Journey to an 800 Number Read Online Free

fella.”
    “He’s bald as a kumquat,” I said.
    “It’s summer. Camels shed in the summer. Two summers ago I was at this town in north Florida and there was a young woman who was a weaver. She came way out to the west end of town to see me when she found out that I was there.”
    “How did she find out?” I asked. “Did she live downwind of his litter box?”
    “I was written up in the paper.”
    “Really?”
    “Sure,” Father said. “On a slow news day, they put me in the local news.”
    “On the comic page?” I asked.
    “Usually on the first page of the second section.That’s where the local news is. Sometimes in the feature section.”
    “What do you do with them? The articles, I mean.”
    “I read them, of course.”
    “What do you do with them after you read them?”
    “I wrap the garbage in them. Just as I do with all the other newspapers. Can’t save too much when you live in a camper. Well, anyway, back in Florida two summers ago there was this woman weaver and she came out to see me to ask me if she could brush down Ahmed and collect his hair. She was making some kind of weaving. She had a black poodle and she was saving his hair, too, and she wanted to make a pattern in tan and black. She came every day and gathered up Ahmed’s hair, and since the summer had begun, he was shedding and she got bushels of hair. I never did see her work, but I venture to say it was more tan than black.”
    “What did she make with it?”
    “It was to be a wall hanging, she said.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    “Why?”
    “I thought she was weaving something to wear.”
    “When you consider how much a camel’s hair sweater costs, or you realize that the second best artists’ brushes are made of camel’s hair, you would now that camel’s hair is nothing to sneeze at.”
    “Unless you’re allergic,” I said.
    “Very good,” Father said. “You are a clever boy.” He looked over at me and grabbed my shoulder in that sort of hug of approval that he had.
    We were at a cafeteria again. This one was sectioned off so that one side was for professional truck drivers. We went to the civilian side. After filling our trays, I picked out a booth that was across the aisle from a mother and daughter. The daughter looked fifth-graderish. I knew they were mother and daughter because they looked like the petite and queen-sized versions of the same product, except that the mother was dressed in a pants suit and had her hair pulled back with a scarf and the daughter was dressed in jeans with her hair hanging loose all around and falling over the table.
    After we sat down, I jabbed my thumb in their direction and said to Father, “You could probably weave that into a room-sized rug unless she eats it with her eggs.”
    The girl was holding a fork in midair and reading the paper while her mother was eating with the best possible manners. “Sabrina,” the mother said, “you better finish up if we’re going to make Dallas before evening.”
    Without looking up, Sabrina said, “Would you hand me the scissors, please?”
    The mother reached into her pocketbook and took out a small pair of scissors, “Find something for your collection, dear?” she asked.
    “A two-faced cat,” the girl answered. She cutsomething out of the paper and handed the scissors back to her mother. “It’s got a picture. Two faces. One head. It eats with both mouths.” She held up the clipping.
    “Very nice, dear,” the mother said.
    “I still can’t find out anything about Renee,” the girl said.
    “Well, dear, sometimes no news is good news.”
    “I’ll have to check again in Dallas. Sometimes these small towns put only the national news and the local gossip in their papers.” The girl then looked over toward us and said, “Excuse me.”
    I was so busy pretending that I wasn’t listening that I kept digging right into my hash browns.
    Father said, “Yes?”
    The girl said to him, “Have you heard any news about Renee, the