Long Made Short

by Stephen Dixon

  We flew on, I held her in my arm, kissed her head repeatedly, thinking if anything would stop her from worrying, that would. “You sure there’s nothing to worry about, Daddy? I mean about what you said to Mommy,” and I said “What are you doing, reading my mind? Yes, everything’s okay, I’m positive.” We continued flying, each with an arm out, and by the time night came we were still no closer to or farther away from the ground.

  MAN, WOMAN, AND BOY

  They’re sitting. “It’s wrong,” she says. He says “I know.” She stands, he does right after her. “It’s all wrong,” she says. “I know,” he says, “but what are we going to do about it?” She goes into the kitchen, he follows her. “It almost couldn’t be worse,” she says. “Between us—how could it be? I don’t see how.” “I agree,” he says, “and I’d like to change it from bad to better but I don’t know what to do.” She pours them coffee. She puts on water for coffee. She fills the kettle with water. She gets the kettle off the stove, shakes it, looks inside and sees there’s only a little water in it, turns on the faucet and fills the kettle halfway and then. And then? “Do you want milk, sugar?” she says. This after the water’s dripped through the grounds in the coffee maker, long after she said “I’m making myself coffee, you want some too?” He nodded. Now he says “You don’t know how I like it by now?” “Black,” she says. “Black as soot, black as ice. Black as the ace of spades, as the sky, a pearl, black as diamonds.” “Whatever,” he says, “whatever are you talking about?” “Just repeating something you once said. How you like your coffee.” “I said that? Those, I mean—I said any of them? Never. You know me. I don’t say stupid or foolish things, I try not to talk in clichés, I particularly dislike similes in my speech, and if I’m going to make a joke, I know beforehand it’s going to get a laugh. But to get back to the problem.” “The problem is this,” she says. “We’re two people, in one house, with only one child, and I’m not pregnant with a second. We have a master bedroom and one other bedroom, so one for us and one for the child. We have no room for guests. We have no guest room. The sofa’s not comfortable enough to sleep on and doesn’t pull out into a bed. We have no sleeping bag for one of us to sleep on the floor. I don’t want our boy to sleep in the master bed with one of us while the other sleeps in his bed. One of us has to go, is what I’m saying.” “I understand you,” he says. “The problem’s probably what you said. It is, let’s face it. One of us has to go because both of us can’t stay, and traditionally it’s been the man. But I don’t want to go, I’d hate it. Not so much to leave you but him. Not at all to leave you. I’m being honest. Don’t strike out against me for it, since it’s not something I’m saying just to hurt you.” “I wouldn’t,” she says. “I like honesty. And the feeling’s mutual, which I’m also not saying just to get back at you for what you said. But I’m not leaving the boy and traditionally the man is, in situations like this, supposed to, or simply has. We’ve seen it. Our friends, and friends of friends we’ve heard of, who have split up. The child traditionally stays with the woman. And it’s easier, isn’t it, for the one without the child to leave than the one who stays with it, and also ends up being a lot easier on the child. So I hope that’s the way it’ll turn out. I think we both agree on that or have at least agreed on it in our conversation just now.” “Our conversation, which is continuing,” he says. “Our conversation, which should conclude. It wouldn’t take you too long to pack, would it?” “You know me,” he says, “I never acquired much. Couple of dress shirts, two T-shirts, three pairs of socks, not counting the pair I’m wearing, three or four handkerchiefs, a tie. Two undershorts, including the one on me, pair of work pants in addition to the good pants I’ve on. Sports jacket to match the good pants, work jacket and coat, hat, muffler, boots, sneakers, the shoes I’m wearing, and that should be it. Belt, of course. Bathing suit and running shorts. Anything I leave behind—some books except the one I’m reading and will take—I can pick up some other time. The tie, in fact, I can probably leave here; I never use it.” “You might,” she says. “Anyway, it’s small enough to take and not use. Take everything so you’ll be done with it. So you’re off then? Need any help packing?” “For that amount of stuff? Nah. But one last time?” “What, one last time?” she says. “A kiss, a smooch, a feel, a hug, a little bit of pressing the old family flesh together, okay?” “You want to make me laugh? I’ll laugh. Cry? I’ll do that too. Which do you want me to do?” “Okey-doke, I got the message and was only kidding.” “Oh yes, for sure, only kidding, you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” he says. “Oh you don’t know, for sure, oh yes, you bet.” “If you’re referring to that smooch talk, what I meant was I’d like to be with my child for a few minutes before I go. To hug, squeeze, kiss and explain that I’m not leaving him but you. That I’ll see him periodically, or really as much as I can—every other day if you’ll let me. You will let me, right?” “For the sake of him, of course, periodically. More coffee?” “No thanks,” he says. “Then may I go to my room while you have this final get-together with him? Not final; while you say good-by for now?” “Go on. I won’t steal him.”

  They move backward, she to the couch, he to the chair. They never drank coffee, never made it; never had that conversation. They’re both reading, or she is and he has the book on his lap. Their son’s on the floor putting a picture puzzle together. It’s a nice domestic scene, he thinks, quiet, the kind he likes best of all. Fire going in the fireplace—he made it. A good one too, though fires she makes are just as good. It doesn’t give off much heat, fault of the fireplace’s construction, but looks as if it does and is beautiful. Thermostat up to sixty-eight so, with the fire, high enough to keep the house warm, cozy. He has tea beside him on the side table. On the side table beside him. Beside his chair. A Japanese green tea, and he’s shaved fresh ginger into it. Tea’s now lukewarm. Tastes it; it is. He’s been thinking these past few minutes and forgot about the tea. She has a cup of hot water with lemon in it. Not hot now—she might even have finished it—but was when he gave it to her. About ten minutes ago she said “Strange as this must sound”—he’d said he was making himself tea, would she like some or anything with boiling water?—“it’s all I want. I wonder if it means I’m coming down with something.” He said “You feel warm?” “No.” “Anything ache—limbs, throat, extremities?” “Nope. I guess I’m not,” and resumed reading. “What could you be coming down with, Mommy?” the boy said. “Your mommy means with a cold,” he said. “Oh,” the boy said and went back to his puzzle. I wonder, the man thinks, what that long parting scene I imagined means. It’s not like that with us at all. We’re a happy couple, a relatively happy one. Hell, happier than most it seems, more compatible and content and untroubled than most too. I still love her. Do I? Be honest. I still do. Very much so. Very much? Oh, well, most days not as passionately or crazily as I loved her when I first met her or the first six months or so of our being together before we got married or even the first six months or so of our marriage, but close enough to that. She still excites me. Very much so. Physically, intellectually. We make love a lot. About as much as when we first met, or after the first month we met. She often initiates it. Not because I don’t. Lots of times she does when I’m thinking of initiating it but she starts it first. She doesn’t seem dissatisfied. I’m not too. What’s there to be dissatisfied about? A dozen or so years since we met and we still go at it like kids, or almost like kids—like adults, anyone—what I’m saying is, almost as if sometimes it’s the first. I have fantasies about other women but what do they mean? Meaning, they don’t mean much: I had them a week after I met her, they’re fleeting and they probably exist just to make it even better with her, but probably not. They exist. That’s the way I am. As long as I don’t act on them, which I’d never do, for why would I? Which is what I’m saying. And she tells me she loves me almost every day. Tells me almost every day. And almost every night one of the last things she says to me, in the dark or just before or after she turns o
ff the light, is “I love you, dearest.” And I usually say “I love you too,” which is true, very much so: I do, and then we’d briefly kiss and maybe later, maybe not, after I put down my reading, make love. So why’d I think of that scene? Just trying it out? Wondering how I’d feel? How would I? Awful, obviously. I couldn’t live without her. Or I could but it’d be difficult, very, extremely trying, probably impossible, or close. And without the boy? Never. As I said in the scene, I want to see him every day. He’s such a good kid. I want to make him breakfast every morning till he’s old enough to make his own, help him with his homework when he wants me to and go places with him—museums, the park, play ball with him, take walks with him—with him and her. Summer vacations, two to three weeks here or there, diving off rafts, long swims with him alongside me. Things like that. Libraries. He loves libraries and children’s bookstores. Really odd that I thought of that scene then. Just trying it out as I said, that’s all, or I suppose.

  He gets up and gets on the floor and says “Need any help?” “No, Dad, thanks. If I do I’ll tell you.” “Sure now?” “Positive. I like to figure things out myself. That’s the object of the puzzle, isn’t it?” “Well, sometimes it’s nice to do it with other people—it can be fun. But do what you want. And you’re pretty good at this.” “So far I am. I want to get up to one with a thousand pieces. This is only five hundred. But that’s still two hundred more than the last one I did, which was two hundred fifty.” “Two hundred fifty more than the last one,” he says. “Two hundred fifty times two hundred fifty—no, I mean times two; or two hundred fifty plus another two hundred fifty equals—” “Five hundred. I know. Two hundred fifty times two hundred fifty is probably fifty thousand, or a hundred.” “That’s good. You’re so smart.” He touches the boy’s cheek. “Okay, but if you need any help, whistle.” “What for?” “I mean—it’s just an expression, like what you said before: if you want me to help you’ll tell me.”

  He goes over to his wife. She’s reading and correcting manuscripts from her class. He puts his hand on top of her head. First he stood there thinking “Should I stay here till she notices me and looks up or should I put my hand on her head? On her head. Just standing here might seem peculiar to her. I’m sure if I was able to stand back and see myself standing here like this, it would seem peculiar.” Now with his hand on her head he thinks “Actually, standing here with my hand on top of her head must also seem peculiar to her.” Just as he’s about to take his hand off, she looks up and grabs his hand with the one holding the pen. “Hello,” she says. “Hello.” “What’s up?” she says. “Just admiring you.” “You’re a dear,” she says. “You’re the dear, a big one. I love you.” “And I love you, my dearest.” “And I love you very much,” he says. “Very very.” “Same with me, my dearest,” she says. “Is that all? I mean, it’s a lot and I like your hand here and holding it,” and she squeezes it, “but may I return to my schoolwork unless you have anything further to say?” “Return, return,” he says, and she pulls her hand away and holds the other side of the manuscripts with it. “Oh, Daddy and Mommy said they love each other,” the boy says. “That’s right, we did,” he says. “We said it and we do.” “Are you just saying that to me?” the boy says. “Ask your mother.” “Well, Mom?” “Well, what?” she says, looking up from her manuscripts. “Do you really love Daddy or are you—” “Yes, of course, such a question, what do you think? Now may I return to my work? Eight more essays to grade in a little bit under an hour. That’s when I think I’ll be too sleepy for anything but sleep.” “Oh yes?” he says. “Leave your mother then to her readings.” “Not before you both kiss on the lips.” “You ask for so much,” he says. “All right with you, ma’am?” he says to her. “Come ahither and adither,” she says and moves her head up, he bends over and puts his lips on hers. He sticks the tip of his tongue in in a way that he’s sure the boy won’t be able to see. Their tongues touch, eyes close. His does he knows—the eyes. He opens his and sees hers are closed. Closes his and opens them quickly: still closed. “Okay, you proved it,” the boy says. “You can stop now.”

  They move into the dining room. About an hour earlier, two. The three of them. They’re seated, eating. He avoids looking at her, she him. He doesn’t want to talk. When he wants something near her he nudges his son and points to it and his son gives it to him or he just reaches over, sometimes even has to stand up, and gets it himself. When she wants something near him she asks their son, though he always puts the thing he took back in the spot it was on. He’s angry at her and doesn’t want to just talk to his son and ignore her. Something she said. That he doesn’t do enough of the housework. “Hell I don’t,” he said. “I do at least half or most of the work most of the time.” That wasn’t it. He and she didn’t say that. What then? Said to her “You know, I hate saying this, but the house could be neater. You going to take umbrage, take.” Said this to her about an hour before dinner. Soon after he came home from work. She’d got home from work a couple of hours earlier. The boy was in his room doing homework. Or that’s what she said he was supposed to be there for. “You know I like order. That the chaos you prefer, or simply don’t mind living with, gets to me viscerally sometimes. Forget the ‘viscerally.’ I can’t stand chaos, it makes me nervous, temperamental, like cigarette smoke does. Forget the cigarette smoke. I just can’t stand it.” “Then tidy up the place,” she said. “It’s not just tidying up that’s needed; it’s also the dirt and dust.” “Then clean up the place too.” “I don’t clean up enough? I do most of the cleaning, it seems, plus most of the clothes washing and shopping and making the beds and fixing up the boy’s room and cleaning the bird’s cage and feeding it every night and our cooking and dishwashing and all that crap, and I just think it’s your turn. The food I see you’ve done, though I made the salad before I left. But the rest.” “Okay, I’ll clean up,” she said. “I’ve been busy, I am busy, I did the dinner except the salad, set the table, it’s been a rough day at school, I’ve helped our son with his long division for an hour and still have a mess of essays to grade, but if you think the distribution of housework’s been unequal, I’ll do what you say. I wanted to say ‘what the boss said,’ but you might take umbrage. Umbrage; what a word.” She cleaned up the living room and dining room. When she started to he said “I didn’t mean now.” Tidied up, swept the floors and rugs, dusted and polished the furniture, straightened the many books on the shelves, rubbed some stains on the wooden floor with a solution till she got them out. It looks and smells a lot better, he thought, place isn’t a complete jumble, but she’s making me feel guilty and she knows it. Why doesn’t she do it periodically, as I do, and then it wouldn’t come to this? “Do” meaning the cleaning; “this” being the disorder, dirty house, argument. The food was cooking, dinner was. He didn’t want to eat with the two of them feeling about each other like this, but what could he say: “I don’t want to eat right now, you go ahead without me,” after she’d cooked it and just cleaned part of the house, and he’d, so to speak, started the argument? He’d come home mad because of something that happened at the office—more pettiness there, nothing that should have upset him. He took it out on her—might have taken it out on the boy if he’d been around—which isn’t to say the place wasn’t a visual assault when he got there, but it certainly wasn’t enough of one to start an argument over, especially when he knew she’d taught most of the day and he could see she’d done some work at home: dinner, scrap paper scattered about showing she’d helped the boy with his long division. Besides, it just wasn’t something that warranted arguing over anytime. He’d gone to work mad because this morning in bed—it all could have stemmed from this—he’d wanted to make love. One of those mornings: dreamt of lovemaking, woke up thinking of lovemaking, wanted very much to do it. She mumbled “Too tired, sweetie,” and moved her neck away from his lips. He persisted. “I said I’m tired, too much so, don’t want to, please let me sleep, I need it.” Usually she gave in, even when she didn’t feel
like it. She knew it’d only take him a few minutes when he was like this and she could take the easiest and least involved position and wouldn’t even have to move to it since she was in it now—on her side with her back to him—and that he’d want to get out of bed right after to wash up, exercise, have coffee and read the paper, and prepare the breakfast table for their son and her. He pressed into her, put a hand on her breast through the nightgown, other hand between her legs. She had panties on. He hadn’t known. He started to pull them down. “What, huh?” she said, as if startled awake. “Don’t, dammit. I said I didn’t want to and I certainly feel less like it now. Do it to yourself if you’re so horny, but with me it’d be like with a corpse.” “A corpse isn’t warm.” “Please?” “And I’m not horny; I just want you.” “Sure,” she said. “Oh yeah, you bet, oh boy,” and moved a few inches away from him. “Bloody Christ,” he said and got out of bed. “Bitch,” he said softly but he thought loud enough for her to hear. She didn’t respond, eyes were closed, she looked asleep. Faking it maybe, but who cares? They didn’t talk at breakfast, which he ate standing up at the stove, she at the table he’d set. And he didn’t look at her when he left for work. Put on his coat, got his briefcase, kissed his son, left. The previous day during dinner they’d had an argument. Her mother had said to him on the phone “Are you treating my daughter nicely? Remember, she’s our only child, one in a zillion, and I always want her treated well because nobody in the world deserves it better.” “Have you asked either of us if she’s been treating me nicely?” he said. “What a question,” she said. Then “Let me talk to her if she’s there—it’s why I called.” His wife later asked him what he’d said that made her mother so mad, and it started. “She’s too nosy sometimes and she expects sensible gentle answers to these impossible, often hostile questions, and then she dismisses me as if I’m her houseboy-idiot.” “You don’t know how to talk to her and you never liked her and you don’t know how to act civilly to anyone you don’t like.” “Is that right,” he said, and so on. That morning he’d wanted to make love and they did. After, she said “Nothing really gets started with me when we make it lately, and I end up so frustrated. You—do you mind my saying this?—for the most part do it too quickly. You have to warm me up more and concentrate on the right spots, especially if you suddenly come on me unprepared, like when I’m asleep.” “Listen, we’re all responsible for our own orgasms,” he said. “The hell we are.” “I didn’t mean it the way it might have come out, but we are to a certain degree, don’t you think?” “You meant it and you show it,” she said. “Just get yours, buster, and let whoever it is burn.” “What ‘whoever it is’?” he said. “It’s only you.” “Don’t bullshit you don’t know what I mean,” she said, and so on. The previous day they fought about something, he forgets what: that she’s been letting the gas gauge go almost to empty, that she took his stapler the other day and now he can’t find it, that her personal trash in the bathroom wastebasket is starting to stink and it’s her responsibility to dump it in the can outside or at least tie it up and stick it in the kitchen garbage bag. “So I forgot.” “So from now on remember.” “Don’t fight,” their son said, “please don’t shout, please don’t yell.” They stopped but didn’t talk to each other for a few hours. The previous night, when he was reading and at the same time falling asleep, she got into bed naked and said “You don’t have to if you don’t want to—no obligation,” and he said “No no, I can probably do it,” and they made love and went to sleep holding each other, she kissing his hand, he the back of her head. Further back. The boy’s born, and he drops to his knees in the birthing room he’s so excited. Further. They’re getting married and they both break down during the ceremony and cry. Further. They meet. Sees her at a cocktail party, introduces himself: “You probably have better things to do than talk to me,” and she says “What a line—no, why?” His first wife, girlfriends, first he was smitten with in grade school. He’s a boy, and his parents are arguing bitterly at the dinner table. He puts his hands over his ears and yells “Stop, can’t you ever stop screaming at yourselves?” “Don’t do that,” his father says, pulling his hands off his ears. “What are you, crazy?” And he says “Yes,” or “You made me,” or “Why shouldn’t I be?” and runs out of the room. “Go after the maniac,” and his brother goes after him and says “It’s no good for me either when they’re like that, so come on back.” Hears further back. From his mother’s stomach. “Filthy rotten bitch.” “And you. Stupid, cheap, pigheaded, a pill. Get lost. I hate your guts.” “Not as much as I hate yours. Here.” “And what’s that?” “What you wanted so much. Your allowance. Take it and stick it up your ass,” and so on. “Why’d I marry you?” and so on. “You don’t think I ask that question too? With all I had and never any lip from anyone, what’d I need it for?” and so on.