What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

The heavy girl finished her freeze, snapped the plastic spoon in two, and stood up. The other girl stood up too, glanced past Lenny as if searching for someone in particular, and they walked away. She hadn’t touched her tea.

  He’d call Louise. Her dorm was nearby and they’d already met for coffee three times in the evening, though never for more than twenty minutes. He was at the stage where he thought he might take her hand and hold it. Through one ridiculously juvenile pretext or another—There’s something there that needs to be brushed off”—he’d touched her wrist and once even her cheek and kept his hand there a few seconds, and so far she hadn’t objected.

  A girl answered the phone.

  “Is Louise Robbins in, please?” he said.

  “Nope. This is her roommate Penny.”‘

  “Louise?” It suddenly sounded like her. “Is that you?”

  “Daddy? Uncle Rootie? Father Travers? Who is this? Penny Wolfgang, speaking.”

  “It’s me, Louise, Lenny Polk. What gives?”

  “Oh, hi, Lenny. That routine was for someone else. How are things?”

  “Just fine. I was around campus and thought you might like a quick coffee at the Union.”

  She laughed.

  “You see, I was first going to see a film at University Aud,” he said. “Part of that Ukrainian film festival they’ve got going every Thursday night. And then I got caught up in a book, and thought—” but she was still laughing. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “You were laughing. Listen, Louise, if you can’t meet now, would it be too past your curfew to meet me in the next couple of hours?”

  “I can stay out till two if I really have to.”

  “I thought eleven was the latest.”

  “No, two. If I really have to, I can sign out for three and have a friend sign me in by morning. As it is, you caught me in bed.” She giggled, as if she’d said something naughty. “What I mean is, I’m in my jimmies and about to sleep into bed. I mean, sled into sleep. I mean—I’m high.”

  “High?”

  “Hi, Daddy. Hi, Uncle Rootie. Father Travers? Grandpa Wolfgang? What I meant was that I’m high on life, Grandpa. Life’s what intoxicates me. Solely, life’s what makes me high.”

  “You don’t think you can have coffee, then.”

  “Not tonight, Leonard. Thanks.”

  “How about us driving to San Gregorio Beach sometime this weekend. I hear it’s rough and rustic and gorgeous.”

  “I’m going to my future in-laws this weekend, though I don’t know which day.”

  Then the day you’re not going.”

  “I better keep both open.”

  They keep a close tab on you, no?”

  “I suppose, because Hank’s in New Zealand, they think they have to.”

  She laughed. He also laughed and figured it was for the same thing. It amused him when she spoke about her fiancé being in New Zealand. He’d gone there half a year ago to get his Ph.D in abnormal psychology. She was to follow him out after she graduated, four months from now. Lenny suspected she was a virgin. She’d spoken about “perhaps a certain sexual inexperience for a California girl my age” when they talked, over coffee, about a Henry Miller novel he’d read as a college freshman in the smuggled-in version from France and she was reading for an American literature course. And she’d written explicitly about the inhibitions and frustrations of a virgin heroine who resembled her in looks and read that story in class, but refused to answer—and the writer-professor who ran the program said she was “within every realm of her rights not to”—when one of the male grad students pumped her on whether the protagonist was herself. Lenny had never made love to a virgin. He didn’t think he’d ever even had a chance to the past ten years, not that he’d know what to do, though he was eager to test his delicacy in such an event. He felt that with Louise, whom he felt tender to, it would be extraordinary, though maybe not for her.

  “Well, I guess that’s it then,” he said. “See you Monday.”

  “No class Monday, didn’t you know? It’s Washington’s Birthday—or Lincoln’s. I forget which.”

  “Ronald Reagan’s. To celebrate the good governor’s fortieth year in show business. But one or the other’s all right with me. So long as it means a day off from class and I can get in another afternoon to write.”

  “Oh, I don’t feel that way yet. I guess I haven’t been writing that long, but I love our seminars and everybody in it. But I’ll be signing off now, Len. Little Louise Robbins, now flying away.”

  He went back to the cafeteria table and finished reading two full pages, but they were mostly dialog. Nathaniel Vest was one heck of a writer, he thought, and I’m probably one of his few readers to take an entire week to complete half of Miss Lonelyhearts. He looked at the moon again. It was still pretty low, though seemed to have risen a bit. Or maybe he was just sitting lower in his chair than before, so the moon was actually higher than he thought. Today is Thursday, and there won’t be another class till a week from Monday. At least in class he talked and joked and could look at Louise and got into an occasional literary argument. And after the seminar he always had a coffee and pastry here with B.J. and sometimes Louise would come along with a few of the tuition-paying grad students, who read very well though wrote rather poorly and usually criticized his stories he read in class more severely than he felt they even overexaggeratedly deserved. “Hang Washington,” he said. There were classes on Lincoln’s birthday this year so why not Washington’s? Another thing he didn’t know the answer to.

  He stuck a napkin between the pages and closed the book. He got up for another coffee, stretched and yawned and looked around. It was getting late; not many people here, and he didn’t recognize anyone. If he did, he was sure he’d ratchet up the guts enough to walk over to that person’s table and ask if he might join it, even to someone he’d only met briefly or to a girl he’d never met but was sure she was in some way connected to the creative writing program. But he didn’t recognize a soul.

  THE TALK SHOW.

  Enraged, the writer walks off the stage and out of the television studio.

  “Where’d he go?” the host says. “Hey, Mal, where you going? God, that guy walks fast. Come on back, will ya, and let’s be friends. Then let’s have a walking race. Okay, we’ll just stare at each other while the announcer reads sonnets. And you didn’t sing that old Irish ballad you promised us. Sure, you can go. Made a mint with his last two novels—not that I’m knocking it, you understand. It’s the international way, comprendo? Nicht so? Bet you didn’t know I spoke Chinese. But me? Walk off once like he did, and that, my friends, would be show business, as they say—forever. And bestsellers I don’t write. Some people will even say I can’t write, and there won’t be many who’ll take issue with them. Because anybody here read my last book? Come on, don’t be ashamed. Stand up if your belt and garters are on tight. Say, let’s not all rise at once. Anybody even remember the title? What was that? Be brave and shout it out. No, it wasn’t Gone with the Wind; but thanks, Mom. Huh? No, not Madame Bovary, either—but Flaubert, right? And you people thought I never went to college. Crime and Punishment? That’s what the readers thought I inflicted on them. War and Peace? A good description of what went on between the editors and me. It was…Madame Bovary Returns, the hopeful horticulturist in the front row says. We’re all quipsters here. No, I said horticulturist. That’s a hearts and flowers man with brains. Swann’s what? Never heard of it. Oedipus Sex? Never saw it. Be a Wolf? Who even wrote it? And is that a nice thing to advise a married man? Dead Souls?—you said it, brother, not me—is what I think I have in devoted readers here. The Trial? What this guessing game’s getting to become. But Wild Walter’s World. There it is. My autobiog. Born with a silver spoon and golden locks in my mouth, which is why I talk this way. My mom never took them out because she thought they might improve my face. Someone once suggested it be retitled to Crazy Publisher’s Catastrophe, because you know what that book so
ld? How many fingers you got on your hand? Not you. Our orchestra leader just held up six fingers on his right hand and seven on his left—but the fiddler next to you. The one who got his hand caught in a giant metronome the other day and had to have a few fingers removed. Well, his hand—the one that was operated on. Count how many fingers he’s got left. Subtract two. That’s how many copies my book sold. I still got it home. Under a broken kitchen chair leg. In the same brown paper bag they sold it to me in. My wife didn’t want it on the bookshelf because we already had a book there. And our youngest daughter refused to sit on it to reach the dinner table and our mutt still thinks it’s the oddest-looking fire hydrant around. Truthfully, it sold pretty well and in more languages than I knew existed. And starting this month, any one of you out there and in this audience can be one of its two million paperback owners. Wild Walter’s World. I said the title too low? That was Wild Walter’s World, folks. Not Wild Walter’s World Folks, but just Wild Walter’s World. Okay. Now, did our guest really leave? He’s not back there smoking a cigarette somewhere? Daphne, you checked? Nobody? Dashed out of the studio with our library prop and ordered his chauffeur to drive him home? Well, this is a very intellectual show tonight. And before introducing our next eminent author—and it beats me how we’re going to carry out our literary discussion format if it’s now just going to be me and him here. Or ‘I.’ All these brilliant writers around the joint are making me unsure with the language. Maybe we could bring up some members of the audience to join in the discussion. They’d like that, right? Yeahhh. Anyway, before we do that, time for plugs. Have you always had a deep-seated yearning to write great novels and story articles and lead the happy enriching life of a successful author, but everyone said you had to have a household name, like Ivory Soap, or your work would never sell? Well, the Westport Famous Writers Correspondence School—I’m joshing. But this all but indescribable product I have here and which is really something to write home about, folks, as it can literally do the magical polishing work of a thousand and one genies…”

  DREAM.

  Paul tries to remember the dream he just had. In it he was sitting at his New York desk in the home he and his ex-girlfriend Tilly rented for three years in California, writing the story he’s currently writing about another woman who recently broke up with him. His brother John entered the room. John’s been turning up regularly in Paul’s dreams and began doing so about five years after the small plane he was in disappeared over a jungle and was never found. Paul asked him if he’d done any writing since he was away. John said “Quite a lot, but I haven’t let anyone see it and for the time being I won’t be sending it around.” Paul didn’t tell him about the feelings he was suddenly having that John’s writing would turn out to be much better than his own. He did say “One language can never seem to support two brothers close in age as serious writers, and maybe that holds for the world as well. And when it becomes known you’re alive, I’m sure book and magazine editors will be pounding on your door to get you published, while with me, after so many years of a thousand submissions and few acceptances and no notoriety or catchy news story about a derring-do life, it’ll continue to be just the opposite. I also think how silly the stories I’ve written about the impact on a young man whose idolized writer, doctor, composer, explorer brother was lost on a freighter, blimp, space module, single-prop plane over a desert, rain forest, mountain range will seem to readers now that you’ve reappeared and your writing, once you let it get published, becomes known. Where have you been the last eight years?” John said “How are Sis and the folks?,” shook Tilly’s hand and patted her son Ezra’s head as he left the room. During the entire dream, Ezra stayed beside Paul, his cheek pressed against Paul’s thigh while his arms were wrapped around his leg, even when Paul was bent over the desk correcting his story or striding across the room to greet John. Ezra looked the same as when Paul last saw him two years ago. Tilly looked about ten years older than she is, wearied, scrawny, captious, mordant, lined, riled, severe. She was with her new boyfriend, who was squat, hirsute, jumpsuit, shaggily bearded and nattily haggard, and he seemed dismissive of Paul and every so often said “Bah” or “Ah” to him and busily scribbled in a notebook a story he was writing. Ezra never loosened his hold on Paul’s leg, his sad silent face gaping forlornly into space. Tilly’s parting words to Paul were “So nice to see you again, and wait till you read the breakup story I’ve written and is being published about us.”

  “Send it to me when you get the galleys,” he said, and went back to his correcting, thinking why should he finish this story when no doubt Tilly’s and her boyfriend’s stories will also prove to be much better than his own? Without taking his eyes or pen off the page, he placed his hand on Ezra’s head. “My boy…”

  P.

  Now, he would like to, in this day and age, right here, on this very spot, today, not tomorrow, this time at present, from these moments right now till he says stop, oh don’t be ridiculous, come off it, who would have thought it?, let the gentleman speak, I’m truly amazed, he’s saying he’d like to, what are you talking about?, where do you get that stuff?, will wonders never cease?, I declare, does he ever, I’m truly amazed, poppycock, baloney, you slay me, horse manure, beans, where does it all come from?, be with a woman like the woman in the story he wrote who was, act your age, grow up, don’t make me laugh, how you do come on, big joke, stop kidding yourself, breaks me up, laugh a minute, or as he thought the young woman he saw on the street every working weekday morning was, oh yeah, go on, pull my other sleeve, no thank you, oh you kid, that’s what you say, maybe I’m wrong, in a pig’s eye, bless my heart, it’s got bells on it, what a crack, a crock, soft, warm, loving, sweet, sensible, strong and kind, come come, now I’ll tell one, like fun, well I’m a monkey’s uncle, do you feature that, better you than me baby, tell it to the Marines, it beats the Dutch, funny as a rubber crutch, get off my foot, ouch you’re killing me, as I live and breathe, I’m truly amazed, pshaw, sheet, shucks, I’m from Missouri, you don’t say?, it’s true, says you, I’ll be jiggered, what a nerve, shut my mouth, clap my trap, shiver my timbers, blow me down, strike me dead, for crying out loud, what now?, dog my cats, tickle my willies, goodness, gracious, my stars, heaven and earth, dear me, for Pete’s sake, what do you know, twaddle, indeed, zounds, fiddledeedee, gadzooks, gad so, good lack, the devil you say, t’ain’t so McGee, pile it on, blimey, bushwah, hogwash, hooey, hoopdedoodle, nibbledenoodle, my word, bilge, bosh, bah, balderdash, pishpash, pashpish, what piss, rubbish, raspberries, horsefeathers, hominy grits, sticks in your throat, in your hat, don’t give me that, bullcrap, far be it from me, I see, oh brother, let’s hear another, hind, wind, string, tweet, tensible, hoving, soft, sift, saft, shift, insensible, reprehensible, findensunable, ope sopperer, mope slopperer, nope whopperer, op cropperer, plop, flop, clop clop, now now, there there, warm warm, simmer simmer, down down, cool off, go slow, steady as she blows, easy there mate, calm yourself, come to your senses, smarten up, get hep, be wise, mind out, relax, take a seat, load off your feet, watch your step, look sharp, here comes cookie, you’ll be okay, thataway, I believe you, sure we do, what rot, enough of that.

  Not someone like the woman in the story with that Italian or was he an Englishman? Certainly someone like the woman in the story who nursed him and then bussed them through barriers from one to another enslaved land. Not someone like the woman aloft on the trapeze who licked his lips, eyelid and forehead as she let his wrists go. Maybe someone like the woman who stayed imperturbably beside him in their apartment building the revolutionaries or reactionaries were about to blow up. Nor someone like the woman he and their son stalked to make sure the jazz musicians she favored didn’t beat on her face. In the story Terry said “Do you mind if I go, Po?” and all he had to do was say no and she wouldn’t as she wanted to stay while he preferred her away and didn’t care where or with whom as long as she averted getting hurt and returned before he left for work so he said “If that’s what you want, hav
e fun, one on me, whatever that might be, double entente, trouper disentendering,” nigh about the turn in their tie when he was proroguing his own going owing to Oz. He should call Oz now to explain some things. “Oz, it’s Dad, I’ve got to squeak past for x-reasons I plant cain.” Better a letter dispatched to friend Helen Elmen’s house with a note attached saying “Pleez geev this to Ozie as a surpreez.” Oz wants a sprise. Set a purise for I’s, Pi? Lap, sid to read, Up, God be raised. Arms, snoogle and cud. Now Oz’s turn to read. Words downslide up. I know what that picture means. High, farrer than the sky. Down, em tie or uv gah to may. Wraah, doe wanna go to beg. Swish off de lie, turn on dee on. I doe wan de be in de dar alo, so key bo begroo door oen. I luf you. Police, whir all my haar. Hey you, Poor, you’re so bear en me t’me. Dearest Osbert, I still think of you as one of the wisest, slyest, hippest, flippest, slickest, wickedest, stingiest—Dear Oz, I feel you’re now old enough to understand that the reason I left so suddenly two years ago wasn’t as a result of anything you or your mommy did but—Back, give me piggypack. Glass, let’s click-click. Wipe, my milk slight spilled lips. Run, I’m won. I’m faster. Going to be strongaller. Dear Sir, prior to our phone conversation on or before the evening of September 4th, I spoke with your mother, Mrs. Wong, who during the same call, but in advance of our own dialog, broached what I think is a particularly important subject re our mutual concerns and one which I believe should be more thoroughly developed in our future written conversation. Most Reverend Master, may I humbly beseech your indulgence for the callous indifference and ofttimes deplorable inattention I’ve displayed in relation to—Your Grace, Reader of Ghosts, Liver of Kings, Nero’s Pleasure Peeper, Detector of Gearls, what explanation could I afford to put forth, without the most diligent distortion of truth and ensuant likeliness of a good garroting, that could enucleate any further what you have undoubtedly discerned through my absence and all but silence. Buddy, Chum, Crony, Confidant, Partner, Best Friend, Bosom Pal, greetings, salutations, hail, hey, hi, hiya, ullo, halloo, hoo-hoo, hist, pist, yo-ho, oh-le-ee-oh-lei-ee-yoo, howdy do, how de do, how d’ya do, are you? I’m fine, long time no see, miss ya, kiss ya, love ya, wanna be with ya, what can I say? maybe one fine day, try to understand, so hard to explain, though know full well, realize straight out, be aware of to the very end, that O, ah me, woe betide, poor dear, alas, lackadaisy, have mercy, what a pity, so sorry, but do me a favor, just one thing I ask, bear in mind that, regardless of whatever else happens, despite anything anyone might tell you, needless to say, remember too, take care, Godspeed, look after yourself, best of health, peace be with you, don’t want to hear any bad reports, be good, keep in touch, stiff upper lip, compliments to your mom, kind remembrances home, fond memories from afar, with all due respects, excuse the liberty, in deference to, best wishes, most affectionately, I remain, friendly yours, may God bless you, through thick and thin, through years on end, till hell freezes over, sincerely, always and forever and a week of Sundays and month after month and year in year out, yours truly till the cows come home again for a dog’s age faithfully, Paul, P, Pi, Po, Pum.