What Is All This?: Uncollected Stories by Stephen Dixon
Author:Stephen Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Published: 2010-07-14T16:00:00+00:00
SHE.
She called and said âCan I stop by?â
âSure, whatâs up, how are you?â
âIâll tell you when I get there, all right?â
âOf course, see ya, goodbye,â
and two hours later she rang from downstairs
and I buzzed her up,
my room cleaned, floor washed down but not ammoniated,
as I didnât want to give the scent I was doing
it for her.
New sheetsâfresh, I mean, and bed, which is also
my couch, remade twice till it was right,
most of my books out of sight or in place in my
one bookcase,
books on my table and desk turned cover-side down
so I wouldnât seem pedantic,
everything on my desk stacked and aligned,
my new eyeglasses opened on top of my typewriter.
If she asks âThose yours?,â Iâll say âYes, for reading,
and only nineteen ninety-five at Cohenâs, Delancy and
orchard, and that includes the eye examination,
bathroom and kitchenette cleaned too and everything put away.
Two croissants bought in a run so Iâd have time
to do all that cleaning and tidying up,
old clothes thrown into the closet,
but what should I wear?
I had that thought: Which turtleneck jersey, blue,
green or black? Theyâre all clean,
and which pants of the five pairs I found in a pile
on a garbage can on the street the other day
and washed in the Laundromat down the block,
even the gray wide-wale corduroys that said
Dry Clean Only,
all of them my length and waist and no cuffs,
the way I like mine.
Shoes and sneakers and flipflops paired and lined
up at the end of the short hallway by the door,
bedspread flattened out again in my only room.
âYour tomb,â sheâd said a number of times,
but not for a while.
Then my face shaved, hair brushed back,
anus, genitals and underarms cleaned with a wet
washrag, the washrag then folded neatly over
the bathroom towel rack.
She might comment approvingly of my new headhair
curls which have formed in the two weeks since I
last saw her, painting on the wall also picked up
on the street since then: large studio oil of chair
turned upsidedown on a studio cloth with many folds,
draped sidetable with teapot, several birthday
candles in their holders and can of Ajax on top,
and she might say âWhereâd you get that
âoff the street like most of your furniture?â
and Iâd say âYes, a studio portrait, appropriate
for my studio apartment, and the chair sort of
symbolizing my life right now,
and also the way I acquired it:
that somebody would just toss it out.â
âYou writers,â she might say, or something like,
if the conversation came to that.
So she cameâknocked on my door and never mentioned
the painting or my hairâand tells me what I knew
she would and had prepared myself for,
and I told her why I hadnât called her the
last two weeks and that Iâd been thinking the
same thing: âWe just donât click together anymore
after almost three years. And itâs not that I
donât love you, butâ
Actually, I do love you, but like a croissant and
some tea? The croissantâs fresh.â
âIâd love to but I havenât time and am meter-parked.
Iâm glad youâre taking it this way and not getting
angry as I thought, and was a little anxious,
you might. But you know, Iâve always said,
from the first
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