What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  I didn’t say I went to a sourball store. And of course I couldn’t have just come from a tongue store, as there are none.

  I didn’t say what kind of tongue I meant. For you could have gotten a tongue in a shoelace store. And if it were a sourball in your mouth, then had it left over from the last time you went to a sourball store.

  I actually did have one left over. Till a minute before I first saw you, when I sucked down and swallowed the sourball in my right cheek to make room for the yo-yo I bought.

  You could have put the yo-yo in your other cheek. Or if you like the right cheek for your yo-yos, then taken the sourball out and put the yo-yo in the right cheek and the sourball in the left.

  I could have, but I only thought of putting the yo-yo in my mouth after I’d sucked down most of the sourball and bit into the little left and swallowed the pieces. Had I known I was going to bump in to you, I would have saved half the sourball I had left.

  I don’t eat sweets.

  I could still give you half my yo-yo. It isn’t a sweet or sour, comes apart easily and I’m sure in the short time it’s been in my mouth, hasn’t been changed in any physical or chemical way.

  It would depend what flavor it is.

  Wood.

  I prefer plastic.

  I think sucking a plastic yo-yo would make you sick.

  But wood could give me splinters while plastic wouldn’t.

  If I can’t give you a wooden yo-yo half, instead I can demonstrate my little yo-yo trick with the whole yo-yo in my mouth and its string end looped around my back tooth.

  You only have one back tooth?

  I’ve several. But the right lower’s the one I choose for the loop to be around, as it’s the biggest and I believe my strongest tooth. And because it’s a bottom tooth, the string has less chance of slipping off than it would around an upper tooth which, if my lips or front teeth couldn’t grab the departing string in time or my tongue couldn’t pin it to my teeth or gums, the yo-yo would fall to the floor. And if the floor happened to be this sidewalk, the trick couldn’t be tried again till the yo-yo was washed and the string, except for its loop end, had thoroughly dried.

  I was only asking. Now I’m watching,

  Well, as the yo-yo fully unwinds out of my mouth, I lean over a ways like this and do the walk-the-dog trick on the sidewalk and then jerk my head up so the yo-yo can rewind into my mouth. Then I close my mouth and stand straight and bring my feet and the inner condyles of my femora together again, or stand straight and bring the feet and condyles together and then close my mouth, and the trick’s done.

  That’s quite a finish.

  You’re not in too much of a rush to watch it? If you are I could save the trick for another night when there might be a bigger moon and no clouds or perhaps during one of the hemisphere’s rare auroras, or at least under or near a streetlamp.

  I’ve time and there’s plenty of light.

  Or even one weekend or holiday afternoon when you’re cycling down the street toward me and I happen to have a yo-yo in my mouth with its string end looped around that back tooth.

  What I think is that you’re dawdling on doing the trick because you don’t have a yo-yo in your mouth.

  Want me to open my mouth so you can see it?

  Almost every time you opened your mouth to speak I saw you had no yo-yo inside. That is, once you said you had a yo-yo inside your mouth and I began making an effort to look for it.

  Then I must have swallowed it.

  Isn’t that a risky thing to do with a yo-yo?

  Why? My digestive track’s like an alligator’s.

  Is an alligator’s especially fit or equipped to digest yo-yos?

  An alligator’s or crocodile’s or any of the large loricates who can digest an iron wrench without a problem.

  That would be fine, if your yo-yo was made of iron and not wood.

  The iron yo-yo I had was too prone to rust, didn’t taste as good as the wood, and either chipped or dented a ceramic or linoleum floor tile if I landed it too hard, or my front teeth if I jerked it back into my mouth too fast and without perfect control.

  What about the string? Should I put my mind at ease because the string’s also made of wood?

  The string’s made of string.

  Then it must be a vegetable fiber, which shouldn’t do your digestive system any harm if the wood doesn’t.

  I’m allergic to all fruits and vegetables, so I’m sure it wasn’t either of those.

  Maybe it was made of dried meat or fish.

  Allergic to all animal flesh too—dried, fried or fresh. And anything grown in the ground except trees, shrub stems or the harder vines makes me unwell. But I think we better check whether the string’s still in my mouth before we get upset. It could have come undone from the peg that joins the two yo-yo disks.

  Doesn’t seem to be inside.

  Did you look way back to the right lower molars?

  I envy you. From what I can make out, you haven’t a filling in your mouth.

  Forget about that. Is the string there or not?

  Seriously, though, how can you have no fillings? You must be a few years older than I and so have had even more time to get cavities and impactions and lose a tooth or two. But you’ve all your teeth and apparently no cavity that large where the tooth had to be drilled and filled.

  You didn’t check the upper set.

  I’d need a dentist’s mouth mirror and penlight for that.

  I could stand on my head on the sidewalk so you could see it.

  I’d have to get on my knees to look, which would dirty my skirt.

  What if I stood upside down on this car hood and opened my mouth extra wide?

  You’d get dirty and probably slide off the hood and break some of your beautiful teeth.

  Then I’ll just have to take out the top set and show it to you in one piece.

  You saying you’ve had less success with the upper set than your lower?

  I’m saying I’ve two sets of uppers. One for taking out and showing people who are interested in upper sets or really any kind of sets, teeth, twins, etcetera. And a second set underneath the first for the prehension and chewing of food and as half of a defense and offense weapon and for clasping and carrying things.

  You’ve got a pretty full mouth.

  I’d even have more in it if I hadn’t swallowed the yo-yo.

  You forgot the string.

  I didn’t forget the string, just which side I put it in. For I occasionally loop its end around the lower left molar to give the right molar a rest if I’m doing the trick several times in a row. And the last time I looped the string around the tooth was a while ago.

  Just waiting for someone to bike along to do the trick for?

  All the bikers on the block but you have seen it, which was why it was in my mouth so long.

  No new uni-, tri-or hydrocyclists move into the neighborhood in the last few days?

  One, but he didn’t stop pedaling long enough to be shown the trick to.

  I’m sure there’s a good reason why, but I better go.

  You have to?

  The babysitter leaves to babysit for her own child when my husband comes home at five. And after an hour of babysitting alone with his son, my husband can go wild.

  Paints his face, dons a malamute’s garb, does a snarling yipping dance—wild like that?

  Just a few booming curses at my maiden and pet names. It isn’t easy taking care of a sleepy-hungry two-year-old between five and six.

  I bet it was even harder before he turned five.

  You know, sometimes it can be difficult talking to you.

  That’s because I only have you for a few minutes. But at four I expect he got so out of hand now and then that you and your husband had to shout “four” and then duck, or just flee the house or crack.

  No. We both had to shout “duck” and then fall on all fours in the house and quack.

  You have more than one two-year-old who was four?
>
  One’s enough for the time being.

  One might be enough, but there’s nothing you can do about it once his second birthday comes.

  It already has: three times. Which is the favor I want to ask of you, which I don’t think I’ve alluded to yet. You see, tonight’s Tim’s second birthnight again and neither my husband nor I—

  Bill.

  Phil. And we don’t want be around as we weren’t for Tim’s last three anniversaries, as we feel if we’re not there when his birthnight comes, he’ll always remain one.

  One what? And how do you elude your son during the same day of his birthnight?

  He was born at night, so we always assumed that’s when his anniversary is. Though whenever we travel around the world and Tim’s second anniversary comes, I always check my terrestrial calendar as to what hour and day it is where I am when it’s nine at night in New York on November tenth.

  But that’s not tonight.

  And I’m not at some other part of the world but New York.

  And a good thing it is for me too. As I’m tired, grimy and thirsty and I’d hate right now to be talking to you so far away from my own kitchen, shower and bed.

  Worse came to worse, you could always babysit for Tim while we’re out trying to avoid him, and celebrate his second birthnight with him and later wash up and sleep on our couch.

  If I spent the night with you all in another part of the world, I might not have the time and means to get back to my job and room in New York.

  You could make it your job to get back to your room by doing your yo-yo tricks in the streets.

  But if I swallowed my yo-yo, the country I’d be stuck in with you might not carry them.

  Then carry a few dozen extra with you and make your plane passage back by introducing the yo-yo craze to that country.

  How does one go about introducing a yo-yo craze to a country? Does one say “Yo-yo craze, this is country. Country, I want you to meet yo-yo craze”?

  I think it would be protocol in the host country to first introduce the country to the yo-yo craze and then the yo-yo craze to the country. After that, every five years you could reintroduce them the same way and become financially set for life.

  But in those five years when I’d be away someone else might reintroduce the country to the yo-yo craze, and when I came back it would be old hat.

  You’re not missing my point? But say you were a couple of days late after the five years were up and someone got there before you with the reintroduction, start an old hat craze in that country.

  You think I also have those in my mouth?

  I didn’t even see an old jacket, which is why I said I envy you so much. No matter how well I take care of my teeth, I get one to two cavities a year.

  With me, no matter what I do, I can’t get cavities.

  I don’t know why you’d do anything to get them. Though if you ever do get a cavity, I’ll give you the name of a good dentist. If he’s too busy to take on new patients, I’ll try to give you my teeth with cavities in them in exchange for the equivalent of your perfect teeth. If by some luck I don’t have cavities this year, I’ll give you my old fillings, which you can then tell my dentist you want repaired or replaced for me.

  I wouldn’t have any place to put your fillings.

  Since you swallowed your yo-yo, you could put the fillings in your cheek.

  I would if I could loop a string end around one of them and this filling could spin out of my mouth and unwind and rewind like a yo-yo so I could do my walk-the-dog trick.

  My dentist wanted to give me the unwinding-rewinding kind of fillings, but gold’s the best I could afford.

  Gold’s rustproof, so it might taste a lot better than iron after a while and yet be just as digestible. But I think it would still break a front tooth or two if I lost control of it in the rewinding.

  Now I see why you tried to get cavities. So you could always have fillings around in case you swallowed your yo-yo in a country which doesn’t carry them and where you didn’t have the foresight to carry any extras in.

  You’ve got quite a memory.

  Oh, I forget plenty of times. Like how Phil acts when it gets way past six and I’m not home when he’s babysitting alone and he’s past booming out curses to all my names.

  I suppose the best thing then would be for you to get right home.

  The very best thing would be for Phil not to get so upset after an hour of babysitting alone, so I wouldn’t have to worry so much about rushing home.

  Then I suppose the next best thing after that would be for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you’re still not home.

  No, I think the next best thing after Phil not getting so upset after an hour of his babysitting alone so I wouldn’t have to worry so much about how upset he gets and have to rush right home, would be for me to simply go home.

  Then the next to the next best thing, if the next best thing is your simply getting home, is for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you’re still not home.

  No, the next best thing after my simply getting home, is being home.

  Then the next to the next to the next best thing, if the next to the next best thing is your being home, is your not worrying so much about rushing home.

  No, I’d still have to worry about it.

  But it would still be the next to the next best thing if you didn’t.

  It’s so far from reality that there’s almost no reason for me to even think about it or for you to catalogue it. And I really have to go.

  That’s the next to the very best thing on your list.

  Is it? You mentioned my memory, but I don’t know how you kept track. Anyway, right now it’s the only thing.

  If it is, then there isn’t a list and thus no next to the best thing or next to the next or next to the next to the next best things.

  You might be right. It’s become too confusing to me with all these nexts and bests and not-nexts and thuses. And it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all been very stimulating. That must sound insensitive and forced. It’s not easy talking the ordinary way with you. But I am married and have a child and responsibilities and a home and am loved by a man I’m in love with and who’s the father of my child, so I’ll have to do the only thing or the next to the very best thing or whatever thing or next you said it was on my list or list turned non-list and just go.

  It’s not that I don’t want to have a child or responsibilities or a home, but I’m not married and right now have no prospects of such or am even seeing a woman, and I don’t want to go.

  So stay.

  I think I will.

  Then, nice talking.

  Same here. But may I carry your bike up the stoop?

  I don’t see how you can if you stay.

  I’ll come back.

  If you come back, you still haven’t stayed.

  Then I won’t stay. I’ll just carry your bike up the stoop to the building’s vestibule or ground floor hallway and then come down again and go.

  The bike’s not that light. But carrying it up the stoop’s good exercise for me after riding it back from work so lazily. I can do it myself.

  I know, but I’d like carrying it up for you.

  You’re supposed to let women do what they can for themselves these days.

  I know what I’m supposed to let women do these days, and what I want to do for this woman right now.

  Look at you. You can suddenly get so serious.

  Bike-carrying’s serious business for me.

  I’d think yo-yo carrying’s the business you’d be more serious about. For no matter what the country you’re in does or doesn’t carry and no matter how many extra yo-yos you might carry in, it doesn’t seem possible you could ever swallow a bike.

  Should I leave it in the hall here or carry it to your apartment?

  The landlord lets me keep it here. Was it hea
vier than you thought?

  I never thought it would be heavy.

  Did it turn out to be heavy?

  It turned out to be light.

  Not as light as your yo-yo, though.

  Truth is, it’s the yo-yo that’s not turning out to be as light as I thought. Maybe it wasn’t made of wood after all.

  Laminated plastic perhaps?

  One of your favorite flavors, if I remember, but I suddenly don’t feel too good.

  You’re not serious again.

  I am serious.

  Probably you should take an antacid when you get home.

  It’s more than that.

  A doctor?

  A doctor wouldn’t take me.

  A city hospital?

  I don’t know if I could take a city hospital.

  The emergency room of a private hospital would certainly take you, wouldn’t they? But then you’re not really ill.

  This time, maybe it’s you who’s missing the point. My not wanting to swallow an entire city hospital is just a sensible precaution.

  If the hospital’s big enough, it might swallow you.

  You’re hardly comforting.

  Because you can’t be ill.

  I can so be ill.

  Then I don’t know what to say.

  If you can’t think of anything, I can give you some things to say.

  I think the best thing for me to say is goodbye.

  And the next best thing?

  There can’t be a next best thing. I have to go. I’ve a home. A husband, a child, they’re waiting for me. And if my son’s napping, then just my husband. Thanks for carrying up the bike. Goodbye.

  Then I don’t know what’s so good about it.

  Then badbye or just bye.

  Yes, that’s probably just a goodbye.

  Bye, then?

  I wish we didn’t have to say bye.

  We didn’t say bye. We said “badbye” and “just bye” and “then bye.” And we didn’t say these byes, only I did.

  I mean I wish we didn’t have to say goodbye.

  But you still haven’t said goodbye.

  Then what I mean is I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye.

  What you really mean is you wish I hadn’t and still didn’t have to say goodbye.

  No, that’s not what I really mean.

  Then what you really mean is you wish, after I said I hadn’t and still didn’t have to say goodbye, that I went upstairs and said my goodbyes.