What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

over to where he was shining his light. The thing stopped moving and turned its head from side to side. Then Sam was over it with his can of powder, sprinkling the powder down.
    "Slimy things," he said.
    The slug was twisting this way and that. Then it curled and straightened out.
    Sam picked up a toy shovel, and scooped the slug into it, and dumped it out in the jar.
    "I quit, you know," Sam said. "Had to. For a while it was getting so I didn't know up from down. We still keep it around the house, but I don't have much to do with it anymore."
    I nodded. He looked at me and he kept looking.
    'Td better get back," I said.
    "Sure," he said. "Ill continue with what I'm doing and then when Pm finished, 111 head in too."
    I said, "Good night, Sam."
    He said, "Listen." He stopped chewing. With his tongue, he pushed whatever it was behind his lower lip. "Tell Cliff I said hello."
    I said, "111 tell him you said so, Sam."
    Sam ran his hand through his silvery hair as if he was going to make it sit down once and for all, and then he used his hand to wave.
    I N the bedroom, I took off the robe, folded it, put it within reach. Without looking at the time, I checked to make sure the stem was out on the clock. Then I got into the
    What Hi Talk About When ]M Talk About Love
    bed, pulled the covers up, and closed my eyes.
    It was then that I remembered I'd forgotten to latch the gate.
    I opened my eyes and lay there. I gave Cliff a little shake. He cleared his throat. He swallowed. Something caught and dribbled in his chest.
    I don't know. It made me think of those things that Sam Lawton was dumping powder on.
    I thought for a minute of the world outside my house, and then I didn't have any more thoughts except the thought that I had to hurry up and sleep.
    Sacks
    IT'S October, a damp day. From my hotel window I can see too much of this Midwestern city. I can see lights coming on in some of the buildings, smoke from the tall stacks rising in a thick climb. I wish I didn't have to look.
    I want to pass along to you a story my father told me when I stopped over in Sacramento last year. It concerns some events that involved him two years before that time, that time being before he and my mothei were divorced.
    I'm a book salesman. I represent a well-known organization. We put out textbooks, and the home base is Chicago. My territory is Illinois, parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. I had been attending the Western Book Publishers Association convention in Los Angeles when it occurred to me to visit a few hours with my father. I had not seen him since the
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    divorce, you understand. So I got his address out of my wallet and sent him a wire. The next morning I sent my things on to Chicago and boarded a plane for Sacramento.
    I T took me a minute to pick him out. He was standing where everyone else was—behind the gate, that is—white hair, glasses, brown Sta-Prest pants.
    "Dad, how are you?" I said.
    He said, "Les."
    We shook hands and moved toward the terminal.
    "How's Mary and the kids?" he said.
    "Everyone's fine," I said, which was not the truth.
    He opened a white confectionary sack. He said, "I picked up a little something you could maybe take back with you. Not much. Some Almond Roca for Mary, and some jellybeans for the kids."
    "Thanks," I said.
    "Don't forget this when you leave," he said.
    We moved out of the way as some nuns came running for the boarding area.
    "A drink or a cup of coffee?" I said.
    "Anything you say," he said. "But I don't have a car," he said.
    We located the lounge, got drinks, lit cigarettes.
    "Here we are," I said.
    "Well, yes," he said.
    I shrugged and said, "Yes."
    I leaned back in the seat and drew a long breath, inhaling from what I took to be the air of woe that circled his head.
    He said, "I guess the Chicago airport would make four of this one."
    Sacks
    "More than that," I said.
    "Thought it was big," he said.
    "When did you start wearing glasses?" I said.
    "A while ago," he said.
    He took a good swallow, and then he got right down to
    it.
    "I liked to have died over it," he said. He rested his heavy arms on either side of his glass. "You're an educated man, Les. You'll be the one to figure it out."
    I turned the ashtray on its edge to read what was on the bottom: HARRAH'S CLUB/RENO AND LAKE TAHOE/GOOD PLACES TO HAVE FUN.
    "She was a Stanley Products woman. A little woman, small feet and hands and coal-black hair. She wasn't the most beautiful thing in the