What Is All This? by Stephen Dixon Page B

I broke a couple of fingers and part of the rest of the hand.
    After they put in a few stitches and a cast is put on, she says “Whatever it was you asked me in the restaurant that was so important to you then, I would have said yes to if just to avoid all this.”
    â€œWho can predict anything?”
    â€œI know. But I only said that about your restaurant question as an expression of how I now feel.”
    â€œAnyway, it only proves you never know what can sometimes happen.”
    â€œNow I know, and you frighten me and made matters much worse for us, much.”
    â€œDon’t be.”
    â€œI am. You want me to retract it? I can’t.”
    â€œYou’ll feel different tomorrow or so.”
    â€œNo I won’t. You scared me silly. Break your hand? Next you’re liable to break my fingers and then my face. I feel awful for your hand and your pain and such, but for us you couldn’t have made matters worse. I’ll get us a cab and see you to your building, but that’s all.”
    â€œAll I ask is that you sleep on it.”
    â€œNo. It’s the wrong time to say this now, but I’ve definitely made up my mind. No more.”
    I slam my hand with the cast on it against the hospital wall. She runs away. I’m screaming at her from the floor to never come back, while trying to hold my hand.

OVERTIME.
    I do everything he told me to. Then there’s nothing more for me to do. I check over what I did and it seems good as I can get it. I wait. I get up, sit down, look at the clock, walk around. Where is he? And she? Where are they? How long do they expect me to sit, stand, look, walk around, wait for them like this with nothing to do? They say they’ll be back in an hour, why does it have to be three? If I could go to sleep or take a walk outside and step in for coffee someplace, it wouldn’t be so bad. But if one of them caught me sleeping or not here when they got back, it would. They’d think I always slept or went out when they weren’t here. Hell, I’ve waited long enough. I’m taking a walk and will live with the consequences if they find out.
    Going down the stairs, I see them coming up. “Where you been?” I say.
    â€œAnd where you going?” he says.
    â€œI waited so long, I decided to take a walk. Waiting tired me out, and I need some exercise like walking to pep me up.”
    â€œNow you don’t have to wait any longer, and you’ll get plenty of exercise working, so come on back up. We still got lots to do, which you could’ve started doing before we got back here.”
    â€œLike what? I finished what you told me to do and checked it to make sure it was done right. And you didn’t leave instructions for anything else to do because you said you’d be back before I was through.”
    â€œYou could’ve cleaned up the place.”
    â€œCleaning’s not what I was hired for. I left that kind of unskilled work for better pay and more demanding work like what you hired me to do.”
    â€œBut that’s how you could’ve spent your time. You should’ve thought of that. Anything can be cleaned. Ten minutes after you clean something it can be cleaned. Soap can even be cleaned. And cleaning or anything like that would’ve been more productive than getting bored and irritable waiting for us or going out for a walk.”
    â€œMaybe for you it would’ve been more productive, but for me it would’ve been the opposite. It would’ve been going backwards from something I worked myself up to be, which might’ve ended with my being even less productive for you.”
    â€œLook, you’re wasting our time talking. Let’s get to work.”
    â€œI’m still so restless from waiting that I’ve got to take a walk.”
    â€œWalking’s not what I’m paying you for except when you’re doing it for me. You want to keep your job, you come upstairs now