Where I'm Calling From

out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber’s chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber’s fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.

Vitamins

    I had a job and Patti didn’t. I worked a few hours a night for the hospital. It was a nothing job. I did some work, signed the card for eight hours, went drinking with the nurses. After a while, Patti wanted a job.
    She said she needed a job for her self-respect. So she started selling multiple vitamins door to door.
    For a while, she was just another girl who went up and down blocks in strange neighborhoods, knocking on doors. But she learned the ropes. She was quick and had excelled at things in school. She had personality. Pretty soon the company gave her a promotion. Some of the girls who weren’t doing so hot were put to work under her. Before long, she had herself a crew and a little office out in the mall. But the girls who worked for her were always changing. Some would quit after a couple of days— after a couple of hours, sometimes. But sometimes there were girls who were good at it. They could sell vitamins.
    These were the girls that stuck with Patti. They formed the core of the crew. But there were girls who couldn’t give away vitamins.
    The girls who couldn’t cut it would just quit. Just not show up for work. If they had a phone, they’d take it off the hook. They wouldn’t answer the door. Patti took these losses to heart, like the girls were new converts who had lost their way. She blamed herself. But she got over it. There were too many not to get over it.
    Once in a while a girl would freeze and not be able to push the doorbell. Or maybe she’d get to the door and something would happen to her voice. Or she’d get the greeting mixed up with something she shouldn’t be saying until she got inside. A girl like this, she’d decide to pack it in, take the sample case, head for the car, hang around until Patti and the others finished. There’d be a conference. Then they’d all ride back to the office. They’d say things to buck themselves up. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And, “Do the right things and the right things will happen.” Things like that.
    Sometimes a girl just disappeared in the field, sample case and all. She’d hitch a ride into town, then beat it. But there were always girls to take her place. Girls were coming and going in those days. Patti had a list. Every few weeks she’d run a little ad in The Pennysaver. There’d be more girls and more training.
    There was no end of girls.
    The core group was made up of Patti, Donna, and Sheila. Patti was a looker. Donna and Sheila were only medium-pretty. One night this Sheila said to Patti that she loved her more than anything on earth.
    Patti told me these were the words. Patti had driven Sheila home and they were sitting in front of Sheila’s place. Patti said to Sheila she loved her, too. Patti said to Sheila she loved all her girls. But not in the way Sheila had in mind. Then Sheila touched Patti’s breast. Patti said she took Sheila’s hand and held it. She said she told her she didn’t swing that way. She said Sheila didn’t bat an eye, that she only nodded, held on to Patti’s hand, kissed it, and got out of the car.
    That was around Christmas. The vitamin business was pretty bad off back then, so we thought we’d have a party to cheer everybody up. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sheila was the first to get drunk and pass out. She passed out on her feet, fell over, and didn’t wake up for hours. One minute she was standing in the middle of the living room, then her eyes closed, the legs buckled, and she went down with a glass in her hand. The hand holding the drink smacked the coffee table when she fell. She didn’t make a sound otherwise. The drink poured out onto the rug. Patti and I and somebody else lugged her out to the back porch and put her down on a cot and did what we could to forget about her.
    Everybody got drunk and went home. Patti went to bed. I wanted to keep on, so I sat at the table with a drink until it began to get light out. Then Sheila came in from the porch and started up. She said she had this headache that was so bad it was like somebody was sticking wires in her brain. She said it was such a bad headache she was afraid it was going to leave her with