What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “Is your phone a pay one?” I say.

  “Go through there and ring the elevator bell. Say you want to use the house phone and I’ve given you permission to.”

  I ring for the service elevator. It comes, the delivery boy and another elevator man inside. I go to the basement with them and dial my home.

  “Where’ve you been?” Jane says. “I think Jim’s really got pneumonia. His temperature’s not too high, but he’s coughing much harder and having trouble breathing. The reception said Dr. Blum will call back in a few minutes and might come over. You shouldn’t have gone.”

  “It’s just a bad cold or virus. They’ll give him something in the office, and by tomorrow it’ll be over like the last times. Be more independent, will you? And listen. I found that man. He’d been knifed and is in real bad shape. The guy who did it, or another one, got me in the arm too.”

  “Oh, my God. Bad?”

  “I haven’t had time to look. Can’t be much if the bleeding’s stopped. An ambulance and police are coming. We’re in the lobby of the same apartment building you and I were in before.”

  Then the doorman’s there. You’ve helped enough. You belong here with the baby, and if Dr. Blum comes he can look at your arm.”

  “My arm’s nothing. And there’s that doctor on the same floor here if I need one, remember? Also the ambulance doctor. If they want me to go to the hospital with the man, I’ll call you from there. If not, I’ll run home. Keep Jim warm. Put the vaporizer on if you have to. I’ve got to go now, Jane.”

  “It’s always everybody over us.”

  “Not true.”

  The ambulance people and police are in the lobby. A police-woman asks me several questions. The man’s wrapped in a blanket and wheeled outside.

  “Can I go with him?” I ask her.

  “What for—he your friend?”

  “No, I told you. Just that I’ve been with him so long I want to see how he turns out.”

  “You come with us and we’ll write up a detailed report with the detective, and then you can go anywhere you like.”

  She drives me to the police station. I tell a detective the park story and give a description of the guy who attacked me.

  “He sounds like everyone else,” he says. “Why didn’t you call the park precinct when you first heard the man groaning?”

  “I did. The officer said he’d send someone.”

  “Maybe he did—I don’t see anything on it yet—and they didn’t find anything or went to the wrong spot. Those bushes can be thick.”

  I call Jane. She doesn’t answer. I call Dr. Blum’s office and a nurse there says the doctor told Jane to take Jim to Emergency at Roosevelt.

  I cab to Roosevelt. Jane’s in the waiting room. They’re working on him now. He’s going to be all right, but they asked me to get out because I was so distraught I was upsetting him. Croup. Your son has croup. They say I’m lucky I brought him in when I did. His larynx. If it wasn’t for your floundering back and forth about the man we would’ve been home long before and gotten Jim out of his wet clothes and spared him all this.”

  “He had a cough when we started out today. It could have been the early stages of croup and we didn’t realize it.”

  “You wouldn’t believe it, Sol. He was like strangling on his own breath. He suddenly had so much trouble breathing that I thought he’d die. I started giving him mouth to mouth, when Blum called and right away he said croup and rush him here. I got Helen to drive us. Good thing I know someone on the block with a car. You probably would’ve taken him out in the rain looking for a cab.”

  I ask about Jim at the admitting desk. The woman says That your wife? She’s very worried, but everything’s going to be fine. We’ve a great staff here, especially for emergencies.”

  “Would you also know about a man brought in more than an hour ago with serious wounds in his stomach and chest?”

  “Two in the last two hours with knife wounds and another who was fed glass.”

  The two with knife wounds.”

  “One died, one didn’t.”

  “Mine was Caucasian and kind of elderly and very short.”

  “He died. You knew him? We’d like getting in touch with his family.”

  “I only found him in the park. I should have got him here sooner.”

  “In the park. That’s what the police account said. It’s always such a job getting these men located if they don’t have identification on them. After a while they just get shifted to a medical school.”

  The nurse said we can see Jim now,” Jane says.

  We go to the treatment room, Jim’s about to be moved to the children’s wing upstairs.

  “We’ve got his breathing controlled and his temperature’s already down,” the nurse says. “What is he, asthmatic?”

  “We were told it was croup,” I say. “Seemed like an asthma attack. You ought to check with his pediatrician or a doctor upstairs. Okay,” she says to Jim, “here we go through the big building. Ready for a long ride?”

  “Ha-dah, beh,” Jim says.

  “Look at him. Knows what a ride means. Cute kid. Where’s he get his orange hair?”

  They put him on a gurney. “Hold my hand now,” the nurse says. Jane takes his other hand. The hospital aide tells me to walk in front of the gurney in case there’s lots of traffic in the halls. I walk in front and push open the doors as we leave Emergency.

  “You’ll be just fine, Jim,” Jane says.

  “Oh, yes,” the nurse says.

  “If your father wasn’t so concerned about the whole world, you needn’t have been brought in here at all.”

  “Oh, yes? What he do?”

  I turn around. “Watch it,” the aide says. “I don’t want to ram in to you.”

  I step to the side. “Incidentally,” I say to the nurse, “would you know of a man treated in the last hour or so with a broken wrist or arm and broken shoulder or some part of his neck that he could have gotten from a heavy stick?”

  “Not that I know of, and I’ve been here all day.”

  “Who’s that?” Jane says.

  The guy in the park who knifed me.”

  “Did you get that treated yet?”

  “It’s okay. A detective sprayed methiolate on it and bandaged it up.”

  “You should get a tetanus shot,” the nurse says.

  They told me.”

  “I don’t want to say I saw it coming,” Jane says, “but it wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed home with us like I said.”

  “Ba-ba, ba-ba.”

  “Is he asking for his bottle?” the nurse says. They almost all say it that way.”

  “You’d really be much more help to your son by continuing to run interference,” the aide says. “We’ve had some bad accidents here when two gurneys coming from different directions collided.”

  “He’s been hurt,” the nurse says.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” I say.

  “Better I do it if your arm’s really that bad,” Jane says.

  “Hot soup,” the aide says as we approach a crowded cross corridor.

  “One baby Jimbo coming your way.”

  THE BABY.

  “You wanted it as much as I did,” she says.

  I say “I did want it, that’s true, or thought I did. But now I don’t, and I don’t know what to do about it because it seems too late to get rid of it.”

  “Rid of it, you say? Rid of it? Rid of what? And why ‘it’? Why not ‘him’ or ‘her’? It’s more than an it. He is more, she’s more. No, you wanted a him and I wanted a her and now we have him or her whether you or I like it or not, and I’m going through with it. You don’t want to, you can leave. I’ll take care of him or her on my own. Or the baby. What have I been talking about? That’s what it is—just a baby. But to you, just a goddamn pain in the ass.”

  “It’s because it’s changing our lives so. The baby is. And will change it even more when it
comes, and for years. It was nice, right—nice and uncomplicated without it—so why do we want to screw things up now with it? Excuse me—with the baby. It’s got months to be born yet, but it’s a baby. Okay. But I won’t get as much of my work done as I want with the baby around. You’ll be up all night, and I’ll be up because you will, and because fathers just are today with newborns—the father I’d be, anyway—and that’ll be the pattern of our lives. Being up, feeding and cleaning him, the kid getting sick, and schools, clothes, all those forced nights at home when I want us to be out, determining our vacations and trips by him, boxing in our lives in every kind of way. I didn’t think of all this when I first consented to having it, or her, or him.”

  “You should’ve. But as I said—oh, I said all I had to about your leaving or staying, though naturally I want you to stay. But if you’re asking me to choose you over the baby—there is no choice. The baby’s been in me too long and I can’t give it up now. So make up your mind and then do whatever,” and she goes into the bedroom and slams the door.

  I stay there and in a few seconds I hear her crying. I say “Beth, Beth—ah, the hell with it,” and go into the kitchen and get a bottle out and pour a couple of inches into a glass, throw some ice in, swirl it around with my finger, and drink. I drink it all down in a minute and then go back to the bedroom door. It’s quiet. I knock. She says “What?” and I say “Is it all right if I come in so we can talk?” “What about?” she says. “What do you think what about? Look-it, maybe there’s a way we can work this out. Mind if I open the door so we can discuss it?” “Go ahead.”

  She’s lying on the bed, her stomach sticking up. It’s her stomach that first made me think if we weren’t doing the wrong thing by having the baby. I liked her stomach before she got pregnant and even better when she was two months pregnant. She was always a bit too thin for me, and also, though I had no real complaints about this, too small-breasted, and the pregnancy the first two months expanded her both ways a little. But by the fourth month, though I liked it, and still do, her breasts getting even larger, her stomach really started to get big. Although it was almost cute, her stomach then—plump but hard; it wasn’t a big dumpy stomach. Now she has a big dumpy stomach and has had it for a month, though it’s still pretty hard and I know it isn’t fat. She’s in her sixth month and I almost can’t stand to look at it, though the odd thing is that from behind she looks almost the way she always did. Still, I can take the stomach, since it’ll only be that way another three months and for a short time after. What I don’t think I can take is the sudden irreversible big change in my life once she has the baby.

  This is what I’ve been thinking,” I say.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Give me a chance to say it. It isn’t so easy. This is what I’ve been thinking. Though most people might say six months is too late in the pregnancy to abort or induce a—to get rid of the fetus; why beautify the words?—maybe there’s a doctor who thinks otherwise and we should try to get him. Then”—she puts her hands over her ears—“listen to me. Then, in two to three years, let’s say—when I’m feeling more up to making the big plunge and also sharing you with someone else, is what I mostly mean—we can try again, this time for real.”

  “You finished?”

  “Yes.”

  She takes her hands off her ears. “Please get out of this room,” she says very calmly. “In fact, do it immediately or I’ll scream so loud that the neighbors will be banging on the walls and calling the police. I mean it—now!”

  I don’t know if she means it, but I do it. I shut the door. I hear her crying behind it. But really crying. Those are loud sobs, the kind I’ve maybe only heard three times from her and make me want to run in and throw my arms around her and say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll never say anything like that again.” But I go into the kitchen and pour myself another couple of inches and drop in some cubes and start drinking it before it’s even cold. I drink it down in less than a minute. I’m starting to feel a buzz. Tears come. Alcohol tears; I recognize them. They come when they wouldn’t have without the drinking. I feel awful about what I’ve done. I want to apologize but know if I try to go in now she’ll tell me to stay out, no matter what nice words I use. She’s that hurt and mad. She’ll say she doesn’t want to look at me again or be married to me anymore, and I wouldn’t blame her for saying anything like that. I really did want to have a child. I was happy when she first told me she was pregnant. I excitedly told everyone that we were going to have a baby. I loved her body when it first changed. Not just the bigger breasts and stomach, but also her nipples when they popped out a little and the circles around them changed. I loved our lovemaking when she was two and three months pregnant—the freedom of it. And later, after the third month, that she most of the times had to be on top since, when I was on top her belly hurt when I pressed into her. I loved accompanying her when she bought maternity clothes and things for the baby. Loved being on the subway or bus with her when she was visibly pregnant and asking some young kid if he’d mind giving her his seat. Loved that her appetite grew to almost as large as mine. Loved that at times she looked like a fertility goddess. Loved being extra solicitous to her and how appreciative she was. Loved thinking up names for the kid with her and talking about how we’d raise the child. How different we’d be than our folks were with us. All that—loved it, loved it—so why the change? Why not tell her once and for all that I want to go through with it and I won’t change my mind again? It’ll be nice having a child, I can say—nice, and fun. I’ll see so many new things about life, or at least remember lots of the old ones. I’ll have so many new things to talk about with her. Holding a child will be fun and nice. Playing with it—even feeding it—even cleaning it, though not fun, could be nice. Why shouldn’t it, once I get used to it, since it’ll bring such relief to the kid? So what if it’ll cost more than we can probably afford now to have a child and bring it up? So I won’t get all the work done that I want to because of the child. There’ll be all those other things and more to make up for it. And it’s wrong to back out now. So go in there and tell her just how wrong you know you’ve been. Tell her. Go on—go in.

  I knock on the bedroom door. She doesn’t answer.

  “Beth, please, it’s me, can I come in?” Doesn’t answer.

  “Beth, you asleep? Listen, I’ve been thinking about the way I acted before and I’ve finally begun to understand some things about it and I want to talk about it with you.” No answer. “I’m going to open the door, then, and come in, okay? I won’t if you don’t want me to, but really have a good reason for it, because that’s how much I want to talk about it with you. Beth?” Nothing. “Okay, then I’m going to come in. After all, something could be wrong that you’re not answering, so I’m also coming in for that: to see that you’re all right.” No answer. “Okay, I’m coming in.”

  I try the door. It’s locked. “Beth, you can’t lock the door on me.” No answer. “All right, I’ll give you time to think about what you’re doing, but think about this too. I’m very, very sorry. Put even another very on that. Sorry for making you cry and disappointing you in all sorts of ways. But most of all sorry for telling you I didn’t want the baby and wanted to quote unquote get rid of it. I want the baby now. I know how unfair I’ve been. It was unbelievably wrong of me, unbelievably, to first get excited over having it and then not wanting it for my own selfish reasons, which were stupid reasons too. I want it very much now and want us to be a wonderful family. You don’t have to answer any of that right away. I’m going to the kitchen, to make myself a little drink, so take your time in thinking about what I said.”

  I go into the kitchen. I’m really feeling a buzz now. I should eat something or soon I’ll be spinning. I get cheese out of the refrigerator, also ice for my glass. I put some cheese on a piece of bread and eat it while I pour myself a couple more inches. I sip it, finish the cheese and bread, then drain the glass. I pour another. It’s stupid to drink like this. When I d
o, I just get sentimental. I’ll get so sentimental that I’ll tell her I want even more kids than one. Two more, even; three, tops. So what? Important thing now isn’t how much I believe what I say but to make her happy. To undo what I did. She won’t throw me out. She’ll accept my apology even if it’s a bit flawed. She almost has to. It’s to her advantage. She’ll be mad at me for days. Maybe one day. She’s good in that way. Then she’ll begin believing what I say, and that crisis in my life will be over. I know I’ll get to like having a kid. It’s natural, this worry over it. It could even end up with my loving it more than anything I’ve ever loved in my life. That’s what I should maybe tell her: “I know I’ll end up loving the kid more than anything in my life, or as much as I love you, but in a different way, of course.” That’s what she’ll like hearing. I even believe it, or at least feel I could. But I should tell her that before the booze makes me forget it. Through the door if I have to and extra loud to make sure she hears.

  I finish the drink and am really feeling a buzz. I also feel sexy. I’d love for her to get on her knees so I can do it to her that way. That way, of all ways, seems to be the easiest for her, and it’s certainly a good way for me. I want to first hold her face to face. To tell her my thoughts about love and the baby and her and then I want to kiss her and have sex with her the way I want to.

  I go back to the bedroom door. “Beth?” No answer. I knock. “Oh, just come in,” she says. “Door’s unlocked.”

  “Beth, honey,” I say, opening the door. She’s sitting at the desk with a sheet of paper in front of her and pen in her hand, “I have something I think very important to tell you.”

  “First I want to read you the poem I just wrote about us, you mind?”

  “Sure, please do. Okay if I lie on the bed while you read?”

  “Do what you want.” She holds the sheet of paper and reads.

  “‘Night is a misfortune sometimes, day is a lifesaver sometimes, night he comes and lies, day he goes away, night is when I have to sleep next to him, day I can rest alone with the child, night is when he talks about death, day is when I sense my baby’s breath, night is gruesome, day is toothsome—’ What does toothsome mean? I wrote it down because it sounded right and sort of rhymed. I can always change it later.”