Where I'm Calling From

long time. I take these little breaths that she can’t hear, and I wait. I think my heart slows way down, I think.
    She says, You just tell it like you have to, I guess, and forget the rest. Like always. You been doing that for so long now anyway it shouldn’t be hard for you.
    She says, There, I’ve done it. You’re free, aren’t you? At least you think you are anyway. Free at last.
    That’s a joke, but don’t laugh. Anyway, you feel better, don’t you?
    She walks with me down the hall.
    She says, I can’t imagine how I’d explain this if my husband was to walk in this very minute. But who really cares anymore, right? In the final analysis, nobody gives a damn anymore. Besides which, I think everything that can happen that way has already happened. His name is Fred, by the way. He’s a decent guy and works hard for his living. He cares for me.
    So she walks me to the front door, which has been standing open all this while. The door that was letting in light and fresh air this morning, and sounds off the street, all of which we had ignored. I look outside and, Jesus, there’s this white moon hanging in the morning sky. I can’t think when I’ve ever seen anything so remarkable. But I’m afraid to comment on it. I am. I don’t know what might happen. I might break into tears even. I might not understand a word I’d say.
    She says, Maybe you’ll be back sometime, and maybe you won’t. This’ll wear off, you know. Pretty soon you’ll start feeling bad again. Maybe it’ll make a good story, she says. But I don’t want to know about it if it does.
    I say good-bye. She doesn’t say anything more. She looks at her hands, and then she puts them into the pockets of her dress. She shakes her head. She goes back inside, and this time she closes the door.
    I move off down the sidewalk. Some kids are tossing a football at the end of the street. But they aren’t my kids, and they aren’t her kids either. There are these leaves everywhere, even in the gutters. Piles of leaves wherever I look. They’re falling off the limbs as I walk. I can’t take a step without putting my shoe into leaves. Somebody ought to make an effort here. Somebody ought to get a rake and take care of this.

Menudo

    I can’t sleep, but when I’m sure my wife Vicky is asleep, I get up and look through our bedroom window, across the street, at Oliver and Amanda’s house. Oliver has been gone for three days, but his wife Amanda is awake. She can’t sleep either. It’s four in the morning, and there’s not a sound outside-no wind, no cars, no moon even—just Oliver and Amanda’s place with the lights on, leaves heaped up under the front windows.
    A couple of days ago, when I couldn’t sit still, I raked our yard— Vicky’s and mine. I gathered all the leaves into bags, tied off the tops, and put the bags alongside the curb. I had an urge then to cross the street and rake over there, but I didn’t follow through. It’s my fault things are the way they are across the street.
    I’ve only slept a few hours since Oliver left. Vicky saw me moping around the house, looking anxious, and decided to put two and two together. She’s on her side of the bed now, scrunched on to about ten inches of mattress. She got into bed and tried to position herself so she wouldn’t accidentally roll into me while she slept. She hasn’t moved since she lay down, sobbed, and then dropped into sleep. She’s exhausted. I’m exhausted too.
    I’ve taken nearly all of Vicky’s pills, but I still can’t sleep. I’m keyed up. But maybe if I keep looking I’ll catch a glimpse of Amanda moving around inside her house, or else find her peering from behind a curtain, trying to see what she can see over here.
    What if I do see her? So what? What then?
    Vicky says I’m crazy. She said worse things too last night. But who could blame her? I told her—I had to—but I didn’t tell her it was Amanda. When Amanda’s name came up, I insisted it wasn’t her. Vicky suspects, but I wouldn’t name names. I wouldn’t say who, even though she kept pressing and then hit me a few times in the head.
    “What’s it matter who?” I said. “You’ve never met the woman,” I lied. “You don’t know her.” That’s when she started hitting me.
    I feel wired. That’s what my painter friend Alfredo used to call it when he talked about friends of his coming down off something. Wired. I’m wired.
    This thing is nuts. I know it is, but I can’t stop