"I'd like the telephone number of a Monica Cole. It's a residence." There was the longest wait. Please be patient while we look foryour number. The automated voice kept repeating the same message. While I was waiting for Monica's number, another call was trying to come through. What if 1 was on the phone talking with someone 1 couldn't get rid of when 1 finally got an operator? 1 pushed the "flash" button on my phone.
"Jim?" It was her. Bill was pointing towards the door. 1 could see him mouthing the words "I have to shop," but 1 didn't dare interrupt the conversation and he left in a huff.
".Actually it's James, nobody calls me Jim." 1 knew 1'd said the wrong thing the minute the words came out of my mouth. We were no longer simply a cock and cunt. We were people. Human personality is like religion. It can be a source of great wisdom and solace, but it also creates divisions, conflicts, and sometimes even wars. Personalities, like religions, had often done more harm than good, and now that more than sex was involved, now that our personalities had entered into the relationship, we were already experiencing conflict. It was oh so much easier when few words were exchanged and all we did was fuck.
"I wanted to invite you out to dinner."
"Isn't that usually the prerogative of the male?"
"1 thought you wanted to discuss our relationship. Do you want me to hang up? You can call me back." 1 don't like being challenged and 1 didn't like the tone of her voice, which was decidedly snide. Recently, I'd watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel about the mating pattern of porcupines. Apparently the male urinates on the woman. If she likes it, they fuck. In this case it felt like the reverse, and to extend the analogy, I wasn't enjoying her needles. I was paying for my shyness as I had ever since I was a kid. I should have asked for her number right away. Then I would have been on the horn, and we wouldn't have been experiencing the kind of role reversal that was creating confusion from the get-go. It's hard moving from a purely physical relationship to one in which you deal with the love partner as a real individual who could end up being the beneficiary to your life insurance policy. Monica Cole was a phantom whom I was trying to integrate into my life, but the mind/body problem was already turning into a sticky issue. Once she took my dick out of her mouth and started to talk, the hot cunt turned into a raving bitch.
1 simply hung up the phone. I'd let her cool her tootsies. Then 1'd call back and start all over again-but when I *69ed her, 1 got a busy signal. The bitch had taken the phone off the hook. 1 was so irritated with her I forgot to write down the number-All of a sudden there was a ring. I didn't pick right up. I wanted to sound firm yet loving, and certainly not vindictive. I would be understanding, even therapeutic.
"Hey, it's Pete. May I please speak to Bobby." It was an adolescent's voice.
"Sorry, kid, you got the wrong number."
All of a sudden I realized, my ass was grass. If I *69ed, I was going to get Pete. I grabbed the phone.
Verion nationwide 411 listing, the computerized voice said.
"I'd like the telephone number of a Monica Cole." The wait seemed to be endless.
Please wait while an operator looks for that number… thank you for waiting. Your request is still being processed. Thank you for continuing to hold Please wait while an operator looks for that number. The same message repeated itself over and over again, until after one final thank Jon for continuing to hold, the voice of a human finally came on the line.
"Was that Monica Cole? How do you spell that name?"
"Monica like it sounds, M-o-n-i-c-a, and Cole like coal mine."
"Checking under Monica Coal. I don't see any listing. Is it a business or a residence?"
I felt like saying business. Why don't you check under hot pussy? After all, Verizon had made me wait; I should be able to say what I wanted.
"How are you spelling that Cole?"
"Like coal mine."
"Have you ever heard of anyone whose name is spelled c-o-a-l?"
"Sir, you said `coal like coal mine."'
"You shouldn't take everything so literally. People don't always say what they mean. It's Go-l-e, I'm sure, like Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, and most other people who call themselves Cole. If you come across a Go-a-1 in all your years as an information operator, and I'm sure you'll have a long and distinguished career, I would appreciate it if you would call me." I was beginning to lose my patience. I wasn't even sure I wanted Monica Cole's number. I was in love with a hot pussy, but I wasn't convinced I wanted to spend my life with Monica Cole.
"Checking under Monica C-o-l-e, I'm not showing a number listed under that name."
1 slammed the phone down in frustration. They tell you when it's an unlisted number. If it had been unlisted 1 would have had something to work with, but I was back to ground zero.
It was then that the phone rang again.
"I really don't appreciate your behavior."
"Oh, I'm so happy you called back." I adopted the sweetest, most understanding voice in my repertoire, the voice of a man who didn't want anything to get in the way of his fucking. "1 tried to call you back, but you weren't listed."
"Why didn't you *69 me?"
"I wanted to *69 you very badly, but Pete called looking for Bobby"
"I should have told you… I'm of Swedish extraction. My parents were immigrants. It was Coole. You don't pronounce the final e and it sounds like "cool." In high school they used to tease me and call me Monica Cooley. You know, like those guys who drive the rickshaws. I had enough problems being a gangly kid whose parents had strange accents, so I took away an o to change the pronunciation to Cole so the kids wouldn't make fun of me."
This still didn't explain why she wasn't listed. 1 felt like saying they wouldn't dare)wake fun of you if they knew what a great fuck you were, but it was neither the time nor-since we were separatethe place.
"Who's Pete anyway?"
"A wrong number, but what part of Sweden were your parents from? I'm a great Bergman fan. When I first saw movies like Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and The Silence (1963) I developed this infatuation for anything Swedish. These are depressing films about the death of God, but I just fell in love with the lifestyle. I don't speak the language, but I used to pretend I was Swedish. I'd carry on imaginary conversations with Liv Ullman in the mirror and pretend I was Sven Nyqvist, Berg man's cinematographer. 1 developed a lilt in my voice and finished words on a higher note than they started, thinking that would make me sound Swedish. I associated the accent with wisdom, and I affected this world-weary air, which I took to be part and parcel of the weight Swedish people carried on their shoulders-a weight that I thought derived from a higher level of consciousness. I longed to have rings under my eyes like Max von Sydow. When 1 was in grad school I went to a Swedish tailor who made suits and jackets that would have been considered fashionable in Stockholm, but the women at the University of Miami didn't get it. It was a party school back then. You wanted to at least look like you were on the football team. I walked around like I was in a state of existential crisis. Hardly anyone even got that I was trying to seem Swedish. One of my roommates once accused me of being an exchange student who was trying to act like an American, though he had no idea where I was an exchange student from. Most people just thought I was weird. But here I am going on and on."