Collect Call

"Collect Call": nothing but a cast-off

piece of telecommunications junk. 

At the dig, go down a few layers,

pull it up, wipe off the dirt. Yeah,

you're in a phone booth--upright

glass coffin, accordion door, a fat

greasy pawed-over phone book

dangling from a chain like a ham. 

Pop your only coin in the phone's

chrome slot, hear the black box

taste it, then swallow it, gulping. 

Dial zero & as the wheel turns,

listen to it skip over numbers

in ticks. Woman's voice. Always. 

Profession: "Operator," which is

the first words she says. Say,

"I'd like to make a collect call,

person-to-person." Say city,

state (province, country). The

name of the person you imagine

will not be there. Spell name

for Operator. Suspense. Then

the purring of an analogue phone

ringing. Now enter a virtual

probation zone. Hear click 

and voice. Operator: "I have

a collect call person-to-person

from . . . . will you accept?"

Wait while wrong voice seeks

right voice. Do not speak yet.

Person you expected not to be

there is there. Operator repeats

operator-speak. "Will you accept

the charges?" "Yes." "Go ahead."

Exhilarated, you chat and chit 

before explaining your desperate need.

. . . Yeah, you had to find a phone

booth and have a coin. Or ask to use

somebody's phone. The person

had to be there, not next door, 

and had to accept being the one

from whom the phone company,

not carrier, collected. Had to want

to be the person in person-to-person.

An Operator had to broker

your intimacy, your broke-ass

status. Maybe someone had died,

or you just got off a bus or had

survived a hitched ride. Your

car broke down. You'd woke up

robbed except for a quarter. And

you were in a phone booth lit

up like a tanning booth. Digital

virtuality lay ahead in Time,

circling a black hole. You were

stuck in a here, back there,

cold, holding a a grimy black

receiver on a chrome cord. And

here it is, in your hand, the Collect

Call (Person-to-Person). And you

don't want it. That's not why you

came to dig in the dig. It's awkward,

quaint, and stupid. You throw it back

and get your phone wafer out

and tap it twice, maybe three times,

and talk as you ride your present

moment, clouds and mists, fogs and

storms of unheard voices all around you. 

But if your in the booth,

and the call has ended, and before

shove the door aside: take that coin

the phone barfed back. 

hans ostrom