Where I'm Calling From

off unless you got business here.”
    “Did they find him?” Dad said.
    “They’re dragging,” the man said, and adjusted the fit of his gun.
    “All right if we walk down? I knew him pretty well.”
    The man said, “Take your chances. They chase you off, don’t say you wasn’t warned.”
    We went on across the pasture, taking pretty much the same route we had the day we tried fishing. There were motorboats going on the pond, dirty fluffs of exhaust hanging over it. You could see where the high water had cut away the ground and carried off trees and rocks. The two boats had uniformed men in them, and they were going back and forth, one man steering and the other man handling the rope and hooks.
    An ambulance waited on the gravel beach where we’d set ourselves to cast for Dummy’s bass. Two men in white lounged against the back, smoking cigarettes.
    One of the motorboats cut off. We all looked up. The man in back stood up and started heaving on his rope. After a time, an arm came out of the water. It looked like the hooks had gotten Dummy in the side.
    The arm went back down and then it came out again, along with a bundle of something.
    It’s not him, I thought. It’s something else that has been in there for years.
    The man in the front of the boat moved to the back, and together the two men hauled the dripping thing over the side.
    I looked at Dad. His face was funny the way it was set.
    “Women,” he said. He said, “That’s what the wrong kind of woman can do to you, Jack.”
    But I don’t think Dad really believed it. I think he just didn’t know who to blame or what to say.
    It seemed to me everything took a bad turn for my father after that. Just like Dummy, he wasn’t the same man anymore. That arm coming up and going back down in the water, it was like so long to good times and hello to bad. Because it was nothing but that all the years after Dummy drowned himself in that dark water.
    Is that what happens when a friend dies? Bad luck for the pals he left behind?
    But as I said, Pearl Harbor and having to move back to his dad’s place didn’t do my dad one bit of good, either.

So Much Water So Close to Home

    My husband eats with good appetite but he seems tired, edgy. He chews slowly, arms on the table, and stares at something across the room. He looks at me and looks away again. He wipes his mouth on the napkin. He shrugs and goes on eating. Something has come between us though he would like me to believe otherwise.
    “What are you staring at me for?” he asks. “What is it?” he says and puts his fork down.
    “Was I staring?” I say and shake my head stupidly, stupidly.
    The telephone rings. “Don’t answer it,” he says. “It might be your mother,” I say. “Dean—it might be something about Dean.”
    “Watch and see,” he says.
    I picked up the receiver and listen for a minute. He stops eating. I bite my lip and hang up.
    “What did I tell you?” he says. He starts to eat again, then throws the napkin onto his plate. “Goddamn it, why can’t people mind their own business? Tell me what I did wrong and I’ll listen! It’s not fair. She was dead, wasn’t she? There were other men there besides me. We talked it over and we all decided.
    We’d only just got there. We’d walked for hours. We couldn’t just turn around, we were five miles from the car. It was opening day. What the hell, I don’t see anything wrong. No, I don’t. And don’t look at me that way, do you hear? I won’t have you passing judgment on me. Not you.”
    “You know,” I say and shake my head.
    “What do I know, Claire? Tell me. Tell me what I know. I don’t know anything except one thing: you hadn’t better get worked up over this.” He gives me what he thinks is a meaningful look. “She was dead, dead, dead, do you hear?” he says after a minute. “It’s a damn shame, I agree. She was a young girl and it’s a shame, and I’m sorry, as sorry as anyone else, but she was dead, Claire, dead. Now let’s leave it alone.
    Please, Claire. Let’s leave it alone now.”
    “That’s the point,” I say. “She was dead. But don’t you see? She needed help.”
    “I give up,” he says and raises his hands. He pushes his chair away from the table, takes his cigarettes and goes out to the patio with a can of beer. He walks back and forth for a minute and then sits in a lawn chair and picks up the paper once more. His name is there on the first page along with the names of his