All Gone

by Stephen Dixon

  THE ONLOOKER

  His daughter puts her arms out, waves her hands, shakes her feet, wants to get out, so he unbuckles the strap around her, takes the shopping bag off the back of the stroller so the whole thing won’t tip over when he takes her out, takes her out, stands her up, puts the bag on the seat and follows her with the stroller down a corridor of the mall.

  “Stella, let’s go in here a second,” he says when he sees there’s a sale going on in the classical record store, but she continues walking, looks back, wants to be chased her expression says, so he follows her, saying “I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you,” she stops in front of an ice-cream store and looks at him. She wants to go in her expression says. “I’m sorry, we can’t,” he says. “Stella, don’t! Come here!” She goes in. He leaves the stroller outside the store, goes in, takes her hand, she already has several small peppermint canes in her other hand. He holds out his hand, she drops the canes into it, he puts them into their box near the floor. He walks her outside the store, points the stroller to the record store, sets her behind the stroller so she can push it, she pushes it a few feet and then turns around and starts walking. A short man around seventy is looking at her, smiling. “She wants to go her own way,” he says to Will.

  “Always her own way. I want to go this way, she wants to go that. You always know which way I want to go by the opposite way she’s going.”

  “Goodbye, goodbye,” she says to the man, stopping to wave to him.

  “What a cute doll.” He goes over to her, puts his hand in front of her waving hand and waves to her. “Bye-bye, honey. But where you going bye-bye to? Home? Your mommy?”

  “Goodbye, goodbye,” and she goes down the corridor, stops, does a few dancing-in-place steps while looking at her shoes, says “Ishi, ishi,” which is her word for feet, socks, boots and shoes, goes on. The man walks with Will behind her.

  “How anybody would want to hit those kids,” the man says.

  “You mean parents? I’m sorry. Child abusers?”

  “I’ve seen it on TV. A whole article about it. Parents, relatives, friends of the mother even. You know, living with them. Why would they?”

  “The children are vulnerable. You beat her—what does she know? Not ‘know,’ but what can she say? She can’t talk back and she can’t tell anybody she’s being beaten. So no one knows she is unless he sees the marks, which can be explained away by the beater as ‘She fell’—something. Really, maybe not as simple as that, but the beater, for his or her own reasons, has to beat someone smaller than himself.”

  “It’s awful. I can’t understand it and I never will.”

  “Oh, I can. Child abusers, wife abusers—beat your wife, beat your kid. The beater’s frustrated, things aren’t going well, someone beat him or her as a kid. He can’t work it out any other way, so he beats up his child or wife or both. Old people too in wheelchairs get beaten up by their families.”

  “That the program didn’t say. It did mention the wives. But a baby! An old person like me you might get disgusted at. We can be a pain like them sometimes, but we’re also ugly. But look at her. She could never be disgusting-looking. How old is she?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  “Fourteen months. Why in the world anyone—even if they did want to, as the impulse must be there with every parent sometimes—”

  “That’s true.”

  “But why would they carry it out? That’s what I don’t understand. How could they? It’s more than crazy.”

  Stella’s going down another corridor. “Excuse me—you’re probably right.—Stella, come here!—It is probably more complicated than we could ever know, but I better go after her. Going this way?”

  “No, my store I’m going to’s over there.”

  “Nice talking to you then.”

  “Bye-bye, Stella,” he says.

  She’s standing outside the optician’s door, pointing inside. “He’s busy,” Will says, going after her and waving goodbye to the man. “Don’t go inside, sweetheart.” She goes inside.

  “Goodbye, goodbye,” she says, going up to the optician. He’s sitting facing a woman at a small table, spraying the lenses of a pair of glasses with glass cleaner. “Ah, my steadiest customer. Come in for trifocals this time, Sarah?”

  The woman turns around in her seat, smiles at Stella. Stella reaches for the glasses in his hand, says “Yeyes, yeyes.”

  “Stella, sweetheart, come with daddy,” Will says and takes her hand and says to the optician “Thank you, sorry for the bother.”

  “Stella. That’s right.” He puts the glasses on the woman. “Look straight into my eyes,” he says as Will takes Stella into the corridor.

  She uses her other hand to pull her hand from Will’s and goes back the way they came. He follows her with the stroller. She goes up to the side window of the bookstore at the end of the corridor, puts her hands and forehead on the glass and looks inside. Will stands behind her, sees the elderly man from before at a paperback rack about twenty feet past the narrow window. He’s reading a book. Stella looks at Will, points to the man or just to the store or something in the store. “Yes, the man,” Will says. She puts her head up against the glass again. The man has two paperbacks in his hand now, puts one back in the rack, quickly looks behind and in front of him, puts the other book into his side coat pocket and without looking at it makes sure the flap is over the pocket. Then he walks down the paperback aisle, looking at books, and starts for the door.

  Will doesn’t want the man to see them there if after he leaves the store he walks this way. He grabs Stella’s hand to steer her toward the optician’s, she waves her other hand to the man as he passes. He didn’t seem to see them. “Goodbye, goodbye,” she says. He stops, looks back at her, Will, then at the window they’re in front of, turns around as Will nods at him and continues walking.

  “We have to go now,” Will says to her, taking her coat and sweater out of the shopping bag. He looks at the man. The man keeps walking, doesn’t turn around. Will’s on his knees. People pass them. Stella’s flapping her hands and saying goodbye to them as Will’s trying to get her arm through the sweater sleeve.

  At home he tells his wife about the man.

  “I think he’s a child abuser,” she says. “To what extent I can’t say, or even if he is still one—but that’s why he brought it up.”

  “I don’t buy that. He didn’t have anything of the abuser of any sort in his mannerisms or on his face.”

  “No. Being so small, he was probably picked on as a boy and maybe as an adult and maybe even still. So he lets or at one time let very little people have it—maybe his own children—when he got the chance.”

  “I think he was just a shoplifter. But not because he wanted to save money. He was too nicely dressed. For the thrill of it I’ll say, or because he’s a little crazy that way. As for child abuse, he was just a sad lonely guy who wanted to talk to someone and child abuse was the first subject he could think to talk about with me. Maybe, as he said, because of some TV program he saw recently about it, and also because he knew it’d be something I’d be interested in because I have a small child.”

  “You didn’t think of reporting him to the bookstore?”

  “Of course not. Would you have?”

  “If he was a child abuser, yes. But if he was only a sad shoplifter as you think that’s all he was, then I guess they can take the loss better than he can.”

  “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  TRY AGAIN

  I look back at what I did to her today and I know what I did was awful, just couldn’t be worse, and I slam my fist into the pillow and cry. “I can’t go on today,” I say to her and she isn’t talking to me and leaves the room almost as soon as she got in it and I follow her down the hall and say “I can’t go on today, I feel miserable, I hate myself today, hate all life, especially mine, I suppose I’ll feel differently tomorrow or some day, but speak to me, say something,” and she puts on her jacket and
hat and leaves the apartment. I run after her, past the door that’s still open and yell down the stairs “Don’t go, talk to me first, I’m sorry, sorry, how many times must I say I’m sorry for all the lousy things I did to you today and all the other days but especially today before you’ll come back if only even momentarily and say ‘Okay, what is it, why’d you do those things—once and for all, what makes you?’”

  I run to the window and open it and see her stepping outside and I yell her name and she doesn’t turn around or answer and I grab a flowerpot off the ledge and throw it to the sidewalk so it’ll land a few feet in front of her and she’ll look up and know something’s wrong and that I only threw the pot to get her attention, that that’s how desperate I am, and that she has to speak to me before I get even worse, but the pot lands on her head. I know she’s dead. She just collapsed to the ground, pot splattering all ways, a big smack, crack, her head, the pot, I can’t believe it and want to throw myself out the window. Instead I yell “Nooo,” and tear a lamp out of the wall and throw it at the door and throw over a table and all the chairs around it and pick up one of those chairs and smash it against the end table and pick up the end table and smash it against the wall and beat my fists against the wall and stomp and scream and yell “Oh no,” and run down the three flights shouting “It isn’t, I didn’t, oh my God, how could I have?” and see her on the sidewalk not moving, people have gathered around her, I say “I did it, I’m sorry, I only meant to attract her attention, we got into an argument, usually my aim is good, I only meant to throw it in front of her, we got into many arguments, I said something she didn’t like this time, I’ve been lousy to her all day, week, all month really, but I never hit her before, it was so stupid of me to do, throwing that pot, never hit her with anything or threw anything at her before, not even a pillow, I swear it, I loved her, oh my God, she’s got to be alive, got to, is she dead?”

  “Dead,” a man says. “I’m a doctor, retired now, and she’s dead. Someone should call the police,” he says to the people around him.

  I run down the block, someone chases me, “Get that man, trip him, hold him, he just killed someone,” he says.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, honest, it was an accident,” I yell at people I pass who just stand there, none running after me. The man tackles me, climbs on top of me, I say “Let go, I’m going to kill myself, I was running to the subway, I was going to throw myself under the wheels or on the third rail, whichever came first,” and he says “Not till you had a proper hearing before the courts of law for what you did.”

  I throw him down and grab him from behind by his neck and stick my knee into his back and say “Don’t follow me, please, you have to let me handle it my own way,” and he says “You bastard, you killed her, she was such a pretty girl, I’ve seen her around, and nice, you’re going to get thrown away for life soon as I grab you and hold you down for the police.”

  I say “Don’t,” and he says “I will,” and I say “Then I’ll have to hurt you to stop you from trying to grab me,” and he says “You better do something before I get up and clip you so hard you can’t run off again,” and he starts to push himself up and throw me over and I squeeze his neck till some people grab me from behind but they must have grabbed me too late for he suddenly slumps and I let go and they lift me up and someone who’s kneeling over him says “Holy gee, his heart’s stopped,” and starts breathing into his mouth. I kick and shake off the two men still holding me from behind and run for the subway or anyplace where I can kill myself.

  A few people chase me now, one throws something at my feet, I trip, get up, there are three of them, two women and a man and I see an empty wine bottle at the curb and grab it and say “First one to touch me or try to stop me from what I’ve got to do to myself is going to get hurt, I swear to you, very hurt.”

  “What are you going to do to yourself?” the man says and I say “Throw myself under some subway wheels or the third rail,” and he says “Under the third rail?” and I say “On it, whichever comes first,” and he says “Hell you are, you’re only going to try to get away so you can kill a third person and then a fourth,” and lunges at the bottle and I smash it over his head, he falls down, half the bottle is still in my hand, the two women grab me and I stick the bottle into the chest of one and slam the other woman with my other hand and kick her head and body when she’s down till she doesn’t move. I start to run, look back, the three people are still down, a crowd’s chasing me now, about twenty of them. I hear sirens, run into an alley I know thinking I can climb the wall and get away through the backyards. They follow me in. Wall’s too high. I jump and jump. “Make way,” a policeman says. Crowd parts. Two policemen, both with drawn guns. One gets on his knee and the other stands crouched and both point their guns at me and one says “Stay put, don’t turn or move,” and I say “Good,” and turn to them and say “I’m going to get you guys with the knife in my pocket,” and reach for it as I run at them and they fire. Bullets chip off the wall and pavement around me before one goes through my throat though I feel no pain. I’m on the ground but I don’t remember falling there. Someone’s searching my pockets and says “No knife.” “Let me at the bastard,” a man says and there’s a commotion to my right and my eyes open and I see some people trying to stop a man from getting at me. They can’t hold him and he comes straight for me. He’s a big guy and has a hammer in his hand and the policemen step out of his way.

  I wake up and Susie’s up and I say to her “You wouldn’t believe the dream I just had,” and she says “What time is it?” and I say “Let me tell you about my dream first,” and she says “Hold it, look, what’s the time, it’s on your side,” and I say “8:35,” and she says “8:35, why didn’t you tell me?” and I say “I was asleep,” and she says “I mean just now,” and I say “So you’re late for a change,” and she says “I punched in late twice last week and they want to dock the time from my paycheck from now on,” and I say “Let them,” and she says “You’re paying me for the lost time?” and I say “If they’re going to be so cheap, whatever it is, I’ll pay you, for how much could it be?” and she says “I still don’t want to be late so many times, you get a bad name, they won’t promote me, I want to do good at a job once and not be a loser like you all the time sleeping your life away in bed,” and I say “Bed, right, listen, my dream,” and she says “Will you shut up already with your dreams, I’ve got to go,” and I grab her wrist and say “Just let me tell you, I want someone to hear it before I forget it,” and she says “Write it down,” and I say “I can’t write things like that, I just want to say it,” and she says “Write it down like it’s a letter or notes and show it or tell me when I get home from work,” and I say “It won’t be the same, it’s fresh in my mind now,” and she says “Please, will you let go of me?” and I say “It’ll only take two minutes, at the most three,” and she says “Will you please just let go?” and I say “I’ll make it one minute,” and she says “Please, I’m getting mad,” and I say “Less than one, time me, I promise,” and she says “For the last time now, please let me go?” and I say “No,” and she says “Diego,” and I say “No,” and let her go and she gets out of bed and leaves the room and I yell “You, whatever you are, just go screw yourself,” and she yells from the hallway “Why?” and I yell “For not listening,” and she yells from the bathroom “Then if you’re going to be so stupid, go screw yourself too,” and I yell “And you can just stick it up,” and she says “Same from me to you, stick it up, but I haven’t time for any stupid arguing with you now,” and I yell “You haven’t had time for a minute of listening either, you never listen, you hardly even talk with me anymore, you never do anything with me anymore, you barely sleep with me, goddamnit, so leave, goddamnit, or I’ll leave,” and she yells “All right, I’ll leave,” and slams the bathroom door and I yell “I didn’t mean for always, I meant just for today,” but she doesn’t say anything and I go to the door and knock and she says “What?” and I say “
I want you to know I didn’t mean for one of us to leave for always, just for today,” and she says “I can’t hear you when the shower’s on,” and I say “The shower’s not on,” and then I hear the shower go on and I try to open the door and it’s locked when it’s usually not and I say “Will you let me in?” and she doesn’t answer and I yell “Just say then you know I didn’t mean that I want one of us to leave here forever or anything like that, I got hotheaded before, I’m sorry, all right?” and she says “I wasn’t, I’m going, soon as I finish my shower I’m going to pack my things and take them to work with me and sleep over at a friend’s place tonight and look for another apartment and come back for the rest of my things when I get my new apartment, I’m glad this finally happened and you should be too,” and I say “I’m not and none of this would have happened if you had listened to my dream,” and she says “Phooey on your dream,” and I say “But that dream scared the hell out of me, you can’t imagine, it was horrible, I was killing innocent people in the most barbarous ways possible and one of them was you,” but she’s turned the shower on more and I suppose didn’t hear what I just said and I’m sure couldn’t hear me now because she’s flushing the toilet one time after the other and it doesn’t seem she’ll stop and I go to the bedroom and get dressed and she comes out and gets her overnight bag and throws some things into it and starts getting dressed and I say “Susie, I’m sorry,” and she says nothing, keeps packing and I say “I’m very sorry, honestly, listen to me now,” and she says “You said yourself it isn’t working and it isn’t, we’ve seen that, so let’s forget it,” and she puts on her shoes and heads for the door and I say “Really, it was the dream that made me upset, I mean it,” and she says “I meant it too, I’m tired of the way we don’t get along together, for the first few months it was all right but there’s nothing good about it now, there’s no fun, no talk, no good times, no surprises, no just about anything and whatever sex we have you seem to have exclusively because I just lay there and let you take it and I couldn’t care, I don’t want to share anything with you from now on, I can’t, I am completely turned off by you and today capped it, the camel’s straw, the broken back, it would have happened anyway, maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight, maybe in a week or month but I’m sure sooner, so be glad it happened if it was going to happen and it was going to, definitely, now rather than when it might have been tougher to take later, so goodbye,” and she grabs the doorknob and I say “I can’t take you leaving like this now,” and she says “You better start taking it because I am leaving like this and now,” and I say “Okay, I can take it but I don’t want you to go, let’s try and work it out by talking some more,” and she opens the door and goes and I slam the door and open it and run into the hallway and see her rounding the stairwell below ours and I yell down “Susie, be reasonable, it was only the dream I had because I’d killed you in it that made me so upset before,” and she keeps going downstairs and I run to the window and throw it open and she’s stepping outside and I yell “Susie, goddamn you, listen to me, I want us to talk,” and she goes left and I grab a flowerpot off the sill and think I’ll throw it to get her attention, throw it way in front of her so it doesn’t hit her but where she’ll look up at me and maybe start thinking some new thought and then I think no, better not and I wait till she’s a good ten yards to the left before I look down and see that no one’s below and just let it drop, it smashes on the ground, she turns to where the pot dropped and looks up at me and shakes her head as if she never saw anyone so stupid or pitiable and I raise my shoulders and make some motion with my hand that the pot fell accidentally and she waves that I’m lying or crazy and turns and goes and I slam the window down hard as I can and the bottom pane breaks.