Long Distance Calls

Remember when you had to use an operator to call long distance, to place a call? Remember asking to call a friend you met at camp and your mother nixed the idea, saying it’s too expensive, meaning you only call long distance if it’s an emergency. Your parents used to call the grandparents every Sunday and everyone huddled around the one phone in order to say hi, tell them what you wanted for Christmas, birthday, you know, emergencies. If a relative from out of town called, Mom and Dad immediately assumed someone had died or been in a car wreck. It was never about anything as frivolous as just talking. Or remember when rates were cheaper on weekends, late at night—that’s why they waited to make a call, hoping the person on the other end would be at home. Remember when you worked summers at Yellowstone National Park and would call your mother from the parking lot as you crossed from the employee dorm to the inn at Old Faithful. In the often chilly morning, the dry air tickling your nose, you’d see the phone, feel lonely and decide to call. You picked up the receiver, thinking you wanted to tell Mom about the nose bleeds, that they had you making beds—imagine! Beds! The one thing you never made at home. And, she answers, hurriedly, out of breath. What’s wrong? Why are you calling? It’s costing a fortune! Don’t use person-to-person, just go direct, next time. Bye.

And, standing there, a bird circling overhead, frost on car windshields, one hand in your pocket, the other holding the silenced receiver, you wonder what it would be like to just hear her voice.