Free Love and Will by Stephen Dixon Page A

“No.” A total stranger, she spoke to me on a cafeteria line. “It’s the scar. I thought you might’ve gotten it dueling in a German university club.” “I didn’t think they still did that,” I said. “I was in Germany last summer,” she said, “Heidelberg, home of the Student Prince, I think, and they definitely do do it, yes.”
    The man landed on his front and slid a few feet to within a foot of me, his head pointing to my knee. Blood popped out of his nose and mouth some time between the landing and slide, and spattered on my pants and shirt. The glass fell all around us. I yelled “Oh no,” and was still. People were screaming. Cars stopped, screeching one first. The whole block seemed to stop, but not all at once. Across the street was a bar with an outdoor patio. The tables were filled and all the people at them seemed to stop. A young woman dressed like a gypsy and leading two unleashed dogs crossing the street stopped, but the dogs started to bark. A troubadour was juggling and standing on a rope strung from a lamppost to a no-parking sign pole in front of the patio. Barefoot, four feet up, one foot raised. Holding three sticks with fire at the ends of them, once he caught the two he’d thrown in the air. The fires didn’t stop. He was up there a minute holding the sticks, statuelike, foot raised, staring at the ground, before he jumped down, unfolded an asbestos blanket and wrapped the fire ends of the sticks with it. When he opened it a few seconds later only smoke escaped. A bus at the corner stopped, though I didn’t see when, nor when it drove away. I remember hearing a helicopter, but it just went away. And other sounds from far off. Honking. Someone using a machine to get a plaster wall down to the original brick. That never stopped. The man because of the noise his machine made probably didn’t hear the window crash or else he didn’t want to stop. Later I walked past his window half a block away and saw him using the machine on the wall. Second story also. All the windows open. Furniture covered, mask over his nose, hair plastered white, room nearly stuffed with dust and some of it drifting outside.
    Blood ran from the man’s face and hands to my knee. He seemed unconscious. I was still holding my shoelaces. I was going to untie and tie the other shoe tight but didn’t. I stood up. Movement began on the street again. Both my shoes were still loose, but I wasn’t aware of it till I got home. I was going to touch the man to see if he was still breathing but didn’t. Cars started up, drove off, people ran over, bus was gone, other people at the tables stood up, the gypsy woman began shrieking and turned around and ran off with her barking dogs. The troubadour made rapid mime looks one after the other: compassion, wonder, confusion, horror, fear, shock, pity, displeasure and then did several mime steps back to the rope and seemed to be concerned, because a woman running to the man on the ground ran into the rope and was choking. He slapped her back, saw she was all right, apologized with his hands and a look, took a lollipop out of her ear and put it into her pocketbook, unhooked the rope from the lamppost, untied the other end from the no-parking sign pole, folded up the rope and put it with his fire-sticks and asbestos blanket into a leather satchel, grabbed his money bag off the sidewalk and tied it to his belt, put his slippers on, satchel over his shoulder and got on a unicycle and made motions with his hands and arms for the people on the sidewalk to dear a path for him and cycled through it and around the comer.
    I was so distracted by the actions of the troubadour that for a minute or more I’d forgotten the man on the ground. People had crowded around us. “What happened?” they asked. “Is he okay? Dead? Did he jump? Was he pushed? Is he insane? What caused it, drugs? A fit? Alcohol? Money