“I can imagine. You want to come up.”
“Not for the reason your tone says. Please, give me a little credit. You see, I’m locked out of my apartment. If I started to tell you the scenes that led up to it — and I’m sorry, by the way, for my calls to your service, which happened way before I got locked out. I was a little drunk then. Now I’m not. I’m stoned sober — stark sober — very stark but what’s—”
“What calls to my service?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t call it.”
“You’re the first person I know of with one who doesn’t call it every three hours. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong in calling it that—”
“I got home after it closed. Even if I got home before that I wouldn’t have called it till tomorrow. I really only need it on school days. I’m a teacher—”
“I know. I spoke to a couple of people about you at the party. Casual. I didn’t probe. Oh, so I probed. I was interested in you after you left — you must have known before you left how interested I was in you. In fact we both spoke about it — our mutual interest — so of course I’d be just as or more interested in you after I left, which caused that brainless yelling to you from the window, for instance, or helped cause it. All the drink I drank at Diana’s didn’t hinder it, not that I’m not responsible for how much and then how I act under it. Nor do I want all this drink talk to downplay the interest I felt without drink before or after the window incident.”
“Less said about that window—”
“Thank you. The very least would be the best, but it’s good it’s out and that you know it’s also not something I normally do. But I was interested so I asked a couple of people, Diana, mostly, ‘Who is she? What does she do?’ Nothing detailed, not personal life—but that has nothing to do with why I called now and my emergency.”
“Excuse me, but since you knew I had a service — and I hope you didn’t insult anyone there. It’s a good service, nice hardworking people work there—”
“I didn’t. I forget what I said but I know, because I was still a little drunk — and I also hardly ever drink that much or get the way I’ll describe — that I must’ve sounded drunk and perhaps unrefined to them the two or three times I called — I hope not. So next time you speak to them I wonder if you could apologize for me. But you were saying?”
“The service is called Lip Sinc, with an I-n-c. Why don’t you look up the number tomorrow and call it to apologize?”
“I will. Lip Sinc. I’ll remember it since I don’t have a pen. Now can I tell you about the spot I’m in and why your reasons for thinking why I want to come up aren’t the ones why I do, or should I just forget it and quietly hang up? And I would very quietly hang up. For I know I’m disturbing you — I just hope I didn’t get you going to sleep.”
“You didn’t. But let’s say your reason is you’ve been locked out. So what’s that got to do with me?”
“Maybe I should say the rest quickly before you hang up or we get cut off, and you won’t, will you? You’ve every reason to, but this was my last dime. I even had to borrow it — or beg for it, really — but I suppose I could always borrow or beg another one. It’s probably not that mortifying to do after the first time, though later it gets, fewer people to borrow or beg from and less inclined they are to stop. So before we do get cut off, and my tried-and-true mental timeclock says we’re long overdue, maybe I could give you my number here and you could call back. It’s kind of a long story why I’m asking to come by and, just for a few hours till daybreak when my landlady gets up and I can get my duplicate keys, sleep on your floor.”
“The answer’s no, naturally, to any coming by tonight. If you just want to tell the story why you think you have to come by, you can’t make it short?”
“I could but not effectively. But I probably couldn’t because — oh shit…excuse me, but my head just then.”
“What, hangover or something like that already?”
“Hurts, from being hit in the head before. On the head. I was. With a phone receiver but one cut off. I don’t mean to be confusing. I wasn’t cut off, on the phone, but the receiver was, from the phone.”
“If it’s that bad, go to a hospital.”
“It’s not. A scratch on top and a bump, and now a little dizziness and pain, which probably accounts for my sporadic disoriented tongue, though I got that out all right with the words I wanted. And I couldn’t begin to tell it — from before — because our five minutes are more than up. And the phone operators who cut in these days to ask for another coin — well, you can’t speak to them as people, you know, since their voices aren’t even recorded anymore, much less real or alive. They’re — they come from some new kind of computerized phonetic machine that creates operator voices or what we’ve been used to, and with the right regional inflections for whatever region, to respond to the multivarious situations they’ve traditionally had to deal with on the phone, though I’m sure the machine’s tinkered with periodically to let new situations in. You want a real live operator’s voice you have to dial Operator, and I heard that soon — ooh, wait. I’m a little lost there — my head again, which might be worse off than I thought. I wish I could sit. And lost you a little there also, I think.”
“Not if I got you right. I’m sure — but you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, my experience has been that if they don’t get you once your five minutes are up it’s because of some telephonic malfunction and not generosity on the company’s or any operator’s part, and you can talk on that dime long as you like. But do me a favor — get to a hospital immediately for that head?”
“Why? They’ll tell me I’ve a hairline fracture at the most and to go home and rest and that’s what I can’t do now. And let’s not chance the operator coming in. Once one does I won’t have time to give you my number, so please take it now.”
“Why didn’t you call Diana?”
“I did but nobody’s in or answering. And the five other friends in the city I could, who either didn’t answer or his answering machine did. With that one I gave the number of the booth phone I was calling from, but have since moved on. My mother I couldn’t — though I actually could. She’d forgive me for anything, as good mothers do. But I didn’t want to, as she lives alone, would get scared, doesn’t sleep well — only a few hours a day and usually at this hour, and I didn’t want to wake her.”
“No one else? No old women friends, a brother, sister, aunt who sleeps well?”
“Out of town or living out of town or impossible for the women friends.”
“Even so, there’d have to be twenty, fifty people to call before me, and a locksmith.”
“Locksmith I already tried, but I lost my wallet tonight, have no cash at home and I don’t have a check account.”
“Who doesn’t have a check account?”
“I pay three bills a month: rent, utilities and phone, and the last two every other month, so really two a month, average — all with money orders made out from money in my savings account. That way — though here, for the first time, it’s hurt me — I get my interest and also don’t impulsively spend money I don’t have. As for the other tenants in my building — nobody to go to. Either much too frail or old, one’s a dealer, another’s a man who illusorily accuses me of dumping garbage on his car and door, and one woman’s a drunk and, as my junior-high kids used to say, mental. I just don’t know that many people, many people as I know, and some I know I wouldn’t go into their apartments for any reason. And, impulsive as I am on money matters, or at least sticking to a system so as not to be, I was impulsive in calling you, in spite of the time I took to think about calling — what can I say? I, maybe because of the big lump and minor gash, but again, I don’t want to depreciate the main reason by giving neurological excuses, saw myself sleeping, with my head in an old clean rag, bleeding, on your floor. I shouldn’t have but I did, and with my last dime, not that it wouldn’t take another hour or two, which’d get me closer to daybreak and my keys, to borrow or beg another one. But I thought, it being my last dime would help persuade you to let me use your floor. But look, spilt head or not — split — if I’m anything — and that was an interesting slip — I’m—”