14 Stories

by Stephen Dixon

  My mother knocks on my bedroom door. “I’m setting a place for dinner for you tonight, and don’t say no.”

  “Not hungry now, ma, thanks.” I exercise, shower, dress. It’s still light out. The folks are at the dinner table. “Sit down,” dad says. I wash the cooking utensils that are in the sink, kiss my parents on the cheek and go to the park, sit by the lake, draw an abandoned rowboat, jog for a mile, watch the carousel close and the tail end of a women’s softball game, draw a catcher’s mitt and mask on the grass, buy sweet creamy pastries for my mother, dietetic cookies for my father, go to that same grocery store for fresh green beans and a four-pack of stout. Would I speak to her if she were here now? “You wouldn’t,” a friend recently said about something else, “because you never want to see your fantasies end,” but I don’t think he’s right. I wouldn’t speak to her without her speaking to me first. She could become repulsed or afraid if I did and I could become embarrassed and suspect in the store I’ve been shopping at for three years. She’d have to drop something and I could stoop to pick it up. Or stretch for something out of reach and I could say “May I help?” After I got whatever it was she reached for or dropped she’d say thank you and I’d mention the school we’re both familiar with and maybe a conversation could then begin. It could continue in the street and that neighborhood bar where I’d invite her for a beer. If she came into the store now I’d only look at her a few times, maybe get into her aisle under the pretense of searching for an item I never do find or for a bottle of chili sauce or vinegar the household could always ultimately use, but no actions if she didn’t elicit them more unguarded or venturous than that.

  Next door’s the corner candy store I go into to get the afternoon paper for my dad. He’ll gripe I’m only tossing good money away by buying such a rag but read it from beginning to end including the larger ads. She’s at the magazine rack in back, scanning the magazine covers while gnawing off the chocolate remains of an ice­ cream-pop stick. I open the paper I’ll buy, look at it as if checking a movie timetable, say huh-huh, and nod while folding the paper in two and pore over the many choices of my favorite candy brand. She’s taking a magazine off the rack. There’s a flavor I’ve never seen anywhere before called pink grapefruit. She slips the licked ice­cream stick into a back pocket and turns a page. And tangerine, which I think I had in the sour-fruit assortment and found either too tart or sweet. She’s coming front to pay for the magazine and I feel which of my pants pockets has the change. Her bell-bottom white denims have brown buttons for a fly. She isn’t carrying a shoulder bag but extracts a wallet from one of the two breast pockets of her denim workshirt. Sandals I’ve never seen, woven colorful cloth for a belt that’s half-tied, but hair, face, expression and walk all the same. Everything else the same. “Excuse me,” I say, “but would you mind if I took a brief look at the table of contents of your magazine?”

  “I’m really in a rush and they’ve plenty more copies back there.”

  “It’s just because they are in back and out of the way that I asked, though I don’t see why I should be such a laze. Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  I go to the back.

  “A dollar,” the proprietor says and she pays up and leaves. I find the same magazine, one I could always read, good author in it and poet I’ve mostly liked, many reviews, elegant ads for places and goods I could never afford, pay for it and the newspaper and pink­grapefruit candy and wait for my change. Her voice is deeper than I thought it’d be, unaffected, without regionalism or unpleasant twang, pitch or tone and she did seem in a hurry and genuinely sorry she couldn’t help me out.

  She’s at the corner in front of the store waiting for the light to change. Traffic’s heavy with lots of zipping cabs, cars, buses and trucks booming downtown one-way. “Judy,” I say. She turns and looks. “Now I know.” She points to her chest as if saying do you mean me? “You see, I used to teach at 54.”

  “What?”

  “The junior high school there.”

  “That long white brick building?”

  “You’re Judy Louis, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “But you answered to the name Judy before.”

  “My name’s Judy—though Judith, never Judy—but not Louis. You’ve got to have me mistaken for someone else.”

  “She graduated two years ago. I’m a sub there and had her class many times. I think it was an SP—a special class for gifted students.”

  “Never went there. And gifted I surely never was. I even thought your school was some kind of factory or warehouse or even a prison of sorts—I had no idea. I’m missing my light—excuse me.” She steps off the sidewalk as the light turns red, stays by the curb with her back to me, waiting for the light to change.

  “Naturally it must seem silly my pursuing this, but it’s still inconceivable to me how much you look like this girl.”

  “I hate being compared to anyone else. I don’t do it to others, but since I don’t know you you wouldn’t know that. I’ve also got to be a lot older than this girl if she was still in grade school two years ago. There’s the coincidence of our first names, I’ll grant you, but it isn’t a very odd first name so it’s really not much of a coincidence after all.”

  “But what I find even more curious is that I’ve seen you almost every morning for months and always thought I knew you from somewhere. Till just before when for the first time I felt certain who you were.”

  “I’ve seen you too. You walk very fast. Though going to work mornings I see lots of the same strangers from time to time.”

  “I don’t. Maybe because the school I teach at is so close to my home.”

  “Could be. Though one man downtown I see every day without fail, unless I’m late starting out that morning, is always getting out of the express across the platform as my local’s pulling in. And besides you and some schoolchildren and a lady, there’s a man I see practically every morning going into number 8 up the block as if back from work. And there’s this I’m sure husband-and-wife team who a few times a week are already in the same seats of the first car of the subway I take to work. And of course the I-don’t-know-how­many I repeatedly see climbing out of the station and while I’m walking to my office building and in the elevators up and down and restaurant I’ve my lunch in most days and counter place for my coffee breaks. And quite often I’ll get one or two both coming and going along the same streets and in the same stations and subway cars and stops as mine and all on the same day. It’s a big city, but you’d be surprised. Excuse me, my light.”

  “Wait till it turns green again.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. For your health, or a coffee then, or a beer.”

  “Oh, how do I say this? I’m with a man. For a year now. He stays with me. I’m sorry. Nice talking,” and she cuts through traffic to cross the avenue against the light.

  I see her the next day. On the opposite sidewalk heading for the subway she’ll take to work. It’s between 8:35 and 8:36. I’ve had the breakfast I have every weekday, given my father his daily insulin shot while he lay mostly asleep in bed, kissed my mother goodbye. “Good morning,” I yell when she’s directly across the street. She looks. I wave. We’re walking. She nods, doesn’t smile, never lingers, hurries on. All the clothes she’s wearing I remember from different ensembles on other warm sunny days. I watch her till she turns right at the park and I don’t see anyone enter or leave any buildings on her side. Nobody else even seemed to be on the street when I yelled. The block’s still empty of people except for two women in a passing car. Now a man leaves 34. Now a girl leaves 46 and a woman blows a kiss to her from a window on the third floor. Now the super’s helper lugs up a garbage can from the basement of the apartment house at the corner called The Delmoor. I’ve seen all these people as I’ve walked to work, though I don’t think more than once a week.

  On the remaining school mornings I’ll wave to her if she’s looking my way, but nothing more outgoing than
that. And next time at a store, if I happen to be near enough to speak frankly with her, I’ll apologize for what she might have thought was my presumptuous behavior on the street yesterday and explain I honestly believed she was the young woman I used to be a substitute teacher for and I wasn’t coming on with a line. She might then say she likes comparisons even less when she hears the same one a second time, and walk away. Or she could say she realizes mistakes are made and comparisons are inevitable and so it might have been she who was somewhat abrupt that day, and walk away. Or she could say “Will you please try and combat these impulses you seem to get of stopping me every time you see me to speak about yourself and this junior-high-school girl?” Or she could say “Listen, I’m actually the one who should be doing the apologizing, for the truth is I am Judy Louis but for unexplained reasons, which still seem unexplainable to me, I didn’t want to admit it that day. Perhaps because I wasn’t feeling right with myself or plainly just detested myself and you gave me the most ideal opportunity available of momentarily denying my very existence.” Or else “I was really in a rush that day and had no time to talk and surely not about that stifling school, which is the one part of my past life I most urgently want to forget.” And the truth might also be that she hasn’t a boyfriend and only said that to end our chat and discourage me from developing further interest in her. Maybe then I could propose the coffee or beer. If she consented, then at the coffee shop or bar I could suggest we have dinner that night. She could say she has a previous engagement though not one she couldn’t break. We could also see a movie, at her door kiss good night. Forget the kiss and previous engagement: she accepts my dinner invitation outright. The next weekend we could drive to a lake for the day or shore if she likes and bring a picnic there and that evening have an open-air lobster dinner somewhere and if she lives alone she could later invite me in for a nightcap. More likely it would be then we’d first kiss. Because on our first date I’d be ultrareserved and even gallant without seeming like a fop. As I’m sure she’d still be a bit wary of me from my having followed her to the corner when she was waiting for the light and next morning yelling good morning to her across the street and then waving to her whenever I see her those remaining school days and speaking openly to her in a store if it’s in a store I bump into her. The weekend after that we could plan to camp out I’d bring the sleeping bags and just in case there’s a bug problem I’m sure I could also borrow a tent. In a month I could ask to move in with her or if she’s with her parents or roommate we could look for our own place. But I’d prefer going abroad with her for around six weeks. Ancient hotels, inexpensive bistros and cafés. Light and dark native beers and stouts and all the time drawing a chronicle of our trip: everything from the rickety buses and flying buttresses to Judy dressing, undressing, sipping cafés au lait in big fluffy beds. We could return by ship if the fare’s not too steep, rent a flat in this neighborhood so I could be near my school and folks. And maybe after a while we could get married and have a child or get married without having a child or have a child without getting married but living together, loving one another, subbing for most of the year and drawing, engraving, maybe trying my hand at woodcuts and aquatints. I think this will happen one day though I don’t think the woman it will happen with will necessarily be her.

  THE SIGNING

  My wife dies. Now I’m alone. I kiss her hands and leave the hospital room. A nurse runs after me as I walk down the hall.

  “Are you going to make arrangements now for the deceased?” he says.

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want us to do with the body?”

  “Burn it.”

  “That’s not our job.”

  “Give it to science.”

  “You’ll have to sign the proper legal papers.”

  “Give me them.”

  “They take a while to draw up. Why don’t you wait in the guest lounge?”

  “I haven’t time.”

  “And her toilet things and radio and clothes.”

  “I have to go.” I ring for the elevator.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I am.”

  The elevator comes.

  “Doctor, doctor,” he yells to a doctor going through some files at the nurse’s station. She stands up. “What is it, nurse?” she says. The elevator door closes. It opens on several floors before it reaches the lobby. I head for the outside. There’s a security guard sitting beside the revolving door. He looks like a regular city policeman other than for his hair, which hangs down past his shoulders, and he also has a beard. Most city policemen don’t; maybe all. He gets a call on his portable two-way set as I step into one of the quarters of the revolving door. “Laslo,” he says into it. I’m outside. “Hey you,” he says. I turn around. He’s nodding and pointing to me and waves for me to come back. I cross the avenue to get to the bus stop. He comes outside and slips the two-way into his back pocket and walks up to me as I wait for the bus.

  “They want you back upstairs to sign some papers,” he says.

  “Too late. She’s dead. I’m alone. I kissed her hands. You can have the body. I just want to be far away from here and as soon as I can.”

  “They asked me to bring you back.”

  “You can’t. This is a public street. You need a city policeman to take me back, and even then I don’t think he or she would be in their rights.”

  “I’m going to get one.”

  The bus comes. Its door opens. I have the required exact fare. I step up and put my change in the coin box.

  “Don’t take this man,” the guard says to the bus driver. “They want him back at the hospital there. Something about his wife who was or is a patient, though I don’t know the actual reason they want him for.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” I tell the driver and take a seat in the rear of the bus. A woman sitting in front of me says “What’s holding him up? This isn’t a red light.”

  “Listen,” the driver says to the guard, “if you have no specific charge or warrant against this guy, I think I better go.”

  “Will you please get this bus rolling again?” a passenger says.

  “Yes,” I say, disguising my voice so they won’t think it’s me but some other passenger, “I’ve an important appointment and your slowpokey driving and intermittent dawdling has already made me ten minutes late.”

  The driver shrugs at the guard. “In or out, friend, but unless you can come up with some official authority to stop this bus, I got to finish my run.”

  The guard steps into the bus, pays his fare and sits beside me as the bus pulls out.

  “I’ll just have to stick with you and check in if you don’t mind,” he says to me. He pushes a button in his two-way set and says “Laslo here.”

  “Laslo,” a voice says. “Where the hell are you?”

  “On a bus.”

  “What are you doing there? You’re not through yet.”

  “I’m with the man you told me to grab at the door. Well, he got past the door. I tried to stop him outside, but he said I needed a city patrolman for that because it was a public street.”

  “You could’ve gotten him on the sidewalk in front.”

  “This was at the bus stop across the street.”

  “Then he’s right. We don’t want a suit.”

  “That’s what I thought. So I tried to convince him to come back. He wouldn’t. He said he’d kissed some woman’s hands and we can have the body. I don’t know what that means but want to get it all in before I get too far away from you and lose radio contact. He got on this bus. The driver was sympathetic to my argument about the bus not leaving, but said it would be illegal his helping to restrain the man and that he also had to complete his run. So I got on the bus and am now sitting beside the man and will get off at the next stop if that’s what you want me to do. I just didn’t know what was the correct way to carry out my orders in this situation, so I thought I’d stick with him till I found out from you.”