Read Online What Is All This? by Stephen Dixon - Free Book Online Page B

she might have deserved it. She’s a bitch. You’re much better off split up. You’ll feel lousy for a while, but know that she has very few friends here and more than a few who’d like to have thrown a pot at her, though not in her face. She’s a complete fake. Thinks she’s the hottest goods imaginable and lies blue streaks day and night. She’ll do anything to get ahead, and that means buddy-screw her best friends and use them as fools. She’s also a snob. Loves anybody who’s anybody or rich, no matter how rotten that person might be. You did a bad thing in hitting her, granted. But I can well understand how she could push someone to do it. She’s just not nice but pretends to be with that big smile and cheerful disposition and charm of hers, and that kind of twofacedness throws people into a rage.”
    â€œNo, no, she’s not like anything you say.”
    â€œYou don’t see it. Or you don’t want to admit it. You’re too nice a guy yourself and can’t see’ anything but good in people and cringe at saying anything bad. I’m not saying these things to make you feel better. I’m also not one to repeat gossip, but only what I see myself firsthand. In time you’ll know I’m right.”
    â€œI hope not. And I don’t want to think about it. Excuse me but I really want to close my eyes and maybe sleep.”
    We get to the city. Andy takes one subway and I take another to my apartment. I drink a bottle of wine while I listen to sad music and read the papers. Then I call Mona.
    Burleigh answers. “Mom’s in bed. She just came back from the hospital and had five stitches put in her chin. Why’d you hit her like that?”
    â€œI feel awful. It was totally my fault. I love your mother, honestly. Please tell her how terrible I feel and that I’ll pay all the medical bills and anything else she asks.”
    â€œWant me to tell her now?”
    â€œYes.”
    He comes back to the phone. “She says to shove it. She told me to say that. And I’ll tell you how I feel, Bo. You did the worst thing.” He hangs up.
    I call Sarah. “Sarah, I hit Mona with a flower pot before. We’re really split now, for good. I know I sound a bit drunk, but I wanted to know if you’d go over there now and check in on her. Maybe she needs some help.”
    â€œShe has Burleigh, doesn’t she?”
    â€œSure. He’s home.”
    â€œAnd other friends, perhaps, so she doesn’t need me. To tell you the truth, Mona and I never got along well. It would have been nice, having a friend living so close, but that’s not the way it is. I’m sorry you hit her. That was wrong. But as far as my feeling for her is concerned, she’s a mite too pushy and self-centered and a stinker of the lowest degree.”
    â€œReally think so?”
    â€œI’m not the only one. Take care.”
    I call up the Ludwigs, whom I consider our best friends around where Mona lives. Ben says some of the same awful things about her and says his wife Mary feels the same way. “Besides that, she’s going to get in a lot worse trouble than a flower pot in her face. She goes out with the wrong kind of guys. One’s a pusher. She’s brought a couple of them over here between the times you were in the city and when I thought things were dandy between you two. Who knows what she saw in them.”
    They were all very good looking,” Mary says on the extension.
    â€œNicely built. Big too. She likes men with lots of wild fluffy black hair. I like them also, but not dopes and pigs like these. Like her, they only seemed interested in a good quick time for themselves at the moment and nothing else. Take it from me, Bo, you’re much better off without her.”
    â€œAm I?”
    â€œWe both think you were the best chance she had to improve.”
    I call up several other people Mona and I know. They all say