What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Read online

  Raymond Carver’s

  What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

  “Is there a better contemporary writer of short stories than Raymond Carver? Perhaps a handful as good, but none better …. Nearly 200 years ago, Wordsworth and Coleridge started a revolution when they proclaimed their aim to write in ‘the language really used by men.’ Neither of them quite achieved that. In [this collection], Raymond Carver has. And it is terrifying.”

  —Robert Houston, The Nation

  “In Raymond Carver’s stories, it is dangerous even to speak. Conversation completes the damage people have already done to one another in silence. It is not safe to form a sentence or even to speak a name. To say ‘Duane’ or ‘Holly’ is to pronounce yet another doom. This is the fiction Carver writes, and I know of nothing stronger in its kind.”

  —Denis Donoghue

  “Masterful…. The first impact of all the stories is sharp and visceral. Only afterward, as the skeleton of each one keeps rattling in the mind, does the painstaking intelligence of their designer become apparent.”

  —Meredith Marsh, New Republic

  “I’m nuts about Raymond Carver’s new stories. They’re real as discount stores, time clocks, the franchises in small towns, bad marriages. His rumpled men and ragged women will break your heart.”

  —Stanley Elkin

  “A book of fables for this decade.”

  —Jayne Anne Phillips, New York

  Books by Raymond Carver

  FICTION

  Where I’m Calling From

  Will You Please Be Quiet, Please

  Furious Seasons

  What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

  Cathedral

  POETRY

  A New Path to the Waterfall

  Winter Insomnia

  At Night the Salmon Move

  Where Water Comes Together with Other Water

  Ultramarine

  PROSE AND POETRY

  No Heroics, Please

  Fires

  Vintage Books Edition, June 1989

  Copyright ©1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981 by Raymond Carver

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in April 1981 and in softcover by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in March 1982.

  Most of the stories in this work have been previously published in Antaeus, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, New England Review, North American Review, The Paris Review, Perspective, Quarterly West, and Tri-Quarterly.

  “So Much Water So Close To Home,” “Everything Stuck to Him” (originally “Distance”), and “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” (originally “Dummy”) are from Furious Seasons, copyright ©1977 by Raymond Carver. Reprinted by permission of Capra Press, Santa Barbara.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carver, Raymond.

  What we talk about when we talk about love.

  I. Title.

  PS3553.A7894W4 1982 813‘54 81-52447

  ISBN 0-679-72305-6 (pbk.) AACR2

  Display typography by Stephanie Bart-Horvath

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  579C864

  FOR TESS GALLAGHER

  The author is pleased to acknowledge receipt of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He also wishes to express grateful acknowledgment and appreciation to Noel Young of Capra Press.

  Contents

  WHY DON’T YOU DANCE?

  VIEWFINDER

  MR. COFFEE AND MR. FIXIT

  GAZEBO

  I COULD SEE THE SMALLEST THINGS

  SACKS

  THE BATH

  TELL THE WOMEN WE’RE GOING

  AFTER THE DENIM

  SO MUCH WATER SO CLOSE TO HOME

  THE THIRD THING THAT KILLED MY FATHER OFF

  A SERIOUS TALK

  THE CALM

  POPULAR MECHANICS

  EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM

  WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE

  ONE MORE THING

  Why Don’t You Dance?

  IN the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped and the candy-striped sheets lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier. Except for that, things looked much the way they had in the bedroom—nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, nightstand and reading lamp on her side.

  His side, her side.

  He considered this as he sipped the whiskey.

  The chiffonier stood a few feet from the foot of the bed. He had emptied the drawers into cartons that morning, and the cartons were in the living room. A portable heater was next to the chiffonier. A rattan chair with a decorator pillow stood at the foot of the bed. The buffed aluminum kitchen set took up a part of the driveway. A yellow muslin cloth, much too large, a gift, covered the table and hung down over the sides. A potted fern was on the table, along with a box of silverware and a record player, also gifts. A big console-model television set rested on a coffee table, and a few feet away from this stood a sofa and chair and a floor lamp. The desk was pushed against the garage door. A few utensils were on the desk, along with a wall clock and two framed prints. There was also in the driveway a carton with cups, glasses, and plates, each object wrapped in newspaper. That morning he had cleared out the closets, and except for the three cartons in the living room, all the stuff was out of the house. He had run an extension cord on out there and everything was connected. Things worked, no different from how it was when they were inside.

  Now and then a car slowed and people stared. But no one stopped.

  It occurred to him that he wouldn’t, either.

  IT must be a yard sale,” the girl said to the boy.

  This girl and this boy were furnishing a little apartment.

  “Let’s see what they want for the bed,” the girl said.

  “And for the TV,” the boy said.

  The boy pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the kitchen table.

  They got out of the car and began to examine things, the girl touching the muslin cloth, the boy plugging in the blender and turning the dial to MINCE, the girl picking up a chafing dish, the boy turning on the television set and making little adjustments.

  He sat down on the sofa to watch. He lit a cigarette, looked around, flipped the match into the grass.

  The girl sat on the bed. She pushed off her shoes and lay back. She thought she could see a star.

  “Come here, Jack. Try this bed. Bring one of those pillows,” she said.

  “How is it?” he said.

  “Try it,” she said.

  He looked around. The house was dark.

  “I feel funny,” he said. “Better see if anybody’s home.”

  She bounced on the bed.

  “Try it first,” she said.

  He lay down on the bed and put the pillow under his head.

  “How does it feel?” she said.

  “It feels firm,” he said.

  She turned on her side and put her hand to his face.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  “Let’s get up,” he said.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  She closed her eyes. She held him.

  He said, “I’ll see if anybody’s home.”

  But he just sat up and stayed where he was, making believe he was watching the television.

  Lights came on in houses up and down the street.r />
  “Wouldn’t it be funny if,” the girl said and grinned and didn’t finish.

  The boy laughed, but for no good reason. For no good reason, he switched the reading lamp on.

  The girl brushed away a mosquito, whereupon the boy stood up and tucked in his shirt.

  “I’ll see if anybody’s home,” he said. “I don’t think anybody’s home. But if anybody is, I’ll see what things are going for.”

  “Whatever they ask, offer ten dollars less. It’s always a good idea,” she said. “And, besides, they must be desperate or something.”

  “It’s a pretty good TV,” the boy said.

  “Ask them how much,” the girl said.

  THE man came down the sidewalk with a sack from the market. He had sandwiches, beer, whiskey. He saw the car in the driveway and the girl on the bed. He saw the television set going and the boy on the porch.

  “Hello,” the man said to the girl. “You found the bed. That’s good.”

  “Hello,” the girl said, and got up. “I was just trying it out.” She patted the bed. “It’s a pretty good bed.”

  “It’s a good bed,” the man said, and put down the sack and took out the beer and the whiskey.

  “We thought nobody was here,” the boy said. “We’re interested in the bed and maybe in the TV. Also maybe the desk. How much do you want for the bed?”

  “I was thinking fifty dollars for the bed,” the man said.

  “Would you take forty?” the girl asked.

  “I’ll take forty,” the man said.

  He took a glass out of the carton. He took the newspaper off the glass. He broke the seal on the whiskey.

  “How about the TV?” the boy said.

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Would you take fifteen?” the girl said.

  “Fifteen’s okay. I could take fifteen,” the man said.

  The girl looked at the boy.

  “You kids, you’ll want a drink,” the man said. “Glasses in that box. I’m going to sit down. I’m going to sit down on the sofa.”

  The man sat on the sofa, leaned back, and stared at the boy and the girl.

  THE boy found two glasses and poured whiskey.

  “That’s enough,” the girl said. “I think I want water in mine.”

  She pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table.

  “There’s water in that spigot over there,” the man said. “Turn on that spigot.”

  The boy came back with the watered whiskey. He cleared his throat and sat down at the kitchen table. He grinned. But he didn’t drink anything from his glass.

  The man gazed at the television. He finished his drink and started another. He reached to turn on the floor lamp. It was then that his cigarette dropped from his fingers and fell between the cushions.

  The girl got up to help him find it.

  “So what do you want?” the boy said to the girl.

  The boy took out the checkbook and held it to his lips as if thinking.

  “I want the desk,” the girl said. “How much money is the desk?”

  The man waved his hand at this preposterous question.

  “Name a figure,” he said.

  He looked at them as they sat at the table. In the lamplight, there was something about their faces. It was nice or it was nasty. There was no telling.

  “I’M going to turn off this TV and put on a record,” the man said. “This record-player is going, too. Cheap. Make me an offer.”

  He poured more whiskey and opened a beer.

  “Everything goes,” said the man.

  The girl held out her glass and the man poured.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very nice,” she said.

  “It goes to your head,” the boy said. “I’m getting it in the head.” He held up his glass and jiggled it.

  The man finished his drink and poured another, and then he found the box with the records.

  “Pick something,” the man said to the girl, and he held the records out to her.

  The boy was writing the check.

  “Here,” the girl said, picking something, picking anything, for she did not know the names on these labels. She got up from the table and sat down again. She did not want to sit still.

  “I’m making it out to cash,” the boy said.

  “Sure,” the man said.

  They drank. They listened to the record. And then the man put on another.

  Why don’t you kids dance? he decided to say, and then he said it. “Why don’t you dance?”

  “I don’t think so,” the boy said.

  “Go ahead,” the man said. “It’s my yard. You can dance if you want to.”

  ARMS about each other, their bodies pressed together, the boy and the girl moved up and down the driveway. They were dancing. And when the record was over, they did it again, and when that one ended, the boy said, “I’m drunk.”

  The girl said, “You’re not drunk.”

  “Well, I’m drunk,” the boy said.

  The man turned the record over and the boy said, “I am.”

  “Dance with me,” the girl said to the boy and then to the man, and when the man stood up, she came to him with her arms wide open.

  “THOSE people over there, they’re watching,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” the man said. “It’s my place,” he said.

  “Let them watch,” the girl said.

  “That’s right,” the man said. “They thought they’d seen everything over here. But they haven’t seen this, have they?” he said.

  He felt her breath on his neck.

  “I hope you like your bed,” he said.

  The girl closed and then opened her eyes. She pushed her face into the man’s shoulder. She pulled the man closer.

  “You must be desperate or something,” she said.

  WEEKS later, she said: “The guy was about middle-aged. All his things right there in his yard. No lie. We got real pissed and danced. In the driveway. Oh, my God. Don’t laugh. He played us these records. Look at this record-player. The old guy gave it to us. And all these crappy records. Will you look at this shit?”

  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.

  Viewfinder

  A MAN without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. Except for the chrome hooks, he was an ordinary-looking man of fifty or so.

  “How did you lose your hands?” I asked after he’d said what he wanted.

  “That’s another story,” he said. “You want this picture or not?”

  “Come in,” I said. “I just made coffee.”

  I’d just made some Jell-O, too. But I didn’t tell the man I did.

  “I might use your toilet,” the man with no hands said.

  I wanted to see how he would hold a cup.

  I knew how he held the camera. It was an old Polaroid, big and black. He had it fastened to leather straps that looped over his shoulders and went around his back, and it was this that secured the camera to his chest. He would stand on the sidewalk in front of your house, locate your house in the viewfinder, push down the lever with one of his hooks, and out would pop your picture.

  I’d been watching from the window, you see.

  “WHERE did you say the toilet was?”

  “Down there, turn right.”

  Bending, hunching, he let himself out of the straps. He put the camera on the sofa and straightened his jacket.

  “You can look at this while I’m gone.”

  I took the picture from him.

  There was a little rectangle of lawn, the driveway, the carport, front steps, bay window, and the window I’d been watching from in the kitchen.

  So why would I want a photograph of this tragedy?

  I looked a little closer and saw my head, my head, in there inside the kitchen window.

  It made me think, seeing myself like that. I can tell you, it makes a man think.

 
; I heard the toilet flush. He came down the hall, zipping and smiling, one hook holding his belt, the other tucking in his shirt.

  “What do you think?” he said. “All right? Personally, I think it turned out fine. Don’t I know what I’m doing? Let’s face it, it takes a professional.”

  He plucked at his crotch.

  “Here’s coffee,” I said.

  He said, “You’re alone, right?”

  He looked at the living room. He shook his head.

  “Hard, hard,” he said.

  He sat next to the camera, leaned back with a sigh, and smiled as if he knew something he wasn’t going to tell me.

  “Drink your coffee,” I said.

  I WAS trying to think of something to say.

  “Three kids were by here wanting to paint my address on the curb. They wanted a dollar to do it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  It was a long shot. But I watched him just the same.

  He leaned forward importantly, the cup balanced between his hooks. He set it down on the table.

  “I work alone,” he said. “Always have, always will. What are you saying?” he said.

  “I was trying to make a connection,” I said.

  I had a headache. I know coffee’s no good for it, but sometimes Jell-O helps. I picked up the picture.

  “I was in the kitchen,” I said. “Usually I’m in the back.”

  “Happens all the time,” he said. “So they just up and left you, right? Now you take me, I work alone. So what do you say? You want the picture?”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  I stood up and picked up the cups.

  “Sure you will,” he said. “Me, I keep a room downtown. It’s okay. I take a bus out, and after I’ve worked the neighborhoods, I go to another downtown. You see what I’m saying? Hey, I had kids once. Just like you,” he said.

  I waited with the cups and watched him struggle up from the sofa.