Miriam Toews Reads 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.