What Is All This? (57 page)

I would if I could loop a string end around one of them and this filling could spin out of my mouth and unwind and rewind like a yo-yo so I could do my walk-the-dog trick.

My dentist wanted to give me the unwinding-rewinding kind of fillings, but gold's the best I could afford.

Gold's rustproof, so it might taste a lot better than iron after a while and yet be just as digestible. But I think it would still break a front tooth or two if I lost control of it in the rewinding.

Now I see why you tried to get cavities. So you could always have fillings around in case you swallowed your yo-yo in a country which doesn't carry them and where you didn't have the foresight to carry any extras in.

You've got quite a memory.

Oh, I forget plenty of times. Like how Phil acts when it gets way past six and I'm not home when he's babysitting alone and he's past booming out curses to all my names.

I suppose the best thing then would be for you to get right home.

The very best thing would be for Phil not to get so upset after an hour of babysitting alone, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about rushing home.

Then I suppose the next best thing after that would be for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you're still not home.

No, I think the next best thing after Phil not getting so upset after an hour of his babysitting alone so I wouldn't have to worry so much about how upset he gets and have to rush right home, would be for me to simply go home.

Then the next to the next best thing, if the next best thing is your simply getting home, is for you not to worry so much about how upset he gets after an hour of his babysitting alone when you're still not home.

No, the next best thing after my simply getting home, is being home.

Then the next to the next to the next best thing, if the next to the next best thing is your being home, is your not worrying so much about rushing home.

No, I'd still have to worry about it.

But it would still be the next to the next best thing if you didn't.

It's so far from reality that there's almost no reason for me to even think about it or for you to catalogue it. And I really have to go.

That's the next to the very best thing on your list.

Is it? You mentioned my memory, but I don't know how you kept track. Anyway, right now it's the only thing.

If it is, then there isn't a list and thus no next to the best thing or next to the next or next to the next to the next best things.

You might be right. It's become too confusing to me with all these nexts and bests and not-nexts and thuses. And it's not that I don't want to talk about it. It's all been very stimulating. That must sound insensitive and forced. It's not easy talking the ordinary way with you. But I am married and have a child and responsibilities and a home and am loved by a man I'm in love with and who's the father of my child, so I'll have to do the only thing or the next to the very best thing or whatever thing or next you said it was on my list or list turned non-list and just go.

It's not that I don't want to have a child or responsibilities or a home, but I'm not married and right now have no prospects of such or am even seeing a woman, and I don't want to go.

So stay.

I think I will.

Then, nice talking.

Same here. But may I carry your bike up the stoop?

I don't see how you can if you stay.

I'll come back.

If you come back, you still haven't stayed.

Then I won't stay. I'll just carry your bike up the stoop to the building's vestibule or ground floor hallway and then come down again and go.

The bike's not that light. But carrying it up the stoop's good exercise for me after riding it back from work so lazily. I can do it myself.

I know, but I'd like carrying it up for you.

You're supposed to let women do what they can for themselves these days.

I know what I'm supposed to let women do these days, and what I want to do for this woman right now.

Look at you. You can suddenly get so serious.

Bike-carrying's serious business for me.

I'd think yo-yo carrying's the business you'd be more serious about. For no matter what the country you're in does or doesn't carry and no matter how many extra yo-yos you might carry in, it doesn't seem possible you could ever swallow a bike.

Should I leave it in the hall here or carry it to your apartment?

The landlord lets me keep it here. Was it heavier than you thought?

I never thought it would be heavy.

Did it turn out to be heavy?

It turned out to be light.

Not as light as your yo-yo, though.

Truth is, it's the yo-yo that's not turning out to be as light as I thought. Maybe it wasn't made of wood after all.

Laminated plastic perhaps?

One of your favorite flavors, if I remember, but I suddenly don't feel too good.

You're not serious again.

I am serious.

Probably you should take an antacid when you get home.

It's more than that.

A doctor?

A doctor wouldn't take me.

A city hospital?

I don't know if I could take a city hospital.

The emergency room of a private hospital would certainly take you, wouldn't they? But then you're not really ill.

This time, maybe it's you who's missing the point. My not wanting to swallow an entire city hospital is just a sensible precaution.

If the hospital's big enough, it might swallow you.

You're hardly comforting.

Because you can't be ill.

I can so be ill.

Then I don't know what to say.

If you can't think of anything, I can give you some things to say.

I think the best thing for me to say is goodbye.

And the next best thing?

There can't be a next best thing. I have to go. I've a home. A husband, a child, they're waiting for me. And if my son's napping, then just my husband. Thanks for carrying up the bike. Goodbye.

Then I don't know what's so good about it.

Then badbye or just bye.

Yes, that's probably just a goodbye.

Bye, then?

I wish we didn't have to say bye.

We didn't say bye. We said “badbye” and “just bye” and “then bye.” And we didn't say these byes, only I did.

I mean I wish we didn't have to say goodbye.

But you still haven't said goodbye.

Then what I mean is I wish I didn't have to say goodbye.

What you really mean is you wish I hadn't and still didn't have to say goodbye.

No, that's not what I really mean.

Then what you really mean is you wish, after I said I hadn't and still didn't have to say goodbye, that I went upstairs and said my goodbyes.

Yes, that's what I mean.

That's what I said you meant.

And that's what I meant when I said “Yes, that's what I mean.”

And that's what I meant when I said That's what I said you meant.” Anyway—bye.

But that's what I meant when I said “And that's what I meant when I said ‘Yes, that's what I mean.'”

Which is what I meant when I said “And that's what I meant when I said ‘That's what I said you meant.' Anyway—bye.” Anyway—bye.

And that's what I meant when I said “But that's what I said I meant when I said ‘And that's what I meant when I said “Yes, that's what I mean.”'”

But that's what I meant when I said “Which is what I meant when I said ‘And that's what I meant when I said That's what I said you meant.”'” Anyway—bye.' Anyway—bye.” Anyway—bye.

Bye.

I go out into the street. Finally, it's a nice day. Rains came, went; sun now. I say hello to my landlord, Next-door neighbors. Wave to Mrs. Evans behind her window. Mr. Sisler sitting on his stoop across the street. Rob's boy walking their dog just before he goes to school. Mary Jane Koplowitz dumping her family's garbage on her way to work. Children, workers, cyclists, pedestrians, mailman. “Howdy-do. How are you? I feel great. Lovely day. What a relief after so much rain. Hiya. Morning. Hope the good weather holds. See ya. Take care. Hope you have a nice day.” I walk down the block and say more of the same. “Hello. Morning. How's it going? So long. Have a great day.” Friendly street. Living on it for years. People know who you are, what you do. What do I do? They know I do relatively nothing. Just about nothing. Nothing. They know. In other words, they also know what you don't do. I don't work. They know. No home projects or work for other people that keeps me home. They know that too. I walk, talk, read. I get up first. I have breakfast, wash, shave. Shower every day. No shower in the morning, then an evening shower. Then I go downstairs. Not after my evening shower, though I might do that too, but after I do all those morning things. I never bother checking the mailbox anymore, on the way out or when I come back. There's never any mail. I'm waiting for the day the mailman says “Mr. Rusk, your mailbox is jammed full. I can't stuff any more mail inside. Please take the mail out so I can have room to put new mail in. At least take some of the mail out so I can have some room to put new mail in.” That'll be the day. Day I might even look forward to. Do I? No, though once did. But it'll be a day, all right. What'll those letters be like? Say it happened. And who'd write? Nobody. I know no one other than from the street and around the immediate neighborhood. No relatives, friends, old acquaintances. And I tell people who move off the block or out of the neighborhood “Just come back and visit if you want, but don't bother to write. I never bother opening my mailbox, so I'd never get your mail. Only day I'll open my mailbox is the day the mailman tells me it's too full to get another piece of mail in, but that'll be the day. But say that happened. I might only take out a few pieces of mail, or just one big one, to make room in the box, so I still might not get your mail.” And I pay all my bills by cash and personally and on time. So no need for mail. I've none. No need for it and no mail. And the mailman's instructed not to put any junk mail in my mailbox. The instructions are on the building's vestibule letterbox for the mailman not to put any junk mail into my mailbox. Or they're on the vestibule mailbox for the mailman not to put any junk mail into my letterbox. One or the other. I'll go to the library one of these days to look up the difference in the dictionary between those two. If there isn't one, I'll find that out too. A difference. Mailbox and letterbox. Both I get my mail in, but which is which? And if the vestibule box that houses all the tenants' smaller boxes for mail is called a letterbox and those tenant boxes are called mailboxes, or vice versa, than what's the box on the street called that people put their mail in? Not only people. Yes, only people. I was going to say “Not only people but children too.” But children are people too. Children are people, period. I don't know what could have been on my mind when I started to say “Not only people but children too.” Caught myself this time. Other times also, but my mind's particularly sharp today. Not particularly. Not even sharp. Mind's just functioning a bit better than yesterday. Not even that. I can't really tell if it's functioning any better today than yesterday. Mind's functioning better now than when I woke up today. That's for sure, so that I can at least say. But now I'm at the corner.

I look around. No one I know here. People, yes, but no one I know to talk to when I feel like talking to someone. I look all four ways. Up the block I just came down. Down the next block of this street that I don't think I'm going to continue on. Both ways along this avenue I'm now on. Though who's to say where the avenue begins and sidestreet ends when one's standing on the corner where the avenue and sidestreet meet? I'm sure plenty of people can say. I can't. Not right now, at least. But all four principal directions, in other words. East, west, etcetera. No one I know. No one who knows me. There's a difference there. Lots of people—Not lots. Several. A few, I'll say, claim to know me when I don't know them. Not claim. But they say they know me. They'll come over to me or just stop me and say “Hello” or “Good morning (etcetera), Mr. Rusk.” In other words, that etcetera: all depending on the time of day in the time zone we're in. If, for example, they say “Good morning, Mr. Rusk,” when it's obviously evening, then I figure they're joking or confused or even crazy or they made a simple word-reverse mistake, and I react according to how I feel at that moment about why they greeted me this way by my last name. If they use Mrs. or Miss before my last name, then no matter how accurate they are with the time of day, I ignore them or question them about the use of that conventional title of respect. But say they do say “Good morning, Mr. Rusk,” when it's morning or close enough to it where I don't think the greeting is strange. If I look at them as if I don't know them—and usually when I look at them this way, I don't know them—they'll say “I know you but you don't know me.” Sometimes they'll greet me and immediately say that about my not knowing them, even though I do know them and they know I do. And sometimes when I know them and they know I do, though they'll say I don't, I'll look at them as if I don't. Why will I give them that look when I do know them and why will they say I don't know them when they know I do? Couple of reasons, at least, that I can think of. But today none of that happens. So no one to talk to now unless I stop someone I don't know and who I know doesn't know me and start to talk to him, something I don't like to do.

If I walk uptown on this avenue, which is north, the chances of stopping someone I know in proportion to the number of people on the street will be much less than if I walk downtown, which seems to get more crowded the further south you walk, just as the streets seem to get less crowded the further north you walk. The chances of stopping someone I know in proportion to the number of people on the street would be greatest if I walked back to my block and kept walking up and down it and especially on my side of it, but I don't like going over the same route so soon after I came off it. I could cross the avenue and continue west along this same numbered street. But partly out of personal reasons, which I won't go into, and because the chances of stopping someone I know in proportion to the number of people on the street would be no better walking west than walking uptown, west seems the least likely direction to go except if I didn't want to stop or be stopped by someone. I could, of course, create many other routes other than just walking straight in one of the four principal directions. I could go north four blocks, then west till I hit the river, or south three blocks and east one and then south again till I get to the heart of the city; or south two blocks and east three and across the park and continue east till I hit the river that runs along the other side of the city, and so on. But I think the best chance, without going back to my side of my block and walking up and down it, of stopping someone I know or being stopped by someone I know or don't know but who says he knows me, is to walk downtown on the avenue I'm on.

So I walk south. I see no one I know on this avenue and am not stopped by anyone. I keep walking. Chances get less with each step that I'll meet someone I know or don't know but who says he knows me. I walk five blocks, six. Chances get even less, and after four more blocks, almost nonexistent. Then I'm so far away from my neighborhood—sixteen blocks—that I feel if I want to talk to someone now, and I think I do, the only way would be if I stopped someone I don't know, and chances are almost nonexistent here that he'd know me, and start up a conversation with him despite my dislike or reluctance or apprehension, or whatever it is, in doing so.

First person I see on the street, and I'm now twenty blocks from where I live, who I think I'd like to stop and talk to is a man. Not because he is a man. Though maybe because I'm a man I prefer to stop a man stranger to a woman, since I think a man would be less alarmed at being stopped by someone he doesn't know and feel more willing to talk to a stranger than a woman would, though I could be wrong. Are women less likely to be bothered or frightened by women strangers who stop to talk to them than by men? I'd think so. And what about men in regard to women strangers who stop them because they want to start up a conversation, or even for other reasons, like asking change for a dollar, let's say, or asking for a handout, or a donation of some kind? I'm not sure. But this man. I might now know why I prefer stopping a man I don't know, to a woman, but I'm less sure why I think I'd like to stop and talk to this man out of hundreds I've passed. It could be his clothes. One reason. He's dressed in a sports jacket and slacks, boots, big wide-brimmed western hat, and is carrying a closed umbrella and flat package, and has an overcoat over his arm. But closer I get to him from behind, more I think the flat package is a thin book and the jacket and pants are a suit made of a heavy fabric and the overcoat is a parker and the umbrella a black cane. When I get right up behind him and then am walking alongside him on his left, keeping in pace with him now, I see that the flat package
is
a book, on cytohistology, its cover says, another word, if I remember it and remember to look up, I should look up at the library one of these days. The other was what? I forget, though it came to me today and could come back. The cane's the closed umbrella I originally thought it was, but beige rather than black. Boots are western and well polished and recently heeled and have intricate stitching on them that looks like a lot of lassos. Parker is several djellabas that I supposed he's taking to a store to be cleaned, though that's a wild guess. His hat is still a Stetson-type, though leather instead of felt. Shirt's almost the same color as the suit and seems to be made of chamois cloth, while the suit's suede. Brown suede. Light brown. Darker brown leather buttons in a hatched pattern. Flap pockets. Same kind of buttons on the pockets. Or at least the left flap pocket has that button; the right one could be different or have come off, for all I know. A tie. Red. Stickpin. Gold. Cuff links. Just initials or one word: DAD. Or at least the left cuff link has those initials or that word; the right one could say MOM, for all I know, and also gold. “Hello,” I say.

He stops. “Do I know you?”

“No. Do I know you?”

“Not as far as I know,”

That's what I should have said. Not ‘No.' But ‘Not as far as I know.”

Then we definitely, or almost definitely, which could be undefinitely but not nondefinitely, don't know each other as far as we know, could that be right?”

“As far as I know it can't be ‘We undefinitely don't know each other,' but on the other one you're right. Now as far as knowing each other, my memory does fail me sometimes. So we could still know each other. If we do, I've forgotten, and I'll have to leave it up to you to remember.”

“My memory does fall short of me also,” he says. “No, that's not the word. The words. My memory does fail me also, as far as I'm concerned. And that's not the expression. My memory occasionally fails me also, as it does everyone, but I'm almost sure I don't know you. Years ago I might have. But there comes a time when I have to say about someone I knew long ago but since then haven't spoken or written to or heard from in any way, or seen, and if I did see him, didn't recognize him, that I don't know him now.”

“So we could have known each other once, you're saying?”

“Possibly,” he says. “But our faces could have changed so much since then that we don't recognize each other now. And our eyesight, in addition to our faces or apart from them, and to a lesser degree as a recognizing factor, our voices, mannerisms, appearances and clothes. Anyway, to boil it down to the minimum: if I once knew you, I don't recognize you in any way now. How about you?”

“Same here all around. So how are you?”

“Do you mean, since I last saw you, if I ever did see you, or last spoke or heard from you, if I ever have?”

“Yes.”

“I'm fine, since we last spoke, wrote or saw each other, if we ever did. And if we didn't, I can still say I don't think I've had a bad day that I can remember since I was born. That's not to say I haven't. My memory again. What it does say is that as far back and as much as I can remember, I haven't. Had a bad day, I'm saying.”

“I can't say that.”

“Well, it's over now, whatever it was, isn't that right?”

“I can't say that either.”

“Broken love affair? Family tragedy? Professional or affinal crisis? Illness? Malaise? Something you read in the newspaper? Got in the mailbox? Witnessed, from your window? Saw in the street? Personal experience or experiences? Is one of those it, or are some to all of those them, and which can't be broached, right?”

“Personal experience, yes.”

“A woman?”

“Can't be broached, yes.”

“Yes, a woman?”

“Can't be broached.”

The woman? The subject?”

“Can't be broached, can't be broached.”

“Too bad, then. That it happened. And that she or it can't be broached.” Sticks out his hand. “Lionel Stelps.”

“Victor Rusk.”

Shaking of hands. Nicing of days. Changing of weathers. Preferences of sun to rain, city to suburbs, streets to parks, busier the better. What do you do's? Where you off to's? Going my ways? Okays. Walk. Talk. Seems he likes almost nothing better in life than to walk the streets too. To talk to people he knows or doesn't know but who know him, or to people he doesn't know and who don't know him but who like almost nothing better in life than to walk the streets and be stopped by people they know or don't know, and for many of the reasons that he and I do. Because we like people. Talking and listening to people. Because we like to be outdoors and preferably on the busy and hectic streets of the city with many kinds of people of both sexes and all sorts of age groups and occupations and pursuits. He's very much like me, in other words. Maybe that's why I wanted to stop him, when I ordinarily don't want to stop anyone I don't know and who shows no sign of knowing me. Not just his clothes. Not that I could have known much what he was like or what he almost liked doing best in life just by his clothes. Not that I really could see what his clothes were like, and especially the front part, from so far away in back when I first spotted him and thought I might want to stop him. Not that I even like to stop people who are like me in any way and who like almost nothing better in life than walking the streets to stop and talk to people or be stopped by people they know or don't know but who know them or show some sign they do. And as far as I know he isn't like me except for what he almost likes to do best in life and that he likes what helps contribute to it: mild weather, good health, sufficient sleep, crowded city streets, etcetera. His voice, face, hair, build, height, weight, age and just about everything else about him, and especially his clothes, aren't like me or mine at all. He's well-kempt, -shoed, -spoken, -bred, more mildly mannered than I, it seems, and he wears a hat. I don't own a single headpiece. Not even a winter cap, or hat with a brim of any kind to keep the sun off my face. Must be lots of people who do what we do, we say. Streets, walk, talk, people, stop, like to be stopped, and so on. Now the sun goes. I probably got a bit of a burn on my face today, which he didn't because of his hat. Continue to talk. He's lived a few more years in his apartment than I have in mine. Streets get less crowded, and not because we've passed through the heart of the city or it's that time of day. Bad sign, we say. Clouds come. We continue to walk. Three more blocks, four. Sky darkens. Talk about what we don't like to do most. Stay inside on nice days like this one was, for one thing. Not talking to anyone for hours, another thing. Day after day of unrelenting rain is probably the worst thing. Wind. Store awnings quaking. People hurrying. Signboards swinging. People running. They sense something. Finally, we do too. Or I just sense it, because it's possible he already did and wasn't saying. Maybe because he wanted to continue talking. “Pity,” he says. Pats my shoulder.