Long Made Short by Stephen Dixon Page B

the next few
     years, he saw Thomas’s parents in the neighborhood or on the block, together or alone,
     and they always asked how he was and to give their regards to his parents, whom they’d
     barely met and probably not his father once, and a few times said he was getting tall
     and seemed to be sprouting a little hair above his lips and was growing up to be a
     fine handsome young man and asked how school was and Miss O’Brien, his and Thomas’s
     former teacher. Please give her their regards too. He still, when he visits his mother,
     occasionally bumps into Mr. Neuman, Thomas’s father, who never recognizes him till
     he points out who he is: “Gordon Mandelbaum from up the block, number twenty-three,
     my dad’s the druggist at La Rochelle.” Mrs. Neuman died about five years after Thomas.
     “Heartbreak over her son,” his mother said. “It had to be that, for just by her looks
     and build and the type of work she did for a living till that time, I didn’t think
     there was a healthier woman alive.”
    “Gordon,” his wife yells downstairs from the bedroom, he thinks, and he says “Yeah?”
     and she says “If you’d like to pay me a visit, this might be a good time,” and he
     says “Why not,” looks at the clock, has about an hour before he has to pick up the
     kids, “I’ll be up soon,” and she says “If it’s any problem—I don’t want to push you—don’t
     bother; I’ve plenty of work to do too,” and he says “No, just that I’m this moment
     involved in something; give me a few minutes,” and she says “I’ll be here.”
    Thinks of Vera. He once said something, he forgets what, something about she was skinny,
     and she grabbed him in a headlock, threw him to the ground—how old could he have been:
     eight, nine?—sat on top of his chest and slapped his face and said “Don’t ever call
     me that again.” His cheek stung, he thought maybe he could buck her off him; if he
     hadn’t doubled over laughing like a jerk right after he’d said it, she never could
     have got his arms around his head and thrown him. How come none of his friends or
     hers don’t jump in and stop her or tell her to get off? She held her hand out flat
     and said “You want it again? So say you won’t say what I said for you not to,” and
     he said “I’m sorry, I don’t fight with girls so I’m not fighting back,” and she said
     “You’re not fighting back because you know I’d lick you to kingdom come,” and he thought
     “lick,” he’d heard how some of the older boys used it, he ought to too with her but
     that might make her madder and she had him on his back, where, if he couldn’t buck
     her off, she could really hurt him bad before he got up, slapping again, pulling his
     hair and kicking him in the nuts when he was starting to get up. She was taller and
     older, but he hadn’t thought she was as strong as she showed. He said “I just don’t
     fight with girls, and you’re not a better fighter than me, but let me up, I think
     you already tore my pants, and my mom’s going to kill me,” for now one of his knees
     hurt as if it had got scraped through the pants. “If anyone tore your clothes, you
     did it to yourself for what you said to me, you anus,” and she got off him. He stood
     up, looked at his friends, one staring seriously at him, other two laughing, probably
     at what she just called him, he said “She thinks she’s so tough with”—he was going
     to say “her big filthy trap”—“but she isn’t,” and walked away, didn’t look at his
     pants till he was in his building’s vestibule, thought why’d she call him an anus?
     He thinks he knows what it is but what’s it got to do with everything else that happened
     and all she did? His pants were ripped in a way where he knew his mother couldn’t
     just sew them, they’d have to be taken to the tailor to weave and that cost a fortune.
     He washed his knee, put some hydrogen peroxide and a