Hold the Line (ii)

Fragments from a week on the crisis line. The final week of 2023.

I'm home, working remote from my childhood bedroom. The room where my parents tucked me in—where I'd lay awake listening for reindeer hooves—where childhood is corporealized by curled photos pinned to desiccated cork and pristine Yu-Gi-Oh cards. 

It's always as it was.

The woman on the phone is hysterical. She's threatening to immolate herself—to burn her house down with her dog inside. She wants to die. Her distress forces itself into the room like an unwelcome scent, a rank fart at a funeral service. Her wretchedness is the slick oil miring sweet waterfowl after a spill. She mats down their feathers, turning them into goopy Pompeii birds. 

---

“I just found out the cancer spread.”

At goodbyes, I nearly slipped and wished her a Happy New Year.

Should I have?

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It amazes me how many people report their birthday as 01/01/YYYY. What synchronicity!—new life and new year. 

I imagine Baby New Year, the obstetrician, running around mad drunk, dragging them into life by their pruney feet, howling.

I don’t believe them.

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If you’d like to pay a different amount, for example, $51.23, say: 
'Fifty-one dollars and twenty-three cents.'
What else would I say?

'Have you called us before?'
“Yeah, I called before in the past.”
When else would you have called?

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red wine clings to peeling lips
granny Smith flesh in my teeth
I dig it out
my finger tastes sour
“I was cleared of all charges.”

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“The maintenance man is a former gangbanger. He’s forcing us off broadband.”

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I never used to say ‘bye-bye’—I was a plain ol’ ‘bye’ kind of guy. But now—and don’t ask me how it happened—I’m a bonafide ‘bye-bye’ guy. 

I think it makes me feel younger.

---

“Homage is involved in the problem I have.”

---

Every Christmas morning, Mom makes scrambled eggs. I watched a spider repel from the recessed light above the unattended skillet; he must have thought he was tethered to a great star. He moved with a hasty purpose. Halfway down, his web broke, and he fell into the eggs, flailing and curling. Tiny black bubbles arose around him, little heads of townfolk gathering around the captured monster. I pinched him between my fingers—the dissonance between his hard, crunchy body and the soft yellow slime concerned me. I flicked him into the sink. I didn’t tell mom.

---

Sometimes, I need to control myself—I’ll get too curious. 
When someone tells me: "I'm recovering from a gunshot," 
I become a child with a vibrating mind—

What does it feel like to get shot?! 
Where were you shot? Was it a gut shot?!
Who shot you? Did you know them?!
Was it a drive-by?!
Where is the shooter now? Are they on the loose?!
Why did they shoot you?!

I won't ask any of that.
Instead, I'll say, 'I'm sorry to hear that.'

---

“Thanks much. I’ll call again soon with more happiness that I will declare.”

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Hold the Line is a series of entries inspired by work at a crisis call center. I'm fascinated with the callers' tone of voice, turns of phrase, preferred greetings and valedictions, and so on. Their stories and demeanor trigger things in me--personal memories, imaginary conversations, things I'd read--and this series is a vehicle to record these responses. Any material between " " are actual quotes from callers.

Hold the Line (i)

Hold the Line (iii)