FEBRUARY AND MARCH
kurt nimmo
He looked out the window.
Now he thought I have written about that a hundred times. About a solitary man looking out the window at a woman or a bird and it’s always the same character... and that character is me.
She had let the dog out and the little black dog had pissed on the lawn and as he looked at the lawn now he saw where the grass had turned brown where the little black dog had pissed. He had never really liked the dog. It wasn’t dogs in general but that dog in particular. He had earlier read in the newspaper how a man in the city had died and wild dogs had eaten part of him before the police came with the truck and hauled him off to the morgue. He saw her dog out there on the lawn meticulously sniffing and preparing to piss and then shit on the frozen grass of February. Would the little black dog eat him if it was hungry enough?
She stood near the window looking.
Fifteen minutes before they had made love in the bed. She had locked the dog out of the bedroom. It stayed on the other side of the door. It wanted to get inside. It always wanted to be with her and it probably now was even though he wasn’t. He didn’t think a dog was capable of jealousy but this little black dog seemed to be jealous of him. When he kissed her on the sofa the dog tried to get between them. It had barked and he had wanted to lock it outside in the cold. He didn’t want to hurt the dog or any other creature but all the same he didn’t want it near him.
He looked out the window.
In March she had sent her daughter to her father’s house in another city and they spent Sunday morning making love. He remembered the sun coming through the window on the east side of the house. He remembered the way his skin looked under that warm yellow light as he walked naked past the window in the minutes before they had made love. She had come up behind him and shut the curtains because she was afraid the neighbors would see him naked there framed in the window. She was in a robe and he smiled and said something about the robe and how much better she looked with it off and then he slowly untied the sash of the robe and pushed it over her shoulders and it fell down around her white ankles. She made little noises as he put both his hands on her breasts. Outside he heard the little black dog struggling at its rope and yelping and crying because it wanted to get inside and be with her there in the warmth behind the closed curtains.
He knew that they would never fall in love.
He knew that it would only be for a short time and after that time had elapsed he would be alone again. He didn’t know how long it would take before he fell in love again. Or before he died. He thought that after his death somebody would publish all his short stories and poetry. After you die the world comes to an end and it does not matter one way or the other if somebody comes along and puts all your stories and poetry in a book. Many times he had told himself that love is a disease but now as he looked out the window at the circle of dead brown grass on the lawn he thought that he would like to fall in love one more time before he passed away from the world.
I want to fall in love more than I want all my stories and poetry published in a book that I will never live to see.
In February they spent time together. In ~une she told him that it was probably best if they went their own separate ways. In August he called her on the phone and asked her out but she told him that she was now engaged to be married. He wished her good luck and then hung up the telephone.
He went in the other room and took down the vodka bottle.
If it wasn’t vodka it was the writing and if not the writing then it was the voluminous reading. It was like his life went from the bottle to the writing machine to the books and then back to the bottle in the cabinet. When he was with her he thought about the writing and when he was alone trying to write he thought invariably of her. It was a way he didn’t want to be so when she called it off he was secretly relieved. He was too much of a coward to end it and dedicate himself to the writing. Inside he wanted to give up the writing and fall in love even though he knew that love is very temporary and translucent and in the end writing is hard and steady as a slice of granite. It is easy to fall in love but not easy to write and when the writing walks out the door it more often than not is gone forever.
Ask Hemingway.
Early in the morning when he stayed at her place the dog followed him around. He was naked and thought about the next story he wanted to write as he went out and put the coffee on. She was like many women in his life. She wanted to make love in the morning and then sleep until ten or eleven. He was up and out of bed walking around naked even during the coldest days of February and inside of him the stories twisted and turned and if he didn’t get them out they would be lost. He sat in the bathroom on the toilet with a pad of paper writing it down but it wasn’t right and he usually threw the paper in a wicker basket near the toilet. After he put the coffee on he went back in the bedroom and she said something to him and then he was under the blanket with her making love and the stories went away forever.
In May the love was not the same.
He knew women and how they let if go and after a few weeks he was alone again and the stories were there. Strange how it works he thought as he went to the cabinet and brought down the bottle of Gilbey’s vodka. He poured himself one with tonic water and sat in the chair near the window reading a book of short stories. Occasionally he thought of her and how she had said she was going to get married and he wondered if the love making was good and if they were happy together. Or if she had let him go and was now alone reading the popular novels she liked to read before she went to bed.
He looked out the window.
It was late September and everything was about to change. He saw where the grass had turned brown. He thought about her and how the little black dog had always stayed close and he didn’t think that was all bad. She had the little black dog and he had his writing machine.
He wouldn’t have to bury the writing machine...
