Read Online Love and Will by Stephen Dixon - Free Book Online

away the burnt pot. I stand by the stove till the water boils. I make breakfast. I eat. I read. I drink coffee. I get the newspaper off my doormat. I read. I reheat the coffee. I stand by the stove till the coffee’s reheated. I drink coffee. I read. I make lunch. I eat. I drink a glass of water. I brush my teeth. I look out the window. A boy kicks a can into the street. A car passes. A taxi drops off its passenger. The postman delivers mail. A woman walks her dog. A delivery boy rides by on a bike. A man walks past holding an opened umbrella over his head though it isn’t raining or sunny. It’s cloudy and the temperature’s mild. A sanitation truck picks up garbage. A man yells “Hey you. Stop thief.” Another man runs up the block toward the park with the first man’s brown paper bag. A police car comes. The policemen talk to the man who lost the bag. The man gets in the police car and the police car goes. A man and woman walk by holding hands. They stop. He ties his shoelaces. They kiss. They go. They stop, kiss, go. A woman dressed in white with white makeup on her face and neck and her hair powdered white and shoes polished white and everything on her like her nail polish and hands and ears painted or made white though she’s black, walks past. Only the shopping cart she’s lugging behind her isn’t white. It’s aluminum, though its one wheel and all the wheel’s spokes and the axle are white. The two filled shopping bags in the cart and material and packages she has over the bags are white. I don’t know what she means. She has breasts so large and round that it could be she isn’t a woman but is a circus clown with balloons or whatever they use to make it seem like they have enormous breasts stuffed under their costumes. But she’s a woman, or she isn’t a woman. Sparks fly from the sidewalk where the wheelless side of the axle drags. The postman watches her and smiles to himself as he unstrings a bundle of mail. I still don’t know what she means. There could be several meanings. I have to go to the bathroom. I get a glass of water. I return to the window. Two motor scooters go past. The drivers ride side by side and the two helmeted passengers holding on in back talk to one another. The woman of white is now at the avenue end of the block, still dragging the cart. I recall the intense look to keep going that never left her face. I still don’t know what she means. A black woman. Or perhaps not a woman but a man made up to look like a woman. But a black man made up to look like a white woman, but a woman in white leotards and white walking shoes and enormous breasts and possibly a stuffed enormous behind and lugging a filled shopping cart with only the basket part of this one-wheeled cart not painted white and with light panties under the leotard and a white undershirt over it and with every visible part of the cart’s contents and her body except the irises made or being white. Grace calls. I don’t answer. I drink the water. I go to the bathroom. I pour milk into the water glass. I sip once from the glass and pour the milk back into the container and return the container to the refrigerator. I read. I feed my plant. I listen to the radio. I run in place. I sweep the rug. I dust some shelves. I sit. I read. I nap. I dream of something that actually happened when I was three. It was my birthday. I was very small for my age. Too small to climb onto my parents’ double bed without someone’s help. I thought they must use a ladder to get on their bed. I visualized a ladder against the side of the bed. I ask them to help me get up on the bed. They don’t understand my words as I wasn’t able to make a single word understandable to adults till I was past four. I put out my arms in the direction of the bed. My father picks me up and drops me on the bed. He takes a pillow and swipes me lightly on the head. As far as my memory