What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “She’s fine. Filling in for someone at Princeton the next two years, so doing quite well. And publications in important journals in her field. She’s on a roll too.”

  “Good for her. So, still together.”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Not going so well, then, huh? Too bad. You were crazy about her and it seemed the same for her to you. You don’t seem too disturbed by it, so it’s probably been awhile. Both Ben and I thought you two were the most perfect couple alive. We saw marriage, kids, side-by-side burial plots.”

  “We were, we are. Whatever the tense. She had doubts, though.”

  “Why, if she loves you? Money? Sex? Another guy?”

  “Don’t ask me. Anyway, you seem fine and you look good and I’m glad things are going so well for you. I gotta run, if you don’t mind. Something at home.”

  “I’ll send you an announcement of the play’s opening. Lynn too. I’ll get her address from the phone book. If it’s a problem, you can come on different nights.” She puts out her cheek, I kiss it, and she goes into the street to hail a cab and I go into a candy store to buy today’s Times. I’ll do the rest of my shopping later.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about Lynn, I think, heading up my block, but that I thought Annette was getting too nosy. Because who is she to me? When she was seeing Ben, I didn’t even much like her. She always talked about herself and what she was doing and never asked what you were doing and she dumped on him all the time, paid some of his bills when he was short and then badmouthed him about it in front of people and also for dressing so sloppily and drinking too much and thinking he has talent as a playwright, and other things. “Why do you stay with her?” I asked him once, something I probably shouldn’t have, and he said The sex is good, and she’s lively.” God knows what she thought of me and my writing, and she no doubt thought I got the better of the deal when it came to Lynn. I feel, though, that if I bumped into someone now I actually liked and knew pretty well I’d even volunteer to speak about my breakup with Lynn today and say that for some odd reason it’s not hurting one bit and also that I’ve no idea why she did it. It wasn’t the sex, she didn’t have another guy, and it can’t be that she thinks I can only be devoted to my writing. So what was it? Maybe the money. That I didn’t make enough, she didn’t think I ever would, hard as I tried, and that frightened her when she thought of settling down with me, and did us in. It could be that. Or that and things I’m not seeing. That she’s 32 and wants to have children and doesn’t want to waste her time in a fruitless relationship. Anyway, can’t be changed.

  I get home and while I’m putting away my things, I think suppose she calls? It’s possible; she did say she still loves me. So she could call to see how I’m taking it, worried that I’m not too despondent, that sort of thing. If she did, what would I say? I’d say, in the nicest way, that I’m okay, don’t worry, but to keep it that way it’s better for me That she doesn’t call again. I wouldn’t tell her I’ve barely thought of her since I left her apartment, or pined for her even once. I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. I don’t want to get even with her. That I’m taking it so well is enough for me. But she probably won’t call. Almost definitely she won’t. She’d know better. She’d think that calling me would be giving me some hope we could resume our relationship and maybe even eventually get married, and so on, and she wouldn’t want me to think that. No, she’s definitely not going to call.

  I make coffee and get a stick of butter and sliced bagel out of the freezer, where I left them two months ago, and toast the bagel twice before it’s completely unfrozen. I sit down with the coffee and buttered bagel and read the paper. I look up; after reading a few articles and reviews, and think I still don’t feel bad at all. Either it hasn’t hit me or it never will. I really can’t say why. I’ve given myself a few reasons, but they don’t seen enough. Have I become a cold fish? That’s not it. And it isn’t that I no longer love her. Hell, I love her as much as I’ve loved any woman, but what was different with her is I never wanted to marry and have a child with someone more. That so? It’s so. I also never had more laughs with any woman, enjoyed myself more with one, felt less tension than I did with any woman, and never respected and admired a woman more than I did her or thought I was luckier in being with anyone more, and lots of other things more. Never had an easier relationship, a more compatible and companionable and comfortable one. The three big C’s. This one was as easy and smooth as can be till late this morning when she dropped that news on me. If we had a disagreement, and we did have a few, rarely but a few, we worked it out almost immediately. There was never any anger or sulking or bitterness or continued bad feelings between us. I was confident that nothing would disturb our relationship, that it’d go on easily and smoothly and wonderfully and all the other things, seemingly forever. That we were as absolutely right for each other as two people could be. What Annette said, “Perfect together.” Or was it “the most perfect couple alive”? We were close to being that, close, so how come I’m now not sad or even a little regretful? Really, I don’t understand it. I’ll miss her, won’t I? Miss the sex, her body, presence, wit, intelligence, gentleness and goodness. Miss most everything about and around her, won’t I? Her good friends, having dinner with her parents, the same cottage she rents every summer, her two Siamese cats. Miss all that and more, won’t I? I’ll pass or go to places we’ve been together and think of her wistfully, won’t I? See things, or think of them, I’ll want to do with her and be sad I can’t, won’t I? All the things between two people who love each other and are so alike in many ways, right? So how come I’m not sad? I think I know why. I’m relieved, but relieved I’m not sad. But why aren’t I sad? I don’t know. I give up. But something unusual has happened to me. If I don’t react the way I usually do, that’s unusual. I think that’s right. And maybe it is just because I couldn’t allow myself to go through being sad over a breakup again. But could that be all? Ah, the hell with it. Maybe there’s no sure explaining of it, at least for now.

  Just then the phone rings. I think it’s Ben. He knew I was getting back today and probably called Lynn’s place and she told him I was here. I pick up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” she says. “Before you say anything, I want to tell you I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “So am I. But what can we do? Nothing.”

  “Don’t say that. I’ve thought it over.”

  “So have I.”

  “What did you think?”

  Things. But you called me. What is it?”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I’m not. I’m feeling pretty damn good, in fact.”

  “You still sound angry. Not just your tone, but your choice of words. But I’m glad you’re feeling good. I’m feeling very bad, though. I made a mistake, Michael. That’s what I called to say. It could be I had to find out what my true feelings were about you and our future together by creating the worst scenario possible. Well, that I did, and I don’t like it. When you left, I broke down. It’s because I knew I’d made a grave mistake and that I do want to live with you and, if it continues to work out as well as it has before this morning, then for us to eventually get married and have a child.”

  “You thought all this in such a short time?”

  That’s what you have to say?”

  “I’m just asking,” I say.

  “Yes, it’s what I thought after you left. It all came to me in a flash. My reaction, my thoughts. We’ll work it out, sweetheart, we win. This is the bump we needed. If there isn’t enough money, we’ll deal with it. At first, we’ll save on just having one apartment between us. You’ll get a job and I’ll do my best to keep working and I’m sure my folks will help us out. They want to be grandparents as much as you want to be a father. But we’ll sacrifice, as you said. Both of us, not just you. But I first have to know how you feel about what I’ve said.”

  “I feel relief, but not about th
at. I wish you hadn’t called, but you have. That you did call, I wish you hadn’t said what you had, but you did. But I can’t ever be with you again. Not see you, not be with you. The truth is, I can’t ever be with anyone like that again. I never want to go through another relationship like ours. I only want to work as hard as I can at what I do for the years that I have on earth and then die. Okay, that’s a lot of melodramatic bull. Simply put: staying involved with you or getting involved with someone else is obviously impossible for me. I see that now, this minute, because of this phone call, clearer than I ever have. Actually, I never saw it before; I’m only seeing it now. I’ll miss you but love my unhappiness over missing you more than any future happiness I’d get from being with you. No, that’s a bunch of bull too, and the quickest way to tell is that it’s so aptly put. In fact, probably nothing much of what I said makes sense or isn’t bull. I’m sure it’s riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions and things like that. I don’t even know why I’m saying any of it except for that there is something there, in what I said, there’s definitely something there, I just know it, and if the words and ideas are all mixed up and maybe incoherent, at least I know the feeling isn’t. No, strike that last line out too. It was said for effect and makes no sense either.”

  She’s crying.

  “I’m going to hang up now, Lynn. If I don’t I’ll lose my resolve, if that’s what it is, and say yes or maybe to something I feel deeply I don’t want to. You just shouldn’t have hit me with what you did and in the way and at the time you did it. Maybe that’s all it comes down to. We were, I thought, so happy. The thoughts I had about us after that never would have come to me, this phone call never would have come. Right now I’d be at my mother’s apartment, which was where I was off to when you hit me with what you did. I’d be having a drink with her, maybe my second, and filling her in on what we did since she visited us this summer, and then gone to my apartment for the night or back to yours. No, mine. That’s where my typewriter and manuscript and writing supplies are, and I wanted to write tomorrow morning after not having written for two days, one to pack and clean up the cottage, and the other to drive. That’s what we planned, right?, when we dropped my things off at my apartment and then dropped the cats and your things off at yours and put the car in the garage and did some shopping. So I would have spent the night in my apartment, worked most of the day tomorrow and then gone to your place around late afternoon, most likely, since that’s when I usually went and we usually saw each other every day. Too late for doing any of that now except for my going to see my mother. But I don’t want to do that now either. I’m in no mood to, and she’d be glad to see me and have company and somebody to drink and talk with, and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for her. I’ll call her tomorrow and pretend we only just got back, or got back too late today to visit her, and see her then, tomorrow, when I hope I’ll be in the mood more to visit her. If she’s expecting me today and calls here tonight, I’ll tell her I’m very tired after the long drive and I’ll see her tomorrow. If she calls your place, tell her to call me.”

  “What is it with you?” She seems to have stopped crying. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “Oh? I don’t? Now there’s a wise statement. Or bright, I mean bright.”

  “Even there. So cynical and a little mean. You never talked to me like that. Even when you were angry at me.”

  “I was once angry with you? I don’t recall it.”

  “Several times. And I with you. But you’re in a state I’ve never seen you in, and it doesn’t become you.”

  “It doesn’t? And I’m unbecoming? Well, you’re wrong. But I am going to hang up. Please, I don’t mean to hurt you, if that’s what I’ll be doing, but be prepared now for my hanging up.”

  I hang up. Tears come. First, a couple of drops, and I think it’s over, and then I cry so hard my next-door neighbor, if she’s home, must hear me. She probably is home; she usually gets back from work around six and then just stays there. I cry for a long time, five minutes, ten. Long for me. I’m usually a quick crier, and almost only at funerals and weddings and sad movies and when I think or talk about my dead brother and sister and father. I’ve never cried over a woman before. Is that right? Yes.

  I wash my face in the bathroom, get a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, where I didn’t mean to leave it when we went to Maine, and half-fill a juice glass with it. I drink it slowly. Now I’m just drinking to calm myself, but I think I’d like to drink enough where I eventually pass out. After a few sips, I put ice in the glass and open a small can of V-8 juice and pour some of it in because it’s cheap vodka and it doesn’t taste good straight. I make another drink and then a third and go to my work table with it. I take the typewriter out of its case, set it up with paper in it, and think I’ll write a letter to her. I don’t know what I’ll say, but it’ll have in it an apology for being cynical and a little mean and for acting so rude to her when she took the tine to call me. But I should call my mother, say we just got to the city and I’m very tired from the trip and I’ll see her tomorrow around noon. “Maybe you’ll let me take you out to lunch,” I’ll say. But I’ll slur my speech and she’ll know I’m getting drunk or already there and worry about it and ask a lot of questions, so I’ll call her tomorrow and see her then. I start typing the letter.

  “Dear Lynn: I don’t know why I said what I did to you yesterday (it’s now tonight). I know I’ll never be able to completely explain it. I meant it or I didn’t. Or meant some of it, though what part now I don’t remember. (Yes, I’ve been drinking.) Drink or not, I know I love you but I also know that what you did to me today killed it for us forever. Oh, forever’s too big a word. It’s the wrong word. It’s—Lynn. I’m sorry and I know no apology will ever undo the harm I did. Again, slickly written in a momentary lucid moment, so don’t believe a word I just said. I should give this up. I can’t write. Can’t write a letter now. I can barely find the right typewriter keys. I’m going to get up now and go to bed. It’s early, it’s still light out, so really not so long since I hung up on you, but I belong in bed. If I don’t, I’ll pass out at my work table. And I know I’m not going to mail this letter to you. How can I? I’ll give it time, maybe things will get better. Though when I say ‘it’ and ‘things,’ what am I talking about? Us, us! Maybe we just shouldn’t be together. That’s what I think. I might send this letter after all, but tomorrow—I’m in no condition to go out now; even to finding a stamp and an envelope to stick this letter in—just so you’ll get as accurate an account of what happened, or just my take on things, as you can. Then make your own decision. I’m sure what you decide, I’ll want too, or at least I’ll go along easily with it. I don’t know if that’s true. So, I’m sorry, believe me, very sorry, but that person who said all those things to you tonight was definitely me. Best ever, Michael, and of course, much love.”

  I think, after I fall on my bed and turn over on my back and feel myself drifting off, that I’ve ruined it with her for good.

  YO-YO.

  Hi.

  Hi.

  I’m sorry, did I startle you?

  No, I think I startled myself.

  I must have had something to do with it.

  You just about had everything to do with it.

  Isn’t that close to what I just said?

  I don’t think so. My being startled came from my reaction at suddenly seeing you and being said hi to from you on your bike.

  It still sounds close. But next time I won’t rush up on you like that.

  I don’t think there can be a next time like that.

  You mean next time you’ll be ready for my racing down the street on my bike in the night and suddenly stopping and saying hi to you like that?

  I mean next time I won’t be surprised by my reaction at suddenly seeing you and your saying hi to me like that.

  But if you’re not startled or surprised by your reaction next time, then it’d mean you either saw or heard me or were told I’m racin
g down the street toward you on a bike.

  What I think is that my surprise to my reaction at suddenly seeing and hearing you on your hike doesn’t make sense.

  I’d think that every reaction by someone rational to something real happening would have to make some sort of sense.

  Well, they say it’s not supposed to make total sense.

  They”? Who’s “they”?

  The people who talk about the things I’m now talking about, such as my suddenly being surprised by my reaction at suddenly seeing you and hearing you say hi to me from your bike.

  If you suddenly got surprised by my suddenly racing up to you on my bike on this empty street in the night and saying hi to you, then I think your surprised reaction to being surprised still makes sense.

  Then the they who are they and not is they are wrong and you’re right and I’m wrong. And though I still think I’m right by being wrong when I say they could be right when they say my reaction to my reaction doesn’t make sense, it does make sense.

  I think all this talk about what doesn’t or does make sense is making less and less sense to me the more we talk. And if we’re going to continue to talk we should both feel that what we’re both saying makes sense.

  All right, then—you biking back from work?

  Yes, and you?

  Walking back from the store.

  Returning something? For I don’t see any packages.

  I didn’t say what kind of store.

  Was it a shoelace store where you bought just one pair of shoelaces?

  A yo-yo store where I bought just one yo-yo.

  Is it in your pocket?

  No.

  Up your sleeve? I can see it’s not concealed in your hand.

  It’s in my mouth, its string end looped around a back bottom tooth. I bet you thought that lump in my cheek was my tongue.

  Either your tongue or a large new sourball or even a larger sourball when new that had been slightly sucked.