Sometime during the night the phone rang, harsh and loud,
startling me awake. It wasn't so much the fact that no one calls at this hour,
but more a case of nobody ever calling. I have the phone for one reason, and
that is to talk to my mother, who is terminally ill. One would think, given the
circumstance, that I would keep the phone next to my bed, but I have enough
clutter about me, that the addition of another seldom-used utility that I
frequently found off it's cradle, beeping busily and useless beneath a mound of
laundry...now sits across the untidy room on the floor next to the floor lamp,
where it might not be as easily misplaced or dislodged. So here I scramble
across that treacherous floor in a room lit by a singular nite-lite, anxiety
building expecting to hear the inevitable, yet ill-prepared to receive it, my
pulse raises - I sense my blood pressure mount as my ears ring, and my breaths
are short and tight. I grasp the receiver, and gasp into the mouthpiece
"HELLO!?"
“Hey. Sorry.” It was female, soft, low, and slurred...the "eyyy" trailing
off... "shorry", meek and contrite.
"You...You have the wrong number."
"Not this time..." He instantly knew ‘Who’. It was the
foul-mouthed 'wrong number' that he had incurred that afternoon...or rather,
given the hour it must be...last afternoon.
"You have no reason to call here. What time is it?"
Where was his clock?
"S'late..."
"No shit. Why are calling?! You told me to fuck off...to fuck
off on my own phone, that you dialed and got pissed off because I'm
not fucking Carla..."
"I called Kayla. Carla wouldn't fuck you...but then neither
would Kayla..."
"Well thanks for verifying your identity. You are the same
self-involved foul-mouthed, conceited little bitch that interrupted my solitude
this afternoon!"
"The same."
"So why you haunting me?"
"I'm not like that, and I think I came off badly...I called to
apologize."
"What do you mean you're not like that - you just pulled
the same shit!"
"I know. I'm rich...I'm spoiled...I'm fucked..."
“Oh, poor you, and fuck me, stop yanking my chain. Is that what this is? You and
Sherry having a laugh in the back of your limo?”
“Kayla.”
“Who gives a fuck. Hang up.”
“You hang up...”
“Oh let's not play that...”
“I'm lonely.”
“So? Who isn’t? Buy yourself a friend and let me sleep.”
“You're lonely...”
“I am not.”
“You said you had solitude…”
“I said you disrupted my solitude. There's a big difference from
being lonely...”
“Not where I live. Privacy! Security! Luxury! Tranquility!… and Loneliness. Come on…”
“Sounds like you got it made. How about using all that, to concentrate on yourself?”
“Concentrate on what?”
“I don't know...maybe who you might be?... what you might learn or
accomplish?...little things...like, how you Feel?”
“I know all that, and I can Accomplisshhh... I DO,I don't make those decisions...so I don't
think very hard.”
“Did you just state that someone else decides that?”
“They all do. But People know...they know who I am...”
“Not YOU.”
“In a manner of speaking, I do too... but that's not important.”
“So…It's a show.”
“...it's a show. Want to come over?”
“Why, where, and what the fuck for?”
“We can do that...I got a show I can show you...”
“No. Not happening.”
“Why? I'm pretty...you should see me…”
“You're drunk...you don't like old men...”
“I never said that...”
“You said that – ‘who'd want to fuck a gross old man like you’...?"
“I got to say, half the time my medication does most of the
talking...and I'm talking the 'Dr.-shit', and not even the fun stuff. I am
really sorry. I like old men. I do. My Daddys are old...”
“I'm not that old and I don't want to know about your Daddys.”
“I have three daddys! Really! It's what my Mother does! My real
Dad, he died on the freeway. She keeps getting richer...not smarter, but her
tits look great...we go to botox together. People think we're sisters...I hate
that...I... Come on over. Be with me. I need...”
“I am a stranger. A random...old...hardly sympathetic, and totally put-off nobody...and
you could be in danger. Don't be doing this shit.”
“I am reaching out. I need to reach out. They tell me, 'reach
out'... I am reaching...c'mon reach me...touch me...”
“Okay, you're drifting off. What are you on?”
“I'm on the roof.”
