The Advent of One Day at a Time

When have entered a dark season. Houses and yards are lit up. And, perhaps, some of the residents.

“The holidays are always bad” – Frank Martin.

American writer Raymond Carver published a story about a man trying to move from an addiction to alcohol toward sobriety. The story, set over three days, includes New Years Day. Where I’m Calling From first appeared in the New Yorker in 1982.

Written in Carver’s no-nonsense economical fashion, the story is told by a nameless Narrator who immediately draws us into the residential treatment center where he finds himself and another because of an inability to stop drinking.

“J.P and I are on the front porch at Frank Martin’s drying out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank’s Martin’s, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he’s also a chimney sweep. It’s his first time here, and he’s scared. I’ve been here once before. What’s to say? I’m back.”

From the opening words we learn that alcoholism can take over one’s identity. The Narrator labels both J.P. and himself and everyone at the treatment center. But then the Narrator does go on to say that he knows J.P. as more than “a drunk”.

We also learn, from the Narrator’s “I’m back”, that the struggle with alcoholism can become a cycle of drinking and drying out. And then we find out that it can also become the ultimate wake-up call.

Let’s listen in . . .

“We’ve only been in here a couple of days. We’re not out of the woods yet. J.P. has these shakes, and every so often a nerve — maybe it isn’t a nerve, but it’s something — begins to jerk in my shoulder. Sometimes it’s at the side of my neck. When this happens, my mouth dries up. It’s an effort just to swallow then. I know something’s about to happen and I want to head it off. I want to hide from it, that’s what I want to do. Just close my eyes and let it pass by, let it take the next man. J.P. can wait a minute.

“I saw a seizure yesterday morning. . .”

A large man nicknamed Tiny had the seizure. As the Narrator tells us, Tiny was showing signs of improvement and looking forward to going home for New Year. But then Tiny collapsed at the table before all of them and was rushed to the hospital. The physical signs of alcoholism and withdrawal from it – shakes, spasms, swallowing issues and a seizure – have a major effect on the Narrator.

Loss of self-control brought the Narrator and the “drunk” others to Frank Martin’s drying out facility. And now the loss of physical control due to alcohol use disorder – the Narrator doesn’t want to countenance that. He recoils and hopes for the best – to “let it pass by” to someone else at the table.

“But what happened to Tiny is some-thing I won’t ever forget. Old Tiny flat on the floor, kicking his heels. So every time this little flitter starts up anywhere, I draw some breath and wait to find myself on my back, looking up, somebody’s fingers in my mouth.”

Reading on we get a sense of the need for company and storytelling that withdrawing from alcoholism produces. J.P. and the Narrator sit on the front porch of Frank Martin’s drying out facility. The Narrator listens to J.P.’s story.

The first thing we hear about is a childhood trauma. Twelve-year-old J.P. happened to fall into a dry well near a farm near where he grew up. It wasn’t until later that day that his dad found him and pulled him up. We find out from the Narrator the effect on J.P.:

“J.P. had wet his pants down there. He’d suffered all kinds of terror in that well, hollering for help, waiting, and then hollering some more. He hollered himself hoarse before it was over. But he told me that being at the bottom of that well had made a lasting impression.”

(So far, two lasting impressions from life-or-death situations.)

J.P. remembers looking up at the circle of blue sky from the “bottom of that well” and seeing passing clouds and birds and hearing rustling (of insects?) and the wind blow over the opening. To me this is a picture of the alcoholic at the bottom of the well (the bartending term “well” comes from one of the many names for the underneath of the bar top) and who now looks up and sees life going on without him and a “little circle of blue” that represents hope. The Narrator relates what J.P. said about that time:

“In short, everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well. But nothing fell on him and nothing closed off that little circle of blue. Then his dad came along with the rope, and it wasn’t long before J.P. was back in the world he’d always lived in.”

J.P. receives a lifeline. The Narrator wants to hear more.

“Keep talking, J.P. Then what?””

We learn from the Narrator that J.P. meets Roxy, a chimney sweep, at a friend’s house. J.P. says that he could “feel his heart knocking” as she looked him over.  J.P. receives a “good luck” kiss from Roxy.

“He could feel her kiss still burning on his lips, etc. At that minute J.P. couldn’t begin to sort anything out. He was filled with sensations that were carrying him every which way.”

J.P. asks to date her.

“Then what?” the Narrator says. “Don’t stop now, J.P.”

We learn that J.P. and Roxy date. To be close to Roxy, J.P. becomes a chimney sweep and begins working with her. The two later marry, have two kids, and buy a house. The Narrator relates what J.P. felt at the time and adds a comment:

“I was happy with the way things were going,” he says. “I had everything I wanted. I had a wife and kids I loved, and I was doing what I wanted to do with my life.” But for some reason — who knows why we do what we do? — his drinking picks up.

J.P.  goes on to talk about how he began to drink more and more, even taking a “thermos bottle of vodka in his lunch pail”. But then he stops talking.

The Narrator, who’s using J.P. story to help himself relax and avoid his own situation, coaxes to J.P. to continue.

J.P.’s drinking effects his relationship with Roxy. Their fights became physical – a broken nose for J.P. and a dislocated shoulder for Roxy.

“They beat on each other in front of the kids. Things got out of hand. But he kept on drinking. He couldn’t stop. And nothing could make him stop. Not even with Roxy’s dad and her brother threatening to beat hell out of him. They told Roxy she should take the kids and clear out. But Roxy said it was her problem. She got herself into it, and she’d solve it.”

Roxy fixes things by getting a boyfriend. J.P, finds out and goes berserk – like pulling off her wedding ring and cutting it in two. Things for the “drunk” J.P. go downhill – like falling off a roof and breaking a thumb and being arrested for drunk driving.

The Narrator wants us to know that he and J.P. are staying at Frank Martin’s of their own free will and that they’re trying to get their life back on track. Since it’s the Narrator’s second visit, Frank encourages him to stay longer – “The holidays are always a bad time.”

We then learn from the Narrator how J.P. arrived at the residential treatment center. Roxy’s father and brother drive J.P. to Frank Martin’s drying out facility, carry him upstairs and put him to bed. A couple of days later, J. P’s out on the porch with the Narrator telling his stories.

At one point, when the two are on the front porch, Frank Martin, who the Narrator says looks like a prize fighter and “like somebody who knows the score”, comes out to finish his cigar.

“He lets the smoke carry out of his mouth. Then he raises his chin toward the hills and says, “Jack London used to have a big place on the other side of this valley. Right over there behind that green hill you’re looking at. But alcohol killed him. Let that be a lesson. He was a better man than any of us. But he couldn’t handle the stuff, either.”

Frank then encourages them to read London’s Call of the Wild. The book is in the house, he tells them.

J.P., who wants to hide when Frank’s around, says he wishes he had a name like “Jack London” instead of his own name, Joe Penny. (Does the initial using  J. P. feel that the shame, failure, and disappointment of being a “drunk” is attached to “Joe Penny? Does he desire a new name because of his tarnished name?)

The Narrator then tells us about his two trips to Frank Martin’s. When his wife brought him here the first time, Frank said he could help. The Narrator wasn’t sure:

“But I didn’t know if they could help me or not. Part of me wanted help. But there was another part.”

The second time, the Narrator was driven to Frank Martin’s by his girlfriend. He had moved in with her after his wife told him to leave.

This second trip to the treatment center came after their drinking bouts around Christmas. The girlfriend had received horrible news in the form of a medical report. With that kind of news, they decided to start drinking and get “good and drunk”. On Christmas day they were still drunk. After a lot of Bourbon, the Narrator decides to go back for treatment. The drunk girlfriend drops him off. The Narrator is not sure if she made it home OK. They haven’t talked on the phone.

New Year’s Eve morning. The Narrator tries to contact his wife, but no answer. He recalls their last conversation. They screamed at each other. “What am I supposed to do?” he says, thinking that he can’t communicate with her anyway.

We learn that there’s a man in the group who’s in denial and says his drinking is under control. He says he doesn’t know why he’s at Frank Martin’s. But he also doesn’t remember how he got there.

New Year’s Eve. Frank made steaks for the group. But Tiny doesn’t eat. He fears another seizure. “Tiny is not the same old Tiny”.

After dinner Frank brings out a cake. In pink letters across the top: HAPPY NEW YEAR – ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Eating cake J.P. tells the Narrator that his wife is coming in the morning, the first day of the year.

The Narrator tries calling his wife collect, but there’s no answer again. He thinks about calling his girlfriend but he decides that he doesn’t’ want to deal with her. He hopes she’s OK but he doesn’t want to find out if there is something wrong with her.

In the morning, Roxy arrives. J.P. introduces his wife to the Narrator. The Narrator wants a “good luck” kiss. The Narrator can see that Roxy loves J.P. She uses “Joe” instead of “J.P.”

This scene seems to trigger something in the Narrator. Lighting a cigarette, he notices that he has the shakes. They started in the morning. He wants something to drink. Depressed, he turns his mind to something else.

The Narrator remembers a happy time with his wife in their house and the house painter that surprised him one morning. These were good vibes: “And at that minute a wave of happiness comes over me that I’m not him — that I’m me and that I’m inside this bedroom with my wife.”

Sitting outside on the front steps, the Narrator thinks about reconnecting – calling his estranged wife again and then his girlfriend. He tries to remember any of Jack London’s books he’s read. “To Build a Fire” comes to mind. It’s a life-or-death story set in the Yukon.

The Narrator thinks again about reconnecting – calling his estranged wife and wish her a “Happy New Year” and to let her know where he’s at when she asks. After that, he’d call his girlfriend hoping that her mouthy teenage son won’t pick up the phone.

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Carver’s style has been described as “dirty realism”. Bill Buford, in Granta Magazine, Summer 1983, describes the style:

“Dirty Realism is the fiction of a new generation of American authors. They write about the belly-side of contemporary life – a deserted husband, an unwanted mother, a car thief, a pickpocket, a drug addict – but they write about it with a disturbing detachment, at times verging on comedy. Understated, ironic, sometimes savage, but insistently compassionate, these stories constitute a new voice in fiction.”

Carver’s influences include Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor to some degree and others.

Like with Chekhov’s stories, Carver’s stories are like windows you can peer through and get a sense of the characters and what’s going on. Though indirect and conveying things without moral pronouncements, Carver’s stories suggest much with details that can say many things. Falling into a well and the mention of Jack London, for example, in the story above.

J.P.’s account of falling into a well gives us some idea of how it feels to be an alcoholic – helpless, in over your head, scared, and looking for a lifeline and a way out.

The Narrator, at the beginning, says “We’ve only been in here a couple of days. We’re not out of the woods yet” and at the end Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” comes to mind. I see his initial admission of trekking through the woods to sobriety and his later hint of his attempts toward sobriety (building a fire in the woods) as an inclusio or framing of the Narrator’s struggle with alcohol. His journey to sobriety will require a set of survival skills he doesn’t yet possess.

The setting of “To Build a Fire” is in the extreme cold of the largely uninhabited Yukon Territories. The unnamed (like the Narrator) solitary hiker is walking on a side trail in the woods toward an outpost. His self-confidence in hiking and survival skills has him disregard an old man’s advice about not traveling alone in such harsh weather.

Remember the Narrator saying this about his first arrival at Frank Martin’s?

“But I didn’t know if they could help me or not. Part of me wanted help. But there was another part.”

The hiker thinks that he can keep trekking toward the outpost without building a fire, despite it being 50 degrees below zero. His dog seems smarter than the hiker who underestimates the power of nature and the possibilities that can arise. While the hiker has some practical smarts, he lacks wisdom. A quote from the story describes the hiker:

“The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.”

At one point the hiker, almost frozen, finally decides to build a fire. Because it was easier to gather the wood needed, he builds his fire underneath a canopy of tree branches. The boughs above his fire are laden with snow. The jostling of his twig gathering and the heat of the fire cause the snow to fall onto the fire and quench it. The hiker tries again, this time out in the open, but he’s freezing up. His hands can’t function. He eventually resigns himself to his frozen fate.

One could see parallels between the unnamed hiker’s folly and the Narrator’s struggle with alcoholism. For one, there’s a self-reliance that paid off in the past that goes on to think it can handle all things. Maybe that’s why Frank Martin brought up Jack London:

“Jack London used to have a big place on the other side of this valley. Right over there behind that green hill you’re looking at. But alcohol killed him. Let that be a lesson. He was a better man than any of us. But he couldn’t handle the stuff, either.”

Another would be building a fire (drying out) under the pretense that you’ve got things figured out and under control. And that could end up in a cycle of a cycle of fires going out and building another fire, of drinking and drying out. Or worse.

Besides the hidden clues, discernable themes of addiction, self-destructive behaviors, addiction’s effect on others, loss of control while under the influence of alcohol, identity, loneliness, alienation, failure, vulnerability, and the need for human connection and story – they’re found in Where I’m Calling From.

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Raymond Carver described himself as “inclined toward brevity and intensity”.

Characterized by an economy with words, Carver’s stories focus on surface description and its subject matter. Things are laid bare. No flowery words. No adverbs. Meaning is found in the raw context.

“Carver decided to explore minimalism in writing. He showed, in his text, real situations of everyday life; some of them could be crude, or complicated to understand, but still, he represented feelings that everyone could recognize: sadness, loneliness, failure, etc.”

-Maialen De Carlos,  The American Short Story and Realism: Raymond Carver (byarcadia.org)

Raymond Carver once said “I’m a paid-in-full member of the working poor.”  He wrote stories that a blue-collar reader could connect with – of unremarkable people and the seemingly insignificant details that affect them. His own life was a constant struggle with alcohol addiction.

Carver had self-destructive issues with drinking. Alcohol shattered his health, his work and his family – his first marriage ended because of it. He stopped drinking on June 2nd 1977.

The Life of Raymond Carver documentary with Rare Interview (1989):

Hailed as the American Chekhov and short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize at the time of his death, only ten years earlier Raymond Carver had been completely down and out. In this vintage program filmed just a year after he died, Carver’s second wife, Tess Gallagher, and writers Jay McInerney and Richard Ford, his close friends, explore Carver’s artistic legacy: his stories and poems about the other side of the American Dream. In addition, excerpts from two of Carver’s most famous stories are dramatized. “No one since Steinbeck had written about these people,” says McInerney, “the people whose dreams go belly-up.”

The Life of Raymond Carver documentary with Rare Interview (1989) (youtube.com)

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Why do I read Carver?  Because he writes about people like me and my lived experience. I can relate to J.P. and the Narrator. I’ve known alienation, loneliness, shame, brokenness, failure. I’ve made bad decisions. I’ve been at the bottom of the well. And the bottom of the well has been in me.

Several years ago I had a chat with the rector of the church I was attending. It was midweek when he and I met in the church hallway. I had just dropped off some bags of groceries to be delivered to a homeless shelter in the area.

We hadn’t talked in a while and he wanted to catch up. So we sat down in a room just off the entrance to the chapel. I could tell, first off, that he was eager to convince me to share a room with another single woman during the upcoming trip to Israel that he was heading. When I let him know that I wasn’t interested, he asked me how I was doing.

I told him about work and that I was thinking about retiring at some point. Then, I don’t remember why – maybe to tell him Where I’m Calling From, I told him that there was a well of pain so deep in me that if I brought any of it up, I didn’t know what would happen.

He responded with “Hmmm.” When our conversation ended, he prayed for me.

What I like about Carver’s stories is what I like about Anton Chekov’s stories   – I don’t find sanctimony or moralizing. There is no rush to judgement. There are common shared experiences.

Where I’m Calling From, for the most part, is narrated in the present tense. If narrated in the past tense, we’d be in a position to judge. We’d be in the “I told you so” position.

But the present tense narration draws us in. We become involved. We wait and see what happens. We listen to the stories being told. We don’t judge. We understand. And we connect. As a follower of Jesus in this dark season, this is what I’m called to do.

The entire creation is groaning and that includes me.

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Short Story Roulette (archive.org)

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Advent: The Season of Hope (youtube.com)