A PHONE CALL TO HEAVEN

She’s done this before. It’s the dark spots beneath her eyes, the way she grips the payphone like a lifeline that tells him she’s a regular. Second in line, eavesdropping distance away, he can see right over her shoulder as she slips in a quarter, dials the numbers, picks up the phone. She’s taking her time. Rehearsing what she’s going to say, maybe, or gathering her courage.

He considers asking her to hurry, please, because he’s been waiting his turn for hours now and we all have things to do. Instead he waits. He’s learned to be patient, because he’s a regular, too.

“Hello?”

Her voice is shaky. You can do this a thousand times, he thinks, and still not believe your voice would carry to the other side.

“God, it’s so fucking good to hear your voice. I’ve been dying talk to you.”

She’s talking fast, tripping over her words because she can’t afford to waste time. They give you five minutes.

“I wish you were here.”

Don’t we all?

“It’s not the same without you. I keep thinking you’re there. Fuck, just yesterday I was at Pete’s, you know, and the guy in front of me ordered that dumb drink you always make fun of, you know, all extra with double this and that. And I was about to turn around and — “

She laughs. He can’t really tell because her back is turned, but he imagines she’s crying a little, too. Not too bad, in comparison. Most first-timers who ring in that magic number can’t even string together a sentence between tears.

“But everything’s fine. Mom, Dad, they’re doing all right. And Katie’s holding up pretty well. As much as you can expect, anyway. She’s occupying herself, you know, with book club and the kids and doing therapy.”

He looks behind him. Dozens of people, some slouched on the floor, some whole families gathered with a phone number scrawled on a scrap of paper — a line curving and twisting so far he can’t see the end. It stands in the middle of nowhere, right next to a highway, a red booth sticking out of the ground, containing nothing but a phone and a promise. All you have to bring is a quarter: that’s the price to talk to the dead.

Some won’t hear anything. You have to listen, really careful, because they like to whisper, the people on the other side. Sometimes, too, they don’t pick up. Sometimes you have to call every single day, slide in endless quarters and wait for hours, just to get a response, because sometimes the dead can be sensitive or angry and they don’t want to talk to you. He knows this because he’s done this all before.

He stops to listen again. She’s getting a little agitated, her speech even more hurried. Time’s running out.

“Yes I know I know I’m trying to convince her but she doesn’t believe me, thinks I’m an absolute lunatic, recommended I get treatment for schizophrenia, can you believe that? She thinks I’m mental, Jake. She doesn’t believe that I can hear you, I can hear you. But she doesn’t believe me, she loves you and she loves the kids but I can’t make her come out to talk to you, not yet.”

It’s a common problem, he thinks. More times than he can remember he’s been told that this is a scam, that dead means dead and a phone-call to heaven is a lunatic’s dream. Who knows? Maybe it’s true. Maybe he waits so long in this cold long line that by the time he’s picked up the phone he has to convince himself he hears something. Because then what would be the point?

“I’m trying, all right? It’s just so hard without you. God, what I wouldn’t give to have you here.”

She’s running out of time. It’s his turn, soon, and he thinks about who he’s going to call. How lucky he is to have so many options, so many friends above. His mother. His brother. His wife. All this time, all these dead, and he always comes back, here, to this highway, to this payphone, for those five minutes.

“I don’t know what to do. It’s falling apart. I just don’t know —“

He feels the line go dead. He knows this system through, and so does she, because she doesn’t protest, doesn’t demand more time or shove in more coins like some of the new girls do. She just silently puts down the phone. They give you five minutes and then it’s next in line, because we all have people to talk to.

She turns around. She’s too young to be here, he thinks. He nods at her, briefly, as if to say I’ve been there, too.

Then he steps forward, slips in a quarter, dials in the numbers, and picks up the phone.