What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

by Raymond Carver

  “James, look at your cards,” Edith said. “You missed N-34. Pay attention.”

  “That fellow over there who has our place is cheating. I can’t believe my eyes,” James said.

  “How is he cheating?” Edith said.

  “He’s playing a card that he hasn’t paid for,” James said. “Somebody ought to report him.”

  “Not you, dear,” Edith said. She spoke slowly and tried to keep her eyes on her cards. She dropped a bean on a number.

  “The fellow is cheating,” James said.

  She extracted a bean from her palm and placed it on a number. “Play your cards,” Edith said.

  He looked back at his cards. But he knew he might as well write this game off. There was no telling how many numbers he had missed, how far behind he had fallen. He squeezed the beans in his fist.

  The woman on the stage called, “G-60.”

  Someone yelled, “Bingo!”

  “Christ,” James Packer said.

  A TEN-MINUTE break was announced. The game after the break would be a Blackout, one dollar a card, winner takes all, this week’s jackpot ninety-eight dollars.

  There was whistling and clapping.

  James looked at the couple. The fellow was touching the ring in his ear and staring up at the ceiling. The girl had her hand on his leg.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Edith said. “Give me your cigarettes.”

  James said, “And I’ll get us some raisin cookies and coffee.”

  “I’ll go to the bathroom,” Edith said.

  But James Packer did not go to get cookies and coffee. Instead, he went to stand behind the chair of the fellow in denim.

  “I see what you’re doing,” James said.

  The man turned around. “Pardon me?” he said and stared. “What am I doing?”

  “You know,” James said.

  The girl held her cookie in mid-bite.

  “A word to the wise,” James said.

  He walked back to his table. He was trembling.

  When Edith came back, she handed him the cigarettes and sat down, not talking, not being her jovial self.

  James looked at her closely. He said, “Edith, has something happened?”

  “I’m spotting again,” she said.

  “Spotting?” he said. But he knew what she meant. “Spotting,” he said again, very quietly.

  “Oh, dear,” Edith Packer said, picking up some cards and sorting through them.

  “I think we should go home,” he said.

  She kept sorting through the cards. “No, let’s stay,” she said. “It’s just the spotting, is all.”

  He touched her hand.

  “We’ll stay,” she said. “It’ll be all right.”

  “This is the worst bingo night in history,” James Packer said.

  THEY played the Blackout game, James watching the man in denim. The fellow was still at it, still playing a card he hadn’t paid for. From time to time, James checked how Edith was doing. But there was no way of telling. She held her lips pursed together. It could mean anything—resolve, worry, pain. Or maybe she just liked having her lips that way for this particular game.

  He had three numbers to go on one card and five numbers on another, and no chance at all on a third card when the girl with the man in denim began shrieking: “Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! I have a bingo!”

  The fellow clapped and shouted with her. “She’s got a bingo! She’s got a bingo, folks! A bingo!”

  The fellow in denim kept clapping.

  It was the woman on the stage herself who went to the girl’s table to check her card against the master list. She said, “This young woman has a bingo, and that’s a ninety-eight-dollar jackpot! Let’s give her a round of applause, people! It’s a bingo here! A Blackout!”

  Edith clapped along with the rest. But James kept his hands on the table.

  The fellow in denim hugged the girl when the woman from the stage handed over the cash.

  “They’ll use it to buy drugs,” James said.

  THEY stayed for the rest of the games. They stayed until the last game was played. It was a game called the Progressive, the jackpot increasing from week to week if no one bingoed before so many numbers were called.

  James put his money down and played his cards with no hope of winning. He waited for the fellow in denim to call “Bingo!”

  But no one won, and the jackpot would be carried over to the following week, the prize bigger than ever.

  “That’s bingo for tonight!” the woman on the stage proclaimed. “Thank you all for coming. God bless you and good night.”

  The Packers filed out of the assembly hall along with the rest, somehow managing to fall in behind the fellow in denim and his girl. They saw the girl pat her pocket. They saw the girl put her arm around the fellow’s waist.

  “Let those people get ahead of us,” James said into Edith’s ear. “I can’t stand to look at them.”

  Edith said nothing in reply. But she hung back a little to give the couple time to move ahead.

  Outside, the wind was up. James thought sure he could hear the surf over the sound of engines starting.

  He saw the couple stop at the van. Of course. He should have put two and two together.

  “The dumbbell,” James Packer said.

  EDITH went into the bathroom and shut the door. James took off his windbreaker and put it down on the back of the sofa. He turned on the TV and took up his place and waited.

  After a time, Edith came out of the bathroom. James concentrated his attention on the TV. Edith went to the kitchen and ran water. James heard her turn off the faucet. Edith came to the room and said, “I guess I’ll have to see Dr. Crawford in the morning. I guess there really is something happening down there.”

  “The lousy luck,” James said.

  She stood there shaking her head. She covered her eyes and leaned into him when he came to put his arms around her.

  “Edith, dearest Edith,” James Packer said.

  He felt awkward and terrified. He stood with his arms more or less holding his wife.

  She reached for his face and kissed his lips, and then she said good night.

  HE went to the refrigerator. He stood in front of the open door and drank tomato juice while he studied everything inside. Cold air blew out at him. He looked at the little packages and the containers of foodstuffs on the shelves, a chicken covered in plastic wrap, the neat, protected exhibits.

  He shut the door and spit the last of the juice into the sink. Then he rinsed his mouth and made himself a cup of instant coffee. He carried it into the living room. He sat down in front of the TV and lit a cigarette. He understood that it took only one lunatic and a torch to bring everything to ruin.

  He smoked and finished the coffee, and then he turned the TV off. He went to the bedroom door and listened for a time. He felt unworthy to be listening, to be standing.

  Why not someone else? Why not those people tonight? Why not all those people who sail through life free as birds? Why not them instead of Edith?

  He moved away from the bedroom door. He thought about going for a walk. But the wind was wild now, and he could hear the branches whining in the birch tree behind the house.

  He sat in front of the TV again. But he did not turn it on. He smoked and thought of that sauntering, arrogant gait as the two of them moved just ahead. If only they knew. If only someone would tell them. Just once!

  He closed his eyes. He would get up early and fix breakfast. He would go with her to see Crawford. If only they had to sit with him in the waiting room! He’d tell them what to expect! He’d set those floozies straight! He’d tell them what was waiting for you after the denim and the earrings, after touching each other and cheating at games.

  HE got up and went into the guest room and turned on the lamp over the bed. He glanced at his papers and at his account books and at the adding machine on his desk. He found a pair of pajamas in one of the drawers. He turned down the covers on the bed. Then he wal
ked back through the house, snapping off lights and checking doors. For a while he stood looking out the kitchen window at the tree shaking under the force of the wind.

  He left the porch light on and went back to the guest room. He pushed aside his knitting basket, took up his basket of embroidery, and then settled himself in the chair. He raised the lid of the basket and got out the metal hoop. There was fresh white linen stretched across it. Holding the tiny needle to the light, James Packer stabbed at the eye with a length of blue silk thread. Then he set to work—stitch after stitch—making believe he was waving like the man on the keel.

  So Much Water So Close to Home

  MY husband eats with a good appetite. But I don’t think he’s really hungry. He chews, arms on the table, and stares at something across the room. He looks at me and looks away. He wipes his mouth on the napkin. He shrugs, and goes on eating.

  “What are you staring at me for?” he says. “What is it?” he says and lays down his fork.

  “Was I staring?” I say, and shake my head.

  The telephone rings.

  “Don’t answer it,” he says.

  “It might be your mother,” I say.

  “Watch and see,” he says.

  I pick up the receiver and listen. My husband stops eating.

  “What did I tell you?” he says when I hang up. He starts to eat again. Then throws his napkin on his plate. He says, “Goddamn it, why can’t people mind their own business? Tell me what I did wrong and I’ll listen! I wasn’t the only man there. We talked it over and we all decided. We couldn’t just turn around. We were five miles from the car. I won’t have you passing judgment. Do you hear?”

  “You know,” I say.

  He says, “What do I know, Claire? Tell me what I’m supposed to know. I don’t know anything except one thing.” He gives me what he thinks is a meaningful look. “She was dead,” he says. “And I’m as sorry as anyone else. But she was dead.”

  “That’s the point,” I say.

  He raises his hands. He pushes his chair away from the table. He takes out his cigarettes and goes out to the back with a can of beer. I see him sit in the lawn chair and pick up the newspaper again.

  His name is in there on the first page. Along with the names of his friends.

  I close my eyes and hold on to the sink. Then I rake my arm across the drainboard and send the dishes to the floor.

  He doesn’t move. I know he’s heard. He lifts his head as if still listening. But he doesn’t move otherwise. He doesn’t turn around.

  HE and Gordon Johnson and Mel Dorn and Vern Williams, they play poker and bowl and fish. They fish every spring and early summer before visiting relatives can get in the way. They are decent men, family men, men who take care of their jobs. They have sons and daughters who go to school with our son, Dean.

  Last Friday these family men left for the Naches River. They parked the car in the mountains and hiked to where they wanted to fish. They carried their bedrolls, their food, their playing cards, their whiskey.

  They saw the girl before they set up camp. Mel Dorn found her. No clothes on her at all. She was wedged into some branches that stuck out over the water.

  He called the others and they came to look. They talked about what to do. One of the men—my Stuart didn’t say which—said they should start back at once. The others stirred the sand with their shoes, said they didn’t feel inclined that way. They pleaded fatigue, the late hour, the fact that the girl wasn’t going anywhere.

  In the end they went ahead and set up the camp. They built a fire and drank their whiskey. When the moon came up, they talked about the girl. Someone said they should keep the body from drifting away. They took their flashlights and went back to the river. One of the men—it might have been Stuart—waded in and got her. He took her by the fingers and pulled her into shore. He got some nylon cord and tied it to her wrist and then looped the rest around a tree.

  The next morning they cooked breakfast, drank coffee, and drank whiskey, and then split up to fish. That night they cooked fish, cooked potatoes, drank coffee, drank whiskey, then took their cooking things and eating things back down to the river and washed them where the girl was.

  They played some cards later on. Maybe they played until they couldn’t see them anymore. Vern Williams went to sleep. But the others told stories. Gordon Johnson said the trout they’d caught were hard because of the terrible coldness of the water.

  The next morning they got up late, drank whiskey, fished a little, took down their tents, rolled their sleeping bags, gathered their stuff, and hiked out. They drove until they got to a telephone. It was Stuart who made the call while the others stood around in the sun and listened. He gave the sheriff their names. They had nothing to hide. They weren’t ashamed. They said they’d wait until someone could come for better directions and take down their statements.

  I WAS asleep when he got home. But I woke up when I heard him in the kitchen. I found him leaning against the refrigerator with a can of beer. He put his heavy arms around me and rubbed his big hands on my back. In bed he put his hands on me again and then waited as if thinking of something else. I turned and opened my legs. Afterwards, I think he stayed awake.

  He was up that morning before I could get out of bed. To see if there was something in the paper, I suppose.

  The telephone began ringing right after eight.

  “Go to hell!” I heard him shout.

  The telephone rang right again.

  “I have nothing to add to what I already said to the sheriff!”

  He slammed the receiver down.

  “What is going on?” I said.

  It was then that he told me what I just told you.

  I SWEEP up the broken dishes and go outside. He is lying on his back on the grass now, the newspaper and can of beer within reach.

  “Stuart, could we go for a drive?” I say.

  He rolls over and looks at me. “We’ll pick up some beer,” he says. He gets to his feet and touches me on the hip as he goes past. “Give me a minute,” he says.

  We drive through town without speaking. He stops at a roadside market for beer. I notice a great stack of papers just inside the door. On the top step a fat woman in a print dress holds out a licorice stick to a little girl. Later on, we cross Everson Creek and turn into the picnic grounds. The creek runs under the bridge and into a large pond a few hundred yards away. I can see the men out there. I can see them out there fishing.

  So much water so close to home.

  I say, “Why did you have to go miles away?”

  “Don’t rile me,” he says.

  We sit on a bench in the sun. He opens us cans of beer. He says, “Relax, Claire.”

  “They said they were innocent. They said they were crazy.”

  He says, “Who?” He says, “What are you talking about?”

  “The Maddox brothers. They killed a girl named Arlene Hubly where I grew up. They cut off her head and threw her into the Cle Elum River. It happened when I was a girl.”

  “You’re going to get me riled,” he says.

  I look at the creek. I’m right in it, eyes open, face down, staring at the moss on the bottom, dead.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he says on the way home. “You’re getting me more riled by the minute.”

  There is nothing I can say to him.

  He tries to concentrate on the road. But he keeps looking into the rear-view mirror.

  He knows.

  STUART believes he is letting me sleep this morning. But I was awake long before the alarm went off. I was thinking, lying on the far side of the bed away from his hairy legs.

  He gets Dean off for school, and then he shaves, dresses, and leaves for work. Twice he looks in and clears his throat. But I keep my eyes closed.

  In the kitchen I find a note from him. It’s signed “Love.”

  I sit in the breakfast nook and drink coffee and leave a ring on the note. I look at the newspaper and turn it t
his way and that on the table. Then I skid it close and read what it says. The body has been identified, claimed. But it took some examining it, some putting things into it, some cutting, some weighing, some measuring, some putting things back again and sewing them in.

  I sit for a long time holding the newspaper and thinking. Then I call up to get a chair at the hairdresser’s.

  I SIT under the dryer with a magazine on my lap and let Marnie do my nails.

  “I am going to a funeral tomorrow,” I say.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Marnie says.

  “It was a murder,” I say.

  “That’s the worst kind,” Marnie says.

  “We weren’t all that close,” I say. “But you know.”

  “We’ll get you fixed up for it,” Marnie says.

  That night I make my bed on the sofa, and in the morning I get up first. I put on coffee and fix breakfast while he shaves.

  He appears in the kitchen doorway, towel over his bare shoulder, appraising.

  “Here’s coffee,” I say. “Eggs’ll be ready in a minute.”

  I wake Dean, and the three of us eat. Whenever Stuart looks at me, I ask Dean if he wants more milk, more toast, etc.

  “I’ll call you today,” Stuart says as he opens the door.

  I say, “I don’t think I’ll be home today.”

  “All right,” he says. “Sure.”

  I dress carefully. I try on a hat and look at myself in the mirror. I write out a note for Dean.

  Honey, Mommy has things to do this afternoon, but will be back later. You stay in or be in the backyard until one of us comes home.

  Love, Mommy

  I look at the word Love and then I underline it. Then I see the word backyard. Is it one word or two?

  I DRIVE through farm country, through fields of oats and sugar beets and past apple orchards, cattle grazing in pastures. Then everything changes, more like shacks than farmhouses and stands of timber instead of orchards. Then mountains, and on the right, far below, I sometimes see the Naches River.

  A green pickup comes up behind me and stays behind me for miles. I keep slowing at the wrong times, hoping he will pass. Then I speed up. But this is at the wrong times, too. I grip the wheel until my fingers hurt.