What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  Hello?

  It’s me again, Jane.

  Hello? Who is it? Shout if you have to, but I want to know who’s there.

  IT’S BIFF.

  Hello? I give up. I hope it’s not someone staying silent just to upset me. But if it is someone I know and want to speak to—

  It’s Biff, Biff.

  —then call back, okay? Anyway, I’m hanging up.

  Good idea.

  Biff?

  You can hear me?

  Suddenly I can.

  You’re not playing a joke on me?

  Why would I do that?

  You might not have liked what I was saying. That you and I should go away this weekend.

  What?

  Oh, come on.

  This time I was kidding. But where would we like to go?

  Say, a cottage on the ocean.

  Why the ocean?

  Then a cabin in the woods.

  No, I mean it’s that I could never see the ocean in the summer.

  Bad eyes?

  Bad joke. I don’t like sitting around getting sunburned. I think it’s so unromantic, getting unhealthy. Burnt skin, healing creams. White marks where the bathing suit straps were, bed soaked with sweat from your shiverings.

  Then we’ll rent a dark dank cave with a single warm bed. Would that satisfy you more?

  I hope it’s not just a bed you think makes for romance. Anyway, I can’t go.

  Why not? Before, you sounded as if you could.

  Before, I was curious what travel suggestions you’d make. I’m curious about a lot of things with someone I only recently met. Especially that he asks me away for a weekend in a single bed. But as I said, I can’t.

  The single bed was a joke. But why?

  Personal reasons.

  Too personal to tell me?

  You, yes.

  Thank you.

  Another thing I’m finding out about you is your infantile sensitivity.

  You’d be the first woman to think or say that.

  That can’t be true.

  It isn’t. Several have.

  Another about you is that you’re a bit of a liar, or fibber, but can’t keep to your fibs when it might benefit you or please another.

  Is that an honest, dishonest or tomato aspect?

  Tomato aspect? Tomato aspect. Good God. Another unpleasant aspect of yours is your numerous unfunny jokes.

  And one of yours I’m pretty well fed up with is your criticisms of me. And fed up with your tomato aspect as well.

  I’m sorry. And I think I better go.

  My infantile sensitivity again?

  Partly.

  You prefer your infantile sensitivity in men to be more adult, right?

  I prefer none at all.

  An insensitive man, then?

  No, I don’t. I’m getting mixed up. You’re making me mixed up. I really have to go.

  This conversation’s gotten us nowhere. It’s in fact set us back a ways. Because I originally called with a nice attitude to ask if you wanted to go away this weekend.

  You did. That’s true. And I don’t. That’s true too. Or rather, I can’t. I already told you why without being explicit. For now that should be enough.

  Listen. I’ll see you.

  Fine, if that’s the way you feel.

  It seems the way you feel.

  You know how I feel? How nice. Maybe this conversation hasn’t been a waste of time after all. But call again if you like.

  You mean that?

  I said it, so I meant it.

  I’ll see you then, Jane.

  Have a good weekend.

  You too.

  He calls back.

  Hello?

  You said call back, so I did.

  I’m wondering if I meant right away.

  Then you didn’t mean it—see?

  Let’s say I did mean it. What’s new?

  Well, now that you ask, I was thinking if you’d like to spend part of the weekend with me in the city.

  Actually, I was planning on going to the beach to develop a slight case of sun poisoning. But now that you asked.

  You serious?

  No. I really am tied up this weekend, Biff. Honestly…Biff. What a strange name. That your real one?

  Biff Junior’s my real name.

  Is Biff Senior still with us, I hope?

  And Biff Senior the first. You see, I’m the third. But my dad didn’t like to be called Junior, so he eliminated his. But when they had me, he liked the name so much that they named me Biff, also. Not Biff Also. Biff Junior.

  It would seem if he was so devoted to individuality, he would have wanted you named Biff Also. Or Also Biff. Or Biff Biff. That would be the best one, I think.

  I don’t. And I don’t like talking about my name.

  You don’t? I forgot who first brought it up. Must have been me. Well, I’m sorry if it was.

  Yes. So, anyway, you’re busy this weekend.

  Tied up in knots, I’m afraid.

  I’ll come and rescue you.

  Touché, but no thanks.

  Not to stay; just to cut the ropes.

  Touché encore, mon Bift, but I’m sorry. I definitely can’t see you this weekend.

  Not so much where we have to go out or anything. We could meet for coffee somewhere.

  Sorry. I’ll explain some other time, but right now I can’t.

  Someone there with you?

  It’s not that. Or it might be. Whatever it is, I’m not saying. It’s none of your business, that’s why.

  I think it is.

  Think what the heck you want, but I’m not going to ask why, because it isn’t and you know it.

  I thought you were interested in me, that’s why I said it.

  I thought I was also, to a certain extent, but when you come on like this?

  Like what?

  Let’s see, where were we? Look, I have visions these conversations are only going to get worse for us. So sometimes it’s best to let them drop, wait a week or so, and then call back. Or I’ll call back. But right now, whatever there was forming between us, is being grounded.

  Are you saying, with me?

  You really didn’t think I meant you and I?

  Yes, I have to admit that.

  Then either the connection was bad again or you’re just plain stupid.

  See you, honey.

  He hangs up, opens a beer, takes two swigs. calls back. The receiver’s picked up but nobody answers.

  I don’t know who should be sorry, me for hanging up like that or you for calling me stupid.

  What I said was that either the connection was bad again or else you’re stupid. I didn’t call you stupid outright.

  To me it still sounds as if you did.

  Then the connection was bad again just now or you truly are stupid.

  He hangs up, finishes the beer, calls back.

  I’m being silly now, maybe even stupid, calling like this. But it must mean something.

  Maybe that you like making an ass of yourself on the phone and I either like helping or hearing you make one of yourself. Or maybe you’re itching to know something more about me that you didn’t and you’re finding out because I’m doing nothing to hold it back. Or else you’re working for the Secret Service and you’re keeping me busy with your calls till they pound my door down and arrest me for something. Or maybe it means I’ve run out of reasons to explain all your calls and I really don’t want to talk to you anymore today, or I don’t know what. Why?

  Why, what?

  You continue to call me. Because you know I won’t call you?

  It could be I like speaking to you.

  You call this speaking to me? You enjoy this? That’s so silly. You’re silly.

  I’m going to hang up on you if you say anything more derogatory than that.

  Hang up, then.

  Just don’t say anything more derogatory than silly. You may call me stupid, ignorant, foolish, dumb ox, hateful, aggravating, insufferable
, all the others, but not, and I repeat, not silly or very silly. I don’t want to be called silly or very silly.

  What would happen if I did? You’d hang up?

  I promise.

  Then you are very silly.

  No, I don’t promise, because I feel you’re about to call me very silly.

  Now that’s the first clever thing you said since your first call today.

  Then I must sound very stupid to you at times.

  Oh, very. At other times, extremely. And a couple of other times, profusely. But sometimes, no. You have said clever and even witty things before, but not since that first call.

  Dark dank cave with only a warm bed in it, after you said you didn’t like sunlight—that wasn’t anything but stupid to you, right?

  Wasn’t that in the first call? And I didn’t say I disliked sunlight. And the remark wasn’t clever, no.

  Bad eyes?

  Bad eyes? Oh, yes. Old, old joke. What about your having a minor physical ailment in your insides to get out of going into the army—no guts.

  That’s very funny.

  Of course it isn’t. The reason I said it was to explain when I first heard it. Years ago. When I was a freshman or sophomore in college and the older boys were still fairly successful in being rejected by the army—

  Deferred from.

  Deferred from for physical reasons they made up or exaggerated. Let’s see—another one.

  All right. So my bad-eyes joke wasn’t funny.

  No no, wait a minute. There’s one more the boys used to tell. That’s right. I’ve stomach trouble.

  You’ve stomach trouble. I see.

  No, you don’t see. You’re not supposed to say anything, in fact, except maybe an oh-yes, but certainly not an I-see. That could lead to your bad-eyes joke again. But after you do say something to my stomach-trouble line, I say yes, I get sick every time I think of myself in the army.

  Not bad.

  It’s said differently, I didn’t tell it right. I never could.

  None of us can.

  No, some can. But there’s one more and then I’ll stop.

  Please, no more. I don’t think I could take it. I’ve stomach trouble also. I get sick every time someone tells me a bad old joke.

  Okay, bit of a joke theft, but you’re getting there.

  Few years with you and I’ll be a real comedian.

  It would also probably save you a few thousand dollars in phone bills, but don’t let me give you any ideas.

  Oh, I couldn’t see us communicating any other way but by phone, even if we lived together a couple of years.

  Lived together? Say, really now, just put that notion out of your head.

  No, listen. The idea is for us to live together for two years but to only communicate by phone. In other words, being the phone addict you obviously think I am, if you wanted me to go out for groceries, let’s say, you’d pick up the phone, even if we were only ten feet from each other and this was a one-room apartment we shared, and dial the other phone in the place, and I’d pick it up and you’d tell me what you want at the store, and we’d talk like that. What do you think?

  I wouldn’t see any reason for it.

  Now you’re the one with no sense of humor.

  I think a sense of humor has to have some sense. In this one, it’s just projecting your fantasies a bit, wouldn’t you say? Besides trying to intrigue me.

  That’s legitimate.

  Right now, it isn’t. Look, to be honest with you there is someone else. I don’t want to go into it, but someone, and whatever he thinks of me, someone.

  He craps on you, right?

  I’m not going to answer that.

  Why not? If he doesn’t, say so.

  I give up. Goodbye.

  Don’t go.

  He calls right back.

  Jane?

  Right after this call, I’m phoning the phone company to take out my phone.

  I don’t like being hung up on.

  Then don’t call me.

  Even though I’ve hung up on you, I think it’s an exceedingly wrong thing to do. You could be nice.

  The nicest thing I could do for you is convince you never to call again.

  I wouldn’t have. And this will be my last call. Only you sounded—something in your voice and what you said—a little sad, so I called back.

  What bull. And I’m not sad. I can handle my own affairs quite well.

  But he does crap on you, right?

  Give up, my friend.

  Biff. And give up I will. I told you, my last call. But he does, and that’s always the case. With me, I mean. Whenever I’m interested in a woman, she’s not. She’s interested in someone who isn’t interested in her, and he probably with someone else who’s not interested in him, and the same with someone to her, and so on and so forth and ad infinitum, absurdum, exhaustum and dum de dum.

  The dum de dum I like best. But that isn’t always the case and not necessarily the case with me now.

  Not necessarily but not absolutely not.

  Not absolutely not, then. Or not the case absolutely in perpetuity for all time then, not. It just isn’t so. And it’s still not your business.

  I don’t believe you, but maybe that’s my problem. What I wanted to add though is that it’s also reversed for me too. When a woman likes me, I’m usually not interested. Not because she’s interested in me, but that the ones who get interested in me I’m not interested in to begin with.

  Never?

  Almost. With you it’s the other way around.

  I never said I wasn’t interested in you, Biff. Just not right now.

  Why not? Let’s forget all the others. We’ll just go away, or stay here, but develop something, become friends. Talk and have fun and anything you want to do anyplace you want to do it at.

  That’s very generous of you, but again, I can’t right now.

  Then when? Because we could just go, that’s what I’m saying. I could pick you up in half an hour.

  Impossible.

  Then an hour.

  Impossible till one day I tell you it’s not. When, who knows? Most likely never. If you can’t accept that, stop calling.

  Will you call me if I don’t you?

  For the time being, no. Things have to be settled first.

  Like that guy who craps on you? You like being crapped on?

  I don’t like the word, expression, meaning or even the implication or symbolism or anything else about it in any tense or form. Don’t mention it again, please.

  That this fellow craps on you?

  Biff?

  I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I felt like saying something mean.

  You feel like that a lot. That’s why you shouldn’t bother with me. It can’t be healthy for you. And if you like me like you say, then don’t bother with me. Find someone else.

  There isn’t anyone else.

  First you have to find her.

  I’d love to. You think I like making a fool of myself on the phone? I only do it because I think you’re worth it to go through all this crap with you and letting you see what’s really inside me.

  That’s a line.

  You joking?

  A trick, an act, a masculine stunt. A universal ploy, then, used by men and women alike, said for your own gain. Me, me, me. It never ends. I can’t even say goodbye.

  He calls back.

  Call me once more and I’ll pull out my phone. I mean it. Leave me alone.

  He calls back.

  I thought you were going to pull out your phone.

  And you with your last call ten calls ago, what about that? Anyway, I thought it would cost too much having my phone repaired. And what excuse could I give the phone company—some maniac wouldn’t stop calling me?

  You could have said my calls were obscene.

  I could have, but now I don’t feel like pulling it out. No strength. Anyway, I could just leave it off the hook. Besides, I’m going out. Bye, Biff.

  Will you cal
l me sometime if this thing with this fellow is ever through?

  I don’t think so. Goodbye.

  If you say you’ll call sometime if this thing you have is ever over, then I won’t call again.

  Call all you want. What I’ve decided on now is a new number. Unlisted. I want to be away from all callers. You, everyone.

  Even him?

  Even him. Even you. Even who? You’re such a cluck. Did I ever say there was anyone else? Even if I did, I didn’t reveal much because I said it was too personal. So why do you persist?

  I persist–

  Oh, you persist because that’s the way you are. Because you got it sealed in your head you’re interested in me and that we could be great together. Oh, yeah. Because you like my face. My neck’s so nice. My eyes so blue. Sky blue blue. My lips are so symmetrical and full, you never met anyone with such lips. So soft, not chapped. How sweet. My sweet tweet lips. Or you like my perfume, though I don’t wear perfume or cologne. You adore my legs. Long strong thin legs. Tiny feet. Legs like an athlete, dancer or gymnast. Did I like sports when I was a girl? You’re amazed by my waist. What size belt could I possibly wear? Why do I ask? Because I once knew a woman who had a very small waist, but yours seems even smaller than hers. Or you like my hair. You always had a thing for long straight black hair. The way it shines. It can also look blue. Pitch black or rich blue in the night light. And so fine. How many times must you take a shampoo a week? How did it ever get so long? Don’t the ends break off at that length? Or you like the way I stand, walk and run. An athlete again. My voice. The way I talk and move. Especially the way I move. And most especially my mind. If there was nothing else about me, you’d be attracted to my mind.

  You do have a good mind.

  Of course I’ve a good mind. That’s what I’m saying. That you say it. That you want to be with me for all these things. My unpolished fingernails. Because I eat health foods and don’t wear lipstick and no makeup and I’m slim and my clothes and I can make jokes and talk lively and I seem sympathetic and no guises and am friendly and everyone seems to like me, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. Your comments. Now don’t call. Do not call. Don’t—you hear me?—call. You do I’m gonna get my big brudder to come over your house and knock your block off, ya unnerstand? Now goodbye.

  Wait.

  He calls right back.

  Your dialing finger must be exhausted.

  I have a push-button phone.

  You would.

  You don’t approve?

  Who am I to disapprove? And for someone who makes as many calls as you, it obviously serves a purpose.