What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “If it’s snowing,” she says, “I hope you freeze your balls off and die, goodbye.”

  “And if it’s raining or let’s say the meteors are showering as they are now but weren’t then showering? Or the sun’s thundering and mountains are lightninging and stars and moon are closing in and the earth’s fissuring and oceans are tidalwaving and this village and your city and our country and countries and continents are disappearing worldwide? Day the earth ended—a time-torn title for a short story but a workable theme for one I’d work on if I hadn’t used it twice before. Remember the husband and wife archeological team? The last two people on earth who seek shelter in the cave they’ve been exhuming for years? And just as the cave’s crumbling with them in it they discover an intact skull and complete skeleton and enfaced slate and stylus that are probably a million years older than the oldest bones and writing materials ever found of protohuman American, and also the skeleton’s digging and cooking utensils that are very much like our own. And what about old Philly Worstwords, who’s awakened from a series of dreams of the successive loves of his youth and artistic successes of his middle age, to find his top floor apartment walls collapsing and all the surrounding buildings plummeting? And from that hospital bed in his now towering wall-less single room, observing the dissolution of his neighborhood and then the entire city and countryside beyond. ‘Why me?’ he kept asking—remember that, Storm? ‘Why me, why me, why me?’”

  AN OUTING.

  It’s raining. The rain stops. The puddles dry up. The night falls. The day comes. It’s raining. There’s thunder. Lightning can be seen by those who can see or who see it or those who remember it when they saw. Something like that. A master I’m not. I get out of bed. It’s time. The rain stops. I suppose the puddles are beginning to dry up.

  I wash and shave. I’ve come a long way. Last night I was asleep. Tonight I’ll most likely be asleep. The night after tonight, or tomorrow night as they say, I’ll probably be asleep too. And maybe one time during the day of these days I’ll be asleep in what’s called a nap. But still asleep. A sleep that might last for about an hour. That’s about the length of my naps. Though some have been as long as two hours. One nap I had lasted three hours I believe. A long time ago. And one lasted so long that it could no longer be called a nap. But I should get going. I’ve come so far this time that I feel I want to continue.

  I make myself a breakfast of two eggs and toast. I make a pot of coffee and drink two cups of it. I drink a glass of water. I go to the bathroom. What I do there is my business. I dress. I leave the apartment. On the stairway going downstairs I tell myself now’s not the time to stop. On the ground floor I repeat to myself now’s not the time to stop. In the building’s vestibule where the mailboxes are I tell myself I’ve made it this far this time I might as well try to see it through to the end. On the stoop leading to the sidewalk I say to myself I’ve made it outside at least but now where will I go? On the sidewalk I’m about to say something else to myself or repeat one of the things I just said to myself when a woman approaches. I raise my hat to her. She smiles. I set the hat back on my head. She passes. I look up. The sun’s trying to break through. I look down. Still plenty of puddles on the sidewalk and street. The puddles will dry up faster if the sun does break through. That’s elementary, I think. What’s also elementary, I think, is that the puddles will increase in size and depth and possibly spill over to form secondary puddles if it soon rains as hard as it did the last two times. What isn’t elementary, I think, meaning I’m thinking and have been thinking what is and isn’t elementary to me, is to think about the mathematical proportions of sun and rain in relation to puddles, secondary or otherwise, and how much water would be lost in relation to water gained or something like that if it rains again, though if the sun comes out real strong before it rains. Meaning, if the sun comes out real strong, or is really just a sun of normal intensity and warmth for this time in this area, before it rains as hard as it did the last two times or just rains an average rainfall. Oh, better to forget it than try to explain it. I’m not a scientist, mathematician or meteorologist. A weatherman, let’s say. To me rain is rain, puddles are puddles, the sun’s the sun.

  Standing in front of my building I tell myself I can head up or down this street, toward the avenue with buildings and stores on both sides of it or toward the avenue that borders the park. Both avenues are at the end of my sidestreet and have a subway station three blocks south of the corner, though only one has a subway station seven blocks north of the corner, as the station on the park avenue is a terminus. But all that would only be important if I wanted to take a subway, and if I did, if I wanted to go north or south on it, none I want to do.

  I walk toward the avenue with buildings on both sides of it rather than the avenue with only luxury apartment houses on one side of it that face the park. The sun’s broken through. Most of the clouds have disappeared. I suppose the puddles have begun to dry up. And now it’s beginning to rain. A sunshower. I used to love them as a boy. And the rainbow that would come soon after the sunshower. Both of which I still love as a man. But quick. Under cover. Before my only street clothes get soaked.

  A woman walks by holding an opened umbrella. I raise my hat. She raises the umbrella. I get under it and hold the umbrella rod right above the handle while she holds the crook. She came from the avenue with stores on it. We walk toward the avenue that borders the park. It’s a woman’s umbrella, brightly colored and with a thin leather handle and strap, but the canopy isn’t wide enough to protect two average-sized adults walking a foot apart from each other, so we move closer till our hips touch. Then our arms holding the umbrella and next our elbows touch. Her hand moves a few inches up the rod, folds over mine and brings both our hands back to the crook. I switch hands on the umbrella so my arm closest to her can go around her waist. She takes her hand off the handle so she can curl that arm around my neck, Now almost the entire one sides of our bodies touch. Even the timing of our strides are changed so when we move our inside legs forward our thighs touch.

  We stop. Our cheeks touch. We close our eyes. I don’t know if her eyes stay closed but mine do as we kiss. She licks my chin. I suck her lips. She sticks her tongue in my mouth. I press my tongue against hers and then try to reach its roots. We start walking. It’s now pouring. The sun’s out. Our mouths are still joined but our tongues are back in place. We walk into a lamppost. We laugh and shake our hurt toes. One rung of the canopy’s crushed. We’ve reached the avenue, cross it and enter the park.

  She leads me to a spot right behind the park’s peripheral stone wall. She takes my hand off her waist and puts it on her breast. My other hand continues to hold the umbrella above our heads. She puts her hands on my back and chest and slides down my body that way without letting go of me till I can no longer reach her breast. Then I can’t even reach the top of her head without crouching over her. She’s taken her slicker off and is sitting on it on the ground. She pulls up her skirt to her waist, points to herself down there and nods her head. I shake my head. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth wide and keeps it open, puts her arms around my ankles and squeezes them tight. I get down on the coat. It lightnings. It thunders. The rain’s coming down harder. I unzip my fly, pull myself out, the way we do it I won’t say, though I never stop holding the umbrella over us and not one part of our bodies gets wet.

  The rain stops. The sun never left. I hear cars and buses passing and blaring on the other side of the stone wall. Commercial traffic isn’t allowed on the park avenue but I hear what sounds like a huge trailer truck. A parks department worker appears on a small hill nearby raking leaves. He sees us and leans with his chin on the tip of his rake handle and whistles. I wave him away. She winks and waves at him to come. He walks down the hill, drops the rake with the teeth part sticking up and unbuckles his belt. I’m through anyway. I get up. He gets down and takes my place but in a different way. I close the umbrella and make sure I don’t step on the rake head as I start out of the
park.

  There are many more puddles on the streets and sidewalks than before. I’m sure the new process of their beginning to dry up has already begun. I cross the avenue. I feel and hear drops on my hat, which I only now realize I never took off. I look up. It’s raining. The sun’s gone. I open the umbrella. It starts teeming. I think about the park couple probably getting wet. I run to my building, but the wind or whatever the air pressure against the inside of an open umbrella is called that keeps one from running as well as he’d run if the umbrella were closed, slows down my running to a walk and then a standstill and then begins pulling me back across the avenue as if I were attached to an opened parachute. I close the umbrella. I run to my building and into the vestibule, and after checking the mailbox for mail, run upstairs. I unlock my front door, go inside, lock it, stand the umbrella against a wall and take off all my clothes and hang them up on the clothesline above the bathtub and put my shoes in the tub. I wash, make a lunch of canned soup and two cheese sandwiches, eat them and drink a glass of milk and get into bed. After all the running about and such just before, I’m sure I’ll have a good nap. The umbrella. It’s probably leaking along the floor and maybe through the floor cracks to the apartment below. I get up. I bring the umbrella to the bathroom, open it and stick it in the tub. I think of taking a hot bath, but there are too many things dripping into or drying off in the tub. I get back in bed. I think of that woman. I’m glad I went out. But I still have her umbrella. Will she be on the street next time I go outside where I can give it back to her? I should have got her name and phone number to return the umbrella, or at least her last name and address so I could send it to her by messenger or mail.

  SHOELACES.

  Herbert bent down to tie his wife’s shoelaces, one hand and knee touching the pavement. A Fifth Avenue bus pulling out of a stop sent exhaust fumes in his direction. He held his breath, finished tying one of the shoes, and looking up saw her large body standing over him like an equestrian statue still draped with its unveiling cloth.

  “I’d do it myself if I wasn’t so heavy,” she said.

  “You’re not that heavy,” he said, and untied and tied the laces of the other shoe just in case.

  “But you shouldn’t be doing that, Herb. It’s not a man’s job. I should lose weight; tie my own shoes.”

  “Don’t be silly.” That was it. Both shoes tied neatly and tight. Maybe he should have tied double knots so he’d be sure they wouldn’t come loose. But then later at home, if she didn’t ask him to untie the laces while the shoes were on her feet, she’d make him take out the knots after she’d forced the shoes off her feet, and that always hurt his fingertips. It was a damn nuisance this bending, tying, retying, looking at her ugly scuffed shoes with the stockened big toe sticking out of the opening in front. It was almost the same style his mother and all her illiterate friends wore some fifty years ago. Now maybe if his wife wasn’t so heavy and her feet not so swollen most of the time, she’d be able to wear high heels like other women her age and begin to look like somebody. But what wishful thinking that was, and he stood up, spit into his hanky and rubbed it on his dirty hand, then folded it and carefully stuck it back into his coat’s breast pocket.

  “So many people walk on Sunday it’s amazing,” she said.

  “Not so amazing. We do it.”

  “But on Sunday? I’m saying, everybody?”

  “Sunday’s as good as any other day. Less crowded.”

  “But so many people walking when no stores are open, I can’t see.”

  “So they don’t spend money; that’s bad?”

  “And what do you want them to do, die with every cent?” She looked at her shoes. “You know, I think you tied them too tight.”

  “Why, it hurts?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if they didn’t, Herb.”

  “I thought I tied them loose enough. Though you should know what’s wrong with them. You’re wearing the things.”

  “I’m not trying to pick an argument. I say they’re tight. I mean—I know, especially the right. Now will you please untie them some?”

  He was glad he hadn’t double-knotted the laces. He started to bend down, his wife now breathing more heavily above him, but quickly straightened up and looked around.

  Before, when she had asked him, he also looked, but just quick ones so she wouldn’t suspect anything. There were fewer people on the street then and nobody seemed to be looking his way. But now the street was more crowded and people seemed to be looking everywhere. They didn’t see anything interesting in front of them, they looked in the store windows. If nothing interesting was in the windows, they looked around the sidewalk. A man tying his wife’s shoelaces was interesting; untying them, even more so.

  “Maybe I should stand here all day and get my feet swelled till they’re limp and blue, is that what you want?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Then what?”

  “Try walking a little more. Maybe they’re not that tight.”

  “Walk and get lame? You’d like that better? You got so much money where you can throw it into some doctor’s window?”

  “Did I say that?” his voice almost a whisper.

  His wife, apparently satisfied with his answer, dropped her scolding finger. A painful expression creased her nose. She looked suspiciously at her shoes and attempted to stand on her left foot. Her fat jiggled and her bosom heaved. She got her foot about three inches off the ground.

  “You know, it’s really killing me,” she said to the back of his head.

  “You tied them before like a madman.”

  “What?” He was watching a group of schoolgirls, dressed nicely in sweaters and kneesocks and skirts, jump out of a cab, laugh and fumble over the change they each contributed to the fare, and cross the street. He still heard them laughing, one exceptionally pretty one with her long red hair like silk bouncing, as his wife pointed to her feet.

  “I’m saying it hurts, Herb—do you hear?”

  He’d stoop down. After all, she was his wife and he knew he had to get it over with eventually, so get it done now and that’d be that. But squatting down, his thighs spread apart, the first thing he did was feel his crotch. His pants were dry. He glanced at them and saw they weren’t stained with urine either, which was a good sign. Because lately he’d occasionally let himself go: just short spurts and not from any excitement or anything. It was only that something had gotten wrong inside him like so many other men his age got, and he sometimes couldn’t control himself. His wife knew about it, and when she wasn’t shouting at him for staining his pants so much, she’d be urging him to see a doctor who takes care of such things. But he’d hold off that visit a week or two longer to see if his trouble would go away by itself. He heard it sometimes did.

  A young couple stopped a few feet away to look at the store window behind him. The Tailored Woman was what the store was called, and some very nice clothes and accessories it had also. He looked up at his wife’s breasts drooped massively over him. They never looked good when she tried stuffing them into one of her baggy dresses. Maybe in her skimpy nightgowns, when they swung back and forth, unstrapped and partly hidden, maybe then they looked best. But she should only have the figure to go into one of those dresses in the window. And he should only have the money to buy it. A real fortune they must cost. But say he did have the money—what good would it do? A laugh, that was the good it’d do, because she’d never lose an ounce. Money she could but weight never. He looked back at the couple. They were now watching a white sports car zoom downtown. Herb, his legs aching, rose and also watched the car as it screeched to a stop at the corner when the traffic light turned red. With that car the driver could have easily made it through the light, he thought. The car, waiting for the light to turn green, revved its motor and exploded two loud pops through its tailpipes. Then it switched gears, retched, bucked like a horse at the starting gate, and took off down the avenue, turning at 55th Street and disappearing.

  “Wha
t is it, Herb? You’re interested in everything but me today.”

  “I was looking at that white sports car.”

  “Car? That was a car? That’s a toy car. It couldn’t fit three.”

  “Maybe, but it looked nice and went fast.”

  “Fast? Marilyn’s friend’s husband had one, and fast it went into a tree. Lucky he was insured and not hurt.”

  “For someone who’s careless, any car could hit a tree.”

  “You know him that well to say he’s careless? Anyway, can I change back the subject?”

  “Huh?”

  The shoes, Herb, the shoes. Because one minute more and I’ll be crippled for life.”

  “Walk over to that water thing there.” He pointed to a polished bronze spigot attached to the outside of the store.

  “Why?”

  “Because you could put you foot up on it, which’d be easier for me.”

  “You can do it right here. Come on, Herb—for me.”

  What did she say this morning? “It’s a nice day”? “Such a beautiful day”? Some nonsense like that when she said they should take the subway to Columbus Circle, walk along Central Park South on the building side because that’s such a refined area, and then go to Rockefeller Plaza where all the pretty flowers are, and from there they’d maybe stop in for coffee and take the bus home. But once on the train she decided to get off at 59th and Fifth instead, and now only two blocks they’ve walked and already she’s asked him twice to do her laces. By 55th Street she’ll say she’s dead tired, stop, complain, make him bend down and feel if one of her ankles is more swollen than the other, then tell him they should take the Fifth Avenue bus downtown now because her legs hurt real bad and they can just as easily see the store window displays and flowers from the bus. But an idea like hers he never should have listened to in the first place. He should really just hail a cab and ride away without her for once, which would serve her a good lesson. Besides, the Fifth Avenue bus doesn’t give free transfers crosstown where they’re going like the Lexington Avenue bus does, but try get her to walk the three short blocks to Lexington and she’d holler like he’s never heard. So today’s the last fall Sunday of the year that’ll be beautiful, as she said. But how did she know? The weatherman’s her uncle?