it wasn’t he held him in a squatting position just above the seat. Then he wiped him, pulled up his pants and opened the stall door if there was one and sat him back into the chair. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes his father had already made by the time he got his zipper open or pants down. He never went out of his way to be near a park restroom. He knew where they all were in the park area they went to, so he could have easily directed them past one every time. Sometimes he thought men coming into the restroom would think they were perverts and he’d have to explain. He got angry at his father sometimes—usually late at night when his father was in bed—and shouted things like “I can’t clean up your crap again—it’s just not in me—can’t you hold it in till I get you on the toilet?” and then felt very bad over it and apologized. After the apology, his father usually nodded but never smiled. “Never again will I yell at him for anything,” he always told himself after, but a month or so later he shouted at or scolded his father for the same thing. But he thinks he did all right by his father then. He exercised him, fed and dressed him, was mostly soft-spoken and patient to him, helped give him showers and baths, injected him, massaged his feet and hands, shaved him and cut his hair, installed an intercom system between their bedrooms and any time at night his father seemed to need him—heavy breathing, groans—he was there in seconds. He did this for four years but his mother did three-quarters of the work.