Helen
by John Verbos
Someone was in the room. There was no doubt in Reginald Dixon's mind that if he were to sit up and look behind him, he would see someone sitting on the far end of the couch. Maybe it was the girl that he'd seen around the building. She was always smoking a cigarette. He sniffed the air. No smoke. Two courses of action possible here, he thought: I can sit up and turn around, or I can keep my eyes shut and stay here. If she is there and I stay where I am, she may leave. If she's not there and I do sit up and look, then I'll be disappointed. Those are the losing options, the worst case scenarios. If she's not there, I should stay here. If she is, then I should move.
...But that left him exactly where he had started. It was getting hotter in the room, the sun spraying in. The heat could be slept through. Unless there was company; then it would be rude.
There was a noise.
The bedsheets twisted up and around with him. He lost his balance as he turned toward the couch, but he saw that it was empty before the crooked grip of the sheets put him face down on the pillow again. Everything was sweaty.
He unrolled himself, very slowly, from the covers. One leg and then the other came out. Eventually he had himself in a half-seated position on top of his bed, with the sweaty, still-tangled sheets off to his left. Elbows on knees and hands in eyes. He rubbed the dried mucus from the corners of his eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he used his fingernails.
Eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning. No work today, no work until Monday. He let his upper half go horizontal. He put his hands behind his head.
The night before had been reasonably tolerable—exceptional, actually. It was drizzling a little when he went out for a walk, enough moisture to snap the humidity for a while. He found Carl at the bar, shooting pool. They drank and talked about work, occasionally playing a game of nine ball. When he walked home, padding along the concrete sidewalk with all its cracks and buckles, he thought about how Carl never seemed surprised by anything, as if he had received a script of the conversation prior to its occurrence. You could tell him that your mother had just died and he'd nod, rub his chin, and then ask you how you felt about this. Like a psychiatrist, Reginald thought. The school counselor in high school did that too. Just sat there in his chair, with Reginald up against a wall on the couch alone, space spreading out in front. Him and an empty wall and an open window to Reginald's right. Green and blue outside. White walls, tweed couch beneath me, and this guy sitting in his chair rubbing his chin and nodding, his legs crossed and white socks between his pant leg and shoe top.
"What did I tell him about?" Dixon asked aloud.
He was looking at his shoes and mumbling to himself when he got to the house on the hill. His house, or at least partially. He looked up to climb the stairs and saw feet and jeans.
"Are you talking to me?" she said.
It took a second for everything to come into focus. When it did, his brain seized up. Black tank top, jeans, bare feet, light behind her. This was the girl. He had seen her around before and somehow knew where she was from but hadn't ever spoken to her. There was no avoiding it now—not that he really wanted to avoid talking to her, but had he a choice of circumstances this would not have been the first. Not drunk and talking to himself half out loud in the rain. It's windy, he thought, and looked around to verify it. The trees were whipping back and forth, bent by the wind and rain. He looked back at her and she wasn't alone all of a sudden. Dixon wondered where this guy came from, this skinny little guy with black jeans and those ridiculous black-framed glasses and a mop of wet, bleached hair. This was not a good situation, he thought. Especially for a first impression.
"Were you talking to me?"
His neurons had deserted him. He looked at the trees again, then back at her. He wiped the rain from his face and said very slowly, "No...I must've been talking to myself. Out loud." He thought for a moment and then added, "I do that sometimes."
The guy smiled and put his arm around the girl. She just nodded and flicked her cigarette onto the sidewalk. Dixon watched it land in a puddle and go out with a hiss.
He could feel the guy looking down at him, staring at him. Dixon peeked up and then immediately tried to find something to watch on the concrete where the rain was bouncing, splattering, and settling for the next drop. He had it wrong. The guy was looking off to his right, the girl was staring at Dixon.
"Do you want a cigarette?"
Dixon looked up to see her waving a red box at him and the man in black retreating to the far right corner of the porch. Dixon followed him with his eyes. Must be something interesting over there, he thought.
"Uh, no, thanks." Dixon put his hands in his pockets and slouched up the stairs until he was between the two of them. He looked at her and she looked at the man in the corner who was still staring at whatever he had been staring at. Dixon looked at him and then back to her. She shrugged.
"I'm Helen, by the way."
"Reggie. But everybody calls me Dixon." He couldn't remember why. "Do you live here?"
"Sometimes." She lit another cigarette and tossed the pack off the stairs. Dixon had to try to keep himself from retrieving it and putting it in the trash.
"I mean I've seen you around the building and I thought..."
She raised her eyebrows and exhaled a cloud of smoke in Dixon's direction.
"What I mean is that I've seen you before and I didn't know you and I thought maybe you lived here but then I couldn't figure out where you would be living, where in the building that is, I thought I knew everybody but maybe not..."
Her eyebrows were still arched. Maybe that's how they always are, Dixon thought to himself, or maybe she thinks I'm stalking her.
There was some snorting laughter from the corner. Dixon turned to look.
"That's Felix." She pointed.
Dixon nodded.
Felix walked over to the door and opened it. It made a sucking sound.
Everyone waited.
Helen looked at Dixon for a moment, then looked at Felix, got up, turned, and walked toward the door.
"Goodnight," Dixon said. "It was nice, uh, meeting you."
She looked back from the door frame and smiled at the rain-soaked form that was standing on the porch. The door banged shut, and he was left alone with his canvas shoes.
When he was sure that they had gone, when he couldn't hear footsteps anymore, he sat down, sighed, and shrugged.
"Well, shit," he said quietly. "I'm drunk, wet, and lonely. And she's got a boyfriend. Fuck. But she smiled...that's a good thing, right? But I don't like looking up and seeing somebody watch me stumble around while having a conversation with no one. That isn't the kind of thing that makes you look good." He turned toward the door where she wasn't anymore. "I'm really an okay guy...really. I just talk to myself sometimes; that doesn't mean anything. Who was that guy you were with anyway? I looked like that in middle school and high school, and all anyone ever did was call me a fag or sweetie and push me into the lockers. Now it's cool?"
Dixon stopped and looked around to see if there was anyone else that could be listening. It was difficult to see. The streetlights weren't very bright and the moon was behind the clouds. No one around. It's a lesson to be learned, he thought to himself, and then he repeated it aloud, gesturing, slicing the air in front of his nose.
He caught his movements in his short shadow on the ground and immediately shoved his hands into his pants pockets. "Ridiculous." Another shrug and sigh.
She reminded him of another one—a hyperactive girl with an attention disorder. He would call to remind her of dress rehearsals at first. Then told her that he liked her. Dead silence on the phone. Sweat leaking from under his arms and trickling down his side. Cold.
She finally said, "I don't really know you, do I?"
He froze in his bedroom with the blue curtains and then commenced pacing back and forth. "Well, I guess we could get to know each other, right?" Why did he waste his time? Conceivably she wasn't even listening. She could've been watching TV or playing with her gum, twisting it around her thumb, making a little spiral: around and around and around.
"Maybe we could hang out, I guess," she said.
The sweat jumped to his feet and hands. "How about—" Too excited, his voice cracked. He had to repeat himself after clearing his throat: "How about we do something after rehearsal tomorrow?"
She said she needed a ride home and that was enough—half an hour out of his way down some cramped back road from which he could never return on the first try.
On the porch, he laughed briefly and stopped abruptly.
She never seemed to be paying attention but let him kiss her when he tried and later, when the weather warmed, let him lay her back on her bedroom floor and hit her head on an overturned lamp with each thrust. Sorry. Over and again. Everything was his fault. Pain, flat tires, lies. Sorry. He told her that he loved her, and she said that that was nice. Sorry. Very sorry.
The rain tapered off and the wind died but the streetlights stayed on, reflecting off the puddles in the potholes. One more sigh and he looked at the sky trying to find the moon for all the clouds.
A noise. Door hinges?
Opening his eyes, he found that it was day and he was looking at the ceiling. Bed, Saturday morning, right.
Dixon looked around the room. There was something on the rug, a piece of bark it looked like. He put his glasses on. It was a cricket. It stopped chirping when he got up. He went to the desk and grabbed a mug.
Scooping the cricket into the mug proved more complicated than he anticipated. The cricket didn't want to get in the mug. It hopped around the room while Dixon took diving swings.
He stopped. "Okay. New plan. Are you listening to me?"
The cricket waited.
"Let's make a deal. I'm going to open the door and you're going to leave. Got it? Nobody gets hurt and everybody wins. Are you laughing at me? I will kill you. So is it a deal, or what?"
He moved to the door, opened it, and turned to look back toward the cricket. It sat there. The door started to slowly creak shut. He lunged back and grabbed it with his free hand. I need something, he thought. A book. I need a heavy book.
He shut the door again, keeping one eye on the cricket, who seemed to be looking back at him. Dixon walked to the bookcase and selected The Complete Works of William Shakespeare off the shelf. The other books toppled over, their ballast removed. They fell with a dull plop.
He returned to the door, propped it open, and proceeded to wave his arms as though he were landing a jet. The cricket hopped toward him. A foot from the door, it stopped. Dixon moved to the other side, behind the cricket, and made pushing motions. The cricket sprang once more toward the door and then changed course and headed for the corner of the room to the right. Dixon lunged with his mug, lost his balance, and went down on one knee. The cricket leapt again towards the corner. Dixon swung again from his knee and missed the cricket by a foot or more. It found a hole in the baseboard and climbed through.
"Well, fine. Just don't come back." Dixon stood up, dusted his knees off, and grabbed the Shakespeare book from in front of the door, letting it close. He could feel the push of the air as he watched the door fall away from him. It clapped shut. Dixon turned to the interior of the room, book under one arm, mug in the other hand.
He tossed the mug toward the desk and it fell short, bouncing twice on the floor before settling.
My mother dug that mug up for me when I left for college, he thought. I still have it now, even after graduating. I've had it since I was little, since before I could pick it up myself. She cried when I left; she stood there, leaned up against the rented van, and cried. My father shook my hand and nodded. I gulped hard and looked at my mother and he relented his grip on my fingers. She blew her nose and gave me a letter. It said "don't forget to wear a coat" at one point, and in the next sentence, she told me to walk in the rain. I did both.
Dixon put the book back on its shelf, propping the others against it again. That book, he thought, on the other hand, was given to me for...what was it?..."for Outstanding Intellectual Promise" or something. High school. Only award I got.
He walked over, picked up the mug and set it on the desk. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, smoothing the sheets with his hands. "I really should put on some pants," he said. "Get some food."
He went to his closet, scratching his head. That school, he thought, was hell. There was no end to the abuse, and all I got was a book and a diploma. Why did I get singled out? Why'd they think I was gay? All boy's school. This little weasel looking guy started it in study hall. Poked me in the back with a pencil. I turned around.
"Hey you're new here, aren't you? Are you gay?" Total chaos. Laughter and blushing.
Dixon shook his head as he took a shirt from its hanger, fed his arms through the sleeves, buttoned it, pulled on a pair of pants, and went into the bathroom. He stood there on the white tiles under the yellow light for a moment and then grabbed his toothbrush, nearly upsetting the coffee cup in which it sat. Dark circles under the eyes, yellow skin. Just the light.
James at Safeway was a junkie and looked like this, Dixon thought. No one's going to think I'm a junkie, though. It's just the light. James was never there when all the squalling children and their yuppie parents were, with black under the eyes worse than James or me. They looked like zombies lined up to the back of the store.
"My ice cream melted because of these lines. Isn't there anything you can do to speed this up?"
Actually they looked like birds, he thought, chicks in a nest, veins bulging on their necks when it's feeding time. Mostly mouth, no eyes hardly, just little, pink, defenseless mouths, with no eyes and no working limbs. But Ford Explorers. Eddie Bauer edition. What the fuck does that mean?
"I don't know, man," James said, the two of us outside on break, "You want me to ask?" He was already on his feet, wiping his hands on his jeans and then his mouth with his wrist. I looked and saw the tracks on his arm for once—he had his sleeves rolled up because of the heat—and I pointed out that they'd fire him if they ever saw those.
"I don't belong here," said one of our voices, either of our voices.
Teeth brushed, Dixon rubbed his eyes again and put in his contact lenses. He stared into his own eyes, his face inches from the mirror. He messed with his hair, trying to make it do something, anything. "I give up." Sigh.
He walked down the stairs, one step at a time, his hand in his right pants pocket. Did I remember my keys, he asked himself. Yes, there, leftover from last night. I wish there was an elevator. At the bottom the door was swollen. Push. He grunted, putting his shoulder into it. Down the porch, slowly. He was in the public eye now, he had to keep things inside.
He paused at the sidewalk, evaluating his eating options.
There was a thunderous crash behind him. A trash can rolled out into the street off to his left, and Dixon turned in that direction, one eyebrow raised.
Felix was there, sprawled between the remaining cans, garbage spilled out from them and onto him.
"Hey," he said from the ground. He pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead. "Hey, you. Do you have your keys?"
The PostModern author was at work in his apartment, slamming things around the room with considerable vigor. The lamp went first, into bits on the floor, its cord strung out behind it like a brown, dislodged intestine. He contemplated this and then decided that the fan had to go next and that he should use the answering machine as the implement of destruction.
Plastic shattering, wires bending. His glasses were fogging up, so he stopped, slumped on the couch, and wiped the lenses with his shirt. It's a pity, he thought, that I don't have more things to smash. There's some subtle connection between smashing things and writing well.
There was a banging at the window. The rain had streaked it, making seeing out impossible.
He flung himself up from the couch and stared at the blurry panes. "Who are you, and why are you here now, when I'm working. Working! See?" He held up the remains of the lamp in his left hand, kicked the fan out of his way with his right foot, and moved to the window. Felix set the lamp down, pushed the window up a few inches, and peered through the slit. "Oh, sorry about that. I didn't know it was you. The rain and all, it makes seeing outside very impressionistic."
"I'm soaked. Open the door."
"I thought I gave you a key." He had backed away from the window, looking for his cigarettes. He found them and lit one. "Didn't I give you a key?"
"Just open the fucking door, Felix."
"Please?"
"Fine, I'm going home."
Window up, head out. "Nonononono." The rain attacked his face.
"What?" She turned in her tracks, mud on her feet. "I'm going home. I can't deal with you when you're acting like this." She stayed though, waiting. A litmus test.
The rain had gotten to his cigarette now, making it nearly impossible for him to suck at it. He was stalling, making a face, trying to inhale. He had his cheeks between his teeth, taking a drag. He thought she would think it was cute.
"Look, Felix, it's raining. I'm wet. Unless you've got something to say..." she gestured in the direction of her home. "An apology, maybe?"
"I'm sorry."
"What for? Do you even know why I'm angry?" She walked the ten steps back to the window. She clamped her hands on her hips and shifted all of her weight onto one leg, bulging that side of her body.
He laughed. "You look like my mom." His cigarette went flying in the next instant, just as he reached up to flick the ash from it. She slapped most of the rainwater off his face too. His mouth went into an O and his eyebrows nearly crossed.
She was crying, or so it seemed to him. She attempted to smooth out her dress. "You bastard. I don't have to take this. Especially from you."
"You're right," he said. He closed the window and resisted the urge to put his fist through it.
Helen stood there for a moment, deciding. She turned on her heel, took two steps, turned back, and stared at the window. He was gone. She tried to turn again and leave but couldn't: her shoes had stuck in the mud. She looked up and sighed, putting her arms out at her sides and letting them drop. Rainwater smacked off her thighs when her hands hit. She leaned over, unbuckled her shoes, and stepped out, letting her feet suck in. Bent over, she yanked and grunted at the shoes' straps. Patent leather. The mud yielded its hold. The tears came now. She hurled a shoe at the window. It clunked off the building and fell to earth with a squish. "And your writing sucks, too."
That brought him back. He waved a spatula at her.
She flipped him off and started back toward the sidewalk, between the cars in the gravel parking lot. She cursed when her purse caught itself on the rearview mirror of a Ford Tempo. The car took a severe beating from the other shoe.
She heard the window open again and then slam shut, the glass rattling in its wooden frame, as she stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned the corner towards home. When the rain started picking up a block or two farther along, she stopped under the awning of a closed gas station. The Pepsi machine hummed and glowed next to her. It was quieter there. She lit a cigarette, the second to last one in her pack, and ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair.
He isn't all that great, she thought. An artist, sure, but who's to say that he really is an artist. Maybe that's just the way he seemed and everybody bought it and sold it to him or something. And what is my thing with "artists" (she made the punctuation with her hands and then wiped a strand of hair from her forehead) anyway? They're all weird and temperamental and violent. And self-absorbed, too. Or maybe just the ones I've been with. I sure know how to pick 'em though. What I need is someone normal, who won't break things or drink so much or be such an asshole. Normal. No such thing. There aren't any normal people. I'm pretty much normal, no tragedies in my life to fuck me up, no serious hang up—except artists—and I think that's pretty acceptable. But here I am, on a Friday night, in the rain, at a gas station, a closed gas station, without any shoes or smokes or anything. I'm wet and I'm here and that's it. Weird. Not normal. I do have one shoe. Why? Fuck it, I don't need it.
The shoe was tossed toward the street, and it skipped off the sidewalk and into the gutter. The cigarette went too, dropped to her right. Home was not that much further away, and as soon as the rain let up a little, she decided that she would finish her journey, take a shower and go to bed. No thinking, no analysis until tomorrow. Just relax and react.
But she was going back the other way, towards the building where Felix Grundy lived.
"Why?" she asked her feet. "Where are you taking me? Why are you doing this?" And then a sigh. "I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't give him the satisfaction." She sighed again and kept walking. "This is exactly what he wants me to do—come back and try to make up." She stopped and looked in the side mirror of a parked Dodge. "I look like a rat." She smoothed her blonde hair down.
In the parking lot, she walked tip-toe across the gravel. She reached up and beat on the window.
No one answered. The lights were on. She stood there for a moment, just looking up at the window and the rain draining down it.
"I'm over here." Felix's voice was off to her left.
She turned and saw him standing behind two green metal trashcans. The light from his apartment reflected off his glasses making him look like he had no eyes, just white smears on a black figure. "What on earth are you doing?" She moved over to him.
He squatted down by a third, overturned garbage can, turned on a flashlight, and started digging. "I'm rummaging, if you really must know, Miss Helen Martin." His voice was muffled by the can which he was almost halfway in. He started throwing things over his shoulder. They landed behind him, the heavier objects sinking in the mud.
"Now you sound like my mother." A pause. "Why are you such a jerk?" she asked, staying on her side of the cans. Helen pressed her palms down, fingers out, on the rightmost garbage can lid. She shifted her weight back onto her left foot and waited.
Felix stopped digging, backed out on his hands and knees, pushed himself up into a crouch, and raised the flashlight on her face. Helen flinched, shielding her eyes with her hand. "Huh?" he said, tilting his head to one side. "I can't hear you in there."
"Could you get that frickin' flashlight out of my eyes?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry." Felix felt for the switch.
The light out, she continued: "I asked why you were such a jerk. Why are you such a jerk? To me, I mean." Something about the way he was looking at her made her stumble over her words. His head was cocked to one side so that his hair hung down off his head to the right and clung to his forehead on the left. He seemed to actually be listening.
There was a pause, and Felix Grundy looked like he was thinking. He finally shrugged and said, "I don't know...I'm good at it?"
She laughed and pushed herself off the can's lid, straightening up. It fell forward and clunked dully on the bottom end of the upset can. Felix watched it fall, following the flight with his head. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet a few times and looked up at Helen.
He stood up. "I am good at it, right?" Felix raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah. But that's not good, you know?" She waited for a response and got nothing. He started scratching his nose. She realized that it was still raining. "Can we go sit on the porch? I'd rather not get any wetter."
"Okay." He stood up. "This can wait." He kicked the cans around, spilling garbage as he knocked them over.
They walked around to the front of the building and sat down on the top stair, under the green and white striped awning. He put his arm around her. She let him.
"You want a cigarette?" He held out a pack of Marlboros.
She nodded and took one and couldn't help feeling that she was doing the same thing that she did two weeks ago. She entertained the thought that he had actually orchestrated this whole thing. Could he know what he was doing? Had he calculated his every gesture? Regardless, he was doing it again, and she was too. The same pattern. Fight and then make up. It wouldn't be long until they went inside and had sex, and then it would be two weeks until this happened again. It would probably rain then, too.
He lit her cigarette and then lit his own. "I don't know why I do a lot of what I do. I just do it. I really don't mean to hurt anyone, especially you." He looked around. "I'm an artist. We're weird."
"That doesn't really explain anything. It's the same excuse that you always use." Helen realized that she could probably recreate, word for word, the last fight. So far it was the same. "I'm not going to accept that. I want an explanation or I'm leaving. And I won't come back."
Felix Grundy didn't look at her.
"You do know that you were supposed to pick me up from work, right? I sat there, outside of that fucking barbecue restaurant for a good hour. And I kept thinking to myself, He's not going to do this again, is he? He's not that much of a jerk. Any second now that ratty-ass Datsun is going to come around the corner, and he'll honk and wave and everything will be okay. But no, you didn't. And why not? I bet you were working, right? Breaking stuff and writing pages upon pages of nonsense." She was waving her cigarette around, stabbing the air.
Felix had jumped up and started pacing back and forth. Three steps this way and then three the other. "First of all, I was working. And it's not nonsense. It's about you. That can't be nonsense, can it?"
She rolled her eyes. "Please, Felix. I've read things that are about me that you've written. In one, everyday I woke up I couldn't remember anything that had ever happened to me, and in the other one was about how I killed myself over how much I was in love with you. How do you think that makes me—"
"Wait, what are you talking about? That wasn't about you. It was about, uh, wait a minute...Well, I know it wasn't about you." He was being very careful not to lean over her.
"That's because it was about you. Like everything else. Jesus, could you not be in one of your stories? Or even not be every character in your stories?" This was new territory for the discussion. They were off the script. Perhaps it will work. Maybe he'll react, she thought.
Felix sat down, if for no other reason than to show her the face that he was making. A mix of incredulity and hurt. He sputtered some sounds.
"But that isn't even what this is about. You don't care, do you? You promised to pick me up. You didn't. Like you always do." Helen looked out at the house across the street, dark in every window. Is he still playing, she wondered, or have I gotten through?
"Look, I'm sorry about that. I got caught up in...Hey, okay, you don't need to mouth the words along with me. I get it, I get it." He looked at her and he thought he saw her smile, very faintly. She sighed.
She looked down and saw a figure in jeans and a blue tee shirt approaching the house. Alone. He was talking. She thought she heard her name.
"Are you talking to me?"
Felix Grundy took his arm off Helen and adjusted his glasses. He only looked at her, but wanted to put his hand over her mouth and ask her why she was talking to this guy, this weaving drunken mess that was headed in their direction. I mean, he thought, weren't we in the middle of a conversation? Wasn't I talking, apologizing, expressing my affection? Weren't you listening? Jesus, he's just going to start talking about something, slurring his words, and pretty soon we'll have forgotten where we were in the conversation and then we'll have to start all over. What did he say?
Felix put his arm back around Helen and smiled, thinking that the silence that was ensuing would be enough to scare this guy past them and into the building. Not a threat. Felix looked off to the right, at a piece of paper that was stuck to the sidewalk and was being pummeled by the rain. Perhaps it's mine, he thought, perhaps someone will read it and think to themselves that it's a really fucking phenomenal piece of writing. But they'll never be able to trace it back to me to tell me. If it is good, then I should retrieve it. Or not. Whatever. I'd have to get up and then this guy would seize the opportunity to—
"Do you want a cigarette?" Helen was offering her pack to the guy at the bottom of the stairs.
Felix immediately got up and moved to the corner. He continued staring at the sheet of paper.
What are you doing, Helen, Felix thought, trying very hard to keep the question from escaping his lips. Do you not want to have this conversation with me? You were the one who walked away and then came back. You should be the one apologizing, but what are you doing—you're talking to this guy who showed up out of nowhere and interrupted our conversation. Are you trying to tell me something? Are you sending me a message? That you can leave me? Are you telling me that I'm disposable? Well I'm not. What's this clown done with his life? Bet he's never had a book published. Well, fine, go on and fuck him then, I don't care. I've got my writing. It would make sense, right? A waitress should go out with a...whatever this guy is. I'm an artist. I need...another artist. I'll just be thinking over here, my hand over my mouth, contemplating shit you couldn't even imagine, buddy. He snorted.
"That's Felix."
Felix bit his fingers. He had an impulse to say: "I'm Felix, and you're an asshole." But he didn't. Instead he bit down harder with his teeth and smiled to himself. Felix Grundy walked to the door and yanked it open. Just walk inside, Helen, he thought; let's fin-ish this conversation and forget this ever happened.
"Hey. Hey, you. Do you have your keys?"
"Yeah, I think so. Hang on." Dixon fished his keys out of his pants pocket. "How did you...what did you..."
"I fell out my window." Felix had gotten up and moved toward the hand that held the keys. He just wanted to get back in. This was embarrassing. It wouldn't be if this guy knew who he was; then it would just be eccentric. But since he didn't, it was embarrassing.
"Felix, right?" Dixon was clutching the keys in his hand. What does this guy think of me, he wondered. I wonder if he knows about how I feel about Helen. Could he?
"Yeah. I never caught your name." Felix just stared at Dixon's fist, waiting for it to open so he could get back in the building and get back to work.
"I'm Reggie Dix—"
"Right. Anyway, look, I need to get back inside. I'm working on something. It's very important."
"What do you do?" Dixon asked, smiling. A forced smile. The one that always looked horrible in those yearbook pictures.
"I'm a writer." Felix was still focused on the keys he couldn't see, somewhere in that thin hand. This asshole talks to everyone, he thought. Christ. Just so long as he doesn't mention Helen, he and I will be okay.
"Oh." Dixon looked at the window. There were blue curtains there, edging out in the breeze. His eyes moved to Felix, who was looking at Dixon's hand. Dixon looked at his hand. And then back again at Felix. "How's Helen?"
He wanted to punch this Reggie person in the face and steal his keys. He had been in mid-thought when he had leaned out the window, stretching his back, but he leaned a little too far and then was on the ground. Now all he really wanted to do was get back inside. Even if it meant assault. Which it probably does, he thought, considering how much this guy is talking and mentioning the only thing that will make me hate him. Finally Felix forced out a "Fine."
Dixon watched Felix's face tighten up. Perhaps he did know about this crush, he thought. Either way, he looks like he wants to punch me in the face. Change the subject. "So what do you write?"
"Words, words, words." Felix emitted a nervous snicker. He won't get it.
"Hamlet?" Dixon raised his eyebrows.
"Yes." Felix crossed his arms and shook his head.
They both looked down at the ground. Felix thought that maybe he could distract Dixon like they do in cartoons, and when he had Dixon looking the other way, he could steal the keys and run inside. Dixon thought that perhaps he should just shut up, and then this would be over. He could feel the sweat at his armpits. Felix noticed.
Dixon looked up and Felix followed.
"I should probably be going." Dixon shoved his hand into his pocket, trying to figure out why he had taken his keys out in the first place.
Felix could feel his teeth grinding together and thought, "He's not even going to let me in. That does it." He grabbed the closest thing he could find and swung.
The trash can lid connected with the side of Dixon's head, knocking him sideways into the porch railing.
Dixon ricocheted and then crumpled, raising his hands to his face, spilling his keys from his pocket onto the sidewalk. Heat spread throughout Dixon's head as he hit the ground, smacking his ear into the concrete. He clapped one hand to it.
The lid hit the ground and rang before it settled. Felix grabbed the keys and bounded up the steps. "That'll teach you to fuck with me," he shouted, putting the key in the lock and ripping the door open. There was a thump and then silence.
Dixon lay on the ground, his hands warm and wet. "What did I say?" he asked, slowly rolling over onto his front. He put his hands out and pushed away, raising himself to his knees. He had almost stood up when he lost his balance and sank back down. Everything was blurry and ringing.
He choked for a second and then spit. Red. Reginald Dixon looked at his hands and decided that it might be a good idea to lay down for a moment, just until things stopped spinning.