Where I'm Calling From

it got too dark to trail, what with the kid laying back to vomit and all.”
    “Well, the coyotes will have that deer by now,” the fellow with the newspaper said. “Them and the crows and the buzzards.”
    He unrolled the newspaper, smoothed it all the way out, and put it off to one side. He crossed a leg again. He looked around at the rest of us and shook his head.
    The older man had turned in his chair and was looking out the window. He lit a cigarette.
    “I figure so,” the guard said. “Pity too. He was a big old son of a bitch. So in answer to your question, Bill, I both got my deer and I didn’t. But we had venison on the table anyway. Because it turns out the old man has got himself a little spike in the meantime. Already has him back to camp, hanging up and gutted slick as a whistle, liver, heart, and kidneys wrapped in waxed paper and already setting in the cooler. A spike. Just a little bastard. But the old man, he was tickled.”
    The guard looked around the shop as if remembering. Then he picked up his toothpick and stuck it back in his mouth.
    The older man put his cigarette out and turned to the guard. He drew a breath and said, “You ought to be out there right now looking for that deer instead of in here getting a haircut.”
    “You can’t talk like that,” the guard said. “You old fart. I’ve seen you someplace.”
    “I’ve seen you too,” the old fellow said.
    “Boys, that’s enough. This is my barbershop,” the barber said.
    “I ought to box your ears,” the old fellow said.
    “You ought to try it,” the guard said.
    “Charles,” the barber said.
    The barber put his comb and scissors on the counter and his hands on my shoulders, as if he thought I was thinking to spring from the chair into the middle of it. “Albert, I’ve been cutting Charles’s head of hair, and his boy’s too, for years now. I wish you wouldn’t pursue this.”
    The barber looked from one man to the other and kept his hands on my shoulders.
    “Take it outside,” the fellow with the newspaper said, flushed and hoping for something.
    “That’ll be enough,” the barber said. “Charles, I don’t want to hear anything more on the subject. Albert, you’re next in line. Now.” The barber turned to the fellow with the newspaper. “I don’t know you from Adam, mister, but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t put your oar in.”
    The guard got up. He said, “I think
    I’ll come back for my cut later. Right now the company leaves something to be desired.”
    The guard went out and pulled the door closed, hard.
    The old fellow sat smoking his cigarette. He looked out the window. He examined something on the back of his hand. He got up and put on his hat.
    “I’m sorry, Bill,” the old fellow said. “I can go a few more days.”
    “That’s all right, Albert,” the barber said.
    When the old fellow went out, the barber stepped over to the window to watch him go.
    “Albert’s about dead from emphysema,” the barber said from the window. “We used to fish together. He taught me salmon inside out. The women. They used to crawl all over that old boy. He’s picked up a temper, though. But in all honesty, there was provocation.”
    The man with the newspaper couldn’t sit still. He was on his feet and moving around, stopping to examine everything, the hat rack, the photos of Bill and his friends, the calendar from the hardware showing scenes for each month of the year. He flipped every page. He even went so far as T to stand and scrutinize Bill’s barbering license, which was up on the wall in a frame. Then he turned and said, “I’m going too,” and out he went just like he said.
    “Well, do you want me to finish barbering this hair or not?” the barber said to me as if I was the cause of everything.
    The barber turned me in the chair to
    face the mirror. He put a hand to either side of my head. He positioned me a last time, and then he brought his head down next to mine.
    We looked into the mirror together, his hands still framing my head.
    I was looking at myself, and he was looking at me too. But if the barber saw something, he didn’t offer comment.
    He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it slowly, as if thinking about something else. He ran his fingers through my hair. He did it tenderly, as a lover would.
    That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying