Where I'm Calling From

green trout and his half of the fish into a dirty canvas bag.
    “Why?”
    “Where’s that? Is that down by the ball park?” I said.
    “Yeah, but why, I said.” That kid looked scared.
    “I live close to there,” I said. “So I guess I could ride on the handlebars. We could take turns pumping. I got a weed we could smoke, if it didn’t get wet on me.”
    But the kid only said, “I’m freezing.”
    I washed my half in the creek. I held his big head under water and opened his mouth. The stream poured into his mouth and out the other end of what was left of him.
    “I’m freezing,” the kid said.
    I saw George riding his bicycle at the other end of the street. He didn’t see me. I went around to the back to take off my boots. I unslung the creel so I could raise the lid and get set to march into the house, grinning.
    I heard their voices and looked through the window. They were sitting at the table. Smoke was all over the kitchen. I saw it was coming from a pan on the burner. But neither of them paid any attention.
    “What I’m telling you is the gospel truth,” he said. “What do kids know? You’ll see.”
    She said, “I’ll see nothing. If I thought that, I’d rather see them dead first.”
    He said, “What’s the matter with you? You better be careful what you say!”
    She started to cry. He smashed out a cigarette in the ashtray and stood up.
    “Edna, do you know this pan is burning up?” he said.
    She looked at the pan. She pushed her chair back and grabbed the pan by its handle and threw it against the wall over the sink.
    He said, “Have you lost your mind? Look what you’ve done!” He took a dish cloth and began to wipe up stuff” from the pan.
    I opened the back door. I started grinning. I said, “You won’t believe what I caught at Birch Creek. Just look. Look here. Look at this. Look what I caught.”
    My legs shook. I could hardly stand. I held the creel out to her, and she finally looked in. “Oh, oh, my God! What is it? A snake! What is it? Please, please take it out before I throw up.”
    “Take it out!” he screamed. “Didn’t you hear what she said? Take it out of here!” he screamed.
    I said, “But look, Dad. Look what it is.”
    He said, “I don’t want to look.”
    I said, “It’s a gigantic summer steelhead from Birch Creek. Look! Isn’t he something? It’s a monster! I chased him up and down the creek like a madman!” My voice was crazy. But I could not stop, “There was another one, too,” I hurried on. “A green one. I swear! It was green! Have you ever seen a green one?”
    He looked into the creel and his mouth fell open.
    He screamed, “Take that goddamn thing out of here! What in the hell is the matter with you? Take it the hell out of the kitchen and throw it in the goddamn garbage!”
    I went back outside. I looked into the creel. What was there looked silver under the porch light. What was there filled the creel.
    I lifted him out. I held him. I held that half of him.

Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes

    It had been two days since Evan
    Hamilton had stopped smoking, and it seemed to him everything he’d said and thought for the two days somehow suggested cigarettes. He looked at his hands under the kitchen light. He sniffed his knuckles and his fingers.
    “I can smell it,” he said.
    “I know. It’s as if it sweats out of you,” Ann Hamilton said. “For three days after I stopped I could smell it on me. Even when I got out of the bath. It was disgusting.” She was putting plates on the table for dinner. “I’m so sorry, dear. I know what you’re going through. But, if it’s any consolation, the second day is always the hardest. The third day is hard, too, of course, but from then on, if you can stay with it that long, you’re over the hump. But I’m so happy you’re serious about quitting, I can’t tell you.” She touched his arm. “Now, if you’ll just call Roger, we’ll eat.”
    Hamilton opened the front door. It was already dark. It was early in November and the days were short and cool. An older boy he had never seen before was sitting on a small, well-equipped bicycle in the driveway. The boy leaned forward just off the seat, the toes of his shoes touching the pavement and keeping him upright.
    “You Mr. Hamilton?” the boy said.
    “Yes, I am,” Hamilton said. “What is it? Is it Roger?”
    “I guess Roger is down at my house talking to my mother. Kip is there and this boy named Gary Berman. It is about my