Free Fall and Rise by Stephen Dixon

from the start—that’s my motto or somewhat. I also know she prefers men a lot more established, stable and scholarly than you.”
    â€œMore stable and established? I almost never leave my apartment or for that matter my desk seat. And there must be a couple of people who’d consider me scholarly. Geez, I speak the Emperor’s Japanese without ever having been to the Ryukyu Islands or Japan. Who in this room even knows of the Ryukyus or at least its most recent cession and if they do then the exact date when, or can read, speak, write and translate almost flawless Japanese without in fact ever having seen the Pacific?”
    â€œThere’s a Japanese weaver here and his potter wife who are visiting the city for a year. They can do all those except say they’ve never seen the Pacific and translate Japanese into near perfect English and the reverse, though he does have a profitable sideline translating Japanese plays and verse into Korean and Chinese.”
    â€œOh yeah? Where? I should speak to him. What’s his name?”
    â€œDon’t and let’s not mention his name or allude too loudly to him till they leave. He doesn’t like your translations and introductions. He specifically requested I not think it appropriate for you to meet. It’s his opinion, and one he says shared widely in the Japanese literary world, denoting a fame I never knew you had, that you’ve done more harm than anyone in any English-speaking country to stop English-speaking people from appreciating modern Japanese poetry.”
    â€œOh, I see him, unless you have other Japanese friends here. I should corner him and do what I can to change his mind. But nuts to him, not that I won’t defend my right to object to his beliefs. First tell me about Helene.”
    â€œWhat’s to tell?”
    â€œIs she married, and if so, living with her husband? And if not, how long’s it been since the trial separation or divorce? And if so, living with any male now in a faithful relationship? And if not, so serious with any male now that there’d be no chance of a nonmarital separation or divorce?”
    â€œShe was, once, maritally tried and divorced, and currently unattached but not loose and teaching American literature in a college upstate. She also has a book coming out not from a university press but a real live and hearty trade publisher that actually gave more than a five-hundred-dollar advance on the short stories of twentieth-century American writers. She believes, something I scolded her for because of the counter reaction it might start against my literature professor friends, in brief plain-speaking critiques and short un-gossipy biographical sketches with plenty of humor and active verbs and few adjectives or big words or discursive turgid sentences. It’s her objective—I think because she was brought up hardworking and poor where every morsel, minute and cent meant something—to say in ten thousand words per author what most scholars manage to do in a hundred thousand or two, which could put a few of them out of business or force them to reduce their paragraphs, sabbaticals and requests for grants. She’s also very sweet, decent, modest, sensitive, even-tempered and with the most thought-out high virtues and lived-out public and private morality of anyone I know, besides being one of my best friends. Is any of this coming through to you?”
    â€œAll. It’s everything I like. If she asks, you’ll slip in a good word for me, and if she doesn’t, you’ll volunteer?”
    â€œThe truth is you’re not good enough for her. For me, yes. I prefer single-hood and no kids and my minor escapades that don’t interfere with the well-paying fulltime work and month-long vacations I love, so I’ll accept much less. But she needs and can maintain while carrying on her other major pursuits an equally right-minded child-wanting youngish dean of a