Call if You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose

  The ground sogged under his feet, pulled at his boots with every step, and made a sucking noise when he released them. He carried the shell bag in his right hand, swinging it like a sling, letting it hang down by its strap from his hand. A wet breeze off the river blew against his face. The sides of the low bluffs overlooking the river down below were deeply grooved and cut back into the rock, leaving table-like projections jutting out, marking the high-water lines for thousands of years past. Piles of naked white logs and countless pieces of driftwood lay jammed onto the ledge like cairns of bones dragged up onto the cliffs by some giant bird. Farrell tried to remember where the geese came over, three years ago. He stopped on the side of a hill just where it sloped into the canyon and leaned his gun on a rock. He pulled bushes and gathered rocks from nearby and walked down toward the river after some of the driftwood to make a blind.

  He sat on his raincoat with his back against a hard shrub, his knees drawn up to his chin, watching the sky whiten and then blue a little and the clouds run with the wind. Geese were gabbling somewhere in the fog on the other side of the river. He rested and smoked and watched the smoke whip out of his month. He waited for the sun.

  It is four in the afternoon. The sun has just gone behind the gray, late afternoon clouds leaving a dwarfed half-shadow that falls across the car following him as he walks around to open the door for his wife. They kiss.

  Iris and he will be back for her in an hour and forty-five minutes, exactly. They are going by the hardware store and then to the grocery. They will be back for her at 5:45. He slides in behind the wheel again and in a moment, seeing his chance, eases out into the traffic. On the way out of town he must stop and wait for every red light, finally turning left onto the secondary, hitting the gas so hard that they both lean back a little in the seat. It is 4:20. At the forks they turn onto the blacktop, orchards on both sides of the road. Over the tops of the trees, the low brown hills and beyond, the blue-black mountains crowned with white. From the close rows of trees, shadows, blackening into the shoulders, creep across the pavement in front of the car. New boxes are jumbled together in white piles at the end of each orchard row, and up against the trees or pushed into the limbs, some leaning in the crotches, are the ladders. He slows the car and stops, pulling off onto the shoulder close enough to one of the trees so that all Iris has to do is open her door and she can reach the limb. It scrapes against the door as she releases it. The apples are heavy and yellow, and sweet juice spurts into his teeth as he bites into one.

  The road ends and they follow the dust-covered hard-track right up to the edge of the hills where the orchards stop. He can still go farther, though, by turning onto the bank road that follows the irrigation canal. The canal is empty now and the steep dirt banks are dry and crumbling. He has shifted the car into second. The road is steeper, driving is more difficult and slower. He stops the car under a pine tree outside a water gate where the canal comes down out of the hills to slide into a circular cement trough. Iris lays her hand in his lap. It is nearly dark. The wind is blowing through the car and once he hears the tops of the trees creaking.

  He gets out of the car to light a cigarette, walking to the rim of the hill overlooking the valley. The wind has strengthened; the air is colder. The grass is sparse under his feet and there are a few flowers. The cigarette makes a short, twisting red arc as it spins down into the valley. It is six o’clock.

  The cold was bad. The dead numbness of the toes, the cold slowly working its way up into the calves of his legs and setting in under his knees. His fingers too, stiff and cold even though they were balled into his pockets. Farrell waited for the sun. The huge clouds over the river turned, breaking up, shaping and reshaping while he watched. At first he barely noticed the black line against the lowest clouds. When it crossed into sight he thought it was mosquitoes, close up against his blind, and then it was a far-off dark rent between cloud and sky that moved closer while he watched. The line turned toward him then and spread out over the hills below. He was excited but calm, his heart beating in his ears urging him to run, yet his movements slow and ponderous as if heavy stones hung to his legs. He inched up on his knees until his face pressed into the brush wall and turned his eyes toward the ground. His legs shook and he pushed his knees into the soft earth. The legs grew suddenly numb and he moved his hand and pushed it into the ground up over his fingers, surprised at its warmth. Then the soft gabble of geese over his head and the heavy, whistling push of wings. His finger tightened around the trigger. The quick, rasping calls; the sharp upward jerk often feet as they saw him. Farrell was on his feet now, pulling down on one goose before swinging to another, then again quickly onto a closer one, following it as it broke and cut back over his head toward the river. He fired once, twice, and the geese kept flying, clamoring, split up and out of range, their low forms melting into the rolling hills. He fired once more before dropping back to his knees inside the blind. Somewhere on the hill behind him and a little to the left he heard Frank shooting, the reports rolling down through the canyon like sharp whip snaps. He felt confused to see more geese getting off the river, stringing out over the low hills and rising up the canyon, flying in V formations for the top of the canyon and the fields behind. He reloaded carefully, pushing the green, ribbed #2s up into the breech, pumping one of the shells into the chamber with a hollow, cracking sound. Yet six shells would do the job better than three. He quickly loosened the plug from the underbarrel of the gun and dropped the coil spring and the wooden plug into his pocket. He heard Frank shoot again, and suddenly there was a flock gone by he hadn’t seen. As he watched them he saw three more coming in low and from the side. He waited until they were even with him, swinging across the side of the hill thirty yards away, their heads swinging slowly, rhythmically, right to left, the eyes black and glistening. He raised to one knee, just as they passed him, giving them a good lead, squeezing off an instant before they flared. The one nearest him crumpled and dived straight into the ground. He fired again as they turned, seeing the goose stop as if it had run into a wall, flailing against the wall trying to get over it before turning over, head downward, wings out, to slowly spiral down. He emptied his gun at the third goose even when it was probably out of range, seeing it stop the charge on the fifth shot, its tail jerking hard and settling down, but its wings still beating. For a long time he watched it flying closer and closer to the ground before it disappeared into one of the canyons.

  Farrell laid the two geese on their backs inside the blind and stroked their smooth white undersides. They were Canadian geese, honkers. After this it didn’t matter too much that the geese that flew came over too high or went out someplace else down the river. He sat against the shrub and smoked, watching the sky whirl by over his head. Sometime later, perhaps in the early afternoon, he slept.

  When he woke he was stiff, cold and sweating and the sun was gone, the sky a thickening gray pall. Somewhere he could hear geese calling and going out, leaving those strange sharp echoes in the valleys, but he could see nothing but wet, black hills that ended in fog where the river should have been. He wiped his hand over his face and began to shiver. He stood up. He could see the fog rolling up the canyon and over the hills, closing off and hemming in the land, and he felt the breath of the cold damp air around him, touching his forehead and cheeks and lips. He broke through the blind getting out and started running up the hill.

  He stood outside the car and pressed the horn in a continual blast until Frank ran up and jerked his arm away from the window.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?”

  “I have to go home, I tell you!”

  “Jesus Christ! Well, Jesus Christ! Get in then, get in!”

  They were quiet then but for Farrell’s asking twice the time before they were out of the wheat country. Frank held a cigar between his teeth, never taking his eyes from the road. When they ran into the first drifting patches of fog he switched on the car lights. After they turned onto the hi
ghway the fog lifted and layered somewhere in the dark over the car, and the first drops of rain began hitting the windshield. Once three ducks flew in front of the car lights and pitched into a puddle beside the road. Farrell blinked.

  “Did you see that?” Frank asked.

  Farrell nodded.

  “How do you feel now?”

  “Okay.”

  “You get any geese?”

  Farrell rubbed the palms of his hands together, interlacing his fingers, finally folding them into his lap. “No, I guess not.”

  “Too bad. I heard you shooting.” He worked the cigar to the other side of his mouth and tried to puff, but it had gone cold. He chewed on it for a minute then laid it in the ashtray and glanced at Farrell.

  “ ’Course it’s none of my affair, but if it’s something you’re worried about at home … My advice is not to take it too seriously. You’ll live longer. No gray hairs like me.” He coughed, laughed. “I know, I used to be the same way. I remember …” Farrell is sitting in the big leather chair under the brass lamp watching Iris comb out her hair. He is holding a magazine in his lap whose glossy pages are open to the scene of a disaster, an earthquake, somewhere in the Near East. Except for the small light over the dresser it is dark in the room. The brush moves quickly through her hair in long, sweeping, rhythmical movements, causing a faint squeaking noise in the room. He has yet to call Frank and confirm the hunting trip for the next morning. There is a cold, moist air coming in through the window from the outside. She is tapping the brush against the edge of the dresser. “Lew,” she says, “you know I’m pregnant?”

  Her bathroom smell sickens him. Her towel lies across the back of the toilet. In the sink she has spilled talcum. It is wet now and pasty and makes a thick, yellow ring around the white sides. He rubs it out and washes it into the drain.

  He is shaving. By turning his head he can see into the living room. Iris in profile sitting on the stool in front of the old dresser. She is combing her hair. He lays down the razor and washes his face, then picks up the razor again. At this moment he hears the first few drops of rain spatter against the roof …

  He carries her out to the porch, turns her face to the wall, and covers her up. He goes back into the bathroom, washes his hands, and stuffs the heavy, blood-soaked towel into the clothes hamper. After a while he turns out the light over the dresser and sits down again in his chair by the window, listening to the rain.

  Frank laughed. “So it was nothing, nothing at all. We got along fine after that. Oh, the usual bickering now and then but when she found out just who was running the show, everything was all right.” He gave Farrell a friendly rap on the knee.

  They drove into the outskirts of town, past the long line of motels with their blazing red, blinking, neon lights, past the cafés with steamy windows, the cars clustered in front, and past the small businesses, dark and locked until the next day. Frank turned right at the next light, then left, and now they were on Farrell’s street. Frank pulled in behind a black and white car that had SHERIFF’S OFFICE painted in small white letters across the trunk. In the lights of their car they could see another glass inside the car inset with a wire screen making the backseat into a cage. Steam rose from the hood of their car and mixed with the rain.

  “Could be he’s after you, Lew.” He started to open the door, then chuckled. “Maybe they’ve found out you were hunting with no license. Come on, I’ll turn you in myself.”

  “No. You go on, Frank. That’s all right. I’ll be all right. Wait a minute, let me get out!”

  “Christ, you’d really think they were after you! Wait a minute, get your gun.” He rolled down the window and passed out the shotgun to Farrell. “Looks like the rain’s never going to let up. See you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Upstairs all the lights of his apartment were turned on and blurred figures stood frieze-like at the windows looking down through the rain. Farrell stood behind the sheriffs car holding onto the smooth, wet tail fin. Rain fell on his bare head and worked its way down under his collar. Frank drove a few yards up the street and stopped, looking back. Farrell holding onto the tail fin, swaying a little, with the fine impenetrable rain coming down around him. The gutter water rushed over his feet, swirled frothing into a great whirlpool at the drain on the corner and rushed down to the center of the earth.

  The Hair

  He worked at it with his tongue for a while then sat up in bed and began picking at it with his fingers. Outside it was going to be a nice day and some birds were singing. He tore off a corner of the matchbook and scraped in between his teeth. Nothing. He could still feel it. He ran his tongue over his teeth again from back to front, stopping when he got to the hair. He touched all around it then stroked it with his tongue where it threaded in between two of the front teeth, followed it in an inch or so to the end and smoothed it against the roof of his mouth. He touched it with his finger.

  “Uuuk—Christ!”

  “What’s the matter?” his wife asked, sitting up. “We oversleep? What time is it?”

  “I’ve got something in my teeth. Can’t get it out. I don’t know … feels like a hair.”

  He went into the bathroom and glanced at the mirror, then washed his hands and face with cold water. He turned on the shaving lamp over the mirror.

  “I can’t see it but I know it’s there. If I could just get hold of it maybe I could pull it out.”

  His wife came into the bathroom, scratching her head and yawning. “You get it, honey?”

  He ground his teeth together, squeezed his lips down against his teeth until his fingernails broke the skin.

  “Just a minute. Let me see it,” she said, moving closer. He stood under the light, mouth open, twisting his head back and forth, wiping his pajama sleeve over the glass as it fogged up.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  “Well, I can feel it.” He turned off the light and started running water in the tub. “The hell with it! Forget it. I’ve got to get ready for work.”

  He decided to walk downtown since he didn’t want any breakfast and still had plenty of time to get to work. Nobody had a key except the boss and if he got there too early he’d only have to wait. He walked by the empty corner where he usually caught the bus. A dog he’d seen around the neighborhood before had his leg cocked, pissing on the bus stop sign.

  “Hey!”

  The dog quit pissing and came running over to him. Another dog that he didn’t recognize came trotting up, sniffed at the sign, and pissed. Golden, slightly steaming as it ran down the sidewalk.

  “Hey—get out of here!” The dog squirted a few more drops then both dogs crossed the street. They almost looked like they were laughing. He threaded the hair back and forth through his teeth.

  “Nice day now, isn’t it, huh?” the boss asked. He opened the front door, raised the shade.

  Everyone turned to look back outside and nodded, smiling.

  “Yes it is, sir, just a beautiful day,” someone said.

  “Too nice to be working,” someone else said, laughed with the others.

  “Yes it is. It is at that,” the boss said. He went on up the stairs to open up Boys Clothing, whistling, jingling his keys.

  Later on when he came up from the basement and was taking his break in the lounge, smoking a cigarette, the boss came in wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

  “Hot today, isn’t it, huh?”

  “Yes it is, sir.” He’d never noticed before that the boss had such hairy arms. He sat picking his teeth, staring at the thick tufts of black hair that grew in between the boss’s fingers.

  “Sir, I was wondering—if you don’t think I can, that’s all right, naturally, but if you think so, without putting anybody in a bind, I mean—I’d like to go home. I don’t feel so well.”

  “Mmm. Well, we can make it all right, of course. That’s not the point, of course.” He took a long drink of his Coke, kept looking at him.

  “Well then, that’s all right then, s
ir. I’ll make it. I was just wondering.”

  “No, no, that’s all right now. You go on home. Call me up tonight, let me know how you are.” He looked at his watch, finished his Coke. “Ten twenty-five. Say 10:30. Go on home now, we’ll call it 10:30.”

  Out in the street he loosened his collar and began to walk. He felt strange walking around town with a hair in his mouth. He kept touching it with his tongue. He didn’t look at any of the people he met. In a little while he began to sweat under his arms and could feel it dripping through the hair into his undershirt. Sometimes he stopped in front of the showroom windows and stared at the glass, opening and closing his mouth, fishing around with his finger. He took the long way home, down through the Lions Club park where he watched the kids play in the wading pool and paid fifteen cents to an old lady to go through the little zoo and see the birds and animals. Once after he had stood for a long time looking through the glass at the giant Gila monster, the creature opened one of its eyes and looked at him. He backed away from the glass and went on walking around the park until it was time to go home.

  He wasn’t very hungry and only drank some coffee for supper. After a few swallows he rolled his tongue over the hair again. He got up from the table.

  “Honey, what’s the matter?” his wife asked. “Where you going?”

  “I think I’m going to go to bed. I don’t feel so well.”

  She followed him into the bedroom, watched while he undressed. “Can I get you something? Maybe I should call the doctor? I wish I knew what was the matter.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll be all right.” He pulled up the covers over his shoulders and turned over, closing his eyes.

  She pulled the shade. “I’ll straighten up the kitchen a little, then I’ll be back.”

  It felt better just to stretch out. He touched his face and thought he might have a fever. He licked his lips and touched the end of the hair with his tongue. He shivered. After a few minutes, he began to doze but woke suddenly and remembered about calling the boss. He got slowly out of bed and went out to the kitchen.