Where I'm Calling From (5 page)

She waited and then she moved over to the door and turned the lock and stepped out onto the porch. She closed the robe at her throat. The air was wet and cold. By stages things were becoming very visible.

She let her eyes see everything until they fastened on the red winking light atop the radio tower atop the opposite hill.

She went through the dim apartment, back into the bedroom. He was knotted up in the center of the bed, the covers bunched over his shoulders, his head half under the pillow. He looked desperate in his heavy sleep, his arms flung out across her side of the bed, his jaws clenched. As she looked, the room grew very light and the pale sheets whitened grossly before her eyes.

She wet her lips with a sticking sound and got down on her knees. She put her hands out on the bed.

“God.’ she said. “God, will you help us, God?” she said.

Earl Ober was between jobs as a salesman. But Doreen, his wife, had gone to work nights as a waitress at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop at the edge of town. One night, when he was drinking, Earl decided to stop by the coffee shop and have something to eat. He wanted to see where Doreen worked, and he wanted to see if he could order something on the house.

He sat at the counter and studied the menu.

“What are you doing here?” Doreen said when she saw him sitting there.

She handed over an order to the cook. “What are you going to order, Earl?” she said. “The kids okay?”

“They’re fine,” Earl said. “I’ll have coffee and one of those Number Two sandwiches.”

Doreen wrote it down.

“Any chance of, you know?” he said to her and winked.

“No,” she said. “Don’t talk to me now. I’m busy.”

Earl drank his coffee and waited for the sandwich. Two men in business suits, their ties undone, their collars open, sat down next to him and asked for coffee. As Doreen walked away with the coffeepot, one of the men said to the other, “Look at the ass on that. I don’t believe it.”

The other man laughed. “I’ve seen better,” he said.

“That’s what I mean,” the first man said. “But some jokers like their quim fat.”

“Not me,” the other man said.

“Not me, neither,” the first man said. “That’s what I was saying.”

Doreen put the sandwich in front of Earl. Around the sandwich there were French fries, coleslaw, dill pickle.

“Anything else?” she said. “A glass of milk?”

He didn’t say anything. He shook his head when she kept standing there.

“I’ll get you more coffee,” she said.

She came back with the pot and poured coffee for him and for the two men. Then she picked up a dish and turned to get some ice cream. She reached down into the container and with the dipper began to scoop up the ice cream. The white skirt yanked against her hips and crawled up her legs. What showed was girdle, and it was pink, thighs that were rumpled and gray and a little hairy, and veins that spread in a berserk display.

The two men sitting beside Earl exchanged looks. One of them raised his eyebrows. The other man grinned and kept looking at Doreen over his cup as she spooned chocolate syrup over the ice cream.

When she began shaking the can of whipped cream, Earl got up, leaving his food, and headed for the door. He heard her call his name, but he kept going.

He checked on the children and then went to the other bedroom and took off his clothes. He pulled the covers up, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to think. The feeling started in his face and worked down into his stomach and legs. He opened his eyes and rolled his head back and forth on the pillow.

Then he turned on his side and fell asleep.

In the morning, after she had sent the children off to school, Doreen came into the bedroom and raised the shade. Earl was already awake.

“Look at yourself in the mirror,” he said.

“What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“Just look at yourself in the mirror,” he said.

“What am I supposed to see?” she said. But she looked in the mirror over the dresser and pushed the hair away from her shoulders.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what?” she said.

“I hate to say anything,” Earl said, “but I think you better give a diet some thought. I mean it. I’m serious. I think you could lose a few pounds. Don’t get mad.”

“What are you saying?” she said.

“Just what I said. I think you could lose a few pounds. A few pounds, anyway,” he said.

“You never said anything before,” she said. She raised her nightgown over her hips and turned to look at her stomach in the mirror.

“I never felt it was a problem before,” he said. He tried to pick his words.

The nightgown still gathered around her waist, Doreen turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder. She raised one buttock in her hand and let it drop.

Earl closed his eyes. “Maybe I’m all wet,” he said.

“I guess I could afford to lose. But it’d be hard,” she said.

“You’re right, it won’t be easy,” he said. “But I’ll help.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. She dropped her nightgown and looked at him and then she took her nightgown off.

They talked about diets. They talked about the protein diets, the vegetable-only diets, the grapefruit-juice diets. But they decided they didn’t have the money to buy the steaks the protein diet called for. And Doreen said she didn’t care for all that many vegetables. And since she didn’t like grapefruit juice that much, she didn’t see how she could do that one, either.

“Okay, forget it,” he said.

“No, you’re right,” she said. “I’ll do something.” “What about exercises?” he said.

“I’m getting all the exercise I need down there,” she said.

“Just quit eating,” Earl said. “For a few days, anyway.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll try. For a few days I’ll give it a try. You’ve convinced me.”

“I’m a closer,” Earl said.

Earle figured up the balance in their checking account, then drove to the discount store and bought a bathroom scale. He looked the clerk over as she rang up the sale.

At home he had Doreen take off all her clothes and get on the scale. He frowned when he saw the veins.

He ran his finger the length of one that sprouted up her thigh.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

He looked at the scale and wrote the figure down on a piece of paper.

“All right,” Earl said. “All right.”

The next day he was gone for most of the afternoon on an interview.

The employer, a heavyset man who limped as he showed Earl around the plumbing fixtures in the warehouse, asked if Earl were free to travel.

“You bet I’m free,” Earl said.

The man nodded.

Earl smiled.

He could hear the television before he opened the door to the house. The children did not look up as he walked through the living room. In the kitchen, Doreen, dressed for work, was eating scrambled eggs and bacon.

“What are you doing?” Earl said.

She continued to chew the food, cheeks puffed. But then she spit everything into a napkin.

“I couldn’t help myself,” she said.

“Slob,” Earl said. “Go ahead, eat! Go on!” He went to the bedroom, closed the door, and lay on the covers. He could still hear the television. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

She opened the door.

“I’m going to try again,” Doreen said.

“Okay,” he said.

Two mornings later she called him into the bathroom. “Look,” she said.

He read the scale. He opened a drawer and took out the paper and read the scale again while she grinned.

“Three-quarters of a pound,” she said.

“It’s something,” he said and patted her hip.

He read the classifieds. He went to the state employment office. Every three or four days he drove someplace for an interview, and at night he counted her tips. He smoothed out the dollar bills on the table and stacked the nickels, dimes, and quarters in piles of one dollar each. Each morning he put her on the scale.

In two weeks she had lost three and a half pounds.

“I pick,” she said. “I starve myself all day, and then I pick at work. It adds up.”

But a week later she had lost five pounds. The week after that, nine and a half pounds. Her clothes were loose on her. She had to cut into the rent money to buy a new uniform.

“People are saying things at work,” she said.

“What kind of things?” Earl said.

“That I’m too pale, for one thing,” she said. “That I don’t look like myself. They’re afraid I’m losing too much weight.”

“What is wrong with losing?” he said. “Don’t you pay any attention to them. Tell them to mind their own business. They’re not your husband. You don’t have to live with them.”

“I have to work with them,” Doreen said.

“That’s right,” Earl said. “But they’re not your husband.”

Each morning he followed her into the bathroom and waited while she stepped onto the scale. He got down on his knees with a pencil and the piece of paper. The paper was covered with dates, days of the week, numbers. He read the number on the scale, consulted the paper, and either nodded his head or pursed his lips.

Doreen spent more time in bed now. She went back to bed after the children had left for school, and she napped in the afternoons before going to work. Earl helped around the house, watched television, and let her sleep. He did all the shopping, and once in a while he went on an interview.

One night he put the children to bed, turned off the television, and decided to go for a few drinks. When the bar closed, he drove to the coffee shop.

He sat at the counter and waited. When she saw him, she said, “Kids okay?”

Earl nodded.

He took his time ordering. He kept looking at her as she moved up and down behind the counter. He finally ordered a cheeseburger. She gave the order to the cook and went to wait on someone else.

Another waitress came by with a coffeepot and filled Earl’s cup.

“Who’s your friend?” he said and nodded at his wife.

“Her name’s Doreen,” the waitress said.

“She looks a lot different than the last time I was in here,” he said.

“I wouldn’t know,” the waitress said.

He ate the cheeseburger and drank the coffee. People kept sitting down and getting up at the counter.

Doreen waited on most of the people at the counter, though now and then the other waitress came along to take an order. Earl watched his wife and listened carefully. Twice he had to leave his place to go to the bathroom. Each time he wondered if he might have missed hearing something. When he came back the second time, he found his cup gone and someone in his place. He took a stool at the end of the counter next to an older man in a striped shirt.

“What do you want?” Doreen said to Earl when she saw him again. “Shouldn’t you be home?”

“Give me some coffee,” he said.

The man next to Earl was reading a newspaper. He looked up and watched Doreen pour Earl a cup of coffee. He glanced at Doreen as she walked away. Then he went back to his newspaper.

Earl sipped his coffee and waited for the man to say something. He watched the man out of the corner of his eye. The man had finished eating and his plate was pushed to the side. The man lit a cigarette, folded the newspaper in front of him, and continued to read.

Doreen came by and removed the dirty plate and poured the man more coffee.

“What do you think of that?” Earl said to the man, nodding at Doreen as she moved down the counter.

“Don’t you think that’s something special?”

The man looked up. He looked at Doreen and then at Earl, and then went back to his newspaper.

“Well, what do you think?” Earl said. “I’m asking. Does it look good or not? Tell me.”

The man rattled the newspaper.

When Doreen started down the counter again, Earl nudged the man’s shoulder and said, “I’m telling you something. Listen. Look at the ass on her. Now you watch this now. Could I have a chocolate sundae?”

Earl called to Doreen.

She stopped in front of him and let out her breath. Then she turned and picked up a dish and the icecream dipper. She leaned over the freezer, reached down, and began to press the dipper into the ice cream. Earl looked at the man and winked as Doreen’s skirt traveled up her thighs. But the man’s eyes caught the eyes of the other waitress. And then the man put the newspaper under his arm and reached into his pocket.

The other waitress came straight to Doreen. “Who is this character?” she said.

“Who?” Doreen said and looked around with the ice-cream dish in her hand.

“Him,” the other waitress said and nodded at Earl. “Who is this joker, anyway?”

Earl put on his best smile. He held it. He held it until he felt his face pulling out of shape.

But the other waitress just studied him, and Doreen began to shake her head slowly. The man had put some change beside his cup and stood up, but he too waited to hear the answer. They all stared at Earl.

“He’s a salesman. He’s my husband,” Doreen said at last, shrugging. Then she put the unfinished chocolate sundae in front of him and went to total up his check.

This has nothing to do with me. It’s about a young couple with three children who moved into a house on my route the first of last summer. I got to thinking about them again when I picked up last Sunday’s newspaper and found a picture of a young man who’d been arrested down in San Francisco for killing his wife and her boyfriend with a baseball bat. It wasn’t the same man, of course, though there was a likeness because of the beard. But the situation was close enough to get me thinking.

Henry Robinson is the name. I’m a postman, a federal civil servant, and have been since 1947. I’ve lived in the West all my life, except for a three-year stint in the Army during the war. I’ve been divorced twenty years, have two children I haven’t seen in almost that long. I’m not a frivolous man, nor am I, in my opinion, a serious man. It’s my belief a man has to be a little of both these days. I believe, too, in the value of work— the harder the better. A man who isn’t working has got too much time on his hands, too much time to dwell on himself and his problems.

I‘m convinced that was partly the trouble with the young man who lived here—his not working. But I’d lay that at her doorstep, too. The woman. She encouraged it.

Beatniks, I guess you’d have called them if you’d seen them. The man wore a pointed brown beard on his chin and looked like he needed to sit down to a good dinner and a cigar afterward. The woman was attractive, with her long dark hair and her fair complexion, there’s no getting around that. But put me down for saying she wasn’t a good wife and mother. She was a painter. The young man, I don’t know what he did—probably something along the same line. Neither of them worked. But they paid their rent and got by somehow—at least for the summer.

The first time I saw them it was around eleven, eleven-fifteen, a Saturday morning, I was about twothirds through my route when I turned onto their block and noticed a ‘56 Ford sedan pulled up in the yard with a big open U-Haul behind. There are only three houses on Pine, and theirs was the last house, the others being the Murchisons, who’d been in Arcata a little less than a year, and the Grants, who’d been here about two years. Murchison worked at Simpson Redwood, and Gene Grant was a cook on the morning shift at Denny’s. Those two, then a vacant lot, then the house on the end that used to belong to the Coles.

The young man was out in the yard behind the trailer and she was just coming out the front door with a cigarette in her mouth, wearing a tight pair of white jeans and a man’s white undershirt. She stopped when she saw me and she stood watching me come down the walk. I slowed up when I came even with their box and nodded in her direction.

“Getting settled all right?” I asked.

“It’ll be a little while,” she said and moved a handful of hair away from her forehead while she continued to smoke.

“That’s good, I said. “Welcome to Arcata.”

I felt a little awkward after saying it. I don’t know why, but I always found myself feeling awkward the few times I was around this woman. It was one of the things helped turn me against her from the first.

She gave me a thin smile and I started to move on when the young man—Marston was his name—came around from behind the trailer carrying a big carton of toys. Now, Arcata is not a small town and it’s not a big town, though I guess you’d have to say it’s more on the small side. It’s not the end of the world, Arcata, by any means, but most of the people who live here work either in the lumber mills or have something to do with the fishing industry, or else work in one of the downtown stores. People here aren’t used to seeing men wear beards—or men who don’t work, for that matter.

“Hello,” I said. I put out my hand when he set the carton down on the front fender. “The name’s Henry Robinson. You folks just arrive?”

“Yesterday afternoon,” he said.

“Some trip! It took us fourteen hours just to come from San Francisco,” the woman spoke up from the porch. “Pulling that damn trailer.”

“My, my,” I said and shook my head. “San Francisco? I was just down in San Francisco, let me see, last April or March.”

“You were, were you?” she said. “What did you do in San Francisco?”

“Oh, nothing, really. I go down about once or twice a year. Out to Fisherman’s Wharf and to see the Giants play. That’s about all.”

There was a little pause and Marston examined something in the grass with his toe. I started to move on.

The kids picked that moment to come flying out the front door, yelling and tearing for the end of the porch. When that screen door banged open, I thought Marston was going to jump out of his skin. But she just stood there with her arms crossed, cool as a cucumber, and never batted an eye. He didn’t look good at all. Quick, jerky little movements every time he made to do something. And his eyes—they’d land on you and then slip off somewheres else, then land on you again.

There were three kids, two little curly-headed girls about four or five, and a little bit of a boy tagging after.

“Cute kids,” I said. “Well, I got to get under way. You might want to change the name on the box.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure. I’ll see about it in a day or two. But we don’t expect to get any mail for a while yet, in any case.”

“You never know,” I said. “You never know what’ll turn up in this old mail pouch. Wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.” I started to go. “By the way, if you’re looking for a job in the mills, I can tell you who to see at Simpson Redwood. A friend of mine’s a foreman there. He’d probably have something…” I tapered off, seeing how they didn’t look interested.

“No, thanks,” he said.

“He’s not looking for a job,” she put in.

“Well, goodbye, then.”

“So long,” Marston said.

Not another word from her.

That was on a Saturday, as I said, the day before Memorial Day. We took Monday as a holiday and I wasn’t by there again until Tuesday. I can’t say I was surprised to see the U-Haul still there in the front yard. But it did surprise me to see he still hadn’t unloaded it. I’d say about a quarter of the stuff had made its way to the front porch—a covered chair and a chrome kitchen chair and a big carton of clothes that had the flaps pulled off the top. Another quarter must have gotten inside the house, and the rest of the stuff was still in the trailer. The kids were carrying little sticks and hammering on the sides of the trailer as they climbed in and out over the tailgate. Their mamma and daddy were nowheres to be seen.

On Thursday I saw him out in the yard again and reminded him about changing the name on the box.

“That’s something I’ve got to get around to doing,” he said.

“Takes time,” I said. “There’s lots of things to take care of when you’re moving into a new place. People that lived here, the Coles, just moved out two days before you came. He was going to work in Eureka.

With the Fish and Game Department.”

Marston stroked his beard and looked off as if thinking of something else.

“I’ll be seeing you,” I said.

“So long,” he said.

Well, the long and the short of it was he never did change the name on the box. I’d come along a bit later with a piece of mail for that address and he’d say something like, “Marston? Yes, that’s for us, Marston…. I’ll have to change the name on that box one of these days. I’ll get myself a can of paint and just paint over that other name… Cole,” all the time his eyes drifting here and there. Then he’d look at me kind of out the corners and bob his chin once or twice. But he never did change the name on the box, and after a time I shrugged and forgot about it.

You hear rumors. At different times I heard that he was an ex-con on parole who come to Arcata to get out of the unhealthy San Francisco environment. According to this story, the woman was his wife, but none of the kids belonged to him. Another story was that he had committed a crime and was hiding out here. But not many people subscribed to that. He just didn’t look the sort who’d do something really criminal. The story most folks seemed to believe, at least the one that got around most, was the most horrible. The woman was a dope addict, so this story went, and the husband had brought her up here to help her get rid of the habit. As evidence, the fact of Sallie Wilson’s visit was always brought up—Sallie Wilson from the Welcome Wagon. She dropped in on them one afternoon and said later that, no lie, there was something funny about them—the woman, particular.

One minute the woman would be sitting and listening to Sallie run on—all ears, it seemed—and the next she’d get up while Sallie was still talking and start to work on her painting as if Sallie wasn’t there. Also the way she’d be fondling and kissing the kids, then suddenly start screeching at them for no apparent reason. Well, just the way her eyes looked if you came up close to her, Sallie said. But Sallie Wilson has been snooping and prying for years under cover of the Welcome Wagon.

“You don’t know,” I’d say when someone would bring it up, “Who can say? If he’d just go to work now.”

All the same, the way it looked to me was that they had their fair share of trouble down there in San Francisco, whatever was the nature of the trouble, and they decided to get clear away from it. Though why they ever picked Arcata to settle in, it’s hard to say, since they surely didn’t come looking for work.

The first few weeks there was no mail to speak of, just a few circulars, from Sears and Western Auto and the like. Then a few letters began to come in, maybe one or two a week. Sometimes I’d see one or the other of them out around the house when I came by and sometimes not. But the kids were always there, running in and out of the house or playing in the vacant lot next door. Of course, it wasn’t a model home to begin with, but after they’d been there a while the weeds sprouted up and what grass there was yellowed and died. You hate to see something like that. I understand Old Man Jessup came out once or twice to get them to turn the water on, but they claimed they couldn’t buy a hose. So he left them a hose. Then I noticed the kids playing with it over in the field, and that was the end of that. Twice I saw a little white sports car in front, a car that hadn’t come from around here.

One time only I had anything to do with the woman direct. There was a letter with postage due, and I went up to the door with it. One of the little girls let me in and ran off to fetch her mama. The place was cluttered with odds and ends of old furniture and with clothing tossed just anywhere. But it wasn’t what you’d call dirty. Not tidy maybe, but not dirty either. An old couch and chair stood along one wall in the living room. Under the window was a bookcase made out of bricks and boards, crammed full of little paperback books. In the corner there was a stack of paintings with their faces turned away, and to one side another painting stood on an easel covered over with a sheet.

I shifted my mail pouch and stood my ground, but starting to wish I’d paid the difference myself. I eyed the easel as I waited, about to sidle over and raise the sheet when I heard steps.

“What can I do for you?” she said, appearing in the hallway and not at all friendly.

I touched the brim of my cap and said, “A letter here with postage due, if you don’t mind-”

“Let me see. Who’s it from? Why it’s from Jer! That kook. Sending us a letter without a stamp. Lee!” she called out. “Here’s a letter from Jerry.” Marston came in, but he didn’t look too happy. I leaned on first one leg, then the other, waiting.

“I’ll pay it,” she said, “seeing as it’s from old Jerry. Here. Now goodbye.”

Things went on in this fashion—which is to say no fashion at all. I won’t say the people hereabouts got used to them—they weren’t the sort you’d ever really get used to. But after a bit no one seemed to pay them much mind any more. People might stare at his beard if they met him pushing the grocery cart in Safeway, but that’s about all. You didn’t hear any more stories.

Then one day they disappeared. In two different directions. I found out later she’d taken off the week before with somebody—a man—and that after a few days he’d taken the kids to his mother’s over to Redding. For six days running, from one Thursday to the following Wednesday, their mail stayed in the box. The shades were all pulled and nobody knew for certain whether or not they’d lit out for good. But that Wednesday I noticed the Ford parked in the yard again, all the shades still down but the mail gone.

Beginning the next day he was out there at the box every day waiting for me to hand over the mail, or else he was sitting on the porch steps smoking a cigarette, waiting, it was plain to see. When he saw me coming, he’d stand up, brush the seat of his trousers, and walk over by the box. If it happened that I had any mail for him, I’d see him start scanning the return addresses even before I could get it handed over.

We seldom exchanged a word, just nodded at each other if our eyes happened to meet, which wasn’t often. He was suffering, though—anybody could see that—and I wanted to help the boy somehow, if I could. But I didn’t know what to say exactly.

It was one morning a week or so after his return that I saw him walking up and down in front of the box with his hands in his back pockets, and I made up my mind to say something. What, I didn’t know yet, but I was going to say something, sure. His back was to me as I came up the walk. When I got to him, he suddenly turned on me and there was such a look on his face it froze the words in my mouth. I stopped in my tracks with his article of mail. He took a couple of steps toward me and I handed it over without a peep. He stared at it as if dumbfounded.

“Occupant,” he said.

It was a circular from L.A. advertising a hospital-insurance plan. I’d dropped off at least seventy-five that morning. He folded it in two and went back to the house.

Next day he was out there same as always. He had his old look to his face, seemed more in control of himself than the day before. This time I had a hunch I had what it was he’d been waiting for. I’d looked at it down at the station that morning when I was arranging the mail into packets. It was a plain white envelope addressed in a woman’s curlicue handwriting that took up most of the space. It had a Portland postmark, and the return address showed the initials JD and a Portland street address.