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Author: CARVER, RAYMOND
Date Born: 1938
Date Died: 1988
Nationality: AMERICAN
Profession: NOVELIST
Title: WHERE I'M CALLING FROM
Date: 1983
Text:
WE ARE ON the front porch at Frank Martin's drying-out facility. Like the
rest of us at Frank Martin's, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he's
also a chimney sweep. It's his first time here, and he's scared. I've been
here once before. What's to say? I'm back. J.P.'s real name is Joe Penny, but
he says I should call him J.P. He's about thirty years old. Younger than I
am. Not much younger, but a little. He's telling me how he decided to go into
his line of work, and he wants to use his hands when he talks. But his hands
tremble. I mean, they won't keep still. "This has never happened to me
before," he says. He means the trembling. I tell him I sympathize. I
tell him the shakes will idle down. And they will. But it takes time.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In his chair on the front porch, J.P. keeps his hands in his lap. I smoke
cigarettes and use an old coal bucket for an ashtray. I listen to J.P. ramble
on. It's eleven o'clock in the morning—an hour and a half until lunch.
Neither one of us is hungry. But just the same we look forward to going inside
and sitting down at the table. Maybe we'll get hungry.
What's J.P. talking about, anyway? He's saying how
when he was twelve years old he fell into a well in the vicinity of the farm
he grew up on. It was a dry well, lucky for him. "Or unlucky," he says,
looking around him and shaking his head. He says how late that afternoon,
after he'd been located, his dad hauled him out with a rope. J.P. had wet his
pants down there. He'd suffered all kinds of terror in that well, hollering
for help, waiting, and then hollering some more. He hollered himself hoarse
before it was over. But he told me that being at the bottom of that well had
made a lasting impression. He'd sat there and looked up at the well mouth.
Way up at the top he could see a circle of blue sky. Every once in a while a
white cloud passed over. A flock of birds flew across, and it seemed to J.P.
their wingbeats set up this odd commotion. He heard other things. He heard
tiny rustlings above him in the well, which made him wonder if things might fall
down into his hair. He was thinking of insects. He heard wind blow over the
well mouth, and that sound made an impression on him, too. In short,
everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well.
But nothing fell on him and nothing closed off that little circle of blue.
Then his dad came along with the rope, and it wasn't long before J.P. was
back in the world he'd always lived in.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Then what?" I say. "Don't stop now,
J.P." I was interested. But I would have listened if he'd been going on
about how one day he'd decided to start pitching horseshoes.
It rained last night. The clouds are banked up
against the hills across the valley. J.P. clears his throat and looks at the
hills and the clouds. He pulls his chin. Then he goes on with what he was
saying.
Roxy starts going out with him on dates. And little
by little he talks her into letting him go along on jobs with her. But Roxy's
in business with her father and brother and they've got just the right amount
of work. They don't need anybody else. Besides, who was this guy J.P.? J.P.
what? Watch out, they warned her.
So she and J.P. saw some movies together. They went
to a few dances. But mainly the courtship revolved around their cleaning
chimneys together. Before you know it, J.P. says, they're talking about tying
the knot. And after a while they do it, they get married. J.P.'s new
father-in-law takes him in as a full partner. In a year or so, Roxy has a
kid. She's quit being a chimney sweep. At any rate, she's quit doing the
work. Pretty soon she has another kid. J.P:s in his mid-twenties by now. He's
buying a house. He says he was happy with his life. "I was happy with
the way things were going," he says. "I had everything I wanted. I
had a wife and kids I loved, and I was doing what I wanted to do with my
life." But for some reason—who knows why we do what we do?—his drinking
picks up. For a long time he drinks beer and beer only. Any kind of beer—it
didn't matter. He says he could drink beer twenty-four hours a day. He'd
drink beer at night while he watched TV. Sure, once in a while he drank hard
stuff. But that was only if they went out on the town, which was not often,
or else when they had company over. Then a time comes, he doesn't know why,
when he makes the switch from beer to gin and tonic. And he'd have more gin
and tonic after dinner, sitting in front of the TV. There was always a glass
of gin and tonic in his hand. He says he actually liked the taste of it. He
began stopping off after work for drinks before he went home to have more
drinks. Then he began missing some dinners. He just wouldn't show up. Or else
he'd show up but he wouldn't want anything to eat. He'd filled up on snacks
at the bar. Sometimes he'd walk in the door and for no good reason throw his
lunch pail across the living room. When Roxy yelled at him, he'd turn around
and go out again. He moved his drinking time up to early afternoon, while he
was still supposed to be working. He tells me that he was starting off the
morning with a couple of drinks. He'd have a belt of the stuff before he
brushed his teeth. Then he'd have his coffee. He'd go to work with a thermos
bottle of vodka in his lunch pail.
J.P. quits talking. He just clams up. What's going
on? I'm listening. It's helping me relax, for one thing. It's taking me away
from my own situation. After a minute, I say, "What the hell? Go on
J.P." He's pulling his chin. But pretty soon he starts talking again.
J.P. and Roxy are having some real fights now. I mean
fights. J.P. says that one time she hit him in the face with her
fist and broke his nose. "Look at this," he says. "Right
here." He shows me a line across the bridge of his nose. "That's a
broken nose." He returned the favor. He dislocated her shoulder for her
on that occasion. Another time he split her lip. They beat on each other in
front of the kids. Things got out of hand. But he kept on drinking. He
couldn't stop. And nothing could make him stop. Not even with Roxy's dad and
her brother threatening to beat hell out of him. They told Roxy she should
take the kids and clear out. But Roxy said it was her problem. She got
herself into it, and she'd solve it.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's cold out, but not too cold. It's a little overcast. At one point Frank
Martin comes outside to finish his cigar. He has on a sweater buttoned up to
his Adam's apple. Frank Martin is short and heavyset. He has curly gray hair
and a small head. His head is out of proportion with the rest of his body.
Frank Martin puts the cigar in his mouth and stands with his arms crossed
over his chest. He works that cigar in his mouth and looks across the valley.
He stands there like a prizefighter, like somebody who knows the score.
J.P. gets real quiet again. I mean, he's hardly
breathing. I toss my cigarette into the coal bucket and look hard at J.P.,
who scoots farther down in his chair. J.P. pulls up his collar. What the
hell's going on, I wonder. Frank Martin uncrosses his arms and takes a puff
on the cigar. He lets the smoke carry out of his mouth. Then he raises his
chin toward the hills and says, "Jack London used to have a big place on
the other side of this valley. Right over there behind that green hill you're
looking at. But alcohol killed him. Let that be a lesson. He was a better man
than any of us. But he couldn't handle the stuff, either." He looks at
what's left of his cigar. It's gone out. He tosses it into the bucket.
"You guys want to read something while you're here, read that book of
his The Call of the Wild. You know the one I'm talking about? We
have it inside, if you want to read something. It's about this animal that's
half dog and half wolf. They don't write books like that anymore. But we
could have helped Jack London, if we'd been here in those days. And if he'd
let us. If he'd asked for our help. Hear me? Like we can help you. If.
If you ask for it and if you listen. End of sermon. But
don't forget. If," he says again. Then he hitches his pants and tugs his
sweater down. "I'm going inside," he says. "See you at
lunch."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One of the guys here is a guy who travels. He goes to
Europe and the Middle East. That's what he says, anyway. Business, he says.
He also says he has his drinking under control and doesn't have any idea why
he's here at Frank Martin's. But he doesn't remember getting here. He laughs
about it, about his not remembering. "Anyone can have a blackout,"
he says. "That doesn't prove a thing." He's not a drunk—he tells us
this and we listen. "That's a serious charge to make," he says.
"That kind of talk can ruin a good man's prospects." He further
says that if he'd only stick to whiskey and water, no ice, he'd never get
"intoxicated"—his word—and have these blackouts. It's the ice they
put into your drink that does it. "Who do you know in Egypt?" he
asks me. "I can use a few names over there."
For New Year's Eve dinner Frank Martin serves steak
and baked potato. A green salad. My appetite's coming back. I eat the salad.
I clean up everything on my plate and I could eat more. I look over at Tiny's
plate. Hell, he's hardly touched anything. His steak is just sitting there
getting cold. Tiny is not the same old Tiny. The poor bastard had planned to
be at home tonight. He'd planned to be in his robe and slippers in front of
the TV, holding hands with his wife. Now he's afraid to leave. I can
understand. One seizure means you're a candidate for another. Tiny hasn't
told any more nutty stories on himself since it happened. He's stayed quiet
and kept to himself. Pretty soon I ask him if I can have his steak, and he
pushes his plate over to me.
They let us keep the TV on until the New Year has
been rung in at Times Square. Some of us are still up, sitting around the TV,
watching the crowds on the screen, when Frank Martin comes in to show us his
cake. He brings it around and shows it to each of us. I know he didn't make
it. It's a God-damned bakery cake. But still it's a cake. It's a big white
cake. Across the top of the cake there's writing in pink letters. The writing
says "Happy New Year—1 Day At A Time."
"I don't want any stupid cake," says the
guy who goes to Europe and the Middle East. "Where's the
champagne?" he says, and laughs.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I lean back into the step behind me now and cross one
leg over the other. Maybe later this afternoon I'll try calling my wife
again. And then I'll call to see what's happening with my girlfriend. But I
don't want to get her mouthy son on the line. If I do call, I hope he'll be
out somewhere doing whatever he does when he's not hanging around the house.
I try to remember if I ever read any Jack London books. I can't remember. But
there was a story of his I read in high school. "To Build a Fire"
it was called. This guy in the Yukon is freezing. Imagine it—he's actually
going to freeze to death if he can't get a fire going. With a fire he can dry
his socks and clothing and warm himself. He gets his fire going but then
something happens to it. A branchful of snow drops on it. It goes out.
Meanwhile, the temperature is falling. Night is coming on.
I bring some change out of my pocket. I'll try my
wife first. If she answers, I'll wish her a Happy New Year. But that's it. I
won't bring up business. I won't raise my voice. Not even if she starts
something. She'll ask me where I'm calling from, and I'll have to tell her. I
won't say anything about New Year's resolutions. There's no way to make a
joke out of this. After I talk to her, I'll call my girlfriend. Maybe I'll
call her first. I'll just have to hope I don't get her son on the line.
"Hello, sugar," I'll say when she answers. "It's me."
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