i neither make nor receive a lot of phone calls. the first (and only) rules i established when I started dating A were simple: i sleep on the left side of the bed, and no phone calls. i hate the phone, except for necessity and/or too-much-to-text communications. i have enough stimulus-overload and communication torrentialities without the immediate demands of the telephone, and the time-suck of voicemail.
So when A called the other day it was a notable breaking of the rules, but all for the best. A simple too-much-to-text matter of some urgency.
But it’s not that phone call that is on my mind. It is the phone call that came the next day. from an unknown number in a Portland area code, I missed the call and the caller left a voicemail. The number looked like a payphone number (in the old days payphone numbers generally were in a (###) ###-9### format, meaning the first number after the exchange was almost always a 9. so a typical payphone number [to those in the know] might look like (212) 555-9442). the call yesterday came from a number that looked like an old-format payphone number.
it was not a payphone.
it was a friend, who seems to go through a dozen phone numbers a year. he called, i missed it, and his voicemail said he just wanted to talk to me for a minute. strange, no doubt, but all good. we talk once in a while. he once misdialed my number by typing in my first name, thinking he was calling his brother, who is also named Mark. i was staring at Perdue chicken legs at the C-Town when the call came. we spoke for a few minutes, absorbing the randomness of the wrong number, then going about our ways. in another memorable telephone encounter i was cleaning out my father’s garage in Daytona Beach when I heard my phone ringing upstairs. the phone was on the porch. i must have had voicemail turned off because the phone just rang and rang, giving me plenty of time to run upstairs and answer the call. it was this friend, calling (intentionally this time) to see how i was doing with my father’s affairs. it was, to avoid getting too sappy about it, a beautiful moment, picking the phone up near the spot where my father blew his head off, and hearing a friendly voice.
the call yesterday was different. it sounded like a farewell call, and it eerily reminded me of the last time my father called. dad called a few weeks before killing himself to make sure i had everything straightened out regarding his estate. he didn’t say he was going to kill himself, of course, but in retrospect it seemed powerfully obvious. the point of that call that i remembered clearest was when he made a point of asking how i was doing, and if i was well. he never did that.
my friend who called yesterday was calling ahead of his spinal surgery procedure. at 40 years old they tell him he has the neck of a 60 year old. spinal surgery at 40. the call was both deliberate and genuine, if that makes sense. i didn’t make sense of the phone call until later.
things like this pile up. death is a scary bitch. she asks no questions, she answers no questions. my friend T lost her sister a few weeks ago, something I missed at the time when it intertangled with that aforementioned communication overload that has rendered the telephone a complete annoyance. i walked around yesterday, testing my hot new GPS gadget, randomly letting tears roll when my memories which surround those girls and that family rose up — memories which might surprise them.
i remembered being laughed at by some 20-somethings on Christmas night, 2005, when I walked home with tears streaming down. i was lost in delayed sadness and dismay over my father’s suicide, and I crossed paths with some youngsters in search of hilarity, who saw me crying and they sputteringly laughed, probably rushing home to blog about it.
i think i made an unintentionally cruel comment yesterday, during the phone call. he and i once vowed we would walk the length of Manhattan, all the way up or down Broadway, to or from 224th Street and Battery Park. the vow was made while drunk, but in the clearness of the next day it still made sense. the walk is 12 miles. i walk that without cracking a sweat, and he used to do the same. but when i mentioned it yesterday he replied that it sounded a fun thing to do “if you’re healthy”. he didn’t mean anything cynical by it. it was spoken from his huge heart, from the guy who called ahead of spinal surgery and started the call by asking how i was doing, and who continued the phone call by listening to me.
…..
in other news… uh, well, there is no other news. is there? i had a purposeless day, and a similarly purposeless weekend, yesterday i felt like death warmed over. the breathing problem is starting to recur. i can’t sleep for shit. i yawn all day. i probably yawn through the night. brain feels oxygenless.