Where I'm Calling From

“Where I’m Calling From,” a short story by American writer Raymond Carver, is told by an unnamed narrator at a rehabilitation facility for alcohol addiction. The plot is reminiscent of Carver’s own experience with addiction and subsequent treatment and recovery, and the story’s themes—Alienation from Self and Family, The Importance of Love and Friendship, and The Complexity of Addiction and Recovery—reflect the author’s signature focus on the hardships of everyday people. First published in The New Yorker in 1982, the story later appeared in The Best American Short Stories, 1983 and was reprinted in Carver’s 1983 collection Cathedral and 1988 collection Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories.

This guide cites the 1988 edition of Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories, published by Atlantic Monthly Press.

Content Warning: The source text and this study guide both discuss alcohol addiction and domestic violence.

The story is set at Frank Martin’s “drying-out facility,” a rehabilitation center for the treatment of alcohol addiction. In the opening scene, two of the facility’s residents—the unnamed narrator and his friend J.P.—sit talking together on the porch as they experience symptoms of withdrawal. J.P.’s full name is “Joe Penny,” but he insists on going by his initials. The narrator states in the second sentence, “Like the rest of us at Frank Martin’s, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he’s also a chimney sweep” (208). Both men are approximately 30 years old, though J.P. is the younger of the two (if only by “a little”).

As the narrator fearfully ruminates on his withdrawal symptoms, he recalls a talkative and amiable patient named Tiny who had a seizure the previous day. Tiny was “over the hump” (208) and had been planning to go home soon, but the seizure emerged as an unexpected setback, and he has returned to Frank Martin’s in a much more subdued mood. The unnerved narrator ponders asking Tiny whether any unusual sensations “signal[ed]” the seizure.

On the porch, the narrator listens to J.P. tell long stories about his life, one of which recounts his falling into a dry well as a child. The experience was terrifying—“everything about his life was different for him at the bottom of that well” (210)—but he was soon rescued.

At the narrator’s urging, J.P. continues telling the story of his life and recounts when, as a directionless young adult, he visited a friend: This friend had hired a woman named Roxy to come to clean his chimney, and before leaving, she offered his friend a kiss, telling him, “It’s supposed to bring good luck” (211). Feeling bold, J.P. asked her for a kiss for himself, which led to a blossoming romance between the two. When he decided to pursue Roxy, J.P. also decided that he, too, wanted to become a chimney sweep.

The narrator listens attentively as J.P. recounts marrying Roxy, becoming a partner in her father’s chimney sweep business, and having children. Despite all these good things, J.P. began drinking more heavily, leading to marital turmoil. J.P. suddenly stops talking mid-story, but because the narrator has been escaping his own troubles by listening to J.P., he encourages him to keep going. J.P. describes the domestic abuse between Roxy and himself (they both physically assaulted one another more than once) and the further deterioration of his life, including discovering that Roxy had found a boyfriend and getting arrested for driving under the influence. All this has led to J.P. checking in to Frank Martin’s (his father-in-law and brother-in-law all but dragged him here). The story prompts the narrator to think about his own addiction story. This is his second stay at Frank Martin’s; he was dropped off, intoxicated, by his girlfriend, who was also intoxicated. They’d drunk champagne on their drive over.

After J.P. finishes talking, Frank Martin himself emerges on the porch and tells the men about Jack London. The American novelist once lived nearby but, Frank Martin warns, “[A]lcohol killed him. Let that be a lesson to you. He was a better man than any of us. But he couldn’t handle the stuff, either” (215). This admonition reminds the narrator of his first stay at the rehabilitation facility, when he was dropped off by his wife (“when we were still together, trying to make things work out” [215]). At the time, he was not fully invested in recovery; as he recalls, “Part of me wanted help. But there was another part” (215). The narrator then reveals more about the circumstances of his current stay: His girlfriend had received bad medical news shortly before, resulting in the two of them drinking heavily (the narrator had been staying with her because his wife had kicked him out). Before even learning the full nature of his girlfriend’s medical circumstances, however, the narrator responded to the situation by deciding to go back to Frank Martin’s. The departure was tense, as his girlfriend’s teenage son was angry after being told she would be gone for an unspecified time and that he’d have to fend for himself until her return; as the narrator and his girlfriend left the apartment, her son screamed obscenities at them and told them to “kill themselves.” The narrator has not spoken to his girlfriend since arriving at the facility.

A few days pass, and on New Year’s Eve, the narrator tries to call his wife. There is no answer, and the narrator is dejected as he remembers fighting with her the last time they spoke on the phone. His mind now wandering, he ponders another resident at the facility—a man who says he regularly travels to Europe and the Middle East for business purposes, though the narrator is skeptical of the real reason for the trips. The man also claims that his alcohol use is “under control” and that he doesn’t really have a reason to be in Frank Martin’s, yet “he doesn't remember getting here. He laughs about it, about his not remembering. ‘Anyone can have a blackout,’ he says. ‘That doesn't prove a thing’” (217). The man insists that these lapses in consciousness are due to other things, like the fact that someone put ice in his whiskey. If he’d only stuck to straight whiskey, he says, he’d never have lost consciousness.

The rest of New Year’s Eve passes quietly as the facility’s residents eat a special dinner and watch television. Before everyone goes to bed, J.P. tells the narrator that Roxy will visit the following day, which prompts the narrator to try calling both his wife and his girlfriend, each unsuccessfully; his wife doesn’t answer, and before he even finishes dialing his girlfriend, he decides he doesn’t truly want to talk to her, as he is afraid to learn how serious her diagnosis might be.

The next morning, Roxy arrives, and J.P. introduces her to the narrator. The couple is about to go inside when the narrator stops them, saying, “I need some luck. […] No kidding. I could do with a kiss myself” (219). After Roxy graciously obliges, hearkening back to the kiss she gave J.P. on the day they met, she and J.P. disappear inside. The narrator now sits alone, smoking and reminiscing about a tender, funny moment from a happier time in his marriage. Then, he recalls a story by Jack London in which a man has to build a fire to avoid freezing to death. With these two thoughts fresh in his mind, he resolves to call both his wife and his girlfriend again.