Telephone tales

“Hello, how are you?” Jeff Lynne’s voice cracks and sounds nervous, and you realize right away something important is at stake.

I’ve been obsessed with the acoustic version of this song for weeks now. It’s powerful, and reminds me how people don’t talk on the phone much anymore, even though it’s such a beautifully intimate medium. It makes me sad for young people who listen to this song and think, “Duh, couldn’t he leave a voicemail?”

I was a teenage music fanatic, and would creep downstairs in the middle of the night to call the late-night DJs, dialing the old Bakelite phone very slowly and carefully, so my parents wouldn’t hear and wake up. I remember one DJ was incredulous that I’d never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and insisted I make one and eat it while we talked. (That was the last time I ate one.) One confided that DJs always put on “The Great American Eagle Tragedy” if they wanted a long bathroom break, or just to smoke pot and talk to people like me. I really, really wanted to be a DJ. I found it all very thrilling.

***

After my divorce, I moved into a tiny little row house in a rundown town bordering the city limits. One late night, when my kids were at their father’s house, my best friend and I talked for hours on the phone. It was almost 3 in the morning when I heard a small bell ring, very close, right behind the ear where I’d been holding the phone. I was about to ask her if she’d heard it when she said, “What was that?”

There were ghosts in that house. The landlord said a family of junkies lived there before me; the burns on the kitchen linoleum from scuffing out their cigarettes were still there, but what he didn’t tell me was that the mother shot her son to death in the tiny living room — coincidentally, right where I was standing when I heard the bell. I also didn’t know two of the junkie kids tied one end of a rope around the upstairs railing and the other to their grandmother’s neck; then they kicked her down the steps. Her neck was broken but she wasn’t dead, so they threw her outside in the woods, where she finally died from exposure. (A local cop who answered my burglary call told me this story. He worked on the case.)

My youngest son had the bedroom right next to that railing, and from the time we moved in, he kept crying at night and telling me there was someone in the hallway. He was probably right. I don’t like to think about it.

Once I got a suggestive phone call from a woman. I was 16 or so, and she seemed to be calling in some official capacity. As she spoke, I began to realize she had to be one of the nuns or teachers at my high school, because she told me she’d been watching me, and related things she saw me do. It was really creepy, and so fucking intense. I didn’t tell my mother; what was the point? No one ever believed me.

***

The alcoholic judge called me very late one night to tell me all about his night out with his Vietnam war buddies. He began to cry and begged me for forgiveness. “I did such terrible things over there,” he said. It sounded vaguely familiar, like a line from a Harvey Keitel movie, but I couldn’t remember which one. “How can you stand to be with someone like me?” he said, as I soothed him over and over. Co-dependent me.

Later, after we broke up, I found out from his former law partner that even though he always marched as an honored guest in the town’s annual Veteran’s Day parade, he wasn’t a veteran. Turns out he’d never even been in the service! He got five student deferments and made it all up, the way some drunks do.

In my defense, I never actually believed he was on assignment with the CIA in Saigon, as he insisted. He also told me his unit, the Army’s 7th Cavalry, evacuated the embassy at the end of the war. “Really? I thought the Marines did that,” I said. By then, I was openly skeptical; I’d figured out he was a drunk, and that almost all of his stories were stolen from other people. I guess being a plain old alcoholic lawyer in a hardscrabble town wasn’t interesting enough for him.

***

There I was, breaking up with a longtime on-and-off boyfriend over the phone. I was so sad, and doing that kind of ugly crying where your nose runs and you gulp for breath in between each word. Yet I took out my little tape recorder and recorded the whole drama — because while my heart was actually breaking, my mind was on a dual track and thinking, “I can use this. I can make some kind of art with this.” That’s the kind of monster writers are. I still have the cassette somewhere. I never listened to it.

***

And then there’s always the generic thrill of a phone call from a new beau, and talking for hours. “I really have to get to sleep.” “Hang up.” “No, you hang up.” “You are so funny.” “No, you’re funny!” And so on. I can’t see that working as text messages, you lose nuance.

***

When I was an editor, readers would call with tips about stories. Sometimes they would start these really compelling tales (I’d get out my pad and start taking notes) and then they’d confide they trusted me enough to tell me the CIA was beaming rays into their head and they didn’t know how to make it stop. I would say, “Oh yeah, that happens a lot,” and advise them how to line the inside of their hat with aluminum foil. They’d thank me for the suggestion, and I’d get to get off the phone and go do some real work. Assorted people with this particular problem called every few months, usually when there was a full moon.

***

Back when I was a childbirth educator, first-time moms would call to tell me they were in active labor. I’d keep them on the phone, talking, and finally I’d say, “You’re not in real labor.” They would insist I was wrong, and I’d tell them gently, “You’ve been talking for twenty minutes and you didn’t have to stop for breath once. You’re in labor when you can’t ignore it anymore. Go make some cookies.”

***

Oh, telephone line/ Give me some time/ I’m living in twilight. The last heartbreaking line of the song. My point is, would I have retained these memories without the voice in my ear?

Bring back those phones. The ones tethered to the kitchen walls, or those old clunky portable phones that took up your entire hand. Or use the cell phones you already have. Nothing will ever replace a warm, familiar voice. Stop texting, and call someone you care about (or used to care about) and talk to them.

Here’s how to begin. “Hello, how are you?”