What Is All This? Read online

  WHAT IS ALL THIS?

  WHAT IS ALL THIS?

  UNCOLLECTED STORIES

  STEPHEN DIXON

  FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

  7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98115

  Book Design: Jacob Covey

  Editor: Gary Groth

  Copy Editor: Gavin Lees

  Editorial Assistance: Kristy Valenti and Ian Burns

  Associate Publisher: Eric Reynolds

  Publishers: Gary Groth and Kim Thompson

  What is All This? is copyright © 2010 Stephen Dixon. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce material must be obtained from the author or publisher. To receive a free full-color catalog of comics, graphic novels, prose novels, and other fine works, call 1-800-657-1100, or visit www.fantagraphics.com. You may order books on our website or by phone.

  ISBN: 978-1-60699-519-8

  To my daughters:

  Sophia Dixon

  &

  Antonia Dixon Frydman

  CONTENTS

  BOOK 1

  Contents

  EVENING.

  STORM.

  AN OUTING.

  SHOELACES.

  FIRED.

  THE BUSSED.

  GETTING LOST.

  END OF A FRIEND.

  STARTING AGAIN.

  THE ARGUMENT.

  QUESTION.

  OVERTIME.

  CAN’T WIN.

  LONG MADE SHORT.

  ASS.

  THE CHOCOLATE SAMPLER.

  REINSERTION.

  ONE THING.

  DAWN.

  THE WILD BIRD RESERVE.

  THE BABY.

  ENDS.

  WHAT IS ALL THIS?

  PRODUCE.

  THE YOUNG MAN WHO READ BRILLIANT BOOKS.

  NIGHT.

  BOOK 2

  Contents

  NOTHING NEW.

  INTEREST.

  BIFF.

  LEAVES.

  THE FORMER WORLD’S GREATEST RAW GREEN PEA EATER.

  JACKIE.

  THE CLEANUP MAN.

  CHINA.

  SHE.

  BURGLARS.

  THE LEADER.

  THE GOOD FELLOW.

  THE TALK SHOW.

  DREAM.

  P.

  STORIES.

  NEXT TO NOTHING.

  THE PHONE.

  MR. GREENE.

  PIERS.

  KNOCK.

  THE NEIGHBORS.

  BOOK 3

  Contents

  CONTAC.

  MEET THE NATIVES.

  WHO HE?

  FOR A QUIET ENGLISH SUNDAY.

  SEX.

  THE KILLER.

  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME.

  PALE CHEEKS OF A BUTCHER’S BOY.

  UP AND DOWN THE DROSSELGASSE.

  AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT.

  YO-YO.

  NO KNOCKS.

  WALT.

  IN MEMORIAM.

  What Is All This?

  BOOK ONE

  EVENING

  STORM

  AN OUTING

  SHOELACES

  FIRED

  THE BUSSED

  GETTING LOST

  END OF A FRIEND

  STARTING AGAIN

  THE ARGUMENT

  QUESTION

  OVERTIME

  CAN’T WIN

  LONG MADE SHORT

  ASS

  THE CHOCOLATE SAMPLER

  REINSERTION

  ONE THING

  DAWN

  THE WILD BIRD RESERVE

  THE BABY

  ENDS

  WHAT IS ALL THIS?

  PRODUCE

  THE YOUNG MAN WHO READ BRILLIANT BOOKS

  NIGHT

  EVENING.

  It’s been a long time. I don’t know since when. Just a long time. That should be enough to explain it. To say that: a long time. Very long. Since I’ve been here, I mean. How could I forget? In this room. In this house. On this street. In this city. This state, to be sure. This country, of course. Naturally, this hemisphere. On earth, goes without saying. This solar system, what can I add? This universe, I won’t even go into. Wouldn’t try. We all go a long way. Very possibly we all go the same way. Maybe we all add up to the same thing. This time: who can say? Nobody, I think. Maybe some people try. Maybe a lot of people try and some succeed. I don’t know. But what is it I began to say? That I’ve never left this room? No, I’ve gone out. Several to many times. But the number of times isn’t important. Let’s say I’ve only been out of this room once. But stayed away for eighty years only to return and never go out again. It would mean I’ve been out a long time by anybody’s standards but only went out once. But that’s not what I began to say. It was something about myself in this room. But too late, at least for now. Because my next-door neighbor comes in.

  “Howdy do?”

  “And how are you?” is what I answer.

  “Just fine, and having a pleasant day yourself?”

  “Pleasant. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Enjoying the weather and sights?”

  “Wouldn’t it be crazy if I didn’t?”

  “Well, please continue to have a pleasant day.”

  “It isn’t difficult to try.”

  Then I’ll see you then.”

  “And a goodbye to you,” I say.

  My neighbor leaves. I try to remember what he said. Nothing much. I look at what he left. Enough for a small meal. It takes little to feed me, and I eat. It tastes all right to bad. But a person has to eat. That’s what one of my parents said when he or she spoke to me about needs. That’s something I can remember that brings me way back. And a roof over your head. And clothes, if people where you live wear clothes or the climate you finally settle in gets cold.

  The landlady comes in. “Hello.”

  “Good morning,” I say.

  “But it’s evening.”

  Then good morning for this morning and good evening for now. For how are you today?”

  “Fine, thanks, and you?”

  “What’s to complain about, because really, what could be wrong?”

  “I’m happy to hear that, and have a good rest of day.”

  “And I’m happy to hear you’re happy to hear that, and to you the same, a very nice rest of day.”

  “Goodbye,” she says.

  “Goodbye.”

  She goes. She left something. A blanket for me to wrap around myself and sleep under tonight. It’s what I needed most. I had my meal. I’ve a roof and these clothes. Last night was cold. This morning, this afternoon, now this evening is cold. In my mind there comes a time in these seasons when it doesn’t seem it can ever get warm again. Somehow she knew. But of course, for she lives in the same building and so must undergo the same cold. God bless her, I would say. Some people might think I should. Others might say or think I shouldn’t. This is a world of many opinions, much diversity and different harmonies and strifes. I could almost say they’re what I’ve come to like most about it, other than for the possibility of the new day.

  Someone raps on my window. It’s my super who lives on the other side of me. We share the same fire escape. My window is gated and locked. Bundled up like a bear, he signals me to let him in. I wave for him to come around and enter through the front door. He waves no, it’s easier getting in through the window now that he’s outside. Easier for you, I motion, but for me it’ll take four times the effort to open my window than the door. Come on, he motions, you opening up or not? I unlock and open the window gate and window and close and lock them once he’s inside.

  “Nice to see you again,” he says.

  “Same here, Mr. Block, and make yourself at home.”

  Think by now you ought to be calling me John?”


  “John it is then, John.”

  “Fine, Harold.”

  “Why’d you come through the window, John?”

  “Because you opened and unlocked it and the gate.”

  “I opened and unlocked them because you waved me to and then continued to wave me to open and unlock them after I motioned you to go around through your apartment to the public hallway and get in my place through the front door there.”

  Then because I was out on our fire escape feeding my pigeons and thought it’d be nice visiting you again and, if I did, to get into your place through some other way this time but the front door.”

  “A good enough reason I suppose.”

  “Really the only truthful one I have.”

  “Wasn’t it kind of cold out there?”

  “Actually, I could probably think up several other truthful reasons, and almost as cold out there as it is inside our rooms.”

  “One day it might not be this cold,” I say.

  “Something to look forward to?”

  “One day it might even be considerably warm.”

  “More to look forward to?”

  “And hot. Our rooms, out there on the fire escape, the hallways, the whole building, will be hot.”

  “It’s always good speaking to you, Harold. Seems to raise my body temperature by a degree, which these days I don’t mind.”

  “Same here, John. And have a very nice day.”

  “What’s left of it I will.”

  We shake hands. He leaves through the door. He left a pair of woolen gloves. I put them on. He once said he only had two hands but two pairs of gloves and one day would give or loan me one. He didn’t say this time if the gloves were a gift or loan. No note either, which he likes to leave behind. But no matter. They’re on my hands. My fingers are already warm. A person couldn’t have more thoughtful neighbors.

  Someone taps to me on the ceiling below. I get on my knees and yell through the floor to the apartment under mine. That you tapping, Miss James?”

  Three taps have become understood between us to mean yes, and she taps three times.

  “Having a good day?”

  One tap means maybe or just so-so.

  “Not too cold out for you?”

  Two taps mean no.

  “Are you saying it’s cold but not too cold for you?”

  Three taps.

  “Well, one day it should get warm again, but probably not too soon.”

  Four taps mean wonderful or great.

  “Even hot. Maybe one day even very hot.”

  Four taps.

  Though let’s hope it doesn’t get so hot where we’ll be as uncomfortable as we are when it’s this cold. But that’s such a long way off as to almost seem unimaginable.”

  One tap.

  “By the way, I’ve received a number of very nice things today. A meal from Mr. Day, blanket from the landlady and a pair of warm gloves from John.”

  Six taps mean an interrogative.

  “John…the super…Mr. Block.”

  Eight taps for good. Then a long silence.

  “If you’re through now, Miss James, I’ll be speaking to you again.”

  Three taps for yes.

  “You’re through?”

  Two taps.

  “What else would you like to say?”

  She taps for several minutes straight. Hundreds of taps, maybe thousands. I don’t know what she’s saying. A so-so here, a great, yes, no and interrogative, but that’s all I understand. Then she stops.

  “Well, that’s something,” I say. “Anything else?”

  Two taps.

  Then goodnight, Miss James. And stay as well and warm as you can.”

  She taps “I hope so” and then “Goodnight.” I go to bed. I put the blanket over me and tuck it in. I wear the gloves and my clothes. It’s cold but not as cold for me as it was. And it could be considered a good day. When it began I had nothing to eat and no prospect of a meal and no blanket or gloves. Probably also been a better day for the rest of them because they gave me these things and for Miss James because she knows it and spoke to me tonight. I turn out the light and wait for what I hope will he beautiful dreams. Really, outside of my friendships and conversations here, dreams are what I live for most.

  STORM.

  Paul walks to the point. When he was here two winters ago he wrote a story about a writer who came to a similar village to get over a woman in New York City who had stopped seeing him.

  In the story and real life she was an actress who was portraying an actress on a daytime television soap opera who was in love with a writer of soap operas who couldn’t give up his wife for her.

  One night, in the story and real life, she told Paul she couldn’t see him anymore as she was in love with—and thinks she’ll be marrying—the actor who plays the writer on the show.

  In the story and real life he had to sit down for fear of falling down and she said he was beginning to look and sound like one of the more unconvincing morose characters on her soap.

  The writer you’re in love with?” he asked and she said “Abe would never act so callow or doleful in real life or on the show.” She asked him to leave and he said “Not yet.”

  “Do I have to call the police?” and he said, “Please, let’s go to bed one last time and then I swear I’ll go.”

  Both in real life and the story she said “You’ve got to be even crazier and wormier than I first thought you were when I met you and then, for some stupid unself-protective reason, changed my mind.”

  He slapped her face, pushed her into her bedroom and told her to take off her clothes.

  In the story he had to pin her arms down and sit on her while he removed her clothes.

  In real life he didn’t pin her arms down and he thinks she took off her clothes while she sat on the edge of the bed.

  In the story and real life she said if he was so intent on physically overpowering her, then she wasn’t going to fight back, as she could get hurt even worse that way. “Irreparably, even,” she said in real life.

  He doesn’t remember using that last line in the story; he thinks he felt it would have sounded too banal to be believed. Now he’d use it, and he makes a note in his scratch pad to add that line to the story if the line he might have written in place of it isn’t a better one and if this one can seamlessly be worked in.

  Both in real life and the story she pleaded again for him to leave, and he said he wouldn’t. When she cried because she was frightened of the harm he might do her in bed and later, out of self-reproach, when he was through, he broke down, in real life, said he must have been temporarily insane to have threatened her like that, and left.

  In the story he held her down, got on top of her and tried making love.

  She said something like “As I said before, Perry, you don’t have to force me as I’m not about to resist. I don’t want to risk rupturing my vaginal walls and maybe as a result restrict my childbearingness and facility for having sex unrestrainedly with other men.”

  The act was physically painful and difficult for them both.

  In real life, a month before that night she said “It’s sleeping, Paul; let’s wait.”

  In the story she later said that rape or whatever he wanted to call it, it could have been pleasurable for her if he were the man she was in love with but for her own reasons didn’t want to make love with tonight while he most demonstrably did. “But you’re not. In every possible way you’re unattractive and hateful to me, no more now than before.”

  He said he could make her attracted to him and she said that was only his insufferable hubris speaking in him again. He said hubris was one of a dozen or more words he’d looked up at least twenty times in the last ten years and would still have to look up again when he got home.

  In the story he looked up the word when he got home and gave the definition.

  In real life now he doesn’t know what the word means and writes it down in his scratch pad and underlines
it.

  In the story and real life he made an evening call for her from the phone booth on this point a week after the incident in her apartment.

  In the story and real life he said something like I’m calling from this point, which is on an icy peninsula a mile out to sea, and where I can hear the sounds of buoys, gulls, bells, waves, fishing boat motors from nearby and far-off, the clinking and pinging of the halyard against the flagpole at the point’s tip, and somehow it’s the maddest and saddest and happiest and sappiest and sanest phone call I’ve ever made. For you see I’m both speaking to you while at the same time so totally alone and now being covered like everything else out here including the mouthpiece and coin slots and telephone wires and poles with snow.”

  In the story she said “I hope you get buried to death and die,” and hung up.

  In real life she said he sounds awful and there’s nothing she can do for him, and hung up.

  He phones her and says “Storm, hi. I’m calling you from that peninsula point phone I last phoned you from and which I never would have done if it wasn’t around the same time and so soon after seeing some of the same people and the same sea and shore sounds couldn’t be heard and the point wasn’t as deserted as it was when I phoned you in what a few fall months will be two winters ago.”