Fall and Rise

by Stephen Dixon

  “Sure,” “Yes,” “Fine,” we say.

  “You want to see, do it from the sidewalk.” We step back to it. “On it this time.” On it. “Good.” On the phone: “So as I said…Accident, cat with a bus. No one killed but two nearly. And from the accordion of a car now when it’s making no more music, they were very lucky. One infant not as bad—her mouth…I do not…That’s not true…I said—now hold it a second…I’m sure to the hospital, but that was before my shift.”

  Car door’s off so even from the sidewalk we can see inside. Steering wheel jammed into the dash. Underneath it an oil and gas spill. Just what he said: accordion. Its sound run out after the last squeeze. Concertina or accordion, hanging half-opened on the wall in the shape of a U. If I have a wedding—at my wedding I’ll say—I want an accordion or concertina, maybe a balalaika too. How do you spell balalaika, and with two l’s or three? Playing together—Russian or Polish music—and where I, champagne-sated, champagne Churchill preferred, if I can afford it and depending on how many guests, but question of affording it won’t enter it and no more than twenty to thirty guests, happiest I’ll ever be in my life, or close to it, which will be in the delivery room moments after my wife gives birth to our first child, would dance crazily with my bride, whirling to no special steps, instruments un-amplified electrically and players not in native dress. But “Never invite strangers to your wedding,” Hasenai says in “My One and Only Nuptial Song,” “especially musicians and actors. They’ll drink all your sake, eat all your sushi, try to make love to your bride at the party, maybe beat up the groom (substitute appropriate food and wine for your own country and scotch for mine, unless you’re a stranger whose wedding takes place in Japan).”

  “Longer I look at this,” I say, “more I find it incredible how anyone got out alive.”

  “Maybe they didn’t,” ponytailed man says.

  “But according to—”

  “What does he know? He’s only interested in making hay on the phone, can’t you hear? ‘Oh love, mushy, pussy, beat my meat, heartpiss.’ A faker.”

  “That’s it precisely,” shorter man says, “only we need them.”

  “We’ll be fortunate—I’ve seen it happen so I back up with experience what I say—if she doesn’t shoot down here and they don’t do it on the floor of this car, rubble and all.”

  “Like I stated,” shorter man says, “everything happens to man—the works. In our platoon an officer stepped on a land mine—this, minutes after he lectured us on how to recognize them—went thirty feet into the air, was unconscious all the while he was up there, came down on his feet without knowing it and which now had no boots on and were scorched, and suddenly was awake and walked straight into a puddle to take away the heat from the burns. Later maybe because burns get infected so easily, they got infected. And because our medic was dead and we were way off no place smoking-out Italians—people tend to forget they were also our enemies then—he almost lost both legs. Lieutenant Malcolm G. Gabert his name was. I don’t hear from him ever. And I certainly, I want you to know, by my aside before, have nothing against Italians.”

  “Excuse me, but that lieutenant incident sounds impossible.”

  “I knew he’d say that,” ponytailed man says.

  “But thirty feet up, then landing on his feet unconsciously and walking away?”

  “If he hadn’t been unconscious when he landed he wouldn’t have landed that way. He would have landed in a way where he would have died, like not on his feet.”

  “But coming out unscathed?”

  “The scorch burns, this gentleman said—the infections.”

  “Pardon me for arguing, sir,” shorter man says to me, “and I can handle this, so please let me,” to the ponytailed man, “but I saw it. I wasn’t him but I saw him. Other soldiers in other situations got killed standing a hundred feet away from even less powerful land mines that exploded, and also when they had some natural hard protection to hide behind like concrete or sturdy trees. So who can say about life? Take it from me: not you or I.”

  “I don’t mean to argue either,” I say, “but a bomb’s a bomb. Sure, anything can happen in life, to a degree, so I’ll go along with your bullets in boots and so on. But if a bomb lands smack on top of you—touches your body when it explodes or just inches away, and of the force of a mine that can send a normal-sized man—he was, wasn’t he?”

  “My height.”

  “And you’re a little less than my height, and if it had happened to me—and when I’m talking of a bomb landing on someone I mean the mine below—I’d have died. Or at least would’ve been seriously maimed, and ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that would’ve meant among other things losing both legs or at least one of them or one of my feet. No, both feet. They can’t survive such a blast and probably not even the legs below the knees.”

  “What do you want me to tell you, you’re right? Because I won’t apologize in a war where fifty million died. And if fifty million did—if forty million I’ll even say—you don’t think—or thirty, or twenty, not to say a hundred million casualties or thereabouts—there wouldn’t have been even a few thousand inconceivable freak accidents, plus the fifty to a hundred thousand that at first seemed inconceivable but you gradually came around to believe in them? For instance, a three-story stone building in an area totally arid from no rainfall for months collapsed on one of the villagers in a village we shelled and she was under the entire thing of it for ten days without air, food, drink or even mud to lick and she survived.”

  “That’s only a little more possible to believe than the lieutenant incident, but still quite impossible. In ten days she would’ve suffocated, starved, completely dehydrated, but something to have died.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you—impossible to believe but there it was before my eyes.”

  “You’re not claiming it was God’s doing, in other words?” ponytailed man says.

  “I’m saying it was an inconceivable freak, which is a combination of a miscellany of coincidences and natural life and man-made happenings. Which means it could even have been to her advantage there hadn’t been rain for months, plus her own body and what it was able to withstand and the will to survive and—”

  “No, it’s beyond being a freak,” I say. “In ten days, if she came up alive—”

  “That’s what she did. But she didn’t walk up, you know. First of all, where were the stairs? Second of all, she had to be lifted gingerly and carried away. Now I’m not saying she lived more than an hour after that, since we never knew how the wounded were doing in the hospitals, except for our own GI’s. It was a human miracle—just us, what we as people fall into and get out of and between those undergo, and nothing dealing with those big manipulative fingers with the strings at the ends of them of the Lord’s. You’re not a great believer by any chance, for if you are, again I deeply apologize.”

  “I’m not. But air pockets. Or someone could’ve been feeding her through a tube those last few days. I’m no expert, and you couldn’t have been there all the time those ten days.”

  “No tubes. And I didn’t need minute-to-minute information on her, since nothing had essentially changed till we reached her the last day. You see, she started out in the basement of the building because that’s where she went when the village was being shelled, and for ten days she was twenty-five feet under that pile.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I’ve never been to war or even in one of the armed services, and I’m getting cold out here,” rubbing my hands, feeling for a coat button I might not have buttoned except for the top one. “But, come to think of it I was in a very serious car accident and nothing happened to me, while the guy I hit nearly died. But that was because my car was a big used Olds compared to his two-seater British something or another sports.”

  “What happened?” ponytailed man says. “They weren’t drafting then and you happened to come of age between one of the police actions or wars, or you were deferred?”

  �
��The truth is—you fellows aren’t federal law officers or MP’s in disguise, are you? Only kidding. No, it was so long ago I don’t mind admitting it now. I was called down for a physical and pretended something was a bit more than neurotic with me—but only after I couldn’t fail any of the physical tests—and they believed it. It was a good act, but I just didn’t want to go in then, that’s all.”

  “If it was World War Two or Korea would you have acted that way?”

  “I think I would’ve gone in some other capacity than gun-holding—that was the thing.”

  “Someone’s got to pull the trigger,” shorter man says.

  “True. Or not. And I shouldn’t have brought it up, since you did fight, you say.”

  “I most certainly did; I can’t speak for him.”

  “Coast guard,” ponytailed man says. “Nothing rough, but it could have been. Florida waters, snooping for subs.”

  “And you probably lost buddies,” I say to the shorter man.

  “I already told you.”

  “Me, never, except through natural causes. One slips on the deck. Another talks tough to a hooker. My closest amigo had cirrhosis of the liver when he joined up—”

  “Excuse me—and I know,” I say to the shorter man, “and I respect that, and no doubt you still carry deep feelings about those deaths and all, so now it’s my turn to apologize.”

  “Forget the apologies and respects to death and how chilly it is out here—it isn’t to me anyway. Just speak your mind.”

  “Speak it. Yes. Well I’ll try. Gun-holding and shooting. I could maybe to save my mother’s life or some innocent’s or mine. Definitely my mother’s and mine, if I wasn’t the one responsible, and the innocent’s if it was a child. Even if I was responsible, though if my mother was responsible I would too but without any question. And even if the innocent wasn’t a child, and in fact wasn’t even completely innocent, but a lot more innocent than the other person, though that I’d definitely have to know. The circumstances of their dispute, I mean, before I’d step in with a gun, though I don’t see any reason for my ever getting hold of one. But if I was suddenly holding one, how would I know how to use it? And if I tried to and it didn’t go off or went off wrong, I’d be asking, in stepping in for this innocent, to get shot at and killed. For my mother and no doubt myself, I’d try to use the gun even if I didn’t know how to—and I’m talking about a gun against gun or something comparable to one. That is, if nothing else worked before that or I could see that nothing would and I now had no time to do anything else.”

  “A country’s the same when it’s fighting the enemy,” shorter man says. “You have to think of each of them as different families or separate lives. Your country’s your mother, the enemy’s the mugger.”

  “That’s good—mother-mugger—but there’s too much involved with countries. I can’t balance it. Killing in self-defense I can. Someone comes at you, it’s ‘Hey, this is my life, what’re you doing, lay off,’ and there’s a rock there and whack, you crack him. Or a gun, and if not shooting it, then with the butt. Now if it’s a woman or kid coming at you, and a girl more so than a boy—I don’t know. Or your mother—same thing—in defending her. ‘Hey, this is my mom, what do you expect me to do no matter what she did, stand there?’—right? Really, between society’s needs and mine—and I know one takes in the other, etcetera, but so do the societies which are our enemies and so on—how do you justify my needs over its? Or my country attacking theirs or not, or defending itself, and how much to if we were responsible for the dispute?—but now I’m getting all unclear, my ideas. I’d have to write it, I’m not good at expressing it. But you can see how I feel. So what can I say? That I can probably help our army in an emergency in other ways. Translating, if we ever went to war again in the Orient. But only, I think, if what the army asks of me is right. Or the policies of our country in this particular crisis or war are right, which is probably in most cases impossible to find out, just because in any crisis the army or country, for tactical reasons, probably mostly always lies.”

  “Oh, you know?” shorter man says.

  “Not personally. But from newspapers I—”

  “What, the Times, Post?”

  “The Times, why not? And magazines. Not Newsweek or—”

  “So why didn’t you try that device when you were drafted?”

  “I’m sorry—I said so many things. You mean asking for alternative service?”

  “Others did. C.O.’s.”

  “Right—C.O.’s. Well. But look, what am I here, on military trial? No, I don’t want to joke about it, but you’re—or maybe it’s just when I get into a conversation that’s too loaded or potentially so—”

  “I’m talking considerately to him, aren’t I?” to the ponytailed man, who nods and shrugs. “Considerately, not maliciously—all you have to do is listen to my voice to know. So don’t answer me if you don’t want to on anything. That’s the prerogative of all free people, which we should be, governmentally and on the street. Because what I like about our talk so far is that we’ve been so flexible, listening without friction, so please let’s not spoil it.”

  “It has been easy,” ponytailed man says.

  “It actually has, and honestly, no harm meant from here either. Okay. I just didn’t want to go into the army—but then, I mean, then. Maybe I shouldn’t go on.”

  “Finish up,” shorter man says. “I’m interested, and no more interruptions.”

  “I didn’t say much,” ponytailed man says.

  “I meant from us both.”

  “Because who knows what one can get into? I was younger—what the hell—it was twenty years ago and I found a way out and bolted. I didn’t know what to do with my life but knew I didn’t want to not know what I didn’t want to do with—Anyway, now I see things clearer, am a lot more confident about my life, want less, struggle more—rather I expect little than want less and what I know I’m willing to put up with for my feelings and ideas, etcetera, and so on. That was no good. I think I’d say to the army now to give me this instead of that, and take it. I would. But if they didn’t give me this but that, which was gun-holding and in basic training, bullet-dodging and latrine-cleaning, and later in the service possible man-killing, I’d say no and take the consequences—I think. Though someone has to clean the latrines, you might say. We wouldn’t be a good match, the army and I, or that’s what their psychiatrist said after I played it to the hilt to get myself psyched out, so I suppose I’d have to be put to the test. Of being called up again and what I’d do. I don’t know…”

  “Too late for that now,” ponytailed man says.

  “The gray shows, eh?” fingering a sideburn.

  “What about the accident where you almost died? That’s one I want to hear the end of, since I’ve a long interest in everything automobile. It rules the universe, you know. TV’s too.”

  “It was the other driver who almost died. And thanks for taking me off the subject—both, my hair too. It—actually, I don’t care about my hair except when the sides look like feathers coming out. ‘Bozo the Clown,’ my junior high school students, when—”

  “You see? TV. So my case is closed. Continue—don’t mind me.”

  “Come on, you don’t want me to. And I’ve got to go.”

  “You crazy? In the middle? Man dying on the road and we’re leaving him there? You have to.”

  “Okay. Colorado—the accident. Still all right by you?” to the shorter man. He nods. “A few years after the army—psyching out. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but so what. And I’m driving drunk down a mountain road—coasting—I was that inexperienced with cars, having just learned how to drive, and I turned off the ignition to save on the gas—I was also that broke. Anyway, the road’s dark, though I was smart enough to keep my headlights on—running the battery, if that’s what it’s called, and I think I also liked the idea of driving soundlessly. None of this would be so clear, by the way, if it hadn’t been such an experience. But wher
e was I?”

  “Down the road—” shorter man says.

  “When my car suddenly stops. No, wheels didn’t lock—that’s what happens, you’re about to say, right? when coasting with the motor off—but my fender’s been smashed against the front left wheel. Of course I had to get out of the car to see this. How’d it happen? Must’ve been in an accident, blanked out. But just before that I was singing to some radio music same time I’m yelling out the window something like ‘Hey stars, beautiful stars, look at me, city slicker in country Colorado, yippie pippie yeh,’ so not so soundlessly. But if the ignition was off, radio couldn’t be on, at least in that car.”

  “That’s what I was about to ask,” ponytailed man says. “What year Olds and what style?”

  “Good questions. Anyway, I’m looking at my car and think I must’ve hit a tree. When I see, back up the road a few hundred feet, a tiny car with its headlights pointing to the sky perpendicularly. But this is silly. You don’t want me—”

  “Don’t start. Continue.”

  “Some other cars stopped. I’ll tell you what kind of guy I was then. Worse than a young idiot and mistakes. I wouldn’t do anything like it today. Oh, little lies and mistakes today—but then, before any other car stopped, I got back in my car and tried to drive away, but it wouldn’t move. Fender against wheel. So I got out as if for the first time, since some cars had stopped behind me, and with some people walked back to the tiny car.”

  “Dead.”

  “I won’t say yet, for the story’s sake, but anyway, we already said he wasn’t, but his sports car was totaled. Doors still closed. Windows smashed in a way where they were still in their frames but you couldn’t see inside.”

  “Safety glass. Supposed to do that. Must have been German-or Swedish-make. For glass, that far back, they were the best.”

  “Door windows made of plastic and slashed but intact. Someone said ‘Shouldn’t one of us see what’s inside?’ but no one wanted to open the door.”