Where I'm Calling From Read Online Free PDF

punching each other on the arms and ribs.
    “You boys get back in the house,” the woman said. “I never thought I’d see,” she said and put her hand on her breast.
    Hamilton was sweating and his lungs burned when he tried to take a deep breath. There was a ball of something in his throat so that he couldn’t swallow for a minute. He started walking, his son and the boy named Kip at his sides. He heard car doors slam, an engine start. Headlights swept over him as he walked.
    Roger sobbed once, and Hamilton put his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
    “I better get home,” Kip said and began to cry. “My dad’ll be looking for me,” and the boy ran.
    I’m sorry,” Hamilton said. “I’m sorry you had to see something like that,” Hamilton said to his son.
    They kept walking and when they reached their block, Hamilton took his arm away.
    “What if he’d picked up a knife, Dad? Or a club?”
    “He wouldn’t have done anything like that,” Hamilton said.
    “But what if he had?” his son said.
    “It’s hard to say what people will do when they’re angry,” Hamilton said.
    They started up the walk to their door. His heart moved when Hamilton saw the lighted windows.
    “Let me feel your muscle,” his son said.
    “Not now,” Hamilton said. “You just go in now and have your dinner and hurry up to bed. Tell your mother I’m all right and I’m going to sit on the porch for a few minutes.”
    The boy rocked from one foot to the other and looked at his father, and then he dashed into the house and began calling, “Mom! Mom!”
    He sat on the porch and leaned against the garage wall and stretched his legs. The sweat had dried on his forehead. He felt clammy under his clothes.
    He had once seen his father—a pale, slow-talking man with slumped shoulders—in something like this. It was a bad one, and both men had been hurt. It had happened in a cafe. The other man was a farmhand.
    Hamilton had loved his father and could recall many things about him. But now he recalled his father’s one fistfight as if it were all there was to the man.
    He was still sitting on the porch when his wife came out.
    “Dear God,” she said and took his head in her hands. “Come in and shower and then have something to eat and tell me about it. Everything is still warm. Roger has gone to bed.”
    But he heard his son calling him.
    “He’s still awake,” she said.
    “I’ll be down in a minute,” Hamilton said. “Then maybe we should have a drink.”
    She shook her head. “I really don’t believe any of this yet.”
    He went into the boy’s room and sat down at the foot of the bed.
    “It’s pretty late and you’re still up, so I’ll say good night,” Hamilton said.
    “Good night,” the boy said, hands behind his neck, elbows jutting.
    He was in his pajamas and had a warm fresh smell about him that Hamilton breathed deeply. He patted his son through the covers.
    “You take it easy from now on. Stay away from that part of the neighborhood, and don’t let me ever hear of you damaging a bicycle or any other personal property. Is that clear?” Hamilton said.
    The boy nodded. He took: his hands from behind his neck and began picking at something on the bedspread.
    “Okay, then,” Hamilton said, “I’ll say good night.”
    He moved to kiss his son, but the boy began talking.
    “Dad, was Grandfather strong like you? When he was your age, I mean, you know, and you—”
    “And I was nine years old? Is that what you mean? Yes, I guess he was,” Hamilton said.
    “Sometimes I can hardly remember him,” the boy said. “I don’t want to forget him or anything, you know? You know what I mean, Dad?”
    When Hamilton did not answer at once, the boy went on. “When you were young, was it like it is with you and me? Did you love him more than me? Or just the same?” The boy said this abruptly. He moved his feet under the covers and looked away. When Hamilton still did not answer, the boy said, “Did he smoke? I