Time to Go

by Stephen Dixon

  I just blew my nose and put the wet tissue at the right end of this table and will put it in the paper bag along with the page that starts with This time I’m going to make it work, and probably along with these six awful pages I’ve written so far and whatever I might add to them. The tissue is wet. The wind is wet. This awful piece or whatever it is is wet. The ground outside’s wet. Coffee I’m drinking or just was is cold and wet. I just dried my nose and eyes, which were wet, with a dry tissue I made wet. I’ll also put that tissue in the paper bag when I get it. Oh, put on your glasses, tie the laces of your wet sneakers so you won’t trip going downstairs and the two cats when you come downstairs won’t think the flicking lace tips on the stair boards are the nails of a dog as they’ve thought several times before. Or just take off the sneakers, since they are wet, and put on your loafers and go downstairs and say something nice to Magna. Say you apologize. Say you’re sorry, very sorry. Say you’ll try to see that it won’t happen again. Say you’ll do your very best. Say you had a dream last night you want to tell her, Is it all right? If she says yes, say in the dream she said An FBI man told me they’ve done a thorough report on you and that you are fou, and I said A fool? and she said You know what I mean: that vous êtes fou, crazy! and I said So what does that mean to you: that you don’t want to continue living with a fouy man, a crazy man? and she said Yes, you being fou is just one of the many things that make me not want to live with you anymore, and I said Ah, the hell with it and walked out of the hotel and along one of those narrow barge roads by the Dordogne feeling very depressed and thinking what will I do, commit suicide here in France? Because I can’t live without her. I need someone like her to tell my dreams to and many other reasons and she’s the last one left, and the dream ended then. I woke up. The room was black. I didn’t think it was a room but a cave. I felt for Magna. She was on her side, her back to me. We had what I thought was an animal hide over us and were lying on soft ground. I looked at the ground. There was a little light on it now and it looked like water or mud. I reached out to feel it. It felt like water. I felt the small rug on the floor though didn’t think yet that the floor was a floor and rug a rug and the rug felt like grass. I don’t remember falling asleep here, I thought, but maybe everything I remember before waking up was a dream. Then how’d I get here? How do I get my food? Who’s Magna? I turned to her. The hide became the top sheet covered by blankets, the soft ground a bed. I could see windows now. We were in our rented summer cottage, not a cave. All this while I was awake. I pressed into her from behind. Got or had an erection. I wanted to talk to her about my dream and maybe to make love, but she seemed to be sleeping. I pressed the erection against her thighs from behind and put my arm over her under the blanket till my hand covered her breast. She didn’t move. I pressed into her a little harder, put my lips against her neck and blew softly on it, thinking that might awake her. Few seconds later she said I can’t right now, what are you doing? What do you mean what am I doing? I said. I didn’t get closer to you to make love, just to be warm and safe. I want to go back to sleep too. You have no consideration, she said. I didn’t know you were up, I said, So I didn’t think you’d feel me. Not feel what, she said, Your blowing on me? How could I not feel it? Who blew on you where? I said. I didn’t blow. If you felt my breath on your neck it was probably because I was breathing through my mouth while falling asleep, that’s all. No consideration, she said. Oh, none at all? Then little, she said. I’m sorry, I said, I’ll move away and stop breathing, and I moved to the other side of the bed. All you want to do or just about always when you’re in bed, no matter how I feel or what state I might be in, is make love. Because you knew I was sleeping. I’m exhausted. I’ve jet lag. We’re six hours behind. It’s really six or eight in the morning, not midnight or two or whatever time the clock says. I know and I’m sorry, I said. Christ, she said. Oh the hell, I can’t sleep with you constantly complaining when I didn’t mean what you think I did and making me feel even worse than I should, and I got out of bed, said We’ll work it out in the morning, went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch with my raincoat and one of the cats on top of me. About an hour ago she said I think we better speak about last night. We were having breakfast, hadn’t talked much. Polite talk. Pass the this, etcetera, while she read and I looked out the window. Oh, skip all that. Talk, argument, anger, tears from Magna, I walked out of the room, up here, she left the cottage and came back twenty minutes later and went to her desk and started typing, is, I’m typing, and that’s where I am now. The wind is wet. It sounded so nice. I thought it would be a good beginning. I wanted to write, when I sat down, something about why I’m always fighting and lying on and off with women and making myself so hard to live with. I wanted to explore that particularly and why I want those characteristics in me to stop. But I wrote slop: This time I’m going to make it work. Then nonsense: The wind is wet. Then what followed right up till this. Forget the writing: I should go downstairs now to try to work things out. Not because I can’t work well up here so long as I know Magna’s sad and getting if she’s not already fed up with me, though if my work did improve because of it I’d certainly be glad, but because I want more than anything and as much if not more than I’ve wanted with anyone to stay with her and be loved by her and because I eventually want to find out why I do some of the wrong things I do and what I can do to change them. Something like that. But I’m going to do it. Meaning, I’m going to go downstairs now.

  I went downstairs. Magna was still upset. I said I hate for her to be so upset. I said lots of things. I’ll skip most of it. I said I know I must change. She said she thinks so too. I said if I changed somewhat does she think she’d still want to live with me? She said maybe only if I changed more than somewhat. How much more? I said and she said A little more than a little more. One very important thing though, she said, No, two: you have to think more of me than you do. Not to dote on me, but just to be more considerate of my feelings than you’ve been and, this is the second thing, more aware or just more truthful of your own. All right, I said, And I’m not saying this just because it sounds good: I’ll do everything I can to be that way and do what you say. I will, I said, I promise, okay? Okay, she said. I then wanted to kiss. She said Not quite yet. She asked what I’ve been typing upstairs and I said The beginning of something. It’s not working out. I started it several times. I think I was feeling too miserable because of what happened between us and what I knew you were feeling. It includes something of what we recently went through, I’m afraid: last night, my dreams, our breakfast, that I want our relationship to work out so much. She asked if she could see it. That she knows I don’t like anyone but editors and agents to see my work till it’s published, but could she? It’d give her the assurance, she said, that I trust her more than I seem to and value her opinion of my work more too and even if I might not agree with what she says about it each time, that I’m at least able to listen to it. And also that she can perhaps be of some use to me in my work more than just as a fictional character, just as she likes it when I give good advice in the work she does. I said You know I don’t like to show my work—but you already said that. Okay, but you have to realize it’s junk. That it’s something I’m almost sure I won’t be able to or just won’t want to end. That I started it, and probably in the wrong mood for such a piece—a dejected mood or just about—to be something, started it to, but nothing much materialized. That I’ll probably dump it into a trash bag in a few minutes to an hour if I don’t save it for half a year and then look at it and dump it then. She realizes all that, she said. She knows most of my work habits by now and also that I’ve occasionally searched frantically through garbage bags and cans for the beginnings of stories I threw in and then worked on them and finished a few and one even got published and became if she’s not mistaken my only major anthologized piece. Which reminds me, I said. While I’m down here I should get a paper bag for my trash, because I’ve a cold coming on—You do? she said. I’m sorry, you must�
�ve gotten it that last rainy night in Paris when I insisted we see St. Chapelle and Notre Dame—And I already have two wet tissues upstairs that should not only be in a trash bag but for your sake probably burned. She laughed. I smiled. I took her hand. I said Please let’s just have one small kiss? It’ll mean a lot to me. How much is a lot to you? she said. A lot more than a lot, I said—I don’t know, but a whole lot, which should be enough. Sure, she said, Fine by me. We kissed. Kissed several times. I love you, I said, You know that. Sometimes I don’t, she said, But I love you too. Oh Christ, she said, Let’s be good to one another and helpful and truthful as two people can be to one another, though I know you must think this is all garbage psychotherapy talk, or at least work towards what I’m asking for and not so often hurt one another and all the other good things? All right, I said. You are right and as my dad used to say, though that’s not to say he practiced it. In fact—well anyway, When you’re right you’re right, he used to say, and you are right. That’ll be the program from now on: truth, help, not hurt, all the good things together, etcetera. Good, she said. Will you now let me see your upstairs’ work and even let me comment on it if I feel my comments might help it? Yes, I said. And your comments couldn’t do anything but help this work, not that it’ll end up to be anything—the work, that is—and I think your comments could probably help all my work. So get it, she said. The bag first, I said. I got a large paper bag from the kitchen, went upstairs, got the ten pages, brought them downstairs, she read them, said I don’t mind The wind is wet. It’s in a way, well, poetic. And the wind can be wet, so why are you fretting so much over it? Sure the wind can be wet, she said. A foggy wind. A rainy wind. The kind of wind with rain in it we get so much of around here. Wind with rain in it, I said—I like that. I don’t know why, but I really like that line. Wind with rain in it. Wind with rain in it. And the truth is, she said, If you rewrite this as it is, or without, if you’ll permit me, adding much more to it except maybe a quick curious finish, it might to a lot of readers be an original story; if that was your original intention. If it wasn’t, well, accidents happen, so think about making it your intention. Not of course that a work has to be original to be good, though I think this one would have to. Wind with rain in it, I said. The wind is wet. This wind with rain in it is. I don’t know about all that, she said. Nor, if you want my advice, about including all those, if that’s what you have in mind, for the purpose of originality or not. But if this turned out not to be a story or not quite one or not quite much of anything publishable, let’s say, original or not, or whatever happens to a story once you think you’ve finished it, it had some purpose. It helped you think about us, if I got it right. It brought you downstairs to talk things out with me. So it served a very useful purpose, or just a useful one, and that’s as a reconciliatory story for us. So maybe it only deserves two readers, you and me, and for our purpose the story’s finished, and for the story’s purpose—well, it might not have one except for the reconciliatory reason I gave. And so actually, and without much regret for the work you put in and the time I did right now, it could be thrown out, depending on how important you think that reconciliation is. Very important, I said. Wind with wind with wet with rain in it this is. That makes a lot of sense, she said. Oh, it doesn’t? I said. And if you are planning to keep this piece and maybe even add to it, she said, I suppose you or both of us should try to recall if others might not have done something of the same order as this. Maybe you know but you’re not saying. No I don’t, I said, though I don’t read as much as a lot of others do. Wind with with with wet with rain within it is this. Whatever, she said, But I have to get back to my work. Want to go for a run in an hour or so? If I’m not too busy with my wet wind writing, I said. See you then, she said and handed me my ten pages and I went upstairs and recorded or tried to record as close as I could what went on since the end of the last paragraph, or rather, since I went downstairs to try to work things out with Magna. Things seem to have worked out. I feel good about that. Now to finish and later read it over—say in a few hours or tomorrow morning or after my run with Magna, if she still wants to run and if I want to—to see if I have anything here. I did bring up the bag—I mentioned that—and will now put in it those tissues and eraser pencil shavings and a third tissue, because I have to blow my nose again, and that page which begins with This time I’m going to make it work.

  Magna Takes the Calls

  Magna says “It’s Ruth. She sounds a little upset,” and hands me the receiver, collects her students’ exam papers and goes into the bedroom.

  I say “Hello, mom, how are you?” and she says “I’ve some bad news for you, Will. Aunt Rae called a few hours ago and said Uncle Saul died last night.”

  “Oh God, that’s terrible, awful. I’m very sorry.”

  “His heart. I just spoke to him last week. We all knew he didn’t have that long to live—the doctor told Rae that a few months ago. That he was just waiting around to die. But when you hear that it’s happened, it always comes as a shock. I’m just glad he never knew how bad off he was.”

  “I’ll say. It’s awful, awful.”

  “He in fact called me—when was it?—two months ago and said he’d be in for Christmas for a week. I told him he could stay with me, there was plenty of room here, but he said he’d be staying at his sister-in-law’s—Rae’s sister Dolly. I don’t think you ever met her. When I spoke to him last week I asked what about his Christmas plans and he said they’d have to be pushed back a ways but he’d see me in no later than three months.”

  “I’m really sorry, mom. I loved Saul. He always took an interest in us—in you, your kids. He was like a second father. In some ways, what I wish dad had been more: interested.”

  “Your father was interested. Maybe in a different way than Saul.

  Silently. He didn’t express himself much, except maybe to his cronies, but he certainly felt things. Saul was actively interested in all of you—that’s true. You want to hear how it happened?”

  “If you want to say.”

  “Rae said he was watching television last night. That that’s where she last saw him—in front of the TV—when she left him to take a shower. He was watching the eleven o’clock news, or the ten. I forget exactly what time she said.”

  “I think the news comes on at ten in L.A.”

  “That’s right, you lived there. But maybe it’s changed since then, or like us some of their stations have an hour of local news and then national. When she came out she said ‘Anything important happen in the news today, Saul?’ and he didn’t answer. She saw him slumped over—just a little to the side—his head. So he died peacefully.”

  “That’s good at least.”

  “He had no means to prevent it. It was the heart muscles—there was no way to repair them with a new valve and he was in no condition for a heart transplant. He knew he was going to die, though nobody told him. I could tell by his voice in that last phone call we had that he knew he’d never see us again.”

  “It’s terrible, mom—I can’t tell you. For you, for Rae, for myself. I hate to think of him gone.”

  “I know he knew you appreciated him. He felt the same to you. He always respected you. And since they moved out there, when we talked he asked after you every time.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “You mean by knowing it?”

  “Yes, is anybody with you? Maybe you should go to Leslie’s tonight or have her and Ben or just Leslie stay with you there.”

  “I’m all right. He’s not my first brother to go, just my youngest. I miss him already. I wish I had called him yesterday when I thought of it. I always get the time zones mixed up. I think eight here is eleven there and he might be in bed. I forget it’s the other way around. But I don’t need anyone with me. It’s good talking to you about it. That’s what happens when you come from such a large family. So many brothers and sisters to lose. Sometimes I wish I’d gone first. Before my parents even. I’m sad, though, that’s true. I
’ve had two drinks and feel tired already, so I’ll sleep okay. But tell me what you think. Rae wants me to hold some kind of ceremony for Saul in New York. He’ll be cremated out there, but she wants me to put an announcement in the Times about his death and a brief service at my place for his family here and friends. It’ll be a lot for me to do, I don’t think I’m up to it, but I’ll do it if Leslie and Ben help out.”

  “I’ll come in for it and help.”

  “I was hoping you could. I’ll make it on a Friiday—you don’t teach that day I remember—and you can get back to school by Monday. You think Magna will want to come? She met Saul, didn’t she?”

  “A couple of years ago. I’ll ask her. It’ll also give her a chance to see her folks and you.”

  “I look forward to seeing her. Probably next Friday or the one after. Before sundown, because it has to be. All right, I don’t want to keep you any longer. Give my love to Magna.”

  “Goodnight, mom. Thanks for calling.”

  I hang up and go into the bedroom. “What was it?” Magna says.

  “Something wrong as I thought?”

  “My Uncle Saul died last night.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Will, I’m sorr.” She puts her pen down and comes over to me. I start crying. She holds my hand, touches my cheek. I break down and she puts her arms around me and pats my back and I sob for a while. I try to speak. I say “I loved…I loved…” I wanted to say “I loved the old guy very much,” She says “I know how you feel about him, you don’t have to say. He was a very nice man. He was like a second father to you.” I nod. “Did he have it rough?”