What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “Five cents a card is still quite the bargain,” the clerk said, “what with all the other postal rates raised and the cards staying the same. A two-dollar bill? Where you been hiding it? And a John Kennedy for your change.” He made a drawing on one of the cards of a laughing man running through a forest followed by a galloping sixtailed five-horned four-eared three-tongued two-nosed one-eyed horselike creature called The Multimal and addressed it to his son in San Jose. Beneath the address he wrote “Attention: Love to you and Mommy,”

  “I arrived at the exact instant this thing was being delivered,” Chrisie said, holding out a telegram, as she and her girls cautiously walked down the long steep rickety flight of outside wooden stairs.

  “Decided not to come after all,” Chrisie had wired from San Luis Obispo this morning. “Why not drive down here instead, Love,” her address and the number of the main connecting highway, 101.

  “Remember Dirk, Caroline?” Chrisie said to her older daughter, and Caroline said “No, when are we going home?” “Remember Dirk, Sophie?” and Sophie, two in a month, said “Dow? Dow?” and painted her hand with his purple marker. “Remember Chrysalis, Dirk?” Chrisie said, and he hugged her, made bacon and eggs for the girls on his two hot plates, gave them juice in clean paint glasses, set up Sophie’s portable crib, unrolled a sleeping bag for Caroline, later placed a triptych screen between the section of the room the girls were asleep in and his mattress on the floor.

  He and Chrisie had tuna fish salad sandwiches, wine, carrots, cookies, grass, got under the covers, turned down the electric blanket, tuned in a Vivaldi piccolo concerto, watched the lights of a low-flying plane pass his window and cross the full moon. A dog from the house below his began to bay.

  “Happy Easter,” Chrisie said when he awoke, handed him a wicker egg basket filled with candy eggs, jelly beans, chocolate bunny and new electric razor. Caroline said “Merry Easter, Dirk,” and showed him a similar basket with a baby rabbit inside sniffing the green-paper grass. Sophie was standing in her crib, nibbling a blue candy egg.

  Two conductors wouldn’t let them on their cable cars because of Caroline’s rabbit. The conductor of the third car patted the rabbit’s head and asked if he could feed it part of his apple. The car rattled along Lombard street, was very crowded. A woman said to Dirk she would have thought twice about getting on a cable car if she had known a rodent was aboard. A man hurrying to catch up with his wife, who had suddenly jumped off the car to take movies of what her guidebook said was “the world’s crookedest street,” nearly knocked Caroline off the rear platform. The rabbit got out of a basket, as Chrisie was picking up Caroline, and disappeared into a storm drain. They got off the car, and Chrisie and Dirk made a show of looking for the rabbit. Dirk blew the highest note of his harmonica at the man, who snarled back “Hippies,” and resumed his smile and pose for his wife’s camera. Caroline stopped crying after Chrisie told her the rabbit had joined its Northern California family underground and Dirk gave her his Kennedy half dollar and harmonica.

  They took the next car, Dirk holding Sophie as it headed down to the Wharf. She was wet, smelled, her mouth bubbled, he kissed her sticky fingers, felt her firm back, rubbery legs, grazed his face across her thread-thin hair, which was getting blonder than Chrisie’s lemon-colored hair. They got off at the turntable, Chrisie said how touristy the whole area was, got on the same car for the return trip up the hill, went to Golden Gate Park, where a radical New Left political party was sponsoring a be-in, and got up to leave an hour later. The sound equipment was bad, not enough music was being played, Chrisie was getting paranoid at the number of people openly turning on around then, and the field was too crowded and the girls could wander off and there were too many political speeches being made and most were too virulent. The black man,” the black woman candidate for the state’s 18th assembly district said, “and the white man had all better start working together fast to end the repulsive criminal police power in this fascist town, or else the whole Bay Area’s going to go up in flames, a lot of noninnocent people going to get accidentally wiped out, the entire state and country might even get cooked, and I ain’t just bull-jiving, brothers and sisters.”

  “We simply don’t work together, fit together, do anything well except sex together,” Chrisie said in his apartment, “and even that we can’t be too certain about, Dirk. I liked you better when I first met you—even liked you better during that last disastrous weekend in L.A. I like you better in your letters, prose paintings, painted postcards and grunts and silences for phone conversations. I think you only see me because of Sophie. You’re so compulsively solitary, while at the same time, so hungry for companionship and maybe, maybe even love. Most people we both know agree to my theory about you, or have even volunteered a similar one of their own, that there are really three of you—and, we can say this unhypocritically while realizing you probably represent, in an exaggerated form, the condition of us all. The pleasant helpful exterior, the bored angry man inside, who keeps distorting the fake amiable face, and the third you, who’s inside the second you and who deeply wants a close enduring relationship with someone but can’t find his way out. I’ve thought about it a lot, Dirk, so maybe you can think about it a little after I’m gone. Blaise didn’t know I was driving up. Nobody knew except my father, who called as I was leaving the second-to-last time and asked why I couldn’t spend Easter Sunday with them. I told him because I was celebrating it with a friend, and he said which friend, as he thinks he knows all my friends, and I said a friend, and he said male or female friend, and I said male, of course, though we’re strictly platonic, but only because he’s a brilliant young scientist fag. I finally had to divulge your name, John Addington Symonds—I love playing literary jokes on my dad, if only to let the snob know how really uninformed he is—and gave a bogus address, which they’re likely driving to right now. This place is like a monk’s room other than for the paintings. Though David Lieberman became a monk and he still paints. I think Blaise is going to cut up your painting when he discovers where I’ve gone. I’d hate for him to do that. You painted it for me without my asking you to, and it’s going to be worth a lot of money one day. Everyone who’s seen it concurs with me on that except my father, who says it’s too psychedelic and you ought to try another art form. That one looks like a sexed-up vagina close up. And that one there has always been my favorite—an immense forget-me-not, which was my pet flower as a girl. But Suicide—no, it makes me anxious, tense. You should have sold it when that very suicidal man wanted to buy it from you, just to get it out of the house. Show me all the new ones, Dirk. I like that one; that one’s fantastic; that one’s another great pulsing vagina; I don’t like that one—another Suicide. This one should be reproduced in an alternative newspaper’s centerfold; this one hung on a busy street corner; this one hung above the bed of a couple who want to but can’t conceive; this one given to Blaise to cut up. Can I make you a liverwurst and cheddar on rye? Are we getting along better than we did last night? Do you have any more Miracle Whip for the girls’ tuna fish salad?”

  The telegram to Chrisie from her husband read: “Don’t bother returning less you bring back two fresh loaves Larraburu extra-sour sourdough white.”

  They drove to the party where Helen, Donald and Roy might be. Sophie in his arms, Caroline behind them, blowing into the harmonica, they climbed the steep flight of stairs, were greeted at the top by the host, who was the twin brother of the man who’d invited Dirk. He shook their hands, seemed disappointed. “Cute kids,” he said, “the little one a girl? Coats over there, head’s through there, drinks in there, nice to see you—Dick, is it? Julie? I never remember names and especially not children’s, and he greeted the childless bottle-bringing couple behind them with a long noisy hug. “Wendy, Harris, glad you could come, glad you could come.”

  Ken, the host’s twin, said he was happy to see them, lifted Caroline and swung her, kissed Sophie’s head, Dick’s cheek, Chrisie’s lips, said “Soft, soft, l
ike morning mush. Bar’s over there, head’s back there, I guess you know where you put your outer dugs and I’m the bartender, so vodka and tonic for everyone except the teeny kids. Orange pop on the rocks do you, Caroline, my dear?” and he put her into a soda carton and carried her to the bar.

  Helen was in the living room, dressed and groomed meticulously in a floor-length harem suit, different from Chrisie, who in less than two minutes had washed her face and brushed her hair and ran a wet washrag over her armpits, and thrown a wrinkled paisley smock over her body, with nothing on underneath but sheer panties she could hide in her fist. “So this is Sophie,” Helen said, and took her from his arms and kissed her nose. “She’s a darling, a dream child,” and held her high. “She should be on television, promoting very pure white soap. She looks nothing like you, Dirk, except for her thin hair.” Chrisie’s uneasy smile failed; she looked weakly defensive, sullen, said nothing; they were all handed drinks by Ken.

  “Special,” he said. “Drink this and two more magically appear in its place.”

  “Why’d you come, Dirk?” He had gone to the bedroom to get their coats. The party was dull and the children’s presence was annoying the host and guests. “Why’d you come, or does it matter? You knew this’d be an adult party. If you came with Chrisie alone, I’d say fine, big deal, you’re fully out of my life now and I think it’d be wonderful for you if you ended up marrying her and possibly even hilarious. She seems nice, quiet, down to earth, attractive, and good to the girls, though expressionless. She has no expression. I could never understand that in a woman. Ken says she looks like a wasted hippie. Surely, you didn’t think Roy would be here. Because if you did, and he was, what kind of message would you be trying to send him? Oh, well.” She put the headset back on to listen to the music being piped in from the living room stereo. “Unbelievable. The Chamber Brothers doing Time Has Come Today. Like having the speakers built into your brains—four big beautiful spades coming on like Gang Busters in your skull. Want to hear?” She gave him the headset, he sat beside her on the bed. She got up, shut the door, got back on the bed and stretched out on her stomach. He felt her thigh, she laughed and turned over and stroked his neck. She said “Roy’s being baby-sat at Donald’s by this wild old Russian countess, if you’re interested.” She said “Donald’s in this super cutting room downtown, editing his totally insane flick, if you’re interested.” Drank from her drink, his drink. Said his tasted better, sweeter, would he mind if they exchanged or just shared? Touched his waist, said she thinks he’s lost weight. “It looks good; you’ve been getting much too heavy. You look best when you’re slim,” Signaled she’d like the headset back. When he put up his hand for her to wait awhile more, she said she thinks the host has another set. She left the room, returned with the second set, plugged it into the jack, lay beside him, both on their backs, listening to Time, which must run for around twenty minutes. She asked if he could do it quickly; she could. Donald’s way above par, and all that, but he’ll be editing film all night and she wants to fuck, does he? “And then, you’re still my quasi-legal husband till June and such, but no rationales or threats, can you do it quickly? I can.” He helped her kick off her panties, she helped him unbuckle his belt. He got on top of her and both moved to the group’s howls and the beat of “time…time…time…” Their headsets got in the way when they kissed. He tried throwing off his set and got one earphone off and was prying out the other phone cord still wedged behind his ear, when the doorknob turned, the door was being pushed, Helen’s wrist was pressed to his mouth and her teeth clenched tightly when Caroline yelled “Dirk,” as they came together, “I’m tired, Dirk, and Mommy wants for us to go home.”

  “We don’t often accompany each other that high and far,” Helen said, as she took off her headset. “Did they make your ears hot too?” She kissed his forehead, slipped into the room’s bathroom. He unlocked the door, gave Caroline her coat, helped Chrisie on with her sweater, took a sleeping Sophie in his arms, shook Ken’s hand and waved to the host, who seemed delighted they were going, said from across the room “Nice to meet you, Dick; nice to meet you, Chris; come back again real soon.”

  “Did you two make love?” Chrisie said during the drive home.

  “I thought that’s what you were doing and didn’t want to bother you in the room. It was Caroline who insisted we go. And when Helen opened the door and came over to the bar asking for a second set of earphones, I had some crazy idea you were going to do it with those things on. What was it like? You smell like a marriage bed now. I wish we could do it with sound ourselves.”

  In the apartment, the children asleep, he and Chrisie began to make love, stopped, she said it was usually better when he was hard, she’d understand if he couldn’t or didn’t want to right now but she felt it was something more. “Feel like it, Dirk, that’s an order, or almost an order. No, no order at all; it was nothing, maybe a confession, forget I said anything. But even if talking about the act usually kills it, I still feel I’ve got to do it at least once before I leave. My femininity’s at stake, my whole well-being’s in peril, the children’s futures are in jeopardy; besides, we haven’t done it in half a year and you were usually so good at it before; do you mind? Strange how things change.”

  Chrisie and the girls were in the car, Dirk on the sidewalk. “Will you be coming to Obispo?” she said. Though I suppose I should continue coming here, what with Blaise and a rabidly uptight father and a mother who’s always spying by for butter and mommy-sissy chats and demanding to know who painted those erotic watercolors. No, I’ll come here, or maybe we should just start living together. Blaise would love that. He honestly would. He wants to be alone also, so you two could sort of switch. And you cook better than him. I like to cook also, but you cook so well I’d let you run the kitchen. And your sandwiches. I think I’ll fly up and get us all killed next time, just for your sandwiches. You ought to open a sandwich shop. Just make sandwiches any old way you like and I’ll be your only waitress. We could retire in ten years and live for as long as we liked on the Costa del Sol or any one of those other Costas or Sols. But you do make delectable sandwiches, Dirk, and thank you for buying me two front tires. I didn’t know the old ones were bald. I didn’t know that people got blowouts from bald tires. I thought that even new tires could get blowouts. Goodbye, Dirk.” He stuck his head inside the car window and they kissed. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Caroline said. He opened the rear door and kissed her. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Chrisie said. He extended his head over the front seat and they hugged, cried, kissed. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Caroline said, and he laughed, kissed her cheek again, closed the door, keeping his thumb pressed to the handle button, to make sure the door stayed locked,. “Goodbye, Dirk,” Chrisie said, and he stuck his head through the window and they kissed. Caroline was still flapping her toy bunny at him as their car entered the freeway on ramp. During all these words, embraces and gestures of departure, Sophie had remained asleep in her child’s car chair hooked over the back seat. What, he thought. What, he wanted to say, what is all this?

  PRODUCE.

  Suddenly, one of the front windows broke and a fire started at number-three cash register and I knew right away what had happened. Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window. Because just before the smell of fire and smoke had covered over every single smell in the store, there was this smell of kerosene that had flashed in and out of my nose.

  “Hey, I’m burning, I’m burning up,” Nelson Forman said, first very surprised to see his clothes on fire, then running from his post at number three with flames coming out of his back.

  “Get a blanket,” a woman customer said. And when I yelled “Where in hell am I going to get a blanket in a supermarket?,” she said “Get a coat, then, something to wrap around him, at least.”

  But this was a hot, sticky August day and not a person in the store had even a jacket on, not even the register clerks, though it was compulsory for them. Nelson ran up aisle A, flames still coming out of his
back. Everyone, including a dozen or so customers and the delivery boys and all the clerks, except the two who were using the store’s only working fire extinguisher to put out the small blaze at number three, just sort of looked dumbfounded and helpless at Nelson running up and around and down the aisles, wailing his head off, till I tackled him from in front, a perfect tackle right below the knees, so his whole body would buckle and fall backward and lose an extra yard and maybe even loosen the ball from his hands, and rolled him on the floor on his back till most of the fire was out. Then I flipped open five quart bottles of cranberry juice, the nearest liquid I could reach, and poured them over him till the fire was doused, and rested from the ordeal, with my breath coming on hard, while all three delivery boys uncapped quart and half-quart bottles of tomato and pineapple and apricot-orange juice and spilled the contents over Nelson, even after his clothes had stopped smoking.