Stephen Dixon: Letters to Kevin

“Will you move your car so I can get out of this booth?” I said.

“And will you get out of that booth so I can use the phone to call my garage?”

“I can’t get out because your car’s parked against this door.”

“And I can’t move my car till my garage brings some gas so I can drive out of this space.”

“Call the garage from the phone booth on the next street.”

“It better have a parking space in front of it. Because this one took so long to find that I ran out of gas when I finally got in it, and I’m not about to move my car and lose this parking space till I find another spot,” and he left to call the garage.

I dialed Operator and told her I was locked in a phone booth. She said she’d send a repairman over. The repairman came in a crane. He said “I didn’t bring the right tools for taking out the side of a booth. The operator said that by the sound of your voice she felt it was a big emergency job, so I brought the biggest tool we have — the crane.” “You better do something quick,” I said, “or I’ll kick this booth apart.” “Don’t do that. Think of all the people who won’t be able to call Operator to get out of this booth if you wreck it. I’ll do what I can with the tool I have.” The crane lifted the booth off of its concrete foundation, drove through the streets with the booth and me in it dangling in midair, then lowered it through the phone company warehouse ceiling and set it down on its door. The repairman looked at his watch. “Darn,” he said, “I’ve worked an hour past my regular work shift and the company doesn’t pay overtime unless you’re scheduled beforehand to get it. And tomorrow I can’t be here as I start my month’s vacation. It would be nice to be like you and have no bosses to account to and to go and come and take vacations whenever you like,” and he shut the warehouse lights and left. Well, I wasn’t going to wait a month in a booth till he came back. Maybe the phone still works, I thought. I put a coin in and dialed Operator. What I got was a man locked in a phone booth in a telephone warehouse in upper Alaska. He said “One day I also couldn’t get out of my booth when an ice floe suddenly floated down the street and jammed up against my booth’s door. So I dialed Operator and a crane came and lifted the booth out of the floe and set it down in this warehouse on the booth’s door. Then the repairman said he had to go on a month’s hunting trip, and I’ve been in this booth for three weeks and all I can get on my phone are other people locked in booths in other telephone warehouses around the world.” Maybe in one of my calls I’ll get someone locked in a booth in a Palo Alto telephone warehouse. I’ll tell him to slip a note out under the booth’s door addressed to you. And that this note should ask you to call the phone company in New York to tell them there’s a man with my name locked in a booth in one of their downtown warehouses, and two men without my name locked in telephone warehouse booths in upper Alaska and Palo Alto. That’s when I also decided to write you a letter to tell the phone company where I am. One way or the other, I’m going to get out of this booth. Fortunately, I always bring my portable typewriter with me when I go outside. It’s the only half decent thing I own. I can’t leave it in my apartment, as someone’s already stolen the locks off my front door. I suppose when I get home I’ll find my front door missing. And soon after that, maybe the public stairway on my floor will be stolen and next my apartment and then the building itself. But I’m getting sleepy. I’ll seal up this letter, slip it through the door and hope someone finds and mails it, and say goodnight.

Your dear friend,

Rudy

Dear Kevin: I don’t know if you got my last letter from that phone booth. Actually, it was my first and last letter to you from that booth, which now might make it sound as if I sent you two letters from that booth. But if you did get either of those letters, how come you never called the phone company to tell them where I was? Anyway, I got out after being stuck in the booth for more than a week. The booth was hidden behind hundreds of other booths at the far end of a huge room, so if any phone workers were around, none had much chance to see or hear me. I also kept dialing Operator to help get me out. The only one I was able to reach asked for my phone number. “That number is for a booth on 73rd and Columbus Avenue,” she said. “I’ll send a repairman right over.” She hung up before I could tell her my booth had once been on Columbus but was now in a warehouse downtown. I suppose a repairman went to 73rd Street and Columbus Avenue, found someone in a booth that had been installed on the same corner where my booth had been, and a crane lifted it with this caller inside and drove it to a warehouse. Maybe even to this warehouse. Because I shouted plenty of times “Hey, anybody around?” And the only response I ever got were lots of people yelling “Yeah, come get me out of this locked phone booth.” After a day in this booth, I decided to kick the glass out. But it’s phone company property, I thought, which means I can get in serious trouble for kicking the glass out. But after two days in the booth I said “I don’t care whose property it is or what trouble I get into, I’m getting out. But by this time I was too weak from no food to kick the glass out. Even if I kicked it out, I’d still be too big to fit through one of the small metal window frames where the glass had been. What I’ll do, I thought, is get so thin from not eating that I can squeeze through a small frame when I finally get strong enough again to kick the glass out. But how will I get strong if I don’t eat? And if I do eat, I’ll be too big again to fit through the small frame that I now had become strong enough to kick out. With my last coin I dialed Operator. This time she didn’t lose my coin as I didn’t get Operator. I got a man by the name of Crow in Rome, Italy. Crow said he was an American tourist who got trapped in a phone booth at the Rome airport a few minutes after he stepped off the plane, and that the booth was brought to a Roman phone company warehouse. “I’ve been locked in this booth for a month,” Crow said. “Since I can’t speak Italian, nobody who passed the booth knew what my problem was. Or maybe what I said in English sounded in Italian that I wanted to stay in this booth or that I was only making an unusually

long phone call. I haven’t starved because I took along on the plane a whole suitcase of American canned food, as Italian cooking in

America never agreed with me. Though I don’t see why I should have thought American food in Italy would have gone down any better. But I think I’m getting out of here today. Because my booth and I are now being driven on the back of a truck to what I guess will be this booth’s new place. And I can see all of Rome from inside this booth. Very pretty city. And old.” “I have a cousin in Rome,” I said. “He always wears a gray hat and dark overcoat, even in winter. If you see him on any of the streets you’re now passing, give him my hello.” “By gosh, look,” Crow said. “There’s the Tiber River and Coliseum. That’s what I came to Rome to see. And here I am

getting a free sightseeing trip as guest of the Rome phone company no less. But right after I’m out of this booth I’ll fly to New York to get you out of yours. Nothing less personal will do for a friend of the Crow.” He later called and said he was free and having such a great time in Rome that would I mind staying in my booth a while longer till he finished his trip? “After all,” he said, “it took me five years to save for this trip and I don’t know when I’ll have the time or money to return.” Next day he called several times to say how beautiful Florence was. Finally I said “I know. Lovely city, Florence. Lots of quaint old bridges and great art.” “I mean Florence Malio, a lady friend I met in Rome. Beautiful. A real knockout.” Over the next two days he also said this about Venice, Naples, Pisa, Genoa and Milan. I always thought these were cities he was touring, but he said they were all names of women he’d met in Rome. Then he arrived at the warehouse. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said, picking up the phone booth and letting me out, “but I also always wanted to take a slow relaxing ocean liner at least once in my life. I tried telling you by ship-to-shore telephone, but the operator always said your line was ringing but nobody was answering the phone.” “That’s because I’ve grown too weak to lift the receiver off the hook.” “Guess I’ll have to carry you then.” I’d become so light that Crow picked me up as easily as he would a fifty-pound sack of potatoes and slung me over his shoulder. A phone company security guard spotted us as we were leaving the warehouse. He drew his gun and said kind of fiercely “Fiend or foe?” “Neither,” Crow said. “Just an American traveler back from non-cheapa Roma and a fifty-pound sack of potatoes.”