Where I'm Calling From

brother’s bike. I don’t know for sure,” the boy said, twisting the handle grips, “but my mother asked me to come and get you. One of Roger’s parents.”
    “But he’s all right?” Hamilton said. “Yes, of course, I’ll be right with you.”
    He went into the house to put his shoes on.
    “Did you find him?” Ann Hamilton said.
    “He’s in some kind of jam,” Hamilton answered. “Over a bicycle. Some boy—I didn’t catch his name—is outside. He wants one of us to go back with him to his house.”
    “Is he all right?” Ann Hamilton said and took her apron off.
    “Sure, he’s all right.” Hamilton looked at her and shook his head. “It sounds like it’s just a childish argument, and the boy’s mother is getting herself involved.”
    “Do you want me to go?” Ann Hamilton asked.
    He thought for a minute. “Yes, I’d rather you went, but I’ll go. Just hold dinner until we’re back. We shouldn’t be long.”
    “I don’t like his being out after dark,” Ann Hamilton said. “I don’t like it.”
    The boy was sitting on his bicycle and working the handbrake now.
    “How far?” Hamilton said as they started down the sidewalk.
    “Over in Arbuckle Court,” the boy answered, and when Hamilton looked at him, the boy added, “Not far. About two blocks from here.”
    “What seems to be the trouble?” Hamilton asked.
    “I don’t know for sure. I don’t understand all of it. He and Kip and this Gary Herman are supposed to have used my brother’s bike while we were on vacation, and I guess they wrecked it. On purpose. But I don’t know. Anyway, that’s what they’re talking about. My brother can’t find his bike and they had it last, Kip and Roger. My mom is trying to find out where it’s at.”
    “I know Kip,” Hamilton said. “Who’s this other boy?”
    “Gary Berman. I guess he’s new in the neighborhood. His dad is coming as soon as he gets home.”
    They turned a corner. The boy pushed himself along, keeping just slightly ahead. Hamilton saw an orchard, and then they turned another corner onto a dead-end street. He hadn’t known of the existence of this street and was sure he would not recognize any of the people who lived here. He looked around him at the unfamiliar houses and was struck with the range of his son’s personal life.
    The boy turned into a driveway and got off the bicycle and leaned it against the house. When the boy opened the front door, Hamilton followed him through the living room and into the kitchen, where he saw his son sitting on one side of a table along with Kip Hollister and another boy. Hamilton looked closely at Roger and then he turned to the stout, dark-haired woman at the head of the table.
    “You’re Roger’s father?” the woman said to him.
    “Yes, my name is Evan Hamilton. Good evening.”
    “I’m Mrs. Miller, Gilbert’s mother,” she said. “Sorry to ask you over here, but we have a problem.”
    Hamilton sat down in a chair at the other end of the table and looked around. A boy of nine or ten, the boy whose bicycle was missing, Hamilton supposed, sat next to the woman. Another boy, fourteen or so, sat on the draining board, legs dangling, and watched another boy who was talking on the telephone.
    Grinning slyly at something that had just been said to him over the line, the boy reached over to the sink with a cigarette. Hamilton heard the sound of the cigarette sputting out in a glass of water. The boy who had brought him leaned against the refrigerator and crossed his arms.
    “Did you get one of Kip’s parents?” the woman said to the boy.
    “His sister said they were shopping. I went to Gary Herman’s and his father will be here in a few minutes. I left the address.”
    “Mr. Hamilton,” the woman said, “I’ll tell you what happened. We were on vacation last month and Kip wanted to borrow Gilbert’s bike so that Roger could help him with Kip’s paper route. I guess Roger’s bike had a flat tire or something. Well, as it turns out—”
    “Gary was choking me, Dad,” Roger said.
    “What?” Hamilton said, looking at his son carefully.
    “He was choking me. I got the marks.” His son pulled down the collar of his T-shirt to show his neck.
    “They were out in the garage,” the woman continued. “I didn’t know what they were doing until Curt, my oldest, went out to see.”
    “He started it!” Gary Herman said to Hamilton. “He called me a jerk.” Gary Berman looked toward the front door.
    “I