Where I'm Calling From

summer three years ago. She wanted something to do after the kids started school, so she went back selling. He was working six days a week in the fiber-glass plant. For a while they didn’t know how to spend the money.
    Then they put a thousand on the convertible and doubled and tripled the payments until in a year they had it paid. Earlier, while she was dressing, he took the jack and spare from the trunk and emptied the glove compartment of pencils, matchbooks, Blue Chip stamps. Then he washed it and vacuumed inside.
    The red hood and fenders shine.
    “Good luck,” he says and touches her elbow.
    She nods. He sees she is already gone, already negotiating.
    “Things are going to be different!” he calls to her as she reaches the driveway. “We start over Monday. I mean it.”
    Ernest Williams looks at them and turns his head and spits. She gets into the car and lights a cigarette.
    “This time next week!” Leo calls again. “Ancient history!”
    He waves as she backs into the street. She changes gear and starts ahead. She accelerates and the tires give a little scream.
    In the kitchen Leo pours Scotch and carries the drink to the backyard. The kids are at his mother’s. There was a letter three days ago, his name penciled on the outside of the dirty envelope, the only letter all summer not demanding payment in full. We are having fun, the letter said. We like Grandma. We have a new dog called Mr. Six. He is nice.
    We love him. Goodbye.
    He goes for another drink. He adds ice and sees that his hand trembles. He holds the hand over the sink.
    He looks at the hand for a while, sets down the glass, and holds out the other hand. Then he picks up the glass and goes back outside to sit on the steps. He recalls when he was a kid his dad pointing at a fine house, a tall white house surrounded by apple trees and a high white rail fence. “That’s Finch,” his dad said admiringly. “He’s been in bankruptcy at least twice. Look at that house.” But bankruptcy is a company collapsing utterly, executives cutting their wrists and throwing themselves from windows, thousands of men on the street.
    Leo and Toni still had furniture. Leo and Toni had furniture and Toni and the kids had clothes. Those things were exempt. What else? Bicycles for the kids, but these he had sent to his mother’s for safekeeping. The portable air-conditioner and the appliances, new washer and dryer, trucks came for those things weeks ago. What else did they have? This and that, nothing mainly, stuff that wore out or fell to pieces long ago. But there were some big parties back there, some fine travel. To Reno and Tahoe, at eighty with the top down and the radio playing. Food, that was one of the big items. They gorged on food. He figures thousands on luxury items alone. Toni would go to the grocery and put in everything she saw. “I had to do without when I was a kid,” she says. “These kids are not going to do without,” as if he’d been insisting they should. She joins all the book clubs. “We never had books around when I was a kid,” she says as she tears open the heavy packages. They enroll in the record clubs for something to play on the new stereo. They sign up for it all. Even a pedigreed terrier named Ginger. He paid two hundred and found her run over in the street a week later. They buy what they want. If they can’t pay, they charge. They sign up.
    His undershirt is wet; he can feel the sweat rolling from his underarms. He sits on the step with the empty glass in his hand and watches the shadows fill up the yard. He stretches, wipes his face. He listens to the traffic on the highway and considers whether he should go to the basement, stand on the utility sink, and hang himself with his belt. He understands he is willing to be dead.
    Inside he makes a large drink and he turns the TV on and he fixes something to eat. He sits at the table with chili and crackers and watches something about a blind detective. He clears the table. He washes the pan and the bowl, dries these things and puts them away, then allows himself a look at the clock.
    It’s after nine. She’s been gone nearly five hours.
    He pours Scotch, adds water, carries the drink to the living room. He sits on the couch but finds his shoulders so stiff they won’t let him lean back. He stares at the screen and sips, and soon he goes for another drink. He sits again. A news program begins—it’s ten o’clock—and he says, “God, what in God’s name has