Where I'm Calling From

smile. She stood in the doorway in a bright spring outfit. He hadn’t seen these clothes before. She was holding a canvas handbag that had sunflowers stitched onto its sides. He hadn’t seen the handbag before, either.
    “I didn’t think you heard me,” she said. “I thought you might be gone or something. But the woman downstairs—what’s her name? Mrs. Matthews—she thought you were up here.”
    “I heard you,” Lloyd said. “But just barely.” He hitched his pajamas and ran a hand through his hair.
    “Actually, I’m in one hell of a shape. Come on in.”
    “It’s eleven o’clock,” she said. She came inside and shut the door behind her. She acted as if she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she hadn’t.
    “I know what time it is,” he said. “I’ve been up for a long time. I’ve been up since eight. I watched part of the Today show. But just now I’m about to go crazy with something. My ear’s plugged up. You remember that other time it happened? We were living in that place near the Chinese takeout joint.
    Where the kids found that bulldog dragging its chain? I had to go to the doctor then and have my ears flushed out. I know you remember. You drove me and we had to wait a long time. Well, it’s like that now. I mean it’s that bad. Only I can’t go to a doctor this morning. I don’t have a doctor for one thing. I’m about to go nuts, Inez. I feel like I want to cut my head off or something.”
    He sat down at one end of the sofa, and she sat down at the other end. But it was a small sofa, and they were still sitting close to each other. They were so close he could have put out his hand and touched her knee. But he didn’t. She glanced around the room and then fixed her eyes on him again. He knew he hadn’t shaved and that his hair stood up. But she was his wife, and she knew everything there was to know about him.
    “What have you tried?” she said. She looked in her purse and brought up a cigarette. “I mean, what have you done for it so far?”
    “What’d you say?” He turned the left side of his head to her. “Inez, I swear, I’m not exaggerating. This thing is driving me crazy. When I talk, I feel like I’m talking inside a barrel. My head rumbles. And I can’t hear good, either. When you talk, it sounds like you’re talking through a lead pipe.”
    “Do you have any Q-tips, or else Wesson oil?” Inez said.
    “Honey, this is serious,” he said. “I don’t have any Q-tips or Wesson oil. Are you kidding?”
    “If we had some Wesson oil, I could heat it and put some of that in your ear. My mother used to do that,” she said. “It might soften things up in there.”
    He shook his head. His head felt full and like it was awash with fluid. It felt like it had when he used to swim near the bottom of the municipal pool and come up with his ears filled with water. But back then it’d been easy to clear the water out. All he had to do was fill his lungs with air, close his mouth, and clamp down on his nose. Then he’d blow out his cheeks and force air into his head. His ears would pop, and for a few seconds he’d have the pleasant sensation of water running out of his head and dripping onto his shoulders. Then he’d heave himself out of the pool.
    Inez finished her cigarette and put it out. “Lloyd, we have things to talk about. But I guess we’ll have to take things one at a time. Go sit in the chair. Not that chair, the chair in the kitchen! So we can have some light on the situation.”
    He whacked his head once more. Then he went over to sit on a dinette chair. She moved over and stood behind him. She touched his hair with her fingers. Then she moved the hair away from his ears. He reached for her hand, but she drew it away.
    “Which ear did you say it was?” she said.
    “The right ear,” he said. “The right one.”
    “First,” she said, “you have to sit here and not move. I’ll find a hairpin and some tissue paper. I’ll try to get in there with that. Maybe it’ll do the trick.”
    He was alarmed at the prospect of her putting a hairpin inside his ear. He said something to that effect.
    “What?” she said. “Christ, I can’t hear you, either. Maybe this is catching.”
    “When I was a kid, in school,” Lloyd said, “we had this health teacher. She was like a nurse, too. She said we should never put anything smaller than an elbow into our ear.” He vaguely remembered a wall chart showing a massive diagram of the ear, along with an intricate