watched the smoke stream south, always south, toward Puerto Rico and the Torrid Zone. That morning, 74 years old and 10 stories up, midway between hotel and hotel, a promotional stunt on the first day of spring, that wind which has been everywhere with you comes in from the Caribbean to throw itself once and for all into your arms, like a young lover! Your hair stands on end.
You try to crouch, to reach for wire.
Later, men come along to clean up
and to take down the wire. They take down the wire
where you spent your life. Imagine that: wire.
108 RAYMOND CARVER
DESCHUTES RIVER
This sky, for instance:
closed, gray,
but it has stopped snowing
so that is something. I am
so cold I cannot bend
my fingers.
Walking down to the river this morning
we surprised a badger
tearing a rabbit.
Badger had a bloody nose,
blood on its snout up to its sharp eyes:
prowess is not to be confused
with grace.
Later, eight mallard ducks fly over
without looking down. On the river
Frank Sandmeyer trolls, trolls
for steelhead. He has fished
this river for years
but February is the best month
he says.
Snarled, mittenless,
I handle a maze of nylon.
Far away—
another man is raising my children,
bedding my wife bedding my wife.
FOREVER
Drifting outside in a pall of smoke, I follow a snail's streaked path down the garden to the garden's stone wall. Alone at last I squat on my heels, see
what needs to be done, and suddenly affix myself to the damp stone. I begin to look around me slowly and listen, employing
my entire body as the snail employs its body, relaxed, but alert. Amazing! Tonight is a milestone in my life. After tonight
how can I ever go back to that other life? I keep my eyes on the stars, wave to them with my feelers. I hold on
for hours, just resting. Still later, grief begins to settle around my heart in tiny drops. I remember my father is dead,
and I am going away from this town soon. Forever. Goodbye, son, my father says. Toward morning, I climb down
and wander back into the house.
They are still waiting,
fright splashed on their faces,
as they meet my new eyes for the first time.
STORIES
DISTANCE
She's in Milan for Christmas and wants to know what it was like when she was a kid. Always that on the rare occasions when he sees her.
Tell me, she says. Tell me what it was like then. She sips Strega, waits, eyes him closely.
She is a cool, slim, attractive girl, a survivor from top to bottom.
That was a long time ago. That was twenty years ago, he says. They're in his apartment on the Via Fabroni near the Cascina Gardens.
You can remember, she says. Go on, tell me.
What do you want to hear? he asks. What can I tell you? I could tell you about something that happened when you were a baby. It involves you, he says. But only in a minor way.
Tell me, she says. But first get us another drink, so you won't have to interrupt half way through.
He comes back from the kitchen with drinks, settles into his chair, begins.
They were kids themselves, but they were crazy in love, this eighteen-year-old boy and his seventeen-year-old girl friend when they married. Not all that long afterwards they had a daughter.
The baby came along in late November during a severe cold spell that just happened to coincide with the peak of the waterfowl season in that part of the country. The boy loved to hunt, you see, that's part of it.
The boy and girl, husband and wife now, father and mother, lived in a three-room apartment under a dentist's office. Each night they cleaned the upstairs office in exchange for their rent and utilities. In the summer they were expected to maintain the lawn and the flowers, and in winter the boy shoveled snow from the walks and spread rock salt on the pavement. The two kids, I'm
telling you, were very much in love. On top of this they had great ambitions and they were wild dreamers. They were always talking about the things they were going to do and the places they were going to go.
He
You try to crouch, to reach for wire.
Later, men come along to clean up
and to take down the wire. They take down the wire
where you spent your life. Imagine that: wire.
108 RAYMOND CARVER
DESCHUTES RIVER
This sky, for instance:
closed, gray,
but it has stopped snowing
so that is something. I am
so cold I cannot bend
my fingers.
Walking down to the river this morning
we surprised a badger
tearing a rabbit.
Badger had a bloody nose,
blood on its snout up to its sharp eyes:
prowess is not to be confused
with grace.
Later, eight mallard ducks fly over
without looking down. On the river
Frank Sandmeyer trolls, trolls
for steelhead. He has fished
this river for years
but February is the best month
he says.
Snarled, mittenless,
I handle a maze of nylon.
Far away—
another man is raising my children,
bedding my wife bedding my wife.
FOREVER
Drifting outside in a pall of smoke, I follow a snail's streaked path down the garden to the garden's stone wall. Alone at last I squat on my heels, see
what needs to be done, and suddenly affix myself to the damp stone. I begin to look around me slowly and listen, employing
my entire body as the snail employs its body, relaxed, but alert. Amazing! Tonight is a milestone in my life. After tonight
how can I ever go back to that other life? I keep my eyes on the stars, wave to them with my feelers. I hold on
for hours, just resting. Still later, grief begins to settle around my heart in tiny drops. I remember my father is dead,
and I am going away from this town soon. Forever. Goodbye, son, my father says. Toward morning, I climb down
and wander back into the house.
They are still waiting,
fright splashed on their faces,
as they meet my new eyes for the first time.
STORIES
DISTANCE
She's in Milan for Christmas and wants to know what it was like when she was a kid. Always that on the rare occasions when he sees her.
Tell me, she says. Tell me what it was like then. She sips Strega, waits, eyes him closely.
She is a cool, slim, attractive girl, a survivor from top to bottom.
That was a long time ago. That was twenty years ago, he says. They're in his apartment on the Via Fabroni near the Cascina Gardens.
You can remember, she says. Go on, tell me.
What do you want to hear? he asks. What can I tell you? I could tell you about something that happened when you were a baby. It involves you, he says. But only in a minor way.
Tell me, she says. But first get us another drink, so you won't have to interrupt half way through.
He comes back from the kitchen with drinks, settles into his chair, begins.
They were kids themselves, but they were crazy in love, this eighteen-year-old boy and his seventeen-year-old girl friend when they married. Not all that long afterwards they had a daughter.
The baby came along in late November during a severe cold spell that just happened to coincide with the peak of the waterfowl season in that part of the country. The boy loved to hunt, you see, that's part of it.
The boy and girl, husband and wife now, father and mother, lived in a three-room apartment under a dentist's office. Each night they cleaned the upstairs office in exchange for their rent and utilities. In the summer they were expected to maintain the lawn and the flowers, and in winter the boy shoveled snow from the walks and spread rock salt on the pavement. The two kids, I'm
telling you, were very much in love. On top of this they had great ambitions and they were wild dreamers. They were always talking about the things they were going to do and the places they were going to go.
He
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