What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  The waiter smiled at her and pocketed the money without looking at it. Then with the help of another waiter who’d just come running over, they lifted Hank into a sitting position and slid a chair under him. The singing had stopped, and when Pat looked over she saw most of the group looking at them.

  “Sit up,” she said.

  “I’m sitting.”

  “You’ve really done it this time. My poor boy of a husband’s really gone berserk and done it.”

  “Stop with the soap opera crap and help me get the hell out of here. I slugged down that rotten wine too fast and it went to my head.”

  “You’d never act like this in the States, You’ve acted like a boor often enough, but you’d never go this far because you know you’d never get away with it there.”

  “Well, I had good reason here. You saw what happened. Freaking creep wouldn’t leave us alone. And you just wait till I get back to the States. Europe this time has given me renewed vigor, new balls.”

  “I wish we were going back tomorrow.”

  “What’s the matter, Patty Pooh, aren’t you having fun?” He rubbed her cheek affectionately and scanned the room, avoiding the embarrassed glances of their waiter and the glares of the older waiter, who’d raced back from the kitchen with a beer stein of coffee, which he handed to Hank.

  “How much did it take to pacify the kid?” Hank said.

  “Drink up the coffee. It’ll do you good.”

  “I said, how much did you give him?”

  “Ten,” she whispered, “but only so he wouldn’t call the police. He had a right to, you know.”

  He laughed. “Hell, for that amount of gelt it should’ve at least got a good crack at the Nazi punk.”

  “Will you stop being a moron?”

  “Bottoms up, everybody.” He raised the stein, sipped from it and put it on the table. “So”—grinning now as if that one sip had done the trick—“ready? I feel much better, and I know of a terrific keller across the street where this Yid can really get into a brawl. Get back at the butchering bastards the best way you know how, I always say.”

  “I asked you to stop it. And I think they’re waiting for you to apologize, I hear it’s the local custom after you’ve tried to kill someone.”

  That tenner both apologized for me and paid for the wine.”

  “No, it didn’t. And you really have to apologize to our waiter if you want me to leave here with you.”

  “Stop threatening me with the either-or shit. I want you with me-you’re my darling schatzie and I’ve told you that—so let’s get a move on.”

  “Mein mann,” she said to the waiters, who’d been standing silently a few feet away, “er kanst nicht gut Deutsch gesprechen, am I being clear? I’m saying—ich sage—konnen sie verstehen mir? Aber er sagt zu mir das er ist sehr traurig für alles diese—sehr.”

  “Please speak nothing of it,” the older waiter said. “It happens. We are sorrowful too.” The younger waiter nodded, smiled at her and gave her the check.

  “Danke schön.” She got the exact amount in marks out of her handbag and gave it to him.

  “Bitte schön, madame,” he said. The two waiters picked up the broken glass, cleaned the floor with a towel, cleared the table of everything but the wine list, and went back to the kitchen.

  “Good God,” Hank said, “did you catch those guys smiling so nicely at me? What in the world could you have told them?”

  That you were very sorry. And that you also wanted to say just how sorry you were in German but didn’t know the language, so you asked me to say it for you.”

  He thought about it, then whistled. There’s one I never heard before. It’s good; no, it’s actually superb. You’re a genius when it comes to making my apologies,” and shaking his head in wonder how she could have come up with such a line, he started for the door. When he got there, he yelled back “So, der, meine sveetheart, sie comink?”

  She was searching in her handbag for a tip, found five one-mark coins and put them on the table. Then seeing that not only wasn’t Hank watching her but he was already past the door and hustling up the steps, she hurried after him.

  “If you weren’t always in such a damn rush,” she said when she caught up with him on the street. “I can’t run like you. I haven’t got your long legs. And I’ve high heels on, Hank, high heels, so have a heart, will you?”

  AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT.

  I say “So I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She says “Not tomorrow. I need some time by myself.”

  Then the next day.”

  That day too.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” I say this jokingly but she doesn’t take it as a joke. No smile; she looks serious. I say, not smiling this time, “What’s up?” and she looks at me a little sadly. As if she’s about to cry. Then a tear comes to one eye. I watch it well in the corner and go down her cheek. She’s wiping the cheek when another tear wells in the same eye. I say “Why are you crying? What’s wrong? You sick? About us, then? Something wrong with us? That has to be it. I recognize the signs. So, come on, speak.”

  “I think…this is what I think. I think…”

  “Why are you crying, though?”

  “Please let me finish. I’m crying because of what I’m thinking. I think you should get used to spending more time by yourself and with other people than me. I mean, every day with me.”

  “It’s not just your work, then, that you want to be alone?”

  “No. I think—”

  “Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of it.”

  “It’s been on my mind a long time.”

  “Not the sound or the sight of it, and it’s sounding and looking even worse.”

  “I’m sorry, maybe it does sound bad. As for my face, that’s how I feel. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while. We can’t continue like this, indefinitely seeing each other day after day. It’s reached its limit and doesn’t seem to be going anyplace.”

  “What are you talking about? I want to marry you, live here and have a child by you.”

  “I’m sure you do. You’ve talked of it before. But I don’t think that can work out. You just don’t seem capable of it.”

  “I’m telling you, I am and it’s what I want. That should be enough.”

  “You’re devoted to your writing.”

  “I’m devoted to my writing for my work and other things, but to you for me emotional life and everything else. I’m devoted to you as much as I am to my writing, but in a different way. The two can go together.”

  “I don’t think they can and I wouldn’t want you to stop your writing.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “If you had a child you’d have to be making more money than you do from your writing.”

  “So I’ll get a job. I’ve always made some kind of money, always been able to find a job.”

  “To make enough for you. True, I work, and make more than you. But if we had a child, I couldn’t teach for a while, and there’d be so many other expenses after that, and you don’t have enough “

  “We’ll save. What’s the difference? We’ll sacrifice. I’ll sacrifice, though it wouldn’t be a sacrifice. I love you. Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said, I don’t know how many times—maybe just a few, but that you never loved anyone more than me. Has that changed?”

  “No. It’s been better with you than it has with anyone, but I can see it’s not going to work out.”

  “How can you say that, after a happy morning, a happy evening, a great summer vacation—after we’ve been so close for almost a year? How can you so casually dump on it all?”

  “In the end it seems we’re just not suited for each other and it doesn’t seem we’ll ever be.”

  That’s ridiculous.”

  She’s crying out of both eyes now. She says “Wait,” and goes into the bathroom. For a tissue, I suppose. There’s a stuffing up in my neck and I feel tears coming to my eyes too. I can�
�t believe this is happening. I know that’s trite to say, but the scene is suddenly very unreal. It’s happened before, plenty of times. At least five, probably not too unusual for a guy who’s 43 and never been married and been short of money for as many years as I. But I’ve never been happier with anyone more than I have with Lynn. I’ve been in love as much, but never happier. We’ve been so tight. She’s perfect for me, or as perfect as a woman can be for me. I know I’m slightly neurotic and my compulsion to write can be a problem for the women I’m with, but so far she’s put up with me and we get along very well. Again, this is trite, but it seems I’m in a dream. Or even that I’ve just awakened from a frightening one and am still a bit shaken from it. That’s the image that comes to me while she’s in the bathroom, maybe there for a tissue or to wash her face. Or to give herself more time to think what to do with me, or all three.

  The toilet flushes. Maybe that’s a ruse, maybe it isn’t. She certainly didn’t flush the tissue down it, as she always crumples them up and drops them in the wastebasket there. She comes out. She’s wiping her eyes with a piece of toilet paper.

  “No more tissues left?”

  “Yes,” she says. The box was empty. You know everything, though, don’t you? Or notice it. Listen, Michael—”

  “I just can’t understand any of it. I can’t say I deserve it. I know I’m not easy being with sometimes, but I haven’t been too bad. Everything so far between us has been good, I think, with not a single dispute between us.”

  “All true.”

  “Never a disagreement; not even a tiny one; none. So what you said before might make sense for you but it doesn’t for me.”

  “We can continue to see each other but not as regularly.”

  “No. That’s what the last one said. Diana.”

  “I don’t care what Diana said.”

  “She said ‘Let’s see each other once a week,’ after we’d been seeing each other seven days a week for three years.”

  “I told you, I’m not interested.”

  “I went along. It just dragged out. I don’t want this to drag out. If you’ve made your decision, you’ve made it. It’s not going to change. It’s been my experience that once a woman makes a decision like that, at least when she makes it about me, it doesn’t change. I’m going to look at it like this. I’m not talking about Diana anymore, so do you mind if I continue? It won’t take long.”

  “Go ahead. I’m sorry for cutting in on what you were saying.”

  This is the way I see it. The—our—relationship is the patient and we’re the doctors. You want the patient to come in once a week or something. I think the patient should die.”

  “What?”

  That’s not it,” I say. “I was going to speak about it differently.”

  “Some metaphor!”

  “I don’t want the patient to die slowly, is more what I meant. The disease the patient has is inoperable, terminal, the rest. I don’t want the patient to suffer. It’s better the patient dies immediately. Ah, my imagery, metaphor, whatever it was, was bad. I can’t think straight. I’m too sad, shaken up. I am. I probably look it and I am.”

  “I don’t like this either. I hate that this has to happen.”

  “You look it too. The tears, your face and voice. Your key.” I take my keyring off the piano. It’s where I usually leave it and left it last night. Her apartment key’s on it and I try getting it off.

  That’s not necessary right now.”

  “It is.” I can’t get the key off. The ring won’t open. “I’ll get it when I get back to my place and mail it to you along with the money I owe you for the second month’s cottage rent and utilities and whatever else. I can’t believe all this,” and I head for the door. “My things,” I say, “I should probably take them,” and I get a plastic shopping bag from the kitchen, go into the bedroom and bathroom and stick a few clothes and my shaving equipment and hairbrush in it and two books, and head for the door again. My duffel bag and typewriter and manuscript I was working on this summer and other books I already dropped off at my apartment when we drove in, just before we put her car in her garage.

  She doesn’t say anything when I think she might, and I unlock the door, don’t say anything else or look at her, and leave.

  Her building has an elevator but I like to walk the six flights downstairs. Now it’s not a question of liking or not, I just do, as I don’t want to wait for the elevator by her door and I just want to move. I think, when I’m rounding the stairs, didn’t I see any signs where this was coming? I didn’t. At least right now I don’t see where there were any. Out of the blue, it came, out of the blue.

  Round and round I go downstairs, and I open the door on the ground floor and I’m in the lobby. Frank, one of the doormen, is there, and he says “Hey, Michael, good to see you; when you get back?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Made it from Maine in one day.”

  “I was on duty yesterday. Probably on dinner break when you got in. Around six?”

  “Around then.”

  “Get lots of work done?”

  “Two months away; nothing much to do up there; it’s the best time.”

  “But you’re always working. Me too. This job and reading. Writing I leave to you guys so I can have something to do.”

  “What do you have there?” because I’d got him out of a lobby chair where he’d been reading a book.

  “Socialism in South America. Maybe not for you, but I’m interested in economics, history, politics, those kinds of relations—international—and know nothing about it in South America, or not as much as I do in other places. How’s Lynn?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll see her, but tell her welcome back. Cool for this time of year, right?”

  “I felt it upstairs. Had to shut some of the windows. I love it like this, breeze blowing directly into the apartment off the river and such.”

  There’ll be plenty more warm and even hot days left. It’s only starting September. You get hot days in October.”

  “Not always, but we probably will. See you, Frank. You’ve been very nice.”

  “Hey, thank you; you too. I love talking to nice people who know books, and this building’s loaded with them.”

  I wave, he does, and I leave.

  When I’m walking to the subway and thinking about what happened upstairs, I start to smile. I don’t know why. Then I think it could be because I’m not feeling hopeless, depressed or upset. Women breaking up with me has happened so many times the last twenty-plus years and every time it happened with someone I really liked I got tremendously depressed and upset, and this time I’m not. What does that mean? That I didn’t love her as much as I thought I did or I feel some relief over the breakup and something inside is telling me that and therefore not to overdramatize the situation and get depressed and upset? No, I loved her a lot and wanted the relationship to go on but I guess I got upset one last time that last time with Diana and that was the last time I can get upset over something like that. Maybe. That after reacting the same way so many times it would just seem stupid to act that way again. Maybe. Probably this feeling won’t last, though. We’ll see, I hope it does.

  I go into the subway station at a Hundred-sixteenth, buy a magazine from the newsstand on the platform, get on the downtown local and start reading an article on one of my favorite contemporary writers—one of the few I even like—an Austrian, who died of TB just last year. A few stations pass before I realize I haven’t thought of Lynn since I started the article. That’s a first. And it’s not so much the article, which is stiffly written and full of literary jargon and has no new information about the writer or any original ideas. Before, after a breakup like this, the woman was on my mind all the time for at least a couple of days and of course I’d be constantly morose and also angry. But I don’t have those feelings now. I feel pretty good, in fact. I go back to the article, which gets interesting at the end of it because of the writer’s last tragic years.

&nb
sp; I get off at Seventy-second and some guy standing at the station’s entrance says “Got a quarter? I’m very hungry.” He looks like he does need food and I give him some change and he says Thanks,” and I say “You’re welcome, and take it easy,” and he says “I’ll try.” Giving a panhandler change and a brief pep talk aren’t things I would have done right after one of the previous breakups. Those times I would have felt more sorry for myself than I would for him and I’m sure I would have scooted right by. No, I don’t feel too bad.

  “Michael,” someone says when I’m walking home, and I turn around and it’s Annette. She used to go with my friend Ben. I say hello and we shake hands and I say “So how’s it going? What’ve you been up to these days?” and she says “Nothing much, or same thing. My meditation and spiritual retreats and my work. Seen Ben?”

  “Not for two months. Been away. But we wrote and phoned. He’s doing fine. Likes his new job.”

  “Good for him. He was broke, last I heard. He’s still not drinking too much, I hope.”

  “No, he cut out drinking and smoking, both cigarettes and dope.”

  “He must be seeing someone. It can’t be just the job.”

  “He is.”

  “He’s in love?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “What do I care? All right, I care a little, but that’s been over a long time. Nah. Don’t tell me about him. I don’t care that much and it’ll get back to him besides, not that I’d care if it did. He’s totally out of my life, and good things have been happening to me too since I turned him loose. My play—the one I’ve been trying to sell for years? Not an easy one to peddle—a modern restoration comedy—but I found a backer. Good theater too, on West Fifteenth Street. We go into rehearsals next month.”

  That’s terrific.”

  “Better than terrific. It’s Godsend-great. ‘Eat your heart out, Benny boy, with your dismal satires,’ I want to say, ‘and while at it, kill your liver.’ And they’re interested in—it’s a consortium of wealthy producers—the play I just finished. I’m on a roll that I hope never stops. How’s Lynn?”