Miriam Toews Reads Raymond Carver

This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month we're going to hear Elephant by Raymond Carver, which appeared in the New Yorker in June of 1986. We talked a little more, mostly about our mother and her problems, But to make a long story short, I sent him the money. I had to. I felt I had to, at any rate. Which amounts to the same thing. The story was chosen by Miriam Taves, who is the author of ten books, including the novels All My Puny Sorrows and Women Talking, and the memoir A Truce That Is Not Peace. Hi, Miriam. Hi, Deborah. So can you tell me what made you want to read a story by Raymond Carver today? What has he meant to you as a reader and a writer? Well, I haven't read a lot of his stuff recently, but I read so many of his stories when I was young, you know, a teenager starting out first year university. And, you know, I was a young parent. I had kids when I was really young. I was broke. I was thinking that I wanted to be a writer. I just felt knowing a little bit about him that we had a lot of similarity. We kind of had a similar life. Yeah, we kind of had the similar life. And, yeah, so, you know, having to choose a story to read, it occurred to me that, yeah, I'd always loved Raymond Carver stories and that they had meant so much to me, especially, you know, when I was younger and when I was sort of dreaming of becoming a writer and how I was so struck by his style, I guess. Even though this story, Elephant, it was written later in his life, really shortly before he died. And it's different than those earlier stories. It's kind of looser and funnier. So back then you were reading the sort of classics, the stories in Cathedral or earlier books. And do you feel, you know, more of an affinity with that style than with this later style? No, I feel more of an affinity with this later style and the kind of looseness or the air, the space between the sentences is something where there's just a kind of room for feeling a kind of just a sort of broader, bigger lens. Right. But also, I think there's more room for repetition in the story than there was in the earlier work. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you can sort of sense that he's, you know, taking his time a little bit more. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting when you think about it. Carver did not have a very long writing life. He published his first story collection in 1976, and he died in 1988. So Elephant coming out in 1986, you know, was 10 years in, but it was almost at the end. I know. And you think of most people as, you know, writing over decades, but he died very young. Yeah, he did. And what he packed into those 10 years, quite incredible. Absolutely. Well, we'll talk some more after the reading. And now here's Miriam Taves reading Elephant by Raymond Carver. Elephant. I knew it was a mistake to let my brother have the money. I didn't need anybody else owing me. But when he called and said he couldn't make the payment on his house, what could I do? I'd never been inside his house. He lived a thousand miles away, in California. I'd never even seen his house, but I didn't want him to lose it. He cried over the phone and said he was losing everything he'd worked for. He said he'd pay me back. February, he said, maybe sooner. No later, anyway, than March. He said his income tax refund was on the way. Plus, he said, he had a little investment that would mature in February. He acted secretive about the investment thing, so I didn't press for details. Trust me on this, he said. I won't let you down. He'd lost his job last July, when the company he worked for, a fiberglass insulation plant, decided to lay off 200 employees. He'd been living on his unemployment since then, but now the unemployment was gone, and his savings were gone too, and he didn't have health insurance any longer. When his job went, the insurance went. His wife, who was ten years older, was diabetic and needed treatment He'd had to sell the other car, her car, an old station wagon And a week ago he'd pawned his TV He told me he'd hurt his back carrying the TV up and down the street Where the pawn shops did business He went from place to place, he said, trying to get the best offer Somebody finally gave him a hundred dollars for it, this big Sony TV He told me about the TV, and then about throwing his back out, as if this ought to cinch it with me, unless I had a stone in place of a heart. I've gone belly up, he said, but you can help me pull out of it. How much, I said. Five hundred. I could use more, sure, who couldn't, he said. But I want to be realistic. I can pay back five hundred. More than that, I'll tell you the truth, I'm not so sure. Brother, I hate to ask, but you're my last resort. Irma Jean and I are going to be on the street before long. I won't let you down, he said. That's what he said. Those were his exact words. We talked a little more, mostly about our mother and her problems, but to make a long story short, I sent him the money. I had to. I felt I had to, at any rate, which amounts to the same thing. I wrote him a letter when I sent the check and said he should pay the money back to her mother, who lived in the same town he lived in and who was poor and greedy. I'd been mailing checks to her every month, rain or shine, for three years. But I was thinking that if he paid her the money he owed me, it might take me off the hook there and let me breathe for a while. I wouldn't have to worry on that score for a couple of months anyway. Also, and this is the truth, I thought maybe he'd be more likely to pay her since they lived right there in the same town, and he saw her from time to time. All I was doing was trying to cover myself some way. The thing is, he might have the best intentions of paying me back, but things happen sometimes. Things get in the way of best intentions. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. But he wouldn't stiff his own mother. Nobody would do that. I spent hours writing letters, trying to make sure everybody knew what could be expected in what was required. I even phoned out there to my mother several times, trying to explain it to her. But she was suspicious over the whole deal. I went through it with her on the phone, step by step, but she was still suspicious. I told her the money that was supposed to come from me on the first of March and on the first of April would instead come from Billy, who owed the money to me. She'd get her money, and she didn't have to worry. The only difference was that Billy would pay it to her those two months instead of me. He'd pay her the money I'd normally be sending to her, but instead of him mailing it to me and then me having to turn around and send it to her, he'd pay it to her directly. On any account, she didn't have to worry. She'd get her money, but for those two months, it'd come from him, from the money he owed me. My God, I don't know how much I spent on phone calls. And I wish I had 50 cents for every letter I wrote, telling him what I'd told her and telling her what to expect from him, that sort of thing. But my mother didn't trust Billy. What if he can't come up with it, she said to me over the phone. What then? He's in bad shape and I'm sorry for him, she said. But son, what I want to know is, what if he isn't able to pay me? What if he can't? Then what? Then I'll pay you myself, I said, just like always. If he doesn't pay you, I'll pay you. But he'll pay you. Don't worry. He says he will, and he will. I don't want to worry, she said. But I worry anyway. I worry about my boys, and after that, I worry about myself. I never thought I'd see one of my boys in this shape. I'm just glad your dad isn't alive to see it. In three months, my brother gave her $50 of what he owed me and was supposed to pay to her, or maybe it was $75 he gave her. There are conflicting stories. Two conflicting stories, his and hers. But that's all he paid her of the $500. $50 or else $75, according to whose story you want to listen to. I had to make up the rest to her. I had to keep shelling out, same as always. My brother was finished. That's what he told me, that he was finished. when I called to see what was up after my mother had phoned, looking for her money. My mother said, I made the mailman go back and check inside his truck to see if your letter might have fallen down behind the seat. Then I went around and asked the neighbors, did they get any of my mail by mistake? I'm going crazy with worry about this situation, honey. Then she said, what's a mother supposed to think? Who was looking out for her best interests in this business? She wanted to know that, and she wanted to know when she could expect her money. So that's when I got on the phone to my brother to see if this was just a simple delay or a full-fledged collapse. But, according to Billy, he was a goner. He was absolutely done for. He was putting his house on the market immediately. He just hoped he hadn't waited too long to try and move it. And there wasn't anything left inside the house that he could sell. He'd sold off everything except the kitchen table and chairs. I wish I could sell my blood, he said. But who'd buy it? With my luck, I probably have an incurable disease. And naturally, the investment thing hadn't worked out. When I asked him about it over the phone, all he said was that it hadn't materialized. His tax refund didn't make it either. The IRS had some kind of lien on his return. When it rains, it pours, he said. I'm sorry, brother. I didn't mean for this to happen. I understand, I said. And I did, but it didn't make it any easier. Anyway, one thing and the other, I didn't get my money from him, and neither did my mother. I had to keep on sending her money every month. I was sore, yes, who wouldn't be? My heart went out to him, and I wished trouble hadn't knocked on his door, but my own back was against the wall now. At least, though, whatever happens to him from here on, he won't come back to me for more money, seeing as how he still owes me. Nobody would do that to you. That's how I figured, anyway. But that's how little I knew. I kept my nose to the grindstone. I got up early every morning and went to work, and worked hard all day. When I came home, I plopped into the big chair and just sat there. I was so tired it took me a while to get around to unlacing my shoes. Then I just went on sitting there. I was too tired to even get up and turn on the TV. I was sorry about my brother's troubles, but I had troubles of my own. In addition to my mother, I had several other people on my payroll. I had a former wife I was sending money to every month. I had to do that. I didn't want to, but the court said I had to. And I had a daughter with two kids in Bellingham, and I had to send her something every month. Her kids had to eat, didn't they? She was living with a swine who wouldn't even look for work. a guy who couldn't hold a job if they handed him one. The time or two he did find something, he overslept, or his car broke down on the way into work, or else he'd just be let go, no explanation, and that was that. Once, long ago, when I used to think like a man about these things, I threatened to kill that guy. But that's neither here nor there. Besides, I was drinking in those days. In any case, the bastard is still hanging around My daughter would write these letters and say how they were living on oatmeal, she and her kids I guess he was starving too But she knew better than to mention that guy's name in her letters to me She'd tell me that if I could just carry her until summer, things would pick up for her Things would turn around for her, she was sure, in the summer If nothing else worked out, but she was sure it would She had several irons in the fire She could always get a job in the fish cannery that was not far from where she lived. She'd wear rubber boots and rubber clothes and gloves and pack salmon into cans, or else she might sell root beer from a vending stand beside the road to people who lined up in their cars at the border, waiting to get into Canada. People sitting in their cars in the middle of summer were going to be thirsty, right? They were going to be crying out for cold drinks. Anyway, one thing or the other, whatever line of work she decided on, she'd do fine in the summer. She just had to make it until then, and that's where I came in. My daughter said she knew she had to change her life. She wanted to stand on her own two feet like everyone else. She wanted to quit looking at herself as a victim. I'm not a victim, she said to me over the phone one night. I'm just a young woman with two kids and a son-of-a-bitch bum who lives with me. no different from lots of other women. I'm not afraid of hard work. Just give me a chance. That's all I ask of the world. She said she could do without for herself. But until her break came, until opportunity knocked, it was the kids she worried about. The kids were always asking her when Grandpop was going to visit, she said. Right this minute, they were drawing pictures of the swing sets and swimming pool at the motel I'd stayed in when I'd visited a year ago. But summer was the thing. she said. If she could make it until summer, her troubles would be over. Things would change then. She knew they would. And with a little help from me, she could make it. I don't know what I'd do without you, Dad. That's what she said. It nearly broke my heart. Sure, I had to help her. I was glad to be even halfway in a position to help her. I had a job, didn't I? Compared to her and everyone else in my family, I had it made. Compared to the rest, I lived on Easy Street. I sent the money she asked for. I sent money every time she asked. And then I told her I thought it'd be simpler if I just sent a sum of money, not a whole lot, but money even so, on the first of each month. It would be money she could count on, and it would be her money, no one else's, hers and the kids. That's what I hoped for, anyway. I wish there was some way I could be sure the bastard who lived with her couldn't get his hands on so much as an orange or a piece of bread that my money bought. But I couldn't. I just had to go ahead and send the money and stop worrying about whether he'd soon be tucking into a plate of my eggs and biscuits. My mother and my daughter and my former wife. That's three people on the payroll right there, not counting my brother. But my son needed money too. After he graduated from high school, he packed his things, left his mother's house, and went to a college back east. A college in New Hampshire of all places Who ever heard of New Hampshire But he was the first kid in the family on either side of the family to even want to go to college so everybody thought it was a good idea I thought so too, at first. How'd I know it was going to wind up costing me an arm and a leg? He borrowed left and right from the banks to keep himself going. He didn't want to have to work a job and go to school at the same time. That's what he said. And sure, I guess I can understand it. In a way, I can even sympathize. Who likes to work? I don't. But after he'd borrowed everything he could, everything in sight, including enough to finance a junior year in Germany, I had to begin sending him money, and a lot of it. When, finally, I said I couldn't send anymore, he wrote back and said if that was the case, if that was really the way I felt, He was going to deal drugs or else rob a bank, whatever he had to do to get money to live on. I'd be lucky if he wasn't shot or sent to prison. I wrote back and said I'd changed my mind and I could send him a little more after all. What else could I do? I didn't want his blood on my hands. I didn't want to think of my kid being packed off to prison or something even worse. I had plenty on my conscience as it was. That's four people, right? not counting my brother, who wasn't a regular yet. I was going crazy with it. I worried night and day. I couldn't sleep over it. I was paying out nearly as much money every month as I was bringing in. You don't have to be a genius or know anything about economics to understand that this state of affairs couldn't keep on. I had to get a loan to keep up my end of things. That was another monthly payment. So I started cutting back. I had to quit eating out, for instance. Since I lived alone, eating out was something I liked to do, but it became a thing of the past. And I had to watch myself when it came to thinking about movies. I couldn't buy clothes or get my teeth fixed. The car was falling apart. I needed new shoes, but forget it. Once in a while, I'd get fed up with it and write letters to all of them, threatening to change my name and telling them I was going to quit my job. I'd tell them I was planning a move to Australia. And the thing was, I was serious when I'd say that about Australia, even though I didn't know the first thing about Australia. I just knew it was on the other side of the world, and that's where I wanted to be. But when it came right down to it, none of them really believed I'd go to Australia. They had me, and they knew it. They knew I was desperate, and they were sorry, and they said so. But they counted on it all blowing over before the first of the month, when I had to sit down and make out the checks. After one of my letters where I talked about moving to Australia, my mother wrote that she didn't want to be a burden any longer. Just as soon as the swelling went down on her legs, she said, she was going out to look for work. She was 75 years old, but maybe she could go back to waitressing, she said. I wrote her back and told her not to be silly. I said I was glad I could help her. And I was. I was glad I could help. I just needed to win the lottery. My daughter knew Australia was just a way of saying to everybody that I'd had it. She knew I needed a break and something to cheer me up. So she wrote that she was going to leave her kids with somebody and take the cannery job when the season rolled around. She was young and strong, she said. She thought she could work the 12- to 14-hour-a-day shifts, seven days a week, no problem. She'd just have to tell herself she could do it, get herself psyched up for it, and her body would listen. She just had to line up the right kind of babysitter. That'd be the big thing. It was going to require a special kind of sitter, seeing as how the hours would be long and the kids were hyper to begin with because of all the popsicles and Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms, and the like that they put away every day. It's the stuff kids like to eat, right? Anyway, she thought she could find the right person if she kept looking. But she had to buy the boots and clothes for the work, and that's where I could help. My son wrote that he was sorry for his part in things, and thought he and I would both be better off if he ended it once and for all. For one thing, he'd discovered he was allergic to cocaine. It made his eyes stream and affected his breathing, he said. This meant he couldn't test the drugs in the transactions he needed to make. So, before it could even begin, his career as a drug dealer was over. No, he said, better a bullet in the temple and end it all right here. or maybe hanging. That would save him the trouble of borrowing a gun and save us the price of bullets. That's actually what he said in his letter, if you can believe it. He enclosed a picture of himself that somebody had taken last summer when he was in the study abroad program in Germany. He was standing under a big tree with thick limbs hanging down a few feet over his head. In the picture, he wasn't smiling. My former wife didn't have anything to say on the matter. She didn't have to. She knew she'd get her money the first of each month, even if it had to come all the way from Sydney. If she didn't get it, she just had to pick up the phone and call her lawyer. This is where things stood when my brother called one Sunday afternoon in early May. I had the windows open, and a nice breeze moved through the house. The radio was playing. The hillside behind the house was in bloom. But I began to sweat when I heard his voice on the line. I hadn't heard from him since the dispute over the 500, so I couldn't believe he was going to try and touch me for more money now. But I began to sweat anyway. He asked how things stood with me, and I launched into the payroll thing and all. I talked about oatmeal, cocaine, fish canneries, suicide, bank jobs, and how I couldn't go to the movies or eat out. I said I had a hole in my shoe. I talked about the payments that went on and on to my former wife. He knew all about this, of course. He knew everything I was telling him. Still, he said he was sorry to hear it. I kept talking. It was his time. But as he talked, I started thinking, how are you going to pay for this call, Billy? Then it came to me that I was going to pay for it. It was only a matter of minutes or seconds until it was all decided. I looked out the window. The sky was blue with a few white clouds in it. Some birds clung to a telephone wire. I wiped my face on my sleeve. I didn't know what else I could say. So I suddenly stopped talking and just stared out the window at the mountains and waited. And that's when my brother said, I hate to ask you this, but when he said that, my heart did this sinking thing. And then he went ahead and asked. This time it was a thousand. A thousand. He was worse off than when he'd called that other time. He let me have some details. The bill collectors were at the door. The door, he said, and the windows rattled. The house shook when they hammered with their fists. Blam, blam, blam, he said. There was no place to hide from them. His house was about to be pulled out from under him. Help me, brother, he said. Where was I going to raise a thousand dollars? I took a good grip on the receiver, turned away from the window, and said, But you didn't pay me back the last time you borrowed money. What about that? I didn't? he said, acting surprised. I guess I thought I had. I wanted to, anyway. I tried to, so help me God. You were supposed to pay that money to Mom, I said. But you didn't. I had to keep giving her money every month, same as always. There's no end to it, Billy. Listen, I take one step forward and I go two steps back. I'm going under. You're all going under and you're pulling me down with you. I paid her some of it, he said. I did pay her a little, just for the record, he said. I paid her something. She said you gave her $50 and that was all. No, he said. I gave her $75. She forgot about the other $25. I was over there one afternoon, and I gave her two tens and a five. I gave her some cash, and she just forgot about it. Her memory's going. Look, he said, I promise I'll be good for it this time. I swear to God. Add up what I still owe you, and add it to this money here I'm trying to borrow, and I'll send you a check. We'll exchange checks. Hold on to my check for two months. That's all I'm asking. I'll be out of the woods in two months' time. Then you'll have your money. July 1st, I promise. No later. And this time, I can swear to it. We're in the process of selling this little piece of property that Irma Jean inherited a while back from her uncle. It's as good as sold. The deal's closed. It's just a question now, working out a couple of minor details and signing the papers. Plus, I've got this job lined up. It's definite. I'll have to drive 50 miles round trip every day, but that's no problem. Hell, no. I'd drive 150 if I had to. I'd be glad to do it. I'm saying I'll have money in the bank in two months' time. You'll get your money, all of it, by July 1st, and you can count on it. Billy, I love you, I said. But I've got a load to carry. I'm carrying a very heavy load these days, in case you didn't know. That's why I won't let you down on this, he said. You have my word of honor. You can trust me on this, absolutely. I promise you my check will be good in two months, no later. Two months is all I'm asking for. Brother, I don't know where else to turn. You're my last hope. I did it, sure. To my surprise, I still had some credit with the bank, so I borrowed the money and I sent it to him. Our checks crossed in the mail. I stuck a thumbtack through his check and put it up on the kitchen wall next to the calendar and the picture of my son standing under that tree. And then I waited. I kept waiting. My brother wrote and asked me not to cash the check on the day we had agreed to. Please wait a while longer, is what he said. Some things had come up. The job he'd been promised had fallen through at the last minute. That was one thing that came up. And that little piece of property belonging to his wife hadn't sold after all. At the last minute, she'd had a change of heart about selling it. It had been in her family for generations. What could he do? It was her land, and she wouldn't listen to reason, he said. My daughter telephoned around this time to say that somebody had broken into her trailer and ripped her off Everything in the trailer Every stick of furniture was gone when she came home from work after her first night at the cannery There wasn't even a chair left for her to sit down on Her bed had been stolen too They were going to have to sleep on the floor like gypsies, she said Where was what's-his-name when this happened, I said She said he'd been out looking for work earlier in the day She guessed he was with friends. Actually, she didn't know his whereabouts at the time of the crime, or even right now, for that matter. I hope he's at the bottom of the river, she said. The kids had been with the sitter when the ripoff happened. But anyway, if she could just borrow enough from me to buy some secondhand furniture, she'd pay me back, she said, when she got her first check. If she had some money from me before the end of the week, I could wire it, maybe? She could pick up some essentials. Somebody's violated my space, she said I feel like I've been raped My son wrote from New Hampshire that it was essential he'd go back to Europe His life hung on the balance, he said He was graduating at the end of summer session But he couldn't stand to live in America a day longer after that This was a materialist society And he simply couldn't take it anymore People over here, in the U.S., couldn't hold a conversation Unless money figured in it some way And he was sick of it He wasn't a yuppie and didn't want to become a yuppie. That wasn't his thing. He'd get out of my hair, he said, if he could just borrow enough from me this one last time to buy a ticket to Germany. I didn't hear anything from my former wife. I didn't have to. We both knew how things stood there. My mother wrote that she was having to do without support hoes and wasn't able to have her hair tinted. She thought this would be the year she could put some money back for the rainy days ahead. but it wasn't working out that way. She could see it wasn't in the cards. How are you? She wanted to know. How's everybody else? I hope you're okay. I put more checks in the mail. Then I held my breath and waited. While I was waiting, I had this dream one night. Two dreams, really. I dreamt them on the same night. In the first dream, my dad was alive once more and he was giving me a ride on his shoulders. I was this little kid, maybe five or six years old. Get up here, he said, and he took me by the hands and swung me onto his shoulders. I was high off the ground, but I wasn't afraid. He was holding on to me. We were holding on to each other. Then he began to move down the sidewalk. I brought my hands up from his shoulders and put them around his forehead. Don't moss my hair, he said. You can let go, he said. I've got you. You won't fall. When he said that, I became aware of the strong grip of his hands around my ankles. Then I did let go. I turned loose and held my arms out on either side of me. I kept them out there like that for balance. My dad went on walking while I rode on his shoulders. I pretended he was an elephant. I don't know where we were going. Maybe we were going to the store or else to the park so he could push me in the swing. I woke up then, got out of bed and used the bathroom. It was starting to get light out, and it was only an hour or so until I had to get up. I thought about making coffee and getting dressed, but then I decided to go back to bed. I didn't plan to sleep, though. I thought I'd just lie there for a while with my hands behind my neck and watch it turn a light out, and maybe think about my dad a little, since I hadn't thought about him in a long time. He just wasn't a part of my life any longer, waking or sleeping. Anyway, I got back in bed. But it couldn't have been more than a minute before I fell asleep once more. And when I did, I got into this other dream. My former wife was in it, though she wasn't my former wife in the dream. She was still my wife. My kids were in it, too. They were little, and they were eating potato chips. In my dream, I thought I could smell the potato chips and hear them being eaten. We were on a blanket, and we were close to some water. There was a sense of satisfaction and well-being in the dream. Then, suddenly, I found myself in the company of some other people, people I didn't know. And the next thing that happened was that I was kicking the window out of my son's car and threatening his life, as I did once, a long time ago. He was inside the car as my shoe smashed through the glass. That's when my eyes flew open and I woke up. The alarm was going off. I reached over and pushed the switch and lay there for a few minutes more my heart racing In the second dream somebody had offered me some whiskey and I drank it Drinking that whiskey was the thing that scared me That was the worst thing that could have happened. That was rock bottom. Compared to that, everything else was a picnic. I lay there for a minute longer, trying to calm down. Then I got up. I made coffee and sat at the kitchen table in front of the window. I pushed my cup back and forth in little circles on the table and began to think seriously about Australia again. And then, all of a sudden, I could imagine how it must have sounded to my family when I'd threatened them with a move to Australia. They would have been shocked at first, and even a little scared. Then, because they knew me, they'd probably started laughing. Now, thinking about their laughter, I had to laugh too. Ha, ha, ha. That was exactly the sound I made there at the table. Ha, ha, ha. As if I'd read somewhere how to laugh. What was it I planned to do in Australia anyway? The truth was, I wouldn't be going there any more than I'd be going to Timbuktu, the moon, or the North Pole. Hell, I didn't want to go to Australia. But once I understood this, once I understood I wouldn't be going there, or anywhere else for that matter. I began to feel better. I lit another cigarette and poured some more coffee. There wasn't any milk for the coffee, but I didn't care. I could skip having milk in my coffee for a day and it wouldn't kill me. Pretty soon I packed the lunch and filled the thermos and put the thermos in the lunch pail. Then I went outside. It was a fine morning. The sun lay over the mountains behind the town and a flock of birds was moving from one part of the valley to another. I didn't bother to lock the door. I remembered what had happened to my daughter, but decided I didn't have anything worth stealing anyway. There was nothing in the house I couldn't live without. I had the TV, but I was sick of watching TV. They'd be doing me a favor if they broke in and took it off my hands. I felt pretty good, all things considered, and I decided to walk to work. It wasn't all that far, and I had time to spare. I'd save a little gas, sure, but that wasn't the main consideration. It was summer, after all, and before long, summer would be over. Summer, I couldn't help thinking, had been the time everybody's luck had been going to change. I started walking alongside the road, and it was then, for some reason, I began to think about my son. I wished him well, wherever he was. If he'd made it back to Germany by now, and he should have, I hoped he was happy. He hadn't written yet to give me his address, but I was sure I'd hear something before long. And my daughter, God love her and keep her, I hoped she was doing okay. I decided to write her a letter that evening and tell her I was rooting for her. My mother was alive and more or less in good health, and I felt lucky there, too. If all went well, I'd have her for several more years. Birds were calling, and some cars passed me on the highway. Good luck to you too, brother, I thought. I hope your ship comes in. Pay me back when you get it. My former wife, the woman I used to love so much, she was alive and she was well too, so far as I knew, anyway. I wished her happiness. When all was said and done, I decided things could be a lot worse. Just now, of course, things were hard for everyone. People's luck had gone south of them, was all. But things were bound to change soon. Things would pick up in the fall, maybe. There was lots to hope for. I kept on walking. Then I began to whistle. I felt I had the right to whistle if I wanted to. I let my arms swing as I walked, but the lunch pail kept throwing me off balance. I had sandwiches, an apple, and some cookies in there, not to mention the thermos. I stopped in front of Smitty's, an old cafe that had gravel in the parking area and boards over the windows. The place had been boarded up for as long as I could remember. I decided to put the lunch pail down for a minute. I did that, and then I raised my arms. Raised them up level with my shoulders. I was standing there like that, like a goof, when somebody tooted a car horn and pulled off the highway into the parking area. I picked up my lunch pail and went over to the car It was a guy I knew from work whose name was George He reached over and opened the door on the passenger side Hey, get in, buddy, he said Hello, George, I said I got in and shut the door and the car sped off, throwing gravel from under the tires I saw you, George said Yeah, I did, I saw you You're in training for something, but I don't know what He looked at me and then looked at the road again He was going fast You always walk down the road with your arms out like that? He laughed, ha ha ha, and stepped on the gas Sometimes, I said It depends, I guess Actually, I was standing, I said I lit a cigarette and leaned back in the seat So what's new, George said He put a cigar in his mouth, but he didn't light it Nothing's new, I said. What's new with you? George shrugged. Then he grinned. He was going very fast now. Wind buffeted the car and whistled by outside the windows. He was driving as if we were late for work. But we weren't late. We had lots of time, and I told him so. Nevertheless, he cranked it up. We passed the turn off and kept going. We were moving by then, heading straight toward the mountains. He took the cigar out of his mouth and put it in his shirt pocket. I borrowed some money and had this baby overhauled, he said. Then he said he wanted me to see something. He punched it and gave it everything he could. I fastened my seatbelt and held on. Go, I said. What are you waiting for, George? And that's when we really flew. Wind howled outside the windows. He had it floored and we were going flat out. we streak down that road in his big, unpaid-for car. That was Miriam Taves, Reading Elephant by Raymond Carver. The story was published in The New Yorker in June of 1986 and was included in Where I'm Calling From, New and Selected Stories, which was published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1988, three months before Carver's death. Hi, I'm David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. At this year's Academy Awards, Timothee Chalamet and Tiana Taylor aren't the only major nominees. The New Yorker will be there too with two nominated short films, which you can watch at newyorker.com slash video. Two People Exchanging Saliva was executive produced by Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert, and it's set in a dystopian Paris where kissing is illegal. Our animated short film Retirement Plan follows a man as he dreams about all the things he's going to do when he's done working. You can enjoy both of those films and our full library of acclaimed short films at newyorker.com slash video. So, Miriam, I feel like this is a very difficult story to summarize. You know, how would you describe it to someone who hasn't read it? Yeah, I know. You know, and I knew that you'd be asking me this question, and I kept thinking, yeah, how would I do that? I don't know. It is difficult to summarize. I mean, it's almost like he's created this mood and then there's this turning point where his attitude changes. It just feels like a kind of late in life moment of a kind of epiphany or, you know, this moment of grace or wisdom or something like that, something that he comes to understand about himself, about life. But before that, you know, there's just this, what I think of as really funny, you know, series of problems and need and, you know, all of the asks from his various, his kids and his ex-wife and his mother and his brother and all of his obligations and all of his responsibilities. Yeah, yeah. Unless you're the one experiencing it. That's the one experiencing it. But even then, you know, I mean, just for instance, you know, yeah, we're going through it and through it and it keeps mounting. You know, these problems, financial problems keep mounting. And his son, for instance, you know, yeah, now, bummer, but now it turns out I'm allergic to cocaine. So I can't even test the products that I'm trying to sell. You know, he's become a drug dealer in the meantime because he can't make any money. Yeah, funny. I guess it's like every story needs to have some kind of movement. It needs to have some kind of change. And what's interesting here is that the change is just internal. There's no change in the situation or the plot. Right. Yeah, exactly. You know, this change is just this sort of coming to understand, like this fleeting moment of freedom that he has at the end with George in the car or the feeling of freedom, you know, but immediately understanding that it has a cost, that there's always something to be paid for, including that moment. So I guess the story begins, as you say, with all of these relatives demanding money from this poor narrator. And there's obviously, it's clear that the relatives are in need, you know, that the brother is in danger of losing his home or his wife being sick. And, well, the daughter is in danger of not having enough to feed her kids. The son is not really in danger, but he's emotionally in danger. So there's this what feels like genuine desperation from these people. But there's also such a degree of emotional manipulation in their requests and demands that it's hard almost to take them seriously. It's hard to believe what they're saying at face value. What do you think about that? I agree. It is hard. And, you know, like I say, it's comical. But, you know, I read it and reread it and reread it. And the more times I read it, I sort of understood that actually all of their problems were pretty common. I mean, you know, it wasn't as though they were really, like you say, I mean, you know, his daughter needs to feed her kids and stuff like that. But if you kind of break it up a little bit, it sort of seemed like a kind of familiar place to be when you're young, working class, trying to pay the bills, trying to get ahead, trying to, you know, survive. And I think that there seems to be a kind of understanding of that, too, from the narrator, you know, that, yeah, it's manipulative. And, yeah, you know, he's being tapped and he doesn't have that much money himself. I mean, you know, he's a working class guy working his butt off 12 hours a day or whatever it is, too tired to even turn the TV on when he comes home from work. But I don't know, the more times I read it, I just thought, yeah, this sounds, you know, this is life. And again, he wrote this story at the end of his life. And he wasn't an old man, of course. He was only 50 when he died. But if I guess the story came out when he was 40, 48. But I don't know how soon before that he wrote it. But it just has that feeling of melancholy for sure. But a sort of resignation that these are obligations. and that, you know, in a sense, I mean, the obligations are what gives the freedom its importance, its beauty or whatever it is, its fleetingness, you know, that just that temporary feeling of feeling free. And I just feel that there's such a wisdom to it. And again, you know, he wasn't old, but it just felt, you know, the gracefulness of the writing, the tenderness and the humor, just that kind of like, yeah, you know, everybody around me is manipulating me or asking me for things that I don't have. And it sounds kind of pat when I say it like this, but that's life. But at the same time, I just feel reading the story and the way that he writes it really has just this wisdom and this resignation and a kind of love, a tenderness. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that the narrator is the only one who really seems to feel compassion for anyone. You know, even the mother's like, you know, talks about her other son saying, you know, he's in bad shape. I'm sorry for him. But what I want to know is what if he isn't able to pay me, you know? Exactly. Yeah. This is almost in the same breath as she's saying, you know, I put my sons first and then myself, but clearly not. Clearly not. And, you know, that's, you know, the beauty and the, you know, brilliance of Carver's writing to, you know, what people are saying and what is happening and the contrast. And he's also atoning for, you know, it comes out later that he tried to kill his son, or he thinks that he did. And part of his constant obligation to his son and to the others, too, is just that coming from guilt and that sense of needing to atone. Right. I mean, even before the dreams, we hear that he was a drinker and that when he was drinking, he threatened to kill his daughter's boyfriend. Yeah. And I'm interested in that line. He says, once long ago when I used to think like a man about these things, I threatened to kill that guy. Just this vision of thinking like a man as being sort of homicidal and resorting to violence. And then you wonder what is he thinking? Who is he thinking like now? Well, he's not thinking like the women in his life, really. He's become something else in a strange way. Yeah. I was struck by that line as well. You know, and I used to think like a man about it. Yeah. What exactly did he mean by that? A kind of, you know, old fashioned, macho, sort of tough, tough guy and solving every problem with violence. But again, I mean, maybe that's the movement in the story, you know, where he realizes that there are other ways to be, you know, a man or a responsible person in the world. And he's, you know, and he's in the new way of doing it. Right, right. I mean, it's also interesting to follow the kind of chain of dependency in the story. You know, we have this man who used to be dependent on or addicted to alcohol. His family members have the same kind of relationship to him. You know, they behave completely like addicts. They're begging, they're threatening, they make promises, they break. They keep coming back for more, asking for more. and he's in a way the dealer who keeps supplying them. And perhaps he's dependent on them in order to feel needed to have some purpose in life. I feel like there's a strange conflict on that one. Right in the second sentence he says, I didn't need anyone else owing me. But he kind of does. Yeah, it's the thing that makes him feel useful, necessary. and like you say it's a it's a codependency that maybe you know again he realizes and possibly maybe not even consciously but understanding on some level that that not necessarily a healthy way of being as you know we told but that it is his way of being and that it okay that we're all going to depend on something. We're all going to, if we don't have obligations, if we don't have needs, then what does that mean? We're alone. Then is that freedom? I mean, then we're alone in Australia, you know, without anything. And, you know, and so I think he makes a choice. Yeah. And there's that funny moment where he says, you know, basically, who am I kidding? I'm not going to Australia. And they all know it. You know, they're sitting there going, ha, ha, ha. When I say I'm leaving, they're so sure it's just an idle threat. Like they've heard it before, you know, and I think that's something that I know I do or I say to myself, okay, that's it I can't I'm gonna take off I'm gonna go somewhere I'm going to the airport right now and I'm gonna get a ticket to wherever I can go whatever plane is leaving next and you know but there's always always always with that you know the other voice saying like obviously you're not gonna do that right these are your kids yeah yeah there's a a line in his story distance an earlier an earlier story that I guess it was based on the year that he became a father and he became a father when he was very young, like in his teens. And the line is, you know, he's talking about a moment when a young man hears voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life and asking, you know, wondering if anybody else had ever heard that voice, that whispering outside of himself. And I just thought that was really poignant and applied to this story and just about everything that he writes. Yeah. It implies also a kind of loneliness. Yeah. You know, not knowing if anyone else is hearing this. Right. Feeling like you have some message, you don't even know where it's coming from, you know. Yeah. And it's not so much, you know, that he's martyring himself or that he thinks that to martyr himself is the thing that he should be doing. And, I mean, you could think of it as a kind of hopeless sort of despairing story. Like, you know, so many of his stories are, I mean, not necessarily hopeless, but certainly, you know, the despair there is palpable. But again, I just think of it as the wisdom that comes from age, you know, and again, he wasn't that old. He was only in his 40s. But, you know, he had lived a long, in some ways, life, a long, difficult life. And I think that's, yeah, that the story is about that and about his memory of what it was, you know, when he was a kid with his father and his father supporting him, you know, literally in his dream, putting him up on his shoulders. and knowing what that meant to him and then wanting to be that person to his loved ones and his dependents. Right, right. Let's talk about the dreams. I mean, as you said before, they're this sort of pivot, which is the change in the story. And it's just two dreams described. And there's that one, as you say, where his father's alive and he's a child and he's riding his father's shoulders. and he feels his father makes him feel safe enough to let go, right? And then he has this vision of him as the elephant. And then we have the second dream, which is first sort of idyllic. He's still with his wife. The kids are young. They're having a picnic eating potato chips. And then suddenly he's drinking whiskey and he's kicking in his son's car window and threatening to kill him. You know, probably something that maybe is the worst memory of his life or, you know, something he never wants to live through again. Yeah. And after those dreams, you know, even as he says, nothing's new, but something has changed, something is new. What do you think those dreams do to him? I mean, I think they remind him of who he is, who he was, who he's become, who he is in life, and that, you know, this is just a kind of generational thing for him, for the narrator, maybe for Carver himself, that there's somebody there supporting you, lifting you up and providing love and safety. And I think, you know, I mean, from what I've read, that that was Carver's experience for sure, especially in his early, early childhood. And I think he just, the dream that comes to him just reminds him that he now is in a place of, you know, he's the elephant and that's just the natural kind of cycle of things. And he can be that person, and he should be that person. You know, it's a little bit moralistic, but I think that there's so much of that in Carver's work and, you know, a kind of, I mean, a lesson that sounds too heavy handed, but, you know, just a sort of message about how to live, you know, or how we live and that how we live is okay. Like, again, that resignation and that reminding oneself of who you are in life and where you've come from and what you need to be. Yeah. And what he needs to be is an elephant, even with his own mother on top. Yeah, exactly. And his brother riding him. That's right. And then that just that constant, you know, that just that constant tension between responsibility and obligation and freedom and just sort of always living within that, within that tension. Right. And the second dream really scares him, right? Yeah, rock bottom. Yeah. It shows him what he's been, what he could be again if he doesn't assume responsibility for himself and for others. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, and would that happen in Australia? Anything could happen to his kids while he's in Australia. He wouldn't be there to carry him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously, there's also what he's reminded of is his guilt, his feelings of guilt for the kind of father he was in those years. And it's interesting because, you know, the son is still in college. So presumably in his late teens, early 20s. And he wouldn't have had a car until he was at least over 16. So this event, if it happened, didn't happen that long ago. You know, he's only been on the wagon probably for a few years. which I think is different from Carver's own life in terms of time that had passed. But it's still very fresh, and he's still trying to figure out what the future is, right? What his life is going to be. He's lost his wife. He's living alone. He's burdened. And he's lonely and working very hard. And where is the pleasure in life, right? So you can sort of see why this time is really between one thing and another thing. Right. And then maybe he has to think about how he gets to the next thing, right? And that may be by just kind of resigning himself to this responsibility. Yeah, I think so. And in that resignation comes, you know, a type of joy. I mean, you know, a quiet joy, you know, not necessarily euphoric. But, and again, understanding that, you know, he can go on a fast ride in a fast car and that's somehow pleasurable and beautiful. And again, just so fleeting, so simple and just sort of melancholy in it, in that is this as good as it gets kind of thing? I'm going to, you know, just drive fast towards the mountains with my buddy in his unpaid for car. But in a sense, you know, I think that, yeah, those are the moments. Those are the things. And I think that the story implies that, you know, that we can have that feeling of whatever it is, escape, freedom from all of our obligations, all of our responsibilities, but not quite, you know, the unpaid for a car, you know, that everything has to be paid for in a sense. And, you know, I guess you could think that that's kind of a pessimistic way of looking at life or the meaning of life. But I think that it's realistic and somehow I think it's comforting. Yeah. Well, I guess you could also look at it another way, which is, you know, he's in debt. He's got loans to pay for his family members' debts. He gets in this car and this is a moment of release. And, of course, the car isn't paid for either. And maybe that's just life. Maybe nothing is paid for. The best things in life aren't paid for. You're living on credit. You're living on borrowed time. And that makes it even more sort of joyful. Yeah. Yeah. And not necessarily literally paid for, but just that with one beautiful sort of joyful moment of camaraderie and speed and excitement that we know at a certain point, you know, just because we've lived long enough and experienced enough things that we have to come down. We come down from it, you know, and maybe that's the payoff. Right. They'll have to turn around and go back to work. That's right. But in the meantime, they're living dangerously. They're driving at full speed. Right, and the narrator tells him, you know, go, go for it. What are you waiting for? And it's like he's been so burdened and so, you know, worried about every penny and every check and every phone call and what it's costing. And just to let go of that is amazing. I mean, I love the fact that he decides he's going to walk to work, and then he stops in this abandoned cafe parking lot, and he puts his arms out to the sides, and it's just him riding on his father, sticking his arms out. And what happens? Immediately, he gets picked up and carried off. So it's true. His father was right. It's okay. You can let go. You'll be fine. You won't fall. Exactly. Just that all it takes is that gesture of letting go. Yeah, and that faith, you know, that leap of faith. Courage. Yeah. And I guess you leave the story with the idea that all those people are going to be okay. You know, his brother will get a job. He'll go on supporting his mother. And the son will go and be a non-materialistic yuppie living off him in Germany. Maybe. Maybe you get that sense that everybody's going to be okay. Or maybe you just have the sense that, well, you know, chances are some of them will be okay. Right. And what can I do besides what I'm already doing? You know, what can I do? You know, even as a father, even as an ex-husband or a son or, you know, loving son, loving brother, you know, I can do this. I don't know what else I can do, you know, to save them from life, the world. But this is what I can do. And we hope that we'll all be okay in the end. Yeah, there's almost like a linguistic detachment in that morning where he says, I packed the lunch. I put the thermos in the lunch pail. No, not my. I didn't pack my lunch. I didn't put my thermos in my lunch pail. It's almost as though he's detached himself somehow. It's weird. Yeah, going through the motions. removal into a different space. Yeah, exactly. Maybe it's a way for him to, you know, in that detachment, that Buddhist detachment that he can understand that life is suffering, that, you know, that, you know, he is every man and every person, every woman, he is working, he is living, he is dying. And so, you know, yeah, it's not about him. Right, right. It's just general. And then even, you know, George hasn't paid for his car and he's not worried about it. He's not burdened. He wants to, you know, speed down the highway. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it is such a release. It's a release both for him to give in to the fact that he has to keep impoverishing himself for others and then to step away from thinking about it. And maybe with a strange, maybe a feeling too that, okay, yeah, he can take care of all of these people. on the one hand, and maybe later in life he'll be taken care of by one of them or two of them, if need be, you know, but maybe not. Yeah, maybe. Maybe he'll get a new pair of shoes. Maybe he'll get a new pair of shoes without a hole in them. Yeah. Maybe he'll have enough energy at the end of the day to turn the TV on. Yeah. And also just the fact he leaves his door unlocked, he's like, well, you know, if they want to take the TV, they can take it. Right. Yeah. I'm sick of watching TV anyway. It really is a detachment from worrying about loss and worrying about money, at least briefly anyway. I mean, the story is, as you've pointed out, it's very autobiographical. I was reading somewhere an essay that his second wife, Tess Gallagher, wrote where he said, at times the demands from all quarters by Ray's family for money reached such a pitch that he felt his connections with them had been reduced to this. the simple need for cash. So you can also feel, you can feel Carver himself, you know, not just this narrator who is a character. You can feel Carver himself. And what did he call those years of, you know, parenting when the kids were little and they were so broke? Furious season, furious parenting, he called it, you know, just in the grip of it. I mean, just, and all of his stories are so much about that domestic life, the violence of it, Not necessarily literally the violence of it, but just the madness of it, the worry of it. Right. And yet we all keep doing it. And yet we all keep doing it. Yeah. Interesting. Well, thank you, Miriam. Thanks, Deborah. Raymond Carver, who died at age 50 in 1988, was the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and fiction, including the story collections, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral, and Where I'm Calling From. Miriam Taves has published ten books, including the novels A Complicated Kindness, which won the Governor General's Award for Fiction, All My Puny Sorrows, Women Talking, and Fight Night, and the memoir A Truce That Is Not Peace, which came out earlier this year. You can download more than 220 previous episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, or subscribe to the podcast for free in Apple Podcasts. On the Writer's Voice podcast, you can hear short stories from the magazine read by their authors. You can find the Writer's Voice and other New Yorker podcasts on your podcast app. Tell us what you thought of this program on our Facebook page, or rate and review us in Apple Podcasts. This episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast was produced by John LeMay. I'm Deborah Treisman. Thanks for listening. I'm Shilpa Oskakovich. And I'm Jazzy Sefcek. And we're the hosts of the Bon Appetit Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident, curious bakers. Jazzy and I love to bake. Some might even call us obsessive. And we love to talk about all the hows and whys and what didn't work that come with it. Every month, we publish a recipe on BonAppetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know. Then you'll bake, send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. So consider this your official invitation. Come join the BA Bake Club. New episodes on the first Tuesday of every month, wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking.