"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
