Where I'm Calling From (20 page)

I was getting a haircut. I was in the chair and three men were sitting along the wall across from me. Two of the men waiting I’d never seen before. But one of them I recognized, though I couldn’t exactly place him. I kept looking at him as the barber worked on my hair. The man was moving a toothpick around in his mouth, a heavyset man, short wavy hair. And then I saw him in a cap and uniform, little eyes watchful in the lobby of a bank.

Of the other two, one was considerably the older, with a full head of curly gray hair. He was smoking.

The third, though not so old, was nearly bald on top, but the hair at the sides hung over his ears. He had on logging boots, pants shiny with machine oil.

The barber put a hand on top of my head to turn me for a better look. Then he said to the guard, “Did you get your deer, Charles?”

I liked this barber. We weren’t acquainted well enough to call each other by name. But when I came in for a haircut, he knew me. He knew I used to fish. So we’d talk fishing. I don’t think he hunted. But he could talk on any subject. In this regard, he was a good barber.

“Bill, it’s a funny story. The damnedest thing,” the guard said. He took out the toothpick and laid it in the ashtray. He shook his head. “I did and I didn’t. So yes and no to your question.”

I didn’t like the man’s voice. For a guard, the voice didn’t fit. It wasn’t the voice you’d expect.

The two other men looked up. The older man was turning the pages of a magazine, smoking, and the other fellow was holding a newspaper. They put down what they were looking at and turned to listen to the guard.

“Go on, Charles,” the barber said. “Let’s hear it.” The barber turned my head again, and went back to work with his clippers.

We were up on Fikle Ridge. My old man and me and the kid. We were hunting those draws. My old man was stationed at the head of one, and me and the kid were at the head of another. The kid had a hangover, goddamn his hide. The kid, he was green around the gills and drank water all day, mine and his both. It was in the afternoon and we’d been out since daybreak. But we had our hopes. We figured the hunters down below would move a deer in our direction. So we were sitting behind a log and watching the draw when we heard this shooting down in the valley.”

“There’s orchards down there,” said the fellow with the newspaper. He was fidgeting a lot and kept crossing a leg, swinging his boot for a time, and then crossing his legs the other way. “Those deer hang out around those orchards.”

“That’s right,” said the guard. “They’ll go in there at night, the bastards, and eat those little green apples.

Well, we heard this shooting and we’re just sitting there on our hands when this big old buck comes up out of the underbrush not a hundred feet away. The kid sees him the same time I do, of course, and he throws down and starts banging. The knothead. That old buck wasn’t in any danger. Not from the kid, as it turns out. But he can’t tell where the shots are coming from. He doesn’t know which way to jump.

Then I get off a shot. But in all the commotion, I just stun him.”

“Stunned him?” the barber said.

“You know, stun him,” the guard said. “It was a gut shot. It just like stuns him. So he drops his head and begins this trembling. He trembles all over. The kid’s still shooting. Me, I felt like I was back in Korea.

So I shot again but missed. Then old Mr. Buck moves back into the brush. But now, by God, he doesn’t have any oompf left in him. The kid has emptied his goddamn gun all to no purpose. But I hit solid. I’d rammed one right in his guts. That’s what I meant by stunned him.”

“Then what?” said the fellow with the newspaper, who had rolled it and was tapping it against his knee. “Then what? You must have trailed him. They find a hard place to die every time.” “But you trailed him?” the older man asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

“I did. Me and the kid, we trailed him. But the kid wasn’t good for much. He gets sick on the trail, slows us down. That chucklehead.” The guard had to laugh now, thinking about that situation. “Drinking beer and chasing all night, then saying he can hunt deer. He knows better now, by God. But, sure, we trailed him. A good trail, too. Blood on the ground and blood on the leaves. Blood everywhere. Never seen a buck with so much blood. I don’t know how the sucker kept going.”

“Sometimes they’ll go forever,” the fellow with the newspaper said. “They find them a hard place to die every time.”

“I chewed the kid out for missing his shot, and when he smarted off at me, I cuffed him a good one.

Right here.” The guard pointed to the side of his head and grinned. “I boxed his goddamn ears for him, that goddamn kid. He’s not too old. He needed it. So the point is, it got too dark to trail, what with the kid laying back to vomit and all.”

“Well, the coyotes will have that deer by now,” the fellow with the newspaper said. “Them and the crows and the buzzards.”

He unrolled the newspaper, smoothed it all the way out, and put it off to one side. He crossed a leg again. He looked around at the rest of us and shook his head.

The older man had turned in his chair and was looking out the window. He lit a cigarette.

“I figure so,” the guard said. “Pity too. He was a big old son of a bitch. So in answer to your question, Bill, I both got my deer and I didn’t. But we had venison on the table anyway. Because it turns out the old man has got himself a little spike in the meantime. Already has him back to camp, hanging up and gutted slick as a whistle, liver, heart, and kidneys wrapped in waxed paper and already setting in the cooler. A spike. Just a little bastard. But the old man, he was tickled.”

The guard looked around the shop as if remembering. Then he picked up his toothpick and stuck it back in his mouth.

The older man put his cigarette out and turned to the guard. He drew a breath and said, “You ought to be out there right now looking for that deer instead of in here getting a haircut.”

“You can’t talk like that,” the guard said. “You old fart. I’ve seen you someplace.”

“I’ve seen you too,” the old fellow said.

“Boys, that’s enough. This is my barbershop,” the barber said.

“I ought to box your ears,” the old fellow said.

“You ought to try it,” the guard said.

“Charles,” the barber said.

The barber put his comb and scissors on the counter and his hands on my shoulders, as if he thought I was thinking to spring from the chair into the middle of it. “Albert, I’ve been cutting Charles’s head of hair, and his boy’s too, for years now. I wish you wouldn’t pursue this.”

The barber looked from one man to the other and kept his hands on my shoulders.

“Take it outside,” the fellow with the newspaper said, flushed and hoping for something.

“That’ll be enough,” the barber said. “Charles, I don’t want to hear anything more on the subject. Albert, you’re next in line. Now.” The barber turned to the fellow with the newspaper. “I don’t know you from Adam, mister, but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t put your oar in.”

The guard got up. He said, “I think

I’ll come back for my cut later. Right now the company leaves something to be desired.”

The guard went out and pulled the door closed, hard.

The old fellow sat smoking his cigarette. He looked out the window. He examined something on the back of his hand. He got up and put on his hat.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” the old fellow said. “I can go a few more days.”

“That’s all right, Albert,” the barber said.

When the old fellow went out, the barber stepped over to the window to watch him go.

“Albert’s about dead from emphysema,” the barber said from the window. “We used to fish together. He taught me salmon inside out. The women. They used to crawl all over that old boy. He’s picked up a temper, though. But in all honesty, there was provocation.”

The man with the newspaper couldn’t sit still. He was on his feet and moving around, stopping to examine everything, the hat rack, the photos of Bill and his friends, the calendar from the hardware showing scenes for each month of the year. He flipped every page. He even went so far as T to stand and scrutinize Bill’s barbering license, which was up on the wall in a frame. Then he turned and said, “I’m going too,” and out he went just like he said.

“Well, do you want me to finish barbering this hair or not?” the barber said to me as if I was the cause of everything.

The barber turned me in the chair to

face the mirror. He put a hand to either side of my head. He positioned me a last time, and then he brought his head down next to mine.

We looked into the mirror together, his hands still framing my head.

I was looking at myself, and he was looking at me too. But if the barber saw something, he didn’t offer comment.

He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it slowly, as if thinking about something else. He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it tenderly, as a lover would.

That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber’s chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber’s fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.

I had a job and Patti didn’t. I worked a few hours a night for the hospital. It was a nothing job. I did some work, signed the card for eight hours, went drinking with the nurses. After a while, Patti wanted a job.

She said she needed a job for her self-respect. So she started selling multiple vitamins door to door.

For a while, she was just another girl who went up and down blocks in strange neighborhoods, knocking on doors. But she learned the ropes. She was quick and had excelled at things in school. She had personality. Pretty soon the company gave her a promotion. Some of the girls who weren’t doing so hot were put to work under her. Before long, she had herself a crew and a little office out in the mall. But the girls who worked for her were always changing. Some would quit after a couple of days— after a couple of hours, sometimes. But sometimes there were girls who were good at it. They could sell vitamins.

These were the girls that stuck with Patti. They formed the core of the crew. But there were girls who couldn’t give away vitamins.

The girls who couldn’t cut it would just quit. Just not show up for work. If they had a phone, they’d take it off the hook. They wouldn’t answer the door. Patti took these losses to heart, like the girls were new converts who had lost their way. She blamed herself. But she got over it. There were too many not to get over it.

Once in a while a girl would freeze and not be able to push the doorbell. Or maybe she’d get to the door and something would happen to her voice. Or she’d get the greeting mixed up with something she shouldn’t be saying until she got inside. A girl like this, she’d decide to pack it in, take the sample case, head for the car, hang around until Patti and the others finished. There’d be a conference. Then they’d all ride back to the office. They’d say things to buck themselves up. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And, “Do the right things and the right things will happen.” Things like that.

Sometimes a girl just disappeared in the field, sample case and all. She’d hitch a ride into town, then beat it. But there were always girls to take her place. Girls were coming and going in those days. Patti had a list. Every few weeks she’d run a little ad in The Pennysaver. There’d be more girls and more training.

There was no end of girls.

The core group was made up of Patti, Donna, and Sheila. Patti was a looker. Donna and Sheila were only medium-pretty. One night this Sheila said to Patti that she loved her more than anything on earth.

Patti told me these were the words. Patti had driven Sheila home and they were sitting in front of Sheila’s place. Patti said to Sheila she loved her, too. Patti said to Sheila she loved all her girls. But not in the way Sheila had in mind. Then Sheila touched Patti’s breast. Patti said she took Sheila’s hand and held it. She said she told her she didn’t swing that way. She said Sheila didn’t bat an eye, that she only nodded, held on to Patti’s hand, kissed it, and got out of the car.

That was around Christmas. The vitamin business was pretty bad off back then, so we thought we’d have a party to cheer everybody up. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sheila was the first to get drunk and pass out. She passed out on her feet, fell over, and didn’t wake up for hours. One minute she was standing in the middle of the living room, then her eyes closed, the legs buckled, and she went down with a glass in her hand. The hand holding the drink smacked the coffee table when she fell. She didn’t make a sound otherwise. The drink poured out onto the rug. Patti and I and somebody else lugged her out to the back porch and put her down on a cot and did what we could to forget about her.

Everybody got drunk and went home. Patti went to bed. I wanted to keep on, so I sat at the table with a drink until it began to get light out. Then Sheila came in from the porch and started up. She said she had this headache that was so bad it was like somebody was sticking wires in her brain. She said it was such a bad headache she was afraid it was going to leave her with a permanent squint. And she was sure her little finger was broken. She showed it to me. It looked purple. She bitched about us letting her sleep all night with her contacts in. She wanted to know didn’t anybody give a shit. She brought the finger up close and looked at it. She shook her head. She held the finger as far away as she could and looked some more. It was like she couldn’t believe the things that must have happened to her that night. Her face was puffy, and her hair was all over. She ran cold water on her finger. “God. Oh, God,” she said and cried some over the sink. But she’d made a serious pass at Patti, a declaration of love, and I didn’t have any sympathy.

I was drinking Scotch and milk with a sliver of ice. Sheila was leaning on the drainboard. She watched me from her little slits of eyes. I took some of my drink. I didn’t say anything. She went back to telling me how bad she felt. She said she needed to see a doctor. She said she was going to wake Patti. She said she was quitting, leaving the state, going to Portland. That she had to say goodbye to Patti first. She kept on. She wanted Patti to drive her to the hospital for her finger and her eyes.

“I’ll drive you,” I said. I didn’t want to do it, but I would.

“I want Patti to drive me,” Sheila said.

She was holding the wrist of her bad hand with her good hand, the little finger as big as a pocket flashlight. “Besides, we need to talk. I need to tell her I’m going to Portland. I need to say goodbye.”

I said, “I guess I’ll have to tell her for you. She’s asleep.”

Sheila turned mean. “‘We’re friends,” she said. “I have to talk to her. I have to tell her myself.”

I shook my head. “She’s asleep. I just said so.”

“We’re friends and we love each other,” Sheila said. “I have to say goodbye to her.”

Sheila made to leave the kitchen.

I started to get up. I said, “I said I’ll drive you.”

“You’re drunk! You haven’t even been to bed yet.” She looked at her finger again and said, “Goddamn, why’d this have to happen?”

“Not too drunk to drive you to the hospital,” I said.

“I won’t ride with you!” Sheila yelled.

“Suit yourself. But you’re not going to wake Patti. Lesbo bitch,” I said.

“Bastard,” she said.

That’s what she said, and then she went out of the kitchen and out the front door without using the bathroom or even washing her face. I got up and looked through the window. She was walking down the road toward Euclid. Nobody else was up. It was too early.

I finished my drink and thought about fixing another one.

I fixed it.

Nobody saw any more of Sheila after that. None of us vitamin-related people, anyway. She walked to Euclid Avenue and out of our lives.

Later on Patti said, “What happened to Sheila?” and I said, “She went to Portland.”

I had the hots for Donna, the other member of the core group. We’d danced to some Duke Ellington records that night of the party. I’d held her pretty tight, smelled her hair, kept a hand low on her back as I moved her over the rug. It was great dancing with her. I was the only fellow at the party, and there were seven girls, six of them dancing with each other. It was great just looking around the living room.

I was in the kitchen when Donna came in with her empty glass. We were alone for a bit. I got her into a little embrace. She hugged me back. We stood there and hugged.

Then she said, “Don’t. Not now.”

When I heard that “Not now,” I let go. I figured it was money in the bank.

I’d been at the table thinking about that hug when Sheila came in with her finger.

I thought some more about Donna. I finished the drink. I took the phone off the hook and headed for the bedroom. I took off my clothes and got in next to Patti. I lay for a while, winding down. Then I started in. But she didn’t wake up. Afterward, I closed my eyes.

It was the afternoon when I opened them again. I was in bed alone. Rain was blowing against the window. A sugar doughnut was lying on Patti’s pillow, and a glass of old water was on the nightstand. I was still drunk and couldn’t figure anything out. I knew it was Sunday and close to Christmas. I ate the doughnut and drank the water. I went back to sleep until I heard Patti running the vacuum. She came into the bedroom and asked about Sheila. That’s when I told her, said she’d gone to Portland.

A week or so into the new year, Patti and I were having a drink. She’d just come home from work. It wasn’t so late, but it was dark and rainy. I was going to work in a couple of hours. But first we were having us some Scotch and talking. Patti was tired. She was down in the dumps and into her third drink. Nobody was buying vitamins. All she had was Donna and Pam, a semi-new girl who was a klepto. We were talking about things like negative weather and the number of parking tickets you could get away with.

Then we got to talking about how we’d be better off if we moved to Arizona, someplace like that.

I fixed us another one. I looked out the window. Arizona wasn’t a bad idea.

Patti said, “Vitamins.” She picked up her glass and spun the ice. “For shit’s sake!” she said. “I mean, when I was a girl, this is the last thing I ever saw myself doing. Jesus, I never thought I’d grow up to sell vitamins. Door-to-door vitamins. This beats all. This really blows my mind.”

“I never thought so either, honey,” I said.

“That’s right,” she said. “You said it in a nutshell.”

“Honey.”

“Don’t honey me,” she said. “This is hard, brother. This life is not easy, any way you cut it.”

She seemed to think things over for a bit. She shook her head. Then she finished her drink. She said, “I even dream of vitamins when I’m asleep. I don’t have any relief. There’s no relief! At least you can walk away from your job and leave it behind. I’ll bet you haven’t had one dream about it. I’ll bet you don’t dream about waxing floors or whatever you do down there. After you’ve left the goddamn place, you don’t come home and dream about it, do you?” she screamed.

I said, “I can’t remember what I dream. Maybe I don’t dream. I don’t remember anything when I wake up.” I shrugged. I didn’t keep track of what went on in my head when I was asleep. I didn’t care.

“You dream!” Patti said. “Even if you don’t remember. Everybody dreams. If you didn’t dream, you’d go crazy. I read about it. It’s an outlet. People dream when they’re asleep. Or else they’d go nuts. But when I dream, I dream of vitamins. Do you see what I’m saying?” She had her eyes fixed on me.

“Yes and no,” I said.

It wasn’t a simple question.

“I dream I’m pitching vitamins,” she said. “I’m selling vitamins day and night. Jesus, what a life,” she said.

She finished her drink.

“How’s Pam doing?” I said. “She still stealing things?” I wanted to get us off this subject. But there wasn’t anything else I could think of.

Patti said, “Shit,” and shook her head like I didn’t know anything. We listened to it rain.

“Nobody’s selling vitamins,” Patti said. She picked up her glass. But it was empty. “Nobody’s buying vitamins. That’s what I’m telling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

I got up to fix us another. “Donna doing anything?” I said. I read the label on the bottle and waited.

Patti said, “She made a little sale two days ago. That’s all. That’s all that any of us has done this week. It wouldn’t surprise me if she quit. I wouldn’t blame her,” Patti said. “If I was in her place, I’d quit. But if she quits, then what? Then I’m back at the start, that’s what. Ground zero. Middle of winter, people sick all over the state, people dying, and nobody thinks they need vitamins. I’m sick as hell myself.”

“What’s wrong, honey?” I put the drinks on the table and sat down. She went on like I hadn’t said anything. Maybe I hadn’t.

“I’m my only customer,” she said. “I think taking all these vitamins is doing something to my skin. Does my skin look okay to you? Can a person get overdosed on vitamins? I’m getting to where I can’t even take a crap like a normal person.”

“Honey,” I said.

Patti said, “You don’t care if I take vitamins. That’s the point. You don’t care about anything. The windshield wiper quit this afternoon in the rain. I almost had a wreck. I came this close.”

We went on drinking and talking until it was time for me to go to work. Patti said she was going to soak in a tub if she didn’t fall asleep first. “I’m asleep on my feet,” she said. She said, “Vitamins. That’s all there is anymore.” She looked around the kitchen. She looked at her empty glass. She was drunk. But she let me kiss her. Then I left for work.

There was a place I went to after work. I’d started going for the music and because I could get a drink there after closing hours. It was a place called the Off-Broadway. It was a spade place in a spade neighborhood. It was run by a spade named Khaki. People would show up after the other places had stopped serving. They’d ask for house specials—RC Colas with a shooter of whiskey—or else they’d bring in their own stuff under their coats, order RC, and build their own. Musicians showed up to jam, and the drinkers who wanted to keep drinking came to drink and listen to the music. Sometimes people danced. But mainly they sat around and drank and listened.

Now and then a spade hit a spade in the head with a bottle. A story went around once that somebody had followed somebody into the Gents and cut the man’s throat while he had his hands down pissing. But I never saw any trouble. Nothing that Khaki couldn’t handle. Khaki was a big spade with a bald head that lit up weird under the fluorescents. He wore Hawaiian shirts that hung over his pants. I think he carried something inside his waistband. At least a sap, maybe. If somebody started to get out of line, Khaki would go over to where it was beginning. He’d rest his big hand on the party’s shoulder and say a few words and that was that. I’d been going there off and on for months. I was pleased that he’d say things to me, things like, “How’re you doing tonight, friend?” Or, “Friend, I haven’t seen you for a spell.”

The Off-Broadway is where I took Donna on our date. It was the one date we ever had.

I’d walked out of the hospital just after midnight. It’d cleared up and stars were out. I still had this buzz on from the Scotch I’d had with Patti. But I was thinking to hit Birney’s for a quick one on the way home. Donna’s car was parked in the space next to my car, and Donna was inside the car. I remembered that hug we’d had in the kitchen. “Not now,” she’d said.