Late Stories. Stephen Dixon

but I’m on the same side of the bed.” “Are you naked?” and she says “Not a stitch.” “You know, I don’t know which one you are. You sound like my dead wife, but you also sound like the woman I met at a Christmas party three months ago.” “Well, if you get in bed, you’ll learn which one I am. Either way, I’d say you can’t lose.” “You’re right,” he says. “If you’re my wife, then it’s a dream come true. There’s nothing I wanted more than to hold her again, in or out of bed. And if you’re this other woman, the one I think I’ve been falling in love with and whom I also think I’d eventually like to marry, which I shouldn’t say because she told me she doesn’t want me to fall in love with her and I’m sure marriage to me is the last thing on her mind and she just wants us to remain good friends, then it’s also a dream come true.” “‘Dream come true,’” she says. “Pardon me for saying this, but what a hack phrase for a professional writer of fifty years’ standing to make. But as I’ve said, and I don’t want to say again, come to bed and find out.” “Your attitude and the way you express yourself are also like my wife’s: frank, succinct, and a way with words. And your voice: sweet and soft. I really couldn’t tell them apart.” “What of it?” she says. “For the last time . . . are you coming to bed? I’m getting cold with no covers over me or clothes on. But take off all your clothes first.” He undresses, gets in bed and pulls the covers over them. He touches her and she touches him. “Your hands are warm like my wife’s always were, except right after she washed dishes, and you touch me like she did too. Delicately and in the right places, as if you know from experience with me where I like to be touched.” “I touch you the way a woman touches a man in bed; nothing more.” “Your breasts feel like my wife’s, too; full. And your nipples: large and hard. But that doesn’t mean you’re my wife. Same with the shape of your buttocks: so round. And your legs: long, a bit heavy at the thighs, but strong like hers. Also your nose and hair. Even your pubic hair. I suppose most pubic hair must feel the same, but it’s the amount I’m talking about. A lot of it, which you might not want to hear, but which I like.” “So, two for the price of one,” she says. “My wife also used to say that, but about other things.” “Did she?” she says. “Why do I think I knew that? Anyway, after we’re done here—and take your time. Whether you think this is a reunion or our first time, don’t rush it. We have all night.” “That’s what my wife used to say too and in the same way. But can we stop for a few minutes and just kiss? I want to see if your lips and the way you kiss passionately—that one quick time when I sort of stole a kiss from you wasn’t enough to tell—are also like hers, and of course for the pleasure that goes with it.” “I think that does it,” she says. “Let’s say I’ll take a raincheck, but now I’m going to sleep.” “I’m afraid to say it, because you might bite my head off, besides saying that the last thing I said is also a hack phrase, but that part about the raincheck is something she said plenty of times when she couldn’t make love or wasn’t interested, for one reason or another.” “Good,” she says, “but now you’ll just have to wait until daybreak to find out which one I am.” “I could always turn on the light.” “Don’t ruin it,” she says.

       The Dead

      Bartok’s dead. Britten’s dead. Webern’s dead. Berg’s dead. Górecki’s dead. Copland’s dead. Messiaen’s dead. Bernhard’s dead. Beckett’s dead. Joyce is dead. Nabokov’s dead. Mann’s dead. de Ghelderode’s dead. Berryman’s dead. Lowell’s dead. Williams is dead. Roethke’s dead. Who of the rest of the greats isn’t dead? The past century. The start of this century. Bacon’s dead. De Kooning’s dead. Rothko’s dead. Ensor’s dead. Picasso’s dead. Braque’s dead. Apollinaire’s dead. Maybe all the greats are dead. My last brother will be dead. My two other brothers are dead. Robert. Merrill. My last two sisters will be dead. Madeline’s dead. My parents are dead. My wife’s dead. Her parents are dead. Their relatives in Europe are long dead. My two best friends are dead. I lie on a hospital bed. I can’t get up. I can’t turn over. I’m stuck to the bed by wires and tubes. I can’t get comfortable and I feel so hopeless and I’m in such pain that I almost want to be dead. I ring for the nurse. Usually someone responds. This time no one answers. I wait. I don’t want to antagonize them. I ring again. What will I say? “Make me dead?” “Yes?” “Pain medication, please.” “I’ll tell your nurse.” “I need it badly.” “I’ll tell your nurse.” She comes. “Pain level on a grade from one to ten?” “Nine.” I want to say “ten” but there’s got to be a pain worse than mine. She gives me the medication through my I.V. I fall asleep. When I awake I begin to hallucinate. Too much pain medication, they’ve said. What can I do? It’s the only way to stop the pain and sleep. The room’s become a prison cell. Bars on my windows and door. Then it’s an asylum cell. No bars; just extra thick glass. People pass. I hear low voices. “This,” they say, and “That.” I’ve got to get out of here. I yell for help. People keep passing my room both ways but no one seems to hear me or turns to my glass door. They all wear white doctor outfits. Gowns. Robes. Whatever they’re called, but very white and clean. Lab coats, maybe. Hugging clipboards to their chests. “This,” they say. “That.” Then some muttering and they’re gone. “Help,” I yell. “I need help. I’m going to defecate in my bed.” They continue to walk past. “Okay,” I say, “I’m going to shit in my bed.” Dummy, I think; the nurse. I ring for her. I can barely manage the little box. The summoning device. Whatever it’s called. The thing that turns the TV on and off and raises and lowers the two ends of the bed. I don’t know what anything’s called anymore. Not even what brought me in here. Bowel interruption. Obstruction. Even if I got the right term, two operations after I got here, I don’t even know what it is. “Yes?” “Thank God. Pain medication, please.” “I’ll tell your nurse.” She comes. “It should be no more than every four hours. But we’re ten minutes away, so close enough.” “Thanks. And it must mean I’ve slept most of the last four hours. That’s good. More I sleep, the better. And I think I need changing.” She looks. “You’re imagining it. Do you need to go now?” “No. I don’t want to sit on it for the next hour. And I haven’t eaten anything for days, so there’s probably nothing there.” I fall asleep. I dream I’m being devoured by lions. I fight to get out of the dream and wake up. So what was that all about? Literary lions? Ah, who cares for interpretations. I close my eyes and hear voices. I open my eyes and see people in white smocks walking past, all of them holding clipboards. “Build,” they say. “Don’t build.” “Then cut.” “Okay.” I’ve got to get out of here. Dreams, awake, there’s always something to be afraid of. The doctor the other day, who was just a resident making the rounds and not even my regular doctor, who said he read my x-rays and I might have to have a bag outside my stomach to collect my shit. If I’m to die, and I’d want to if I had to have one of those bags put in, let me die in my own bed with a big overdose of whatever we got there or they send me home with. And if I’m to live, I need a less frightening room. I want to call my daughters but I can’t find my cell phone. They recharged it today and said they put it in a place I could easily reach, but I don’t see it. I feel around me. There’s the summoning device. A handkerchief. A pen. I’ll say I know it’s late but I’m going crazy and you have to get me another room. “It’s the drugs. But without them I’m even in worse shape. I’m probably not making much sense,” I’ll say, “but I’m hearing voices. Other people’s voices. And seeing people walk past my room who are either dead or intentionally ignoring me, but they never answer my cries for help. If I don’t get another room, I’ll pull all the wires and tubes out of me, even the Foley, no matter how much that might hurt, and escape.” But don’t scare them or wake them up. They’ve been so good to you, flying in from different distant cities and staying in your room eight to ten hours a day. Reading to you, though you didn’t want to tell them you didn’t want to be read to. Holding your hand and doing things like putting damp washcloths on your forehead, though you didn’t want those either. Angels, you’ve called them; so let your angels sleep. And you’re not in that much pain now. Comes more often than it goes. And the muttering voices have stopped and no one’s walking past your room but the regular nurses and aides, who’d come if you called out for them. Try to sleep. Time will go faster. I pull the covers