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Coconut

My cellphone ring is the sound of unmet obligations.

At fourteen, I spent hours a night willingly tied to the family phone, dissecting the gossip from biology class. Now that I’m a so-called grown-up, I dread being dragged into cyberspace—that place between phones—and my subconscious isn’t subtle about acting out. Every month or two I shed cellphones in cabs and on airplanes, and more than one client has chased me down a hallway to return a phone I’d left at a meeting. I lose the charger or just forget to plug it in. I turn the ringer to “silent” mode during yoga class and forget to switch it back for days at a time. I bought an iPod Touch but not an iPhone: on a voiceless Touch, I never have to answer, “Will you run a workshop in Tokyo?” or “Why didn’t you call me back?”

After years of this, almost none of my friends or family rings me any more, and I’m perverse enough to be a small bit disappointed. The trouble is, I do like talking to them—I just dread the picking up part, the explaining and apologizing for my latest spell of neglect. If I were an octopus, I’d spend most of my time pretending to be a coconut.

A 1.30 AM call is hard to ignore, though. Last night the sound got tangled in my dream for a few seconds, and I was confused when I stumbled out to the kitchen to answer the phone. What could have happened in Limerick? To Mum or Dad? Was this going to be the last moment of Life Before…?

It was an Oakland number, and over background noise a woman said, “Hello? Hello? Is Shawn there?”

Goddammit, lady…

“You have the wrong number,” I snapped. “And it’s 1.30 in the morning.” I could see that I’d slept through a few earlier calls.

She sounded drunk and riled. “Ma’am, I’m sorry I have a wrong number. But you should tell your man not to be givin’ out this number to women.” Another woman hooted.

I sputtered for half a second and hung up, and went back to bed and stewed. I thought about texting her some playground answers:

Whoever Shawn is, he thinks you’re busted.

If you have to make the booty calls, you’re working too hard for it.

Be sure to bring the blue pills, honey. My husband is 82.

My apartment looks out over the whole city, and mostly I watch its drama from up here—the sun going down behind Twin Peaks, the street lights and house lights coming on, the cars snaking down to the Mission bars, the moon rising. The hill I live on is so steep that a few days ago my leather sole slipped out from under me and the bruises are still contour-mapping my hip and elbow. Up here, it’s easy to stay in and skip another Saturday night out.

The week before, my upstairs neighbors had come home at half-past two and yelled and stamped for a good few hours. I tried not to catch the words of their accusations—eavesdropping is fun only with strangers—but I couldn’t sleep through it.

Now I lay sleepless again, pulled into another Saturday night story by disembodied voices. I imagined the woman who called, all done up in skimpy club gear. Youngish. Hopeful about some Shawn from the night before or the week before, a San Francisco guy with a 415 area code and a sharp hat. He gave her his number and didn’t take hers, and that meant she could believe, if she wanted to, what he’d said. That she was hot, she was beautiful, she should call him, they could go out. And tonight he might be wondering about her, waiting for her voice on a Saturday night at 11, at midnight, at 1.30.

All night, between phone calls, she would be bright and loud and hard-edged with her girlfriends, eyeing the talent and ordering rum-and-Cokes, but while she sipped she’d wonder if he was home by now. Would he sound sleepy-sexy and happy to hear from her when he picked up—heeyyy? Would he tell her to come on over? Would he make her breakfast?

She got me instead. Poor old pet.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Peace and Love\, People\, San Francisco\. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 comments to “Coconut”

Comment by Angie:
Monday, January 18th 2010 at 9:19 am
Hazaa! A new post! (… or does that too sound too close to, “Hazaa! You answered the phone”?) Not intended to stir guilt…. just happy to have a new bit from you.
Comment by Sean (not that Shawn):
Monday, January 18th 2010 at 9:44 am
Hurrah, you’re back!
Comment by dervala:
Monday, January 18th 2010 at 10:38 am
Hi Sean, hi Angie…Angie, so glad you left a link—your Etsy stuff is gorgeous! And I am jealous of your studio.
Comment by Mark:
Monday, January 18th 2010 at 12:07 pm
“…the sound of unmet obligations”. I see you’ve found my “happy place”. Happy New Year – and watch those slippery slopes, will ya!:-)
Comment by belfield:
Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 2:24 am
So much of it always comes down to the same things; staying upright / picking yourself up again, obligations, watching dramas or surviving them… :-)

Lovely post, as ever.
Comment by genevieve:
Wednesday, January 20th 2010 at 5:02 am
hallo dear, great to hear your voice again. (Now that really does sound like the phone, doesn’t it. Oh goodness.)
Comment by Nic:
Tuesday, February 2nd 2010 at 8:55 pm
Beautiful and insightful as always. So many challenging situations are merely opportunities in disguise. Is the glass half empty, half full, or twice as big as it needs to be?

Coconut

7 comments to “Coconut”

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