Life in a Phone Booth
(Published in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin — 1996)
The rain was starting to dribble down my neck as I, the last resident of southern California without a cell phone, plunked my quarters into the slot.
Having spent the morning trying every phone booth in the area, I knew this to be the only working pay phone in Culver City. I would wait, spend every ounce of change in my pocket, and get thoroughly drenched. It was ridiculous and I knew it. But I had to reach Wally Zinkofobia right away. This was business.
Now that access to cell phones is so universal that it's almost a constitutional right, those of us who can't get with the program are doomed to subculture status. We scurry around the streets like hungry rodents, surveying the landscape for available pay phones, scheming to outmaneuver one another for the precious few that still work. Our distant relatives, the street vandals who work the night shift, find amusement by rendering these phones unusable, so it is a constant struggle.
Eventually I heard ringing on the other end of the line. If I could make contact before being mugged or dying of pneumonia, I'd be alright.
An elderly gentleman approached and hovered nervously a few feet from me. He shot several glances my way, indicating discreetly but firmly that he needed to use the phone too, and would I please hurry up. I repelled him with a homicidal glare, and he retreated into the morning drizzle.
At last I got through.
It wasn't so much that I minded the rain, or even being put on hold. It was the receptionist's words when she came back on the line: "You were holding for ... ?"
I repeated the name slowly. By now the water was trickling into my socks.
"And you are ... ?"
I announced my own name again, affecting the impatient air of someone truly important. As the pleasant "hold" music resumed, a feeling of loneliness swept over me. Suddenly, it seemed half my life had been spent on hold, my fate in the hands of some smug, 20 year-old office mannequin. Would I be forever dependent on the whims of the Wally Zincofobias of the world? Would I always be the one standing outside, without an umbrella in the rain? Would I ever be allowed to start and finish my own sentences?
The music stopped and that cloying voice came on again. "Mister Zincofobia has stepped out of the office. If I could take your name and number ..."
I replaced the receiver and began to walk down the sidewalk. Old Culver City was splendid in the rain. The broad, empty street had a luminous sheen, and the old store fronts and canvas awnings spoke of another time.
I glanced around for the elderly gentleman, but he was gone. Perhaps he would have had better luck than I did.
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