“Sir, I’m afraid this is not Cleveland Towing, this is Frequent and Vigorous Publishing, Inc., shall I give you the correct number, though it may not work? You’re very welcome.” Lenore Released and then Accessed. “Frequent and Vigorous. Hi Mr. Roxbee-Cox, this is Lenore Beadsman, her roommate. She’s supposed to be in again at six. I will. OK. Frequent and Vigorous.”
The Position Release button gives the console operator a significant amount of control over any and all communication circuits of which he or she is a part. Depression of the button will immediately terminate any given active console circuit. Like hanging up, only faster and better and more satisfying. An additional and not explicitly authorized feature, introduced by Vem Raring, the night operator, with a trash-bag twistie and his son’s Cub Scout knife, allows any and all abusive parties to be put in a HOLD mode unre leasable from that party’s end and so rendering that party’s telephone service inoperative until such time as the console operator decides to let him or her off the hook, so to speak. Exceptionally abusive calls placed in this mode can also, again thanks to Vern Raring, with the help of the Start Out button and a twelve-digit intertrunk reroute code and long-distance service number, be transferred to any extremely expensive long-distance service point in the world, with Australia and the People’s Republic of China being particular favorites of operators inclined to exercise this option.
“I’m going insane,” Lenore said. “This is nuts. This thing has hardly stopped beeping and ringing and shrieking once, and there’s been like one semi-legitimate call all day.”
“Now you know what it’s like to work for a change,” said Judith Prietht, thumbing through her magazine.
“Was it like this for Candy on my lunch hour?”
“How should I know, I’d like to know? I had affairs to attend to myself.” Judith wet a finger and turned a page. A Tab can with red-orange lipstick around the hole and a bag of dull-colored knitting sat on the white counter next to Judith’s console. Lenore had a ginger ale and four books, none of which she’d even gotten to open.
There was jingling and whistling out there. Out of the black line of shadow in front of the switchboard cubicle stepped Peter Abbott.
“Hola, ” said Peter Abbott.
“You,” “ Lenore said over the beeping of the console, ”you fix our lines this minute.“
“An unbelievably nasty problem,” Peter Abbott said, coming around the side of the counter and into the cubicle. Judith Prietht plumped up both sides of her hairdo with her hands. “The office is frantic,” Peter said. “You might be interested to know that this is the worst problem since ‘81 and the ice storm in March and the all-Cleveland-numbers-mysteriously-busy-all-the-time problem, and the worst non-storm-related problem of all time, in Cleveland.”
“What an honor.”
“Pain in the ass, I’m sure, is more like it,” Peter Abbott said.
Judith Prietht was looking up at Peter. “How are you today?”
Peter gave her the fish eye. “Bueno,”
“So is it the console?” Lenore asked, looking down at the console as if it might be diseased. “Is that why you’re here, and not the tunnel man?”
“I’m here for P.R.,” said Peter, eyeing Lenore’s cleavage again. “I was just over at Big B.M. Cafe, and before that Bambi’s Den, which by the way holy cow. And you should see Big Bob Martinez over at the cafe. He’s so pissed. And I just now got done talking to your head guy upstairs, just now, Mr. Vigorous, the little fruit fly in the beret and double chin?”
“Ixnay,” said Judith Prietht.
“So is it the console,” said Lenore.
“We’re assuming not,” Peter Abbott said. “We’re still assuming it’s the tunnels. Otherwise why would targets outside your console-access field be affected?”
“Assuming? You’re assuming?”
“Oh, an extra-special look back at the Olympics!” Judith Prietht said into her People.
“Well, yes,” said Peter Abbott. He fingered a wire-stripper uncomfortably.
“The tunnel guy hasn’t found anything?”
“Well, Tunnels is just having some problems of its own, really, that aren’t helping Interactive Cable’s ability to deal effectively with this service problem at all,” said Peter Abbott.
“Problems.”
“Tunnel men are flakey. Tunnel men tend to be drips. It looks like the tunnel guys have decided to just take off for a while, go fishing or whore-chasing or something. They even like haven’t told their wives where they’re going, and Mr. Sludgeman, who’s the Tunnel Supervisor, is understandably really pissed off, also.”
“So wait. We have a hideous tunnel problem that totally impedes our ability to conduct business….”
Judith Prietht snorted.
“… and Interactive Cable all of a sudden, whom we pay for service, doesn’t have the staff needed to restore our service? Is that it?”
“P.R. isn’t really my specialty, you know,” said Peter Abbott.
“That really sucks,” Lenore said.
“Could I just say in passing that you have incredibly beautiful legs?” said Peter Abbott.
“Fresh,” said Judith Prietht.
“Fresh?”
“Go into our tunnel,” Lenore said to Peter Abbott. The console was beeping insanely. Lenore had only recently gotten the hang of ignoring the console when she really had to. “Go and restore our service this instant. I’m sure everyone would be grateful, especially the apparently very busy girls over at Bambi‘s, if you get my drift.” Or get Mr. Sledgeman to go fix them.“
Sludgeman.“
“Sludgeman.”
“Mr. Sludgeman can’t go, he’s in a wheelchair. He broke his spine in the ice-storm crisis of ‘81. And I can’t go down. You can’t mess with the tunnels, they’re real delicate. Think of them like nerves, and the city’s a body, with a nervous system. I go in and clunk around, and mess things up even more, and then where are we? Nerves cannot be messed with by the untrained. A tunnel man needs incredible finesse.”
“Even though they’re drips.”
“Right.”
“Holy cow,” Judith Prietht said into her magazine. “Holy cow. Kid, listen to this.”
“I’m sure Mr. Vigorous went on record as saying that Frequent and Vigorous is collectively really ticked off about this,” said Lenore.
“Kid, listen. Kopek Spasova. Kopek Spasova,” Judith said. “The superstar. ”
“Who?” said Peter Abbott.
“Kopek Spasova, the little kid from Russia that wins all the gold medals all over the place in gymnastics. She’s coming to Cleveland next Friday, it says. She’s going to exhibit.”
“May I please see that?” Lenore said. The console was hushed for a moment. “Holy mackerel,” said Lenore. In People there was a picture of Kopek Spasova, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, spinning around the uneven parallel bars, holding on only by her toes. “She was really great,” Lenore said. “I watched that on television.”
“It said she’s coming to an exhibition sponsored by Gerber’s Baby Food in the lobby of Erieview Tower,” Judith said.
“ ‘Kicking off a promotional campaign for the infant-food giant will be hot gymnastic commodity Kopek Spasova,’ ” Lenore read out loud, “ ‘whose father and coach, Ruble Spasov, just signed a purportedly mammoth promotional and endorsement contract with the firm.’ That’s just in few days.”
“Endorsing baby food?” said Peter Abbott.
“Well, she’s only something like eight, and really small,” said Lenore. She looked back down at the magazine. “ Dad’s not going to be pleased at all. Gerber’s done it again. And right here in Cleveland.”