What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  I go into the bedroom, shut the door, lie on the bed. She comes in. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I have to work in here.” “You can’t work in the other room?” That’s where you’re working.” “I don’t think I’ll be working there anymore.” “What’ll you do then?” “I’m not sure. I’ve just lain down to think about it.” “You couldn’t lie down on the couch? I’ll tell you why I ask you that. You used to work in this room and I used to work in the other. Then you said this room isn’t the best room for you to work in and you’d like to work in the other, so I got all my things out of that room, brought them into this room and started to work here. Now you say I should go back into the other room, which means carting all my things back to it, and I now have even more things than when I used to work in that room because I’m much further along in the project I’m working on. But you want me back in the other room not because you want to work in this one but because you want to lie on the bed and think about work. Be honest—is that fair?”

  “I don’t know if it’s fair or not.” Then what I’m asking of you is to think about whether it’s fair.” “I don’t want to spend my time thinking about that. I just want to think about what I might like to do other than the work I’ve been doing. And I can think better alone, lying on a bed, than alone, lying on a couch.” “You’re not being fair.” “Maybe I’m not, but it is what I want.” “What about what I want?” “If I thought about it I’d consider it, but right now I only want to think about what I’m going to work on from now on or at least for the immediate future.” “Give yourself a minute or less to think about how my moving into the other room again will affect my work, what I want, and so on, besides how difficult it’ll be for me to move all my things back to that room.” “I’ll help you. I’ll even move it all by myself for you.” “Okay, I can see there’s no arguing with you for now, so let’s get it done. But don’t ask to move back into that other room once my move is done if you decide, after all your thinking in here, you could do your work much better alone out there.” “I doubt I could promise you that.” “Excuse me, I’m going for a walk.”

  She puts on her sweater, takes her keys and goes. I turn over on my stomach and think about what I’m going to do. I could do this, I could do that, work at this, work at that, try this, try that, this, that, this, that. None seem like the right thing to do. None excite me or seem like anything I could or would want to do. This minute I wish I lived alone so I wouldn’t have to face her when she gets back. So I wouldn’t have to explain anything more to her. So I wouldn’t have to help her move into the next room or tell her I changed my mind about wanting her to move there or about not wanting to do what I’ve been doing the last twenty years. For that’s what I decide on now, this second, or just a few seconds ago. Decided it when I was thinking I didn’t want to help her move into the next room. Decided to go back to doing what I’ve been doing the last twenty years. Decided it because none of the other things I thought of doing seemed right for me or excited me and so on, and not doing anything seemed worse than any of those other things I thought of doing and also worse than not doing what I’ve been doing for twenty years. I fall asleep.

  “You haven’t moved my things or even started to.” For a moment I thought she said that in my dream. But she apparently woke me up by poking me or some other way and said that while I was coming out of sleep. “What did you say?” “You didn’t hear me?” “Yes, I heard you, if what I think you said is what you said and not what I thought you said in my dream. You said something about my not having moved your things?” “Yes. Can you tell me why? I’ve lots of work to do today and I want to start doing it right away.” “So do I.” “Fine, do your work, but I can’t do mine out there unless all of my work things are out there, and you promised to move them for me, remember?” “I do, sort of, because it was either me alone or both of us, but I’ve changed my mind. Stay in this room.” “What will you do?” “Same as I’ve always done, and in the old room.” “You decided that?” “Yes.” “Suppose I said I just now decided I want to move back to the other room?” Then I’d say that’s okay, I’ll help you move back there, but not today, or at least not right now, as I want to get back to work right away, and because all my equipment for work is in the other room, I don’t have time to move you there now.” “Suppose I said I don’t care if you want to get right back to work; that I want to move back to the other room right now so I can resume work soon as I can after my things are moved there?” Then I’d say okay, that’s fair. I’ve put you through a lot. I’ve asked you to do plenty of things for me and you’ve never really asked me to do anything like those things for you, so this time I’ll put what you have to do over anything I have to.” “Suppose I said I don’t believe you?” “Try me out.” “All right, I’m trying you out. Help me move my things into the other room.” “Where should we begin? They’re your things, so you know where they should go.” “No, I believe you. Or maybe I don’t, but I don’t want to go into it now because all I want to do is work. I had a terrific idea when I was outside about the work I’m doing and I don’t want to lose it.” “Good, because I also had a terrific idea when I was thinking just before I fell asleep, and I want to get to it right away.” Then I’ll see you.” “Want me to close the door?” Thanks, as I don’t want to be disturbed by anything. Not your talking to yourself while you work or your equipment going like mad. I’ve got to have maximum quiet in here to concentrate, or as much quiet as it’s possible to get.” “I’ll have to make some noise out there, you know.” That’s all right. What I can’t control, I can’t control.” “Same with me, I suppose.”

  I kiss her cheek, leave the room and close the door. A few seconds later I hear her working. I sit down at the dining table where my equipment is. I might as well start. I don’t have any idea what I’ll be working on now, but I should try to start something. I’ve sat down before with nothing in my head and almost always started something. I can do it again. If I can’t do it this time, it doesn’t mean I won’t be able to do it again. In fact, I just about know for sure I’ll be able to do it again, now or sometime soon. If not sometime soon, then sometime in the not too distant future, though it’s never taken me that long to start again. So I’m not worried. Start something. Remember that if it doesn’t come now, chances are almost nonexistent it won’t ever come again.

  THE ARGUMENT.

  I enter the room and he leaves. Then he enters the room and I leave. Then I’m about to enter the room as he’s about to leave it, neither of us steps aside so the other can pass, and we stop at the door’s threshold, facing each other. I say “What do you say to enough of this?”

  “Enough of what?”

  This entering and leaving, reentering and releaving. Let’s have it out completely or make up without having it out completely, but one way or the other or even some other working-out.”

  “What other working-out?”

  “One not one of the two I just gave you but a new one I haven’t yet worked out. I’ll just say I’m sorry and you also say you’re sorry, and then, all made up, we can both go back to that room or both be outside it, but at least be in the same place together at the same time.”

  “I don’t see any need for making up with you.”

  Then you don’t see any need for saying you’re sorry for what you did or any need for being in the same place at the same time together when we want to be?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Do you say it now?”

  “Yes on the first, maybe only a maybe on the second. I see no reason for saying I’m sorry for what I did, though I do see the advantage, since we both live here, of thinking we can be in the same room together without getting on each other’s nerves. But it was your fault alone, so you’re the one who has to apologize, not me.”

  “I don’t see it that way. I say it was as much my fault as yours. And that if we both admit that through a mutual apology, we’ll have made up and then we can stay in the same room together
.”

  “I can’t admit anything like that because I don’t believe it.”

  The heck with you then,” and I try to get by him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he says.

  “Around you, where I was heading to before, so I can get into that room.”

  “I’d also like to be in that room. So would you please turn around and go into one of the other rooms? Or stay in the hallway here or go outside or do whatever you want to wherever you want to do it? But not in that room till you apologize for starting the argument before, because until then I want to be in that room alone.”

  “But that’s the room I want to be in and the only room I can be in to do the things I want to. It has the books and television set and fireplace, and I want to find a book and read it with a fire going and the television on but the sound turned very low. I don’t want to explain why I want the sound turned very low while I read, but I do, it’s my privilege why I do, and also my privilege why I don’t want to tell you.”

  “You want to know something?” he says.

  “If it’s that you’re going to accept the mutual apology idea I proposed, I do.”

  “No. It’s that we’re about to get into a bad argument again.”

  “Oh, we’re not in one now?” I say.

  “Now we’re still discussing things in a relatively unquarrelsome way. But you want to know why we’re about to get into another bad argument? Because you insist doing something you know is impossible for me to allow you to do, which is the main reason we got into the last bad argument that led up to all this. Now please, for both of us, turn around and go into one of the other rooms or outside or anyplace else, but leave me alone in that room.”

  “Why do you say I’m the one responsible for this argument we’re getting into? Because I want to be in a room I pay half the rent on? Because I want to read a book among the many books in that room that are mostly mine? Because I want—”

  “Neither of those, nor the third one you were about to give: the television set, which I know you paid for so is all yours. But because you insist on being somewhere that you know will anger another person who also wants to be there. And last time—”

  “Don’t give me any last times,” I say.

  That too. Last time you also refused to listen to my reasons, which was just another reason we had that bad argument. But the last time I was about to tell you of—”

  “I said to stop with those last times.”

  “Right,” he says. “Because what you just said is another reason why we had that bad argument the last time, and why we’re starting to have one now, which I’m sure you’ll say we started equally and I’ll say you started alone. Because last time you also told me to shut up about the previous last time and wouldn’t let me go on—”

  “I don’t want you to go on now because—”

  “—because you didn’t want to hear me explain reasonably and extra rationally, as I’m doing now, that you—”

  “I didn’t want you to explain, that last time and the time before that, because you—”

  “Because I—”

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “Because I was making sense, that’s why. I made sense that last time and I’m making sense now. But you can’t stand anyone who makes sense when you’re feeling really argumentative about something.”

  “Now I said to shut up. I’m in fact warning you to shut up.”

  “Don’t threaten me. That’s what you did the last time, and I won’t be threatened, just as I wouldn’t the last time.”

  Then shut up and stay that way. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Sorry about what? That you won’t argue rationally? That you won’t let me speak what you know is the truth about you? That you won’t take responsibility for the bad arguments we have when they’re solely caused by you?”

  “I’m warning you.”

  That I won’t bow down to your warnings and feel frightened by your threats and shut up when you tell me to, and all that? I’m to be sorry for any of that? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I warned you,” I shout, and I hit him in the face with my fist. He goes down. Last time I only pushed him hard and he fell back but didn’t go down. I lean over him. His eyes are closed. I kneel beside him and ask if he’s all right. He says no. I say “Nothing on the outside is bleeding.” He says “Something in my mouth is, but nothing much.” I say “Open your eyes, let me see them.” He says “What do you know about eyes when a man’s hurt, but I think I’ll be okay.” I say “I’ll get you water.” He says “Please do; not too cold.” I get him a glass of water. He sips a little, rinses it around in his mouth, spits it back into the glass with some blood. I say Think you can stand now?” He says “I think so, no thanks to you,” and I help him up. When he’s on his feet he says “What you just did, hitting me, was unforgivable.”

  “It was your fault.”

  “Again, ridiculous.”

  “I hit you, but you provoked me, so it was as much your fault as mine.”

  “I didn’t provoke anything, and certainly not a fist to my jaw. All I was doing at the time was talking rationally to you.”

  “But you knew that continuing to talk to me at the time, and probably talking rationally was worse than any other way, would only make me madder. You knew I was already mad. You knew I had a temper. I’ve exhibited that temper several times, to you and to others, though never so violently. Anyway, let’s just say it was a little bit more my fault than yours.” He shakes his head and I say Then forty percent your fault and sixty percent mine, but no more than that.”

  “A lot more.”

  “Eighty percent mine then and twenty percent yours. For you have to accept some responsibility for my having hit you.”

  “None. It was a hundred percent your fault, just like the last time. It’s always your fault.”

  “Not so.”

  “Always. Always.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You the same.”

  I grab him by the shirt. He says “Let me go this instant.” I let him go, turn around and go into the kitchen and put water on for tea. He goes into the room with the fireplace, television set and books. I go to that room a minute later and when he sees me coming he gets up to leave. I make way for him at the door just as he makes way for me. We pass each other. This time I hear the front door slam, so he must have got his coat and hat and gone outside.

  I wait for him for hours. Then I read a book, drink, light a fire, watch television till there are no more programs on, and get in bed and try to fall asleep.

  QUESTION.

  I’m sitting opposite her. I say “Do you want to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve time. Waiter?”

  “Yes?” he says.

  “Check, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, what do you say?” I say to her.

  “I still don’t know.”

  “You going to make your mind up in the next thirty seconds?”

  “Don’t be nasty to me.”

  “Waiter?”

  “It’s coming right up, sir. I have to write it up first.”

  “Forget it for now. Or give it when you feel like it, not to mix you up. But I’d like another cup of coffee.”

  “Another cup?”

  “Another cup. You?” I say to her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have another.”

  “I always get a little high and fidgety with two cups.”

  “What’ll it be,” waiter says, “another round for you both?”

  “Two cups, just to play it safe,” I say.

  Waiter goes. She looks at me.

  “Well?” I say.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, have you made up your mind?”

  The place is crowded. People are waiting for tables. We shouldn’t have ordered more coffee.”

  “Come on, answer.”

  “I told
you, I don’t know. It’s not something I can make up about right away—I mean, my mind, your question.”

  “I knew what you meant.”

  Waiter brings a coffee pot and pours our coffee.

  Thanks,” I say.

  “You gave me too much,” she says.

  “You don’t have to drink it all,” I say.

  “I know, but I didn’t want to waste it. Coffee beans have become expensive.”

  “Yeah, but still not as expensive as these restaurants want you to believe. I figured it out once. At least not to warrant eighty to ninety cents a cup.”

  “Would you like your check now?” waiter says to me.

  “If you don’t have it made out yet, don’t worry.”

  “I have it right here.”

  “Sure, put it on the table.”

  He takes it out of his shirt pocket and puts it down.

  Thank you,” he says.

  “You too. Thanks. Should I pay you or up front?”

  “Up front or me.”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  “Long as I’m here, and it doesn’t take you too long to check it, you can pay me.”

  I look it over. “It seems good.” I give him a twenty and ten and he goes to the cashier with the money and check. People waiting at the door are looking at us.

  “What do you mean you figured it out about the coffee?” she says.

  The coffee wholesalers, they doubled the price of the beans from what it was a year ago, right? You feel the effect of that by the jump in price of coffee at the supermarket, though I don’t think any of them raised it by more than fifty percent. But restaurants, because most of them also doubled the price of their coffee—you know, the excuse that the wholesalers did it to them—are now getting four to five times the profit they used to for a single cup.”

  “But you’re not considering their larger overhead in a year and that all kinds of wages and workers’ benefits and such are more. Cleaning bills for this napkin, tablecloth, the waiter’s jacket, for instance.”