What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “Try it.”

  I pick up the receiver. “Officer Tanner,” a voice says.

  “I’m speaking from near the Swedish Cottage. I want to report that I heard about ten minutes ago what seemed like a male groan in the general vicinity of the bird refuge woods up from Eagle Hill.”

  “A groan? Wasn’t a tree swaying? Did you look?”

  “I tried to. My wife got scared. We’ve our kid with us.”

  “No personal threats against you, though? Or a description of anyone you saw there?”

  “No. Only it did seem very ominous to us.”

  “All right. I’ll have a car make a check.”

  “I didn’t give you the exact location of the spot.”

  “You said the Cottage callbox. If there’s anything wrong around there, we’ll find it.”

  “But up the hill from it, up the hill. Hello?” No answer.

  I run back to the cottage. “No?” she says. “Well, if they won’t do anything, it must be nothing.”

  “But at least if I go and find nothing, I’ll know there was nothing.”

  “It could also mean the man with the groan is dying behind a bush you didn’t look behind. And suppose in your great search the mugger tries to get at Jim and I here?”

  “You’re by the road. There are cars.”

  “Where? You see one?”

  They’ll be by. And right up the road’s the path to the park exit and buildings and lots of traffic.”

  Then walk me there.”

  “It’s pouring.”

  “I don’t care. He’s already soaked. He’s probably got pneumonia, so what do you want for him next—to get cut up and thrown into the underpass? And me too. I’ve got pneumonia too. We all do. Now walk me out. Oh, I’m going.”

  I grab her arm. “Use your sense.”

  “And you stop the crap. I’m going home. You go where you want. Call me if you’re killed.”

  “Okay. But hustle, though.” She goes. “And put the towel around his head.” I run up the hill to where I heard the groan. But Jane and Jim. I run back down and catch up with them as they’re leaving the park. “You all right?”

  “Can I even talk? I’ll choke on a mouthful of rain. Find anything?”

  “Only got halfway. Then I thought someone might pop out at you.” We cross the street. “You can make it home now?”

  “I can, but I’d like help.”

  “I’ll get you a cab.”

  “If you’re lucky. They’re all filled.”‘

  Then hurry home. But I only came back to check on you.”

  “Please don’t go back. If anyone’s been mugged, he’s crawled away by now or been found, I’ll start a fire. I’ll put on hot soup and make us toddies. I have to get Jim changed and fed and down for a nap. You can start the fire. But help me, Sol.”

  “Get under.” We get under the canopy of a building facing the park. “Sir,” I say to the doorman, “could you loan me your umbrella so they can get home? We’re on this sidestreet two blocks down, and I’ll bring it right back.”

  “I need it to get my own people to the street,” he says.

  “I’ll give you a dollar to loan it.”

  That has nothing to do with it. Even if in two minutes I can make that much in tips with it.”

  Then I’ll give you two dollars.”

  “Weh, weh, weh.”

  “Listen, if I had another umbrella…”

  “Frank,” a woman coming out of the building says. “A cab?”

  He opens the umbrella and goes into the street and blows his whistle.

  “If a second cab comes along can you hail it for us?” I say.

  “If another of my tenants doesn’t want it.”

  “Please, Sol. Let’s just run home.”

  “She’s a little frightened,” I say to the woman. “We were in the park and thought we heard someone being mugged.”‘

  That’s nothing unusual,” the woman says.

  “At least we’re safe here. From the rain and muggers.”

  “You’d be surprised. Only last week my purse was snatched on these steps. Fortunately, I don’t carry anything but duplicate cards anymore and a ten-dollar bill if they demand money. But right here. I yelled for Frank. But he was working the elevator because our regular man was in the men’s room.”

  “One of those coincidences.”

  That my purse was snatched and not some other tenant’s?”

  That the elevator man was away and Frank wasn’t here to protect you.”

  “My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Reeves, was threatened with a broken bottle right in front of Frank’s eyes.”

  “No,” Jane says.

  “She says no. A few months ago. He was on duty then. But this young girl slipped around him while he was tying his shoelaces and threatened her in the lobby.”

  “A young girl?”

  “No more than twelve, Mrs. Reeves said.”

  “Twelve is the age I told her it can start,” I say.

  “Twelve? Dr. Melnick—the professional office off the lobby? Three boys of about ten or so rang his bell and walked in and terrorized everyone in the waiting room and the doctor himself. They got in through the service entrance when no one was looking and snuck upstairs. Ten-year-olds. Kids.”

  “Ten sounds pretty young for it,” I say. They were probably older.”

  “Nobody bothered to ask them for their birth certificates. But the doctor’s an obstetrician, and he said one of them could even have been eight.”

  “Not eight,” Jane says.

  “Got your cab, Mrs. Fain,” Frank yells from the street. “Son of a B,” when it’s grabbed by someone else.

  “You’re not fast enough,” she says. “But that was Dr. Melnick. They took a satchel of drugs, which turned out to be emetics. Much as I pity and think I understand the poor thieves, I hope they swallowed them all. And of course everyone’s money and wallets when they announced they had guns. Even a little girl’s purse with only buttons inside. And then raced past the doorman. But those are the youngest I know.”

  “I thought around eleven would be the youngest,” I say.

  “And remember, this is only in one building. And we usually have a doorman on duty. And the elevator man, porters, the super, the handyman—all kinds.”

  “We only have two locks and a front door into the brownstone almost anyone can get in,” Jane says.

  “That’s all? But there’s my cab. Nice talking.” She gets under Frank’s umbrella and he takes her to the cab.

  “It’s let up a little,” I say. “Want to make a run for it?” I fold up the stroller, lift Jim, hold the stroller in my other hand, and we run home.

  “It’s terrible,” Jane says, putting dry clothes on Jim. “But now that I’m here I can’t get that groan in the park out of my mind.”

  “Well, stop about it. Because you were the one—”

  “I know. And I know I stopped you from looking into it. I only hope that if a man really did groan, he’s safe in his home now and all right.”

  I get her umbrella and put on my raincoat. “Don’t forget the water’s on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Ba-ba, da, ow?”

  “You won’t forget the water? I don’t want it boiling over with the gas still on.”

  The window’s open. You going to the park?”

  “For a quick look. I’ll be very careful. I’ll take a hammer with me.”

  “Fine. Show it to the mugger and he’ll be sure to use his own hammer or rock on you. That happens. Weapons are supposed to touch off corresponding weapons. That’s why the London bobbies—don’t go.”

  Coat buttoned to the top. Galoshes, rainhat. “Have a hot toddy waiting for me.”

  “You stupido.”

  This may be the last time you’ll see me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means do you want those last words of yours to be your last to me?”

  “Now you�
��re really talking stupid.”

  “Right. Bye, sweethearts.” I kiss her cheek and feel Jim’s forehead.

  “His cough’s worse but his nose is dry now.” She carries him into the kitchen. “Goodbye.” She doesn’t answer. I leave the apartment and walk to the park. I close the umbrella when I get to the park entrance, as it’s keeping me from walking fast. But why walk fast and lose my breath, if there is someone to run from? I open the umbrella.

  I reach the part of the path where I heard the groan. Nobody’s around. It’s still pouring. “Hey, anybody in there who needs help? We were by here before and heard some noises. Hello?”

  I close the umbrella and hold it by the spike. But if I have to swing it, it’ll probably open and throw me around, and it hasn’t the weight to come down hard. I leave it by the path and pick up a stick. It’s so rotted that half of it stays on the ground. A rock, then. But if I throw it I’ll miss, and carrying it I’m more likely to get a stick over my own head before I get close enough. I need something to knock something out of someone’s hand. If he’s got a gun, forget it. I’ll just drop what I have and run. A stick, a stick, but would I use it if forced? I’d have to, even if my built-in drawback is I’m not a natural attacker and never whacked any adult’s head with even an open hand. I find one. Two inches across. I break it with my foot to about three feet long, peel off the twigs and swing it around. Good size, right weight. I walk through the bushes. No one. I’ll check behind the bigger bushes and rocks. Only then I’ll be satisfied.

  A man. Face down on the ground and hat flattened over his head. Pants pockets hanging out. Shoe off and sock rolled down that foot. I touch him, listen to his back. No sound or response. I don’t want to turn him over and possibly see his face smashed, body or face knifed. But how else will I know if he’s alive? And if he is? First yell for the police or help, and if nobody, then over-the-shoulder fireman’s carry, best way I know how. I shake his foot. “Hey, you, can you hear? I’m here to help.” I take his hat off. Left side’s okay. Eye is closed and lips are warm, but I can’t feel or hear his breath. “Listen. We’ll both take it slow. But I want you to know I’m not the person who did this to you, if that’s what’s keeping you so quiet.”

  I’m trying to turn him over when I hear a noise behind me. It’s a man, leaning against a rock, opening an umbrella, foot on my stick. “You do that?”

  “Him? I heard his groan before and came back. That’s my umbrella. What do you want?”

  “Why do you say what do I want?”

  “Because you’re just standing there. And this man could be dead. So if you’re fixed on robbing me as you might have done him, fine. I’d give what I have except I left my wallet home.”

  “I didn’t rob him. Never saw him before. For all you know, he could be the one who did the man you heard groan.”

  Then where’s the man who groaned?”

  “Maybe in the lake. You look all over? The big tree over there? But enough. Give it here.”

  “What?”

  “‘What? What?’ Yours and the man’s wallet. Quick.”

  “I told you.”

  He flips the umbrella behind him and from somewhere produces a knife.

  That’s great. For something I don’t have?”

  “Quit stalling.”

  He’s waving at me to give. I’ll jump backwards and run. I jump backwards and trip. He moves for me. I throw a rock at him and miss. Stupid thing to do.

  A boulder’s behind my back. He lunges at me as I stand up. I feint right and he slits my coat and I think nicks my arm. I grab the hand holding the knife and wrestle with it. We kick, claw, knee, elbow and hook a foot around each other’s leg and fall over the man, who says “Huh?” On the ground I bite the guy’s ear but don’t want to bite through it as I should, when the lobe pops and he’s screaming and the knife drops. I’m spitting out his blood when I kick the knife away and go for the stick. He goes for the knife. I say “Don’t move.” “Eat it,” he says, and moves and sees my stick coming down and swats at it, and the stick breaks his wrist, or something breaks. He howls but still reaches for the knife. I swing at his head, but at the last instant, his shoulder or neck. He falls on his back and is moaning. I pick up the knife, try closing it, but there must be some trick to it, and I throw it into the woods. “Move once more and I’ll break your head in.”

  He’s biting his lips and trying to keep his eyes on me while feeling around his wrist. I think I also broke his shoulder or some part of his neck. That top left side of him seems misshapen when before it didn’t. And he’s bleeding a little from it and from the lobe very badly. My own blood’s coming out from under my coat sleeve, but not much and mostly mixed with rain.

  I turn over the older man. He’s been knifed in the stomach and chest, judging by the holes there and the blood on his clothes. “Sir?” He’s breathing and seems to be looking without seeing. I say to the other man “Stay where you are till we’re out of here, and then you better get out fast because I’m calling the cops.” He’s squeezing his eyes tight but nods. I fit the stick in my belt, put the older man’s hat in my pocket, sit him up, stick gets in the way so I toss it over the boulder, lift him over my shoulder and grab his legs in front and go through the bushes and start down the hill.

  I set him against the cottage door and put his hat on his head. My own hat’s been lost somewhere and the top three buttons of my coat’s been ripped off. He’s a little guy, with his pants and hat way too big for him and his jacket sleeves coming down over his hands. Maybe I’ve been carrying him wrong and making him bleed more and damaging his insides worse with his belly and chest banging against my back as we walked. “Listen, don’t move. I’m calling the police from the phone here and will be right back.”

  I run to the call box and pick up the receiver. No officer answers, so I say “Hello, is there a policeman there?” I do this several times, then say “Hey, where the hell are you? This is an emergency. Oh, damn,” and slam the receiver down. I run back, pick the man up and hold him in my arms and carry him toward the park entrance that way, stopping every hundred feet or so to sit on a bench with him in my lap. I look for a police car when I reach the street. A regular car stops and the driver says “Anything wrong?”

  “He got knifed in the park. We better take him straight to a hospital.”

  “Who knifed him?”

  “Not me. Some man, I think. And if it was him—look, will you open your back door?”

  “Not in my car. I’m sorry. It’s not the stains. I no longer trust anyone in this city.”

  Then you shouldn’t have stopped.”

  “I thought it was something else. A man carrying his son.” He drives off. I rest on the curb with the man in my lap.

  “You both going to get wet that way,” a truckman yells, driving past and blowing his air horn.

  I carry the man to the apartment building a block away.

  “What are you bringing me?” Frank says.

  That Dr. Melnick.” I go into the lobby and reach under the man’s knees and ring the bell and try to walk in as the sign says, but the door’s locked.

  “Since he had the robbery,” Frank says.

  The peephole opens. “Yes?” a woman says. This man’s been knifed,” I say, raising him in my arms a little so she can see his face. “In the park. He needs help fast.”

  “Call Roosevelt Emergency and say you want an ambulance immediately.”

  “I thought the doctor could help till they come.”

  The doctor doesn’t handle emergencies except for his own patients. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

  “Could you call Emergency for me? He’s been knifed in a few places and it’s been a long time.”

  The peephole opens. “If I do, they’ll ask me to identify myself and think the man’s one of the doctor’s patients, and he’d be responsible. It’s best you call. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

  “I’ll call,” Frank says. “Stay here, sit on the bench, even, but jus
t see no delivery men or strange types sneak by. They’re all to go through the delivery entrance around the side.” He goes through another door in the lobby.

  I lie the man down on the bench. “Just take it easy,” I say. “We’ve an ambulance coming.”

  The elevator door opens. “What’s this?” the elevator man says.

  “Frank went to call for an ambulance. This guy’s been knifed.”

  “I better get a mop.” The elevator rings. He gets in and takes it up.

  A delivery boy chains his bike to the canopy pole and comes in with a box of groceries.

  “All deliveries are supposed to be made through the side entrance,” I say.

  “You work here?”

  The doorman Frank told me to tell you.”

  Then mind your own business. It’s raining outside, can’t you see? What he do, pass out?”

  The elevator door opens and two women walk out.

  “Will you go around the service entrance with that?” the elevator man says. “You’ve been told before. I’ve told you myself.”

  The service door’s locked.”

  “Bull, it is. Around. Around.”

  The boy puts the box into the bike basket, covers it, unlocks the bike and rides off.

  “Is he a tenant?” the older woman says.

  “Person from outside who had an accident,” the elevator man says.

  “Frank’s phoning for an ambulance.”

  “If he was hit by a car, you could have broken his bones even more by carrying him in here.”

  “I didn’t. He and Frank must have.”

  “He was robbed and knifed in the park,” I say.

  That’s terrible. And he’s bleeding. But Frank’s taking care of it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the elevator man says.

  Then could you see about my car? It’s a long gray one and should be around now.”

  He goes under the canopy and says “It’s pulling up, Mrs. Phelps.”

  “I hope he recovers,” she says to me. She opens her umbrella, the other woman gets under it with her, and they go to her car.

  They’re on the way,” Frank says, coming into the lobby. The police, too, when I said it was a knifing.”