What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  I don’t think it’s possible that anyone could have been that coordinated to knock four of these five body parts on my door at the same time and still have been able to not only hold back the force of each of these four parts or control the total force of their combined knock, but to also make up or reduce in force for what a few to the rest of the people knocking might have lacked or given too hard in their share of the knock.

  The knocking of more than any four body parts from the same person at the same time I don’t think anyone could have done and still have been able to control even the total force of the knock from these five body parts.

  More than four dozen or so people I don’t think could have fit around my door to knock on it. Unless an additional two dozen or so people had stood on ladders and chairs behind the people lying in piles and used long sticks which, when struck against the door, made the sound of a hand knocking. But these two dozen or so people would probably have only been able to reach the door with their sticks if the people hanging from the ceiling in front of the door had raised themselves to make room for the sticks. But not raised themselves that high where they now couldn’t reach the door with any of their body parts including the elbow, buttock, shoulder or knee, or where they also interfered in the knocking movements of the people fastened to the wall. Though some of these hanging people could still have been able to knock on the door, even if they had raised their bodies out of reach of it, if they had used long sticks. And those fastened people now blocked from the door by the hanging people, who had raised themselves in front of them to make room for the sticks of the people on ladders and chairs, could still have knocked on the door if they had used curved sticks.

  So it’s possible that the first part of the double knock I heard could have been made by all two dozen or so people on ladders and chairs, each holding back the force of his stick to make the sound of about a twenty-fourth of a hand’s normal knock, or as close as possible to that. Followed right after by a few people on ladders and chairs knocking one or two sticks apiece on the door, along with several hanging and fastened people and some from the piles knocking from one to three of their body parts on the door. But each person in this second knock holding back the force of whatever body part and stick or other thing he might be using to the closest possible fraction of the total number of body parts and things being knocked on the door at the same time to make the sound of a single hand knock. Or at least holding back the total force of the number of things he’s using to make the sound of about an eighth or twelfth of a normal knock, if let’s say he’s knocking two or three things on the door at once and the total number of things being knocked on the door at the same time is twenty-four. And with some to many of the knockers making up or reducing in force for what from many to one of the other knockers might lack or give too hard. But no more than twenty-four body parts and things being used at the same time for that first or second knock, as I don’t think anyone, if he’s only knocking with one body part or thing, can control the force of his knock to make the sound of more than around a twenty-fourth of a hand’s normal knock. And no more than three things being used by a person for either knock, as I don’t think anyone can control the sound of the knocking of more than three things at once if more than one person is knocking at the same time. And whichever way around each of these six dozen or so people wanted to knock on my door. Or someone in or out of the hallway wanted them to knock on my door. Or which the majority or even the entire six dozen or so people had chosen by voice vote or ballot before they came into the hallway, or by some kind of silent signal once they got into the hallway. Or their previously selected representatives had chosen for them by voice vote or ballot outside the hallway, or by signaling or ballot inside the hallway once these six dozen or so people were set up in their positions around my door. Or some person or couple or group had told them outside the hallway some way, or told them inside the hallway in some silent way, not only how to knock, and how many times to knock, and the reason or reasons why they should knock, but even the reason or reasons why they had to practice and where they had to practice to knock. But in the end, the sound from all the body parts and things being used by all the people who knocked on my door would be that of two knocks in quick succession by the hand of one person: knock knock, like that.

  I open my book. I begin reading from the beginning of the sentence I was in the middle of before when I first heard that double knock. I finish the sentence and am reading the next sentence when someone, male or female, or maybe two males or two females or one and one, or even a trained dog or either a male or female and a trained dog, or either one male or female and two trained dogs, or up to around six dozen or so people and trained dogs of the same sex or evenly or unevenly mixed, knocks two knocks in quick succession on my door.

  I put the book down. First I put a bookmark on the page I was reading and shut the book. But first I uncrossed my legs and continued to hold the book open and listened for any sound or voice or bark or sniff behind the door or human or animal scratching or more knocks on my door. Then I shut the book and said “Yes?” No one answered. Then I stood up and put the book on the chair and listened. No sound. Now I go to the door and say “Who’s there?”

  THE NEIGHBORS.

  Someone rang his bell several times, then said “Mr. Samuels—you in? It’s only me, so open up.”

  Bert closed his book, leaned forward in his chair to listen.

  “Mr. Samuels, I’m telling you, it’s not the city or real estate people; it’s Anna Kornman.”

  He walked quietly to the door and put his ear against it. He of course knew who it was, her ugly singsong voice as recognizable as any he’d ever known. It’s just he thought she might be with those people she mentioned.

  “What do you want?” he said. “And who is it I hear out there with you?”

  “Hear? What do you hear? There’s nobody with me. And I got some real important news to tell you.”

  “So tell.”

  “Not from behind the door I won’t. What do you take me for?”

  “Sure the police aren’t waiting with you to grab me?”

  “Grab you? This is America, isn’t it, and you’ve done nothing wrong that I know.”

  “Okay.” He opened the door, looked both ways in the hallway as Anna came in, then slammed it shut and locked it. Some plaster above the door fell and splattered when it hit the floor.

  “Excuse me,” he said, looking at the crumbling plaster and peeling paint hanging from the ceiling.

  “Excuse you I should say. You think I was the Gestapo or something the way you act.”

  “Just being cautious.”

  “Yeah, but to snoop around and slam the door like that I never saw.”

  “I know what I’m doing. As for the cheap paint job, that’s just another thing you got to expect from piker landlords.”

  He bent down, wriggled his shoulders till he heard the bones crack, and shoveled the plaster pieces into his palm and dumped them into an empty ashtray on an end table. “So out with it,” he said, brushing his hands. “What’s this urgent thing you got to tell me, because I’m very busy.”

  “You sit around here doing nothing all day and you call that busy? Remember, I made this trip for your benefit.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Now what is it?”

  “Nothing that important, seeing your attitude.”

  “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t’ve come. I know you, Anna.”

  “I could’ve come just to talk to someone, and given that ‘important’ business just to get in here. It gets lonely, only you and me in this empty old building.”

  “Anytime you want to move, just say the word. The new owners will gladly hand you a relocation fee of a couple of thousand easy and cart you out like you was a princess.”

  “All I said was this place still unnerves me some—especially the painted X’s on all the windows of the tenants who left. A shiver, a real shiver I get when I see them.” She clenc
hed her teeth and wrapped her arms around her chest, as if she were standing ankle-deep in snow. She sat, banged a cigarette pack against the arm of the couch, and pulled out the cigarette that popped up and put it between her lips. She fingered through her pockets, came up empty-handed, and looked at Bert searchingly.

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  She pointed to the end of her cigarette and mumbled something through it.

  “I don’t smoke, but thank you.”

  She took the cigarette from her mouth. “My God, you think living in the same building with you thirty years I know you don’t smoke? But matches you got for your stove, right?”

  He handed her the box of matches he kept in the side pocket of the coat he had on. Then he looked away, not wanting to catch another glimpse of her cynical, grinning face.

  “So you don’t smoke, eh? Well, it’s nice you at least got ashtrays.” She struck a match against the flint on the box. With one eye closed and the other squinting down her nose at the flame she held to the cigarette, she drew in a satisfying first drag. Three puffs quickly followed, leaving her surrounded by smoke.

  He waved his hand before him, though he stood about ten feet from the nearest arm of the smoke. “Now what is it you came to say?”

  “Give up you don’t,” she said, laughing large holes through the smoke in front of her.

  He just stared at her.

  “First of all, those real estate people were here to see me yesterday,”

  “I know that.”

  “So, to come I didn’t have to at all, I see.”

  “Did I say I knew exactly why they came?”

  “Yeah, but everything I say you seem to know beforehand. Who knows; maybe it’s not that important to tell anyway,” and went to the window.

  What she probably means is she had nothing new to tell him, he thought. Because for one thing, she knows he misses nothing going on in the building. Especially now, with everything being so quiet—even the radiators stopped knocking two weeks ago when the landlords were allowed to turn the heat off to freeze them out—the slightest noise outside moves him to the window. Few days back it was a bunch of cats fighting. Later that day, drunks arguing over a bottle of booze as they sat on the entrance steps. Two mornings ago it was a policeman, bundled up in earmuffs and a nicely tailored blue coat, running his nightstick against the courtyard’s brick wall and looking for vagrants who might have moved into the unoccupied apartments for the night. And yesterday, the three men she referred to, representatives of some big outfit that had bought the building from Mr. Shine and wanted Anna and himself, now the only holdouts, to leave so they could raze the building and put up a seventeen-story luxury apartment house in its place. It was curious why they also hadn’t come to see him as they’d been doing regularly the past few months. Probably they gave up with his shrewd bulldog-like stand and were now preparing their final, higher offer. He smiled, just at the possibility, but hoped they’d hurry up with it before he came down with pneumonia and was taken away in an ambulance and forced to give up the apartment because of his absence.

  Anna was standing with her back to him by the window, blowing smoke rings against the pane. Just look at her, he thought. Looking like the same skinny wreck she was thirty years ago, even though she’s wearing several sweaters and God knows what else under her housecoat. What does she think she’s staring at anyway? Maybe a few months ago—when they first started to hold out—there were still a few old people sunning themselves in their beach chairs along the courtyard walls, but now?—nothing. It was so like them to take the first offer and run out of here, when if they’d listened to him they could have, all sticking together, milked the landlord for way more. Already, just Anna and him, he’s worked the real estate men up to two thousand, and before he’s through he figures they should get four thousand each, plus the maybe five hundred extra for moving costs. After all, their reasons for staying are as valid as the company’s for tearing the place down, for the building’s still in good condition and was getting decent rents. And then, what are they planning to put up anyway?—for he’s seen the architect’s drawing of the apartment house nailed to the empty brownstone next to his. A nice drawing they’ll be putting up, with plenty of trees and pretty shrubbery around it, but an apartment house it isn’t. Someone’s got to be blind not to see that this cheap white-tiled tombstone will be completely run-down and a hazard to its tenants in five years, but just let him try and argue this point, let him try and tell the city what he knows and has seen in other similar new buildings, and they’ll call him a crank and a crackpot like they do to all the poor people his age and maybe find some way of stopping his Social Security checks and locking him up for good. So he keeps quiet on this, and that he’s holding out for all he can squeeze out of them. Instead, he argues he’s grown very attached to the apartment—why not, after more than half a lifetime here?—and he could never get another like it in the city for the same rent, and there’s also his civic rights, so no amount of money or pressure will ever force him to leave.

  Anna was back on the couch. Down to her last drag, she blew the smoke through her nostrils and snuffed out the cigarette in a tea-stained saucer she’d been using as an ashtray.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but you couldn’t have used the ashtray? I eat off that plate.”

  “It has that paint and plaster in it and I thought it’d burn up.”

  Oh God, he thought, how this skinny, frightened-looking woman has stayed in the building and resisted the real estate people so long remains a mystery to him. She’s obviously cleverer and stronger than she makes herself out to be, and is probably out to profit from her stay as much as he is, but he still has to hand it to her for sticking with it-though for the life of him he’ll never tell it to her face.

  “You’re so quiet,” Anna said. “Anything wrong?”

  “No.”

  “You think they’ll come back today? They’re getting pretty persistent.”

  “Depends what you told them yesterday.”

  “You ask like I caved in to them.”

  “Just curious, that’s all.”

  “Well, for one thing, I told them nothing. They just talked, and I’ll tell you something: they were very gracious, very gracious indeed. Hats off on their laps and everything—you should’ve seen them.”

  “Nice clothes I know they got.”

  “Dandies like that in my living room, I ask you. Even being so polite to ask me if I’d mind them smoking.”

  “So what happened after?”

  “‘Mind?’ I told them. ‘I should mind? Smoke all you like,’ I said.

  ‘Me, I also smoke.’”

  “I meant, what they say about getting you out?”

  “You know: the same old story. If I leave they’ll give me bonuses to knock my eyes out.”

  “What are they giving now?” he said.

  “I didn’t ask. But they mentioned fifteen hundred, maybe sixteen. They weren’t too definite.”

  “Four thousand they’ll give at least—but what’s the difference? To me it wouldn’t matter what they offered.”

  “Same thing I told them. I like the Upper East Side, I said, and a place like this I couldn’t get nowhere else, so horses it’ll take to move me to Brooklyn.”

  “What they say to that?”

  “First, that I’m your stooge—and which I’ll tell you I didn’t like hearing such a lie. And two, that if they wanted, they could have the city down our necks before we know it—and with no promises they’ll then give us what they originally offered. They said the city’s very sympathetic to them, with half their planned apartment house already half-rented out.”

  This I can believe,” he said. “All the city wants is property taxes—that’s all; no concern for the little man—and bigger and more classy the building, more the tax.”

  She nodded, got another cigarette and tamped it on her thigh. Bert stood up after she lit it, and walked to the window. He hated the stench of tobacco, esp
ecially cigarettes. She waved a cloud of smoke away from her, and said “Truthfully, Mr. Samuels, how long you think we can hold out like this?”

  “I don’t know. Indefinitely, maybe.”

  “I don’t think I can do it that long. It’s almost December now, and soon it’ll be much too cold with no radiators going, five sweaters and heaters or not.”

  “So give up then—go!”

  “No need to get so excited.”

  “But it’s obvious you’re caving-in to them. So just do it and be done with it I say.”

  “Be done with what? Please, be reasonable.”

  “So don’t then,” his voice toning down.

  “I’m not. For look, some rights I got also, no? Throw me out into the street, who do they think they are? Build for us cheap you think they could do instead.”

  Rights my eye, he said to himself. But ask her to give the real reason she’s holding out, and she’ll say with this big innocent look “Me? I should do that?” If she’d only admit the truth once, he’d probably tell her why he’s staying too. It’d be good getting it off his chest to someone, and then united in purpose like that they might be able to drive the relocation fee up to five thousand.

  “Did they say anything more about me?” he said.

  “Some. They said ‘You know him well?’ and I said ‘Well? For thirty years I know him, and very well. A nice man, quiet and friendly’—that’s what I told them.”

  Thanks.”

  “It’s the truth. Then they went on about how you’re all the trouble. That they think you’re crazy and for my own safety I shouldn’t be in the same building alone with you, and how they can’t even speak to you anymore, since the last time when you threw them out. Crazy, I said, you’re not. And for you to throw them out I couldn’t understand.”

  They accused me of holding out only for the money, which you can understand made me upset.”