Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.

This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you're going to do a good job with it.

There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.

I'm a heart surgeon, sure, but I'm just a mechanic. I go in and I fuck around and I fix things. Shit.

Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

You see, this happened a few months ago, but it's still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.

I'm moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.

I want to hide from it, that’s what I want to do. I want to just close my eyes and let it pass by. Let it take the next man.

That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying 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.

Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it.

That's right,' Mel said. 'Some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love. Or whatever the fuck it was they fought over in those days.' Same things we fight over these days,' Terri said. Laura said, 'Nothing's changed.

But here is the thing. When he gets on me, I suddenly feel I am fat. I feel am terrifically fat, so fat that Rudy is a tiny thing and hardly there at all.

She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.

Vorrei tanto essere come qualsiasi altro da queste parti - una persona normale, essenziale, senza particolari qualità - e salire su in camera, mettermi a letto e dormire.

What’s there to tell? The people over there embrace for a minute, and then they go inside the house together. They leave the light burning. Then they remember, and it goes out.

Be’... – disse lei, rigirandosi compiaciuta sulla schiena. – Mi piace mangiare roba buona, bistecche e patate rosolate, cose cosí. Mi piace leggere libri e riviste, viaggiare in treno di notte e quelle volte che ho viaggiato in aereo –. Fece una pausa. – Naturalmente non sto elencando le cose in ordine di preferenza. Dovrei pensarci meglio per elencarle in ordine di preferenza. Però mi piace, viaggiare in aereo. C’è un momento quando ci si stacca da terra in cui hai la sensazione che qualsiasi cosa succeda, andrà bene –. Gli passò una gamba sopra la caviglia. – Mi piace stare alzata fino a notte alta e poi restare a letto fino a tardi il giorno dopo. Vorrei tanto potessimo farlo sempre, invece che una volta ogni tanto. E poi mi piace il sesso. Mi piace essere toccata di tanto in tanto quando non me l’aspetto. Mi piace andare al cinema e farmi una birra con le amiche dopo. Mi piace avere amiche. Janice Hendricks mi piace un sacco. Mi piacerebbe andare a ballare almeno una volta a settimana. E avere sempre dei bei vestiti. Mi piacerebbe poter comprare bei vestiti anche per i bambini ogni volta che gli servono, senza dover aspettare. Per esempio Laurie ha bisogno di un vestito nuovo adesso per Pasqua. E mi piacerebbe comprare a Gary un completino o qualcosa del genere. Ormai è grandicello. Vorrei che anche tu avessi un completo nuovo. Anzi, tu ne hai veramente piú bisogno di Gary. E mi piacerebbe che avessimo una casa tutta nostra. Vorrei piantarla di traslocare ogni anno, due anni al massimo. Ma soprattutto vorrei tanto che io e te potessimo vivere una buona vita onesta, senza doverci sempre preoccupare dei conti, dei soldi e roba del genere. Ma tu dormi, – disse. – No che non dormo, – disse lui. – Non riesco a pensare ad altre cose. Ora tocca a te. Dimmi che cosa piacerebbe a te. – Non so. Un sacco di cose, – bofonchiò lui. – Be’, dimmele. Si fa tanto per parlare, no? – Vorrei tanto che mi lasciassi in pace, Nan –. Si rigirò dalla sua parte e lasciò penzolare il braccio oltre il bordo.