I saw her today for the first time. No one had to introduce us; I knew it when she opened her mouth. This was not the first time I heard her speak. Before today I only knew her as PRIVATE on the caller ID. Before today, I only knew her as that voice on the other end of the receiver. No one had to introduce me to that voice. Every time I see PRIVATE on the caller ID, I ready myself for it. I am sad and exhausted like that voice. I am beaten down and alone and I want someone to pay for it. Like that voice.
I sigh and pick up the phone, she sighs and introduces herself. She doesn’t have to. I wish I could say that to her. I wish I could say I know who you are and I probably even know what you are going to say. You are a broken record of tragedy, limited imagination and enough intelligence and denial to argue yourself straight into an asylum. There are people upstairs she says. They are sliding on the floors. They are wrestling kidnapped children. They are cooking up methamphetamine and listening to loud bass thumping rap music, she says.
The renters moved out. They moved out just like that nice couple before, and the college students, and the single mom.
That residence is empty. No, no, no, she insists. Somehow the owner, who hates her, she says, has lent his keys to degenerate fiends. Or there are squatters. Or drug dealers. There are degenerate squatters dealing drugs up there.
I listen to her as long as I can because I think that is essentially what she wants. She’s lonely, I think. She is lonely and sad. She is frustrating. I think. She is frustrating and annoying. What do you want me to do, I think? I’m not security, and even security can’t help what is imaginary. You need a doctor and I am only a desk slave. I tell her I’ll do what I can, which is not much, and I try to get her off the phone. Rarely do I offer advice. It’s no use. She has a one track mind to misery.
If you think there are drug dealers upstairs, you should contact the authorities I say just to stir things up. There is the brief sound of hemming and hawing; of regrouping. I have interrupted her soliloquy. Her mind concocts the most paranoid of adlibs. She says she has a friend on the force (head of narcotics of course) who has told her that drug dealers like that would think nothing of killing a snitch. I giggle silently at that word. Snitch. I’m pretty sure those calls are confidential. I say, there are people at the desk and I have to assist them. It’s a lie. I say I’ll make sure to write up a report and discuss it with my manager. Again. I thank her and hang up; always pleasant but not too pleasant. If you’re nice, she’ll take a mile, and she’s already too far gone.
I saw her today for the first time. She never comes into the office, but today, there she was. I didn’t talk to her, I walked right past. She already had someone’s attention. Someone nice. That’s what you get. I take my time in the closet, very slowly hanging my coat and listening to that sad voice. She looks just like she sounds; tired, disturbed, and tragic; lethargically fighting defeat and heavy under layers of bags and baggy clothes. She is all scarves and dark colors and long hair. She’s a big, grey, talking, sighing blob. She is Eeyore. She is Debbie fucking downer and she’s won’t stop until she’s contaminated us all.
