Free Love and Will by Stephen Dixon Page B

he owed?” “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head, hands over my eyes, on my ears, by my side. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
    Later someone said to me “Why did you think he leaped?”
    â€œDid I say he leaped?”
    â€œI heard you. Someone asked how you thought he did it and first you said you didn’t know and then that he probably leaped.”
    â€œWell, maybe he had to have leaped. If not that then he could only have been thrown out the window headfirst by two very strong men holding an arm and leg of his each, but I don’t think that was it. He had to have gotten several feet away from the window and then like a sprinter starting off, ran to it at full speed and leaped. I say that because the window was completely knocked out and it was a big window, almost ceiling to floor, and the old kind, I don’t know about the glass, but a thick wooden frame. The mullions as you can see were completely smashed except for a few small pieces hanging to the sides, though not hanging by much. The force of him crashing through the glass, not being pushed, could only have done that, I think. Unless of course four to five very strong men pushed him with all their might from behind at exactly the same time. But then I couldn’t explain his dive. No, he leaped.”
    Several ambulances were called. Before one arrived, someone tried to stop the man’s face-bleeding by pressing down on various pressure points, but it didn’t work. The man bled a lot. People were horrified: some. A few boys—teenagers—passed by the crowd saying “What happened? What’s happening, baby? Hey, look at the stoned-out dude down there,” and they all laughed. Some people got angry at the boys but only expressed it to one another or said it aloud to themselves after the boys had left.
    An ambulance came. And police and voluntary auxiliary police. The police asked the questions and searched through the second-story apartment and the auxiliary police kept the crowds back and cars from driving along the street. The police asked me the most questions and someone who lived in the man’s building, whose answers had to be translated by an auxiliary policewoman, the second most amount of questions. One policeman asked me what did I see? Almost everything. Did you see anyone push him? No. Did you see him jump through the window? No. Did you see anyone else in the apartment before or after he jumped? No. Then what did you see? “I saw him in the air after he leaped through the window.”
    â€œHow do you know he leaped and wasn’t pushed?”
    â€œYou said jumped, so I thought you meant leaped, but I don’t know if he leaped, jumped or was pushed. Maybe he accidentally fell.”
    â€œHe didn’t. Did he say anything, this man?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOn the ground, in the air, from his apartment before he came out?”
    â€œNothing that I heard.”
    â€œWhat was his expression when he was in the air?”
    â€œHe looked like a bird.”
    â€œWhat expression’s that?”
    â€œHis eyes were open and arms were out and he seemed to have the expression of a flying bird.”
    â€œI don’t get it. What is that expression? Happiness? Nastiness? Pride in his flying? Hunger, plundering, fear, what?”
    â€œDisconcern.”
    â€œYou mean unconcern?”
    â€œNo concern. No expression. He was just flying. Face like a bird, partially opened beak. Not a calm face like a pigeon but just a face of no concern like a gull or tern.”
    â€œTo me the gull always looks nasty, and the tern I don’t know as a bird.”
    â€œThe tern looks like a small gull, and the man didn’t look nasty, so maybe he didn’t look like either of those birds.”
    â€œDid he have the expression of someone who you might think had been pushed or thrown out of a window?” No. “You don’t