Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

  “There’s only about twenty laps left,” Bud said. “It’s close now. There was a big pile-up earlier. Knocked out half-a-dozen cars. Some drivers got hurt. They haven’t said yet how bad.”

  “Leave it on,” I said. “Let’s watch it.”

  “Maybe one of those damn cars will explode right in front of us,” Fran said. “Or else maybe one’ll run up into the grandstand and smash the guy selling the crummy hot dogs.” She took a strand of hair between her fingers and kept her eyes fixed on the TV.

  Bud looked at Fran to see if she was kidding. “That other business, that pile-up, was something. One thing led to another. Cars, parts of cars, people all over the place. Well, what can I get you? We have ale, and there’s a bottle of Old Crow.”

  “What are you drinking?” I said to Bud.

  “Ale,” Bud said. “It’s good and cold.”

  “I’ll have ale,” I said.

  “I’ll have some of that Old Crow and a little water,” Fran said. “In a tall glass, please. With some ice.

  Thank you, Bud.”

  “Can do,” Bud said. He threw another look at the TV and moved off to the kitchen.

  Fran nudged me and nodded in the

  direction of the TV. “Look up on top,” she whispered. “Do you see what I see?” I looked at where she was looking. There was a slender red vase into which somebody had stuck a few garden daisies. Next to the vase, on the doily, sat an old plaster-of-Paris cast of the most crooked, jaggedy teeth in the world.

  There were no lips to the awful-looking thing, and no jaw either, just these old plaster teeth packed into something that resembled thick yellow gums.

  Just then Olla came back with a can of mixed nuts and a bottle of root beer. She had her apron off now.

  She put the can of nuts onto the coffee table next to the swan. She said, “Help yourselves. Bud’s getting your drinks.” Olla’s face came on red again as she said this. She sat down in an old cane rocking chair and set it in motion. She drank from her root

  beer and looked at the TV. Bud came back carrying a little wooden tray with Fran’s glass of whiskey and water and my bottle of ale. He had a bottle of ale on the tray for himself.

  “You want a glass?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. He tapped me on the knee and turned to Fran.

  She took her glass from Bud and said, “Thanks.” Her eyes went to the teeth again. Bud saw where she was looking. The cars screamed around the track. I took the ale and gave my attention to the screen. The teeth were none of my business. “Them’s what Olla’s teeth looked like before she had her braces put on,”

  Bud said to Fran. “I’ve got used to them. But I guess they look funny up there. For the life of me, I don’t know why she keeps them around.” He looked over at Olla. Then he looked at me and winked. He sat down in his La-Z-Boy and crossed one leg over the other. He drank from his ale and gazed at Olla.

  Olla turned red once more. She was holding her bottle of root beer. She took a drink of it. Then she said,

  “They’re to remind me how much I owe Bud.”

  “What was that?” Fran said. She was picking through the can of nuts, helping herself to the cashews.

  Fran stopped what she was doing and looked at Olla. “Sorry, but I missed that.” Fran stared at the woman and waited for whatever thing it was she’d say next.

  Olla’s face turned red again. “I’ve got lots of things to be thankful for,” she said. “That’s one of the things I’m thankful for. I keep them around to remind me how much I owe Bud.” She drank from her root beer.

  Then she lowered the bottle and said, “You’ve got pretty teeth, Fran. I noticed right away. But these teeth of mine, they came in crooked when I was a kid.” With her fingernail, she tapped a couple of her front teeth. She said, “My folks couldn’t afford to fix teeth. These teeth of mine came in just any which way.

  My first husband didn’t care what I looked like. No, he didn’t! He didn’t care about anything except where his next drink was coming from. He had one friend only in this world, and that was his bottle.”

  She shook her head. “Then Bud come along and got me out of that mess. After we were together, the first thing Bud said was, ‘We’re going to have them teeth fixed.’ That mold was made right after Bud and I met, on the occasion of my second visit to the orthodontist. Right before the braces went on.”

  Olla’s face stayed red. She looked at the picture on the screen. She drank from her root beer and didn’t seem to have any more to say.

  “That orthodontist must have been a whiz,” Fran said. She looked back at the horror-show teeth on top of the TV.

  “He was great,” Olla said. She turned in her chair and said, “See?” She opened her mouth and showed us her teeth once more, not a bit shy now.

  Bud had gone to the TV and picked up the teeth. He walked over to Olla and held them up against Olla’s cheek. “Before and after,” Bud said.

  Olla reached up and took the mold from Bud. “You know something? That orthodontist wanted to keep this.” She was holding it in her lap while she talked. “I said nothing doing. I pointed out to him they were my teeth. So he took pictures of the mold instead. He told me he was going to put the pictures in a magazine.”

  Bud said, “Imagine what kind of magazine that’d be. Not much call for that kind of publication, I don’t think,” he said, and we all laughed.

  “After I got the braces off, I kept putting my hand up to my mouth when I laughed. Like this,” she said.

  “Sometimes I still do it. Habit. One day Bud said, ‘You can stop doing that anytime, Olla. You don’t have to hide teeth as pretty as that. You have nice teeth now.’” Olla looked over at Bud. Bud winked at her. She grinned and lowered her eyes.

  Fran drank from her glass. I took some of my ale. I didn’t know what to say to this. Neither did Fran. But I knew Fran would have plenty to say about it later.

  I said, “Olla, I called here once. You answered the phone. But I hung up. I don’t know why I hung up.” I said that and then sipped my ale. I didn’t know why I’d brought it up now.

  “I don’t remember,” Olla said. “When was that?”

  “A while back.”

  “I don’t remember,” she said and shook her head. She fingered the plaster teeth in her lap. She looked at the race and went back to rocking.

  Fran turned her eyes to me. She drew her lip under. But she didn’t say anything.

  Bud said, “Well, what else is new?”

  “Have some more nuts,” Olla said. “Supper’ll be ready in a little while.”

  There was a cry from a room in the back of the house.

  “Not him,” Olla said to Bud, and made a face.

  “Old Junior boy,” Bud said. He leaned back in his chair, and we watched the rest of the race, three or four laps, no sound.

  Once or twice we heard the baby again, little fretful cries coming from the room in the back of the house.

  “I don’t know,” Olla said. She got up from her chair. “Everything’s about ready for us to sit down. I just have to take up the gravy. But I’d better look in on him first. Why don’t you folks go out and sit down at the table? I’ll just be a minute.”

  “I’d like to see the baby,” Fran said.

  Olla was still holding the teeth. She went over and put them back on top of the TV. “It might upset him just now,” she said. “He’s not used to strangers. Wait and see if I can get him back to sleep. Then you can peek in. While he’s asleep.” She said this and then she went down the hall to a room, where she opened a door. She eased in and shut the door behind her. The baby stopped crying.

  Bud had killed the picture and we went in to sit at the table. Bud and I talked about things at work. Fran listened. Now and then she even asked a question. But I could tell she was bored, and maybe feeling put out with Olla for not letting her see the baby. She looked around Olla’s kitchen. She wrapped a strand of hair around her fingers and checked out Olla’s things.

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nbsp; Olla came back into the kitchen and said, “I changed him and gave him his rubber duck. Maybe he’ll let us eat now. But don’t bet on it.” She raised a lid and took a pan off the stove. She poured red gravy into a bowl and put the bowl on the table. She took lids off some other pots and looked to see that everything was ready. On the table were baked ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, lima beans, corn on the cob, salad greens. Fran’s loaf of bread was in a prominent place next to the ham.

  “I forgot the napkins,” Olla said. “You all get started. Who wants what to drink? Bud drinks milk with all of his meals.”

  “Milk’s fine,” I said.

  “Water for me,” Fran said. “But I can get it. I don’t want you waiting on me. You have enough to do.”

  She made as if to get up from her chair.

  Olla said, “Please. You’re company. Sit still. Let me get it.” She was blushing again.

  We sat with our hands in our laps and waited. I thought about those plaster teeth. Olla came back with napkins, big glasses of milk for Bud and me, and a glass of ice water for Fran. Fran said, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Olla said. Then she seated herself. Bud cleared his throat. He bowed his head and said a few words of grace. He talked in a voice so low I could hardly make out the words. But I got the drift of things—he was thanking the Higher Power for the food we were about to put away.

  “Amen,” Olla said when he’d finished.

  Bud passed me the platter of ham and helped himself to some mashed potatoes. We got down to it then.

  We didn’t say much except now and then Bud or I would say, “This is real good ham.” Or, “This sweet corn is the best sweet corn I ever ate.”

  “This bread is what’s special,” Olla said.

  “I’ll have some more salad, please, Olla,” Fran said, softening up maybe a little.

  “Have more of this,” Bud would say as he passed me the platter of ham, or else the bowl of red gravy.

  From time to time, we heard the baby make its noise. Olla would turn her head to listen, then, satisfied it was just fussing, she would give her attention back to her food.

  “The baby’s out of sorts tonight,” Olla said to Bud.

  “I’d still like to see him,” Fran said. “My sister has a little baby. But she and the baby live in Denver.

  When will I ever get to Denver? I have a niece I haven’t even seen.” Fran thought about this for a minute, and then she went back to eating.

  Olla forked some ham into her mouth. “Let’s hope he’ll drop off to sleep,” she said.

  Bud said, “There’s a lot more of everything. Have some more ham and sweet potatoes, everybody.”

  “I can’t eat another bite,” Fran said. She laid her fork on her plate. “It’s great, but I can’t eat any more.”

  “Save room,” Bud said. “Olla’s made rhubarb pie.”

  Fran said, “I guess I could eat a little piece of that. When everybody else is ready.”

  “Me, too,” I said. But I said it to be polite. I’d hated rhubarb pie since I was thirteen years old and had got sick on it, eating it with strawberry ice cream.

  We finished what was on our plates. Then we heard that damn peacock again. The thing was on the roof this time. We could hear it over our heads. It made a ticking sound as it walked back and forth on the shingles.

  Bud shook his head. “Joey will knock it off in a minute. He’ll get tired and turn in pretty soon,” Bud said.

  “He sleeps in one of them trees.”

  The bird let go with its cry once more. “May-awe!” it went. Nobody said anything. What was there to say?

  Then Olla said, “He wants in, Bud.”

  “Well, he can’t come in,” Bud said. “We got company, in case you hadn’t noticed. These people don’t want a goddamn old bird in the house. That dirty bird and your old pair of teeth! What’re people going to think?” He shook his head. He laughed. We all laughed. Fran laughed along with the rest of us.

  “He’s not dirty. Bud,” Olla said. “What’s gotten into you? You like Joey. Since when did you start calling him dirty?”

  “Since he shit on the rug that time,” Bud said. “Pardon the French,” he said to Fran. “But, I’ll tell you, sometimes I could wring that old bird’s neck for him. He’s not even worth killing, is he, Olla?

  Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’ll bring me up out of bed with that cry of his. He’s not worth a nickel—right, Olla?”

  Olla shook her head at Bud’s nonsense. She moved a few lima beans around on her plate.

  “How’d you get a peacock in the first place?” Fran wanted to know.

  Olla looked up from her plate. She said, “I always dreamed of having me a peacock. Since I was a girl and found a picture of one in a magazine. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I cut the picture out and put it over my bed. I kept that picture for the longest time. Then when Bud and I got this place, I saw my chance. I said, ‘Bud, I want a peacock.’ Bud laughed at the idea.”

  “I finally asked around,” Bud said. “I heard tell of an old boy who raised them over in the next county.

  Birds of paradise, he called them. We paid a hundred bucks for that bird of paradise,” he said. He smacked his forehead. “God Almighty, I got me a woman with expensive tastes.” He grinned at Olla.

  “Bud,” Olla said, “you know that isn’t true. Besides everything else, Joey’s a good watchdog,” she said to Fran. “We don’t need a watchdog with Joey. He can hear just about anything.”

  “If times get tough, as they might, I’ll put Joey in a pot,” Bud said. “Feathers and all.”

  “Bud! That’s not funny,” Olla said. But she laughed and we got a good look at her teeth again.

  The baby started up once more. It was serious crying this time. Olla put down her napkin and got up from the table.

  Bud said, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Bring him on out here, Olla.”

  “I’m going to,” Olla said, and went to get the baby.

  The peacock wailed again, and I could feel the hair on the back of my neck. I looked at Fran. She picked up her napkin and then put it down. I looked toward the kitchen window. It was dark outside. The window was raised, and there was a screen in the frame. I thought I heard the bird on the front porch.

  Fran turned her eyes to look down the hall. She was watching for Olla and the baby.

  After a time, Olla came back with it. I looked at the baby and drew a breath. Olla sat down at the table with the baby. She held it up under its arms so it could stand on her lap and face us. She looked at Fran and then at me. She wasn’t blushing now. She waited for one of us to comment.

  “Ah!” said Fran.

  “What is it?” Olla said quickly.

  “Nothing,” Fran said. “I thought I saw something at the window. I thought I saw a bat.”

  “We don’t have any bats around here,” Olla said.

  “Maybe it was a moth,” Fran said. “It was something. Well,” she said, “isn’t that some baby.”

  Bud was looking at the baby. Then he looked over at Fran. He tipped his chair onto its back legs and nodded. He nodded again, and said, “That’s all right, don’t worry any. We know he wouldn’t win no beauty contests right now. He’s no Clark Gable. But give him time. With any luck, you know, he’ll grow up to look like his old man.”

  The baby stood in Olla’s lap, looking around the table at us. Olla had moved her hands down to its middle so that the baby could rock back and forth on its fat legs. Bar none, it was the ugliest baby I’d ever seen. It was so ugly I couldn’t say anything. No words would come out of my mouth. I don’t mean it was diseased or disfigured. Nothing like that. It was just ugly. It had a big red face, pop eyes, a broad forehead, and these big fat lips. It had no neck to speak of, and it had three or four fat chins. Its chins rolled right up under its ears, and its ears stuck out from its bald head. Fat hung over its wrists. Its arms and fingers were fat. Even calling it ugly does i
t credit.

  The ugly baby made its noise and jumped up and down on its mother’s lap. Then it stopped jumping. It leaned forward and tried to reach its fat hand into Olla’s plate.

  I’ve seen babies. When I was growing up, my two sisters had a total of six babies. I was around babies a lot when I was a kid. I’ve seen babies in stores and so on. But this baby beat anything. Fran stared at it, too. I guess she didn’t know what to say either.

  “He’s a big fellow, isn’t he?” I said.

  Bud said, “He’ll by God be turning out for football before long. He sure as hell won’t go without meals around this house.”

  As if to make sure of this, Olla plunged her fork into some sweet potatoes and brought the fork up to the baby’s mouth. “He’s my baby, isn’t he?” she said to the fat thing, ignoring us.

  The baby leaned forward and opened up for the sweet potatoes. It reached for Olla’s fork as she guided the sweet potatoes into its mouth, then clamped down. The baby chewed the stuff and rocked some more on Olla’s lap. It was so pop-eyed, it was like it was plugged into something.

  Fran said, “He’s some baby, Olla.”

  The baby’s face screwed up. It began to fuss all over again.

  “Let Joey in,” Olla said to Bud.

  Bud let the legs of his chair come down on the floor. “I think we should at least ask these people if they mind,” Bud said.

  Olla looked at Fran and then she looked at me. Her face had gone red again. The baby kept prancing in her lap, squirming to get down.

  “We’re friends here,” I said. “Do whatever you want.”

  Bud said, “Maybe they don’t want a big old bird like Joey in the house. Did you ever think of that, Olla?”

  “Do you folks mind?” Olla said to us. “If Joey comes inside? Things got headed in the wrong direction with that bird tonight. The baby, too, I think. He’s used to having Joey come in and fool around with him a little before his bedtime. Neither of them can settle down tonight.”

  “Don’t ask us,” Fran said. “I don’t mind if he comes in. I’ve never been up close to one before. But I don’t mind.” She looked at me. I suppose I could tell she wanted me to say something.