Short Stories

I Called A Dead Man's Cell Phone Last Night
Renae Brabham
Yes, I called a dead man's cell phone last night. And...it was in his pocket. I'm not trying to be morbid or witty. I will explain the title at the end of the story. I know this will read like something from a cheap sci-fi or tales from the crypt. He was supposed to be important in my life, but he never quite made it there. I am not sad. No pity, no sorrow, no nothing. I'm not a faker and I am not harboring recessed anger. Anyone that knows me..knows that I can't recess anything. First to blink in a no-blinking contest, first to smile in a no-smiling contest. Hell, I can't even hold my stomach in long enough for a picture. You want to know what's going on with me? Look at me, or ask.
Got the call this week. He's dead. I was at work. Stopped what I was doing for a few minutes. Went outside and called hubby. I had 3 minutes of sorrow. Came back in and went right back into conversation with co-workers. Move on.
I stopped by Taco Bell after work and brought us home some goodies. Usual routine when I came in door. Loved on Snowy, put things up and plopped on couch with my Nacho Bell Grande'. I'm just eating away when I look over at Don. I am still giggling now at how he looked. He was ready to put his Beefy Bean Burrito down and be there for me at a second's notice. I could feel him waiting, but I just kept eating. Bless his heart. I know he didn't know what kind of dam was going to be released if he asked anything. So..I start it. Told him I had the micro-mini 3 minute meltdown and it was over. Told him I didn't have any guilt, pity, sorrow, remorse..etc...Nothing. I did ask myself why I didn't feel anything at all. I even tried to think of something about him to make me sad. Nothing. Then I realized. Nothing is ok. Nothing is honest. I am at peace with nothing. The entire world is made up with suggestions on what normal is. What normal does. How normal acts, re-acts, looks, feels, etc. Cookie cutter emotions.
He had left explicit details with his benefactors as to how he was to be buried. Jeans, shirt, suspenders and cell phone in pocket (in case there was a last minute reprieve) he said.
I finish my Nacho Bell Grande, go outside on the back porch and pull out my cell phone. Dialed the number. It rings the per-functionary 4 times and goes to message. I said "Bye" and smile. I didn't call to hear his voice,nor to send some symbolic message to heaven. I called REALITY. I was thinking about the truth of the situation. The sound that was buried 6 feet deep into the earth that no one would hear. The call that summed him up for me. Late.
If there is a reason I felt I should write this, It would be, that I don't feel like we NEED to feel something all the time and it makes me feel better to say that. Ok, about the title. Remember when we were little and did the story line? Where the teacher would line us up and whisper a paragraph story into the first person's ear, then that person would turn and whisper it into the next person's ear. Then the next. And on and on...until the end. The teacher would then ask the last person to tell the story. It very seldom ended up the same as the beginning. Hence...I started my note with what I believed the end person would come up with as the summation. "Renae wrote a story about calling a dead man's cell phone last night"


Let's just call her Maxine....R.Brabham

It's 6:00 p.m at the cafe'. We are starting to get things in order to close down shop. This bent over old little lady comes in...mincing steps..on a pink walking cane and carrying a shoulder bag bigger than her. I guess her to be about early 80's. She drops everything at the first table she comes to and starts mumbling with her face down. I am headed to kitchen with some items to be washed. She mumbles louder with just a slight turn in her head towards me with a clear bright blue eye piercing me. I figure she is in distress of some kind and put the items down and head her way. I ask if I can help her and she replies "I don't know, can you?" "Is this a damn restaurant or a cafeteria?" "Neither"....I tell her..."It's a cafe'". She lifts her head a little higher and starts peeling off her pink raincoat. "Well...where the hell is the food?" Ok.....the ~despicable~ me...kicks in a little and decides that she is either (1) a loon....or (2) drunk. I am going to get out of this ladies hair really quick. I tell her we have coffee and danishes. The coffee is self serve...and from the length of time it took her to get in the door and to the table...I knew she would still be working her way to the self serve coffee pot by closing time. So, I offer to get it for her. While I am making the coffee...She starts telling me about her trip in the pouring rain to see her doctor who moved into our office buildings. "The damn roads were soaked... I skidded once and I passed the exit 3 times going both ways....A multi-million dollar hospital and the damn politicians put up signs bigger than that little thing out there." I ask who her doctor is and she tells me his name. She says he probably moved here to be closer to a golf course. You know how those devils are, she says. I tell her that she seems to have a good doctor. She asks "And how would you know that?" Because he smiles when you make his coffee?" LOL...I bust out laughing. "No....I answer...Because the patients speak kindly of him." You know what?.... I think to myself...she is a trip...I decide to give her a few more minutes...Geez..I know that I am going to be in the weeds with my closing routine. "Well, she says...I don't trust him. Too damn quiet, you can't read them quiet ones...I couldn't be married to a quiet one like that. Not that I want to be married again anyway...I've already killed...I mean buried two."
She starts drinking her coffee and I lean against the coffee kiosk...wiping it here and there. I guess now I am trying to figure her out. She squints and tries to read my hospital ID. She can't get it. I start to offer my name to her...but I figured the same as her...that we are just two ships passing in the night...probably won't go this way again. No use trying to remember another name. She re-positions herself in her seat. Some obvious discomfort. Possibly arthritis..."Screw the powers that be!" she says. "Just look at me!..can't walk...can't remember stuff...pain all the time." "And don't you go talking to me about Jesus!" I put my hands in the air in surrender..she laughs. "There's a purpose for everything"...I tell her. She replies "If there were a God why would he let me just exist like this? Why would I be here? Out in the middle of the evening in a pouring down rain to see a doctor. What is the purpose of that?" I think (stupidly) that this is a cry for help and I try to reach out... "Well...maybe that purpose is to be here talking to me." She squints and tries to focus in on me..."Why?....Are you thinking of committing suicide?" So much for talking someone down from the ledge. I am cracking up at her again. "You know what?... You go through life...don't kill anyone (except those two husbands she told me about) and you try to be good...ending up like this. And then some asshole who has robbed and stolen from his family all his life is in perfect health living a life of luxury. What is fair about that? "Well...I don't remember that I was promised life would be fair anywhere." Ok...Jesus...I think. No smart scriptures are floating through my head. And even if they were...This lady has spent a lifetime batting them down. I would have taken on a ~Kingdom~ door knocker anytime in place of this tough cookie. The pharmacist Spencer comes in for a cup of hot chocolate. He is working late. Maxine (as I have just named her) latches on to him. So...what are you doing here at this time of the evening? Some doctor got you deciphering and cleaning up his messes this late? He chuckles and I take the opportunity to get some things put up. I feel a little guilty letting Spencer on his own with her. Short lived anyway. Maxine starts choking. I mean really choking. Spencer and I are headed her way and then I think to get her some water. Spencer is asking if she needs water as I am going...She is saying something...doesn't sound like water. She finally gets a breath in and request what sounded like "Vodka". Spencer gives her the cup of water and says it's the best he could do. She finally gets it together and she tells Spencer that she thought she was going to have the honor of him performing the ~Heimlich~ maneuver on her. He laughs and heads out the door. Another doctor walks in for his last minute snack of the night. Maxine starts up a conversation with him too. I am listening in and realize this little chic is much smarter than she lets on. She's not drunk, not a loon....maybe she is dealing with reality in a non-fairy tale kind of way. Maybe she is a little bitter...maybe she wants a present that is unwrapped already. Too tired of this world to deal with the niceties of it's wrappings. The doctor has gone now and she proceeds to tell me more about him than I knew and he comes in two or three times a week. He's Slovakian...came to America 20 years ago. He thanked her for the compliments on his use of English grammar....She looks at me more intently...like she knows our time together is almost over. "So why do you believe in this God? she ask. (Now...the important part. I NEVER told her I believe in God.) "Was it because you were one of the lucky ones who was raised hearing about him? Because some preacher told you if were a good girl you would go to heaven?" I think again. Nope....nothing there. No scripture, no clever words of encouragement.. absolutely nothing. I just take a breath with a lightning fast prayer. Lord...don't let me screw this up. "No....I think I knew about God before anyone told me there was one. I think we all do...I think we choose what we want to believe. And I believe there are consequences in an afterlife depending on those choices." Thank God...I heard a comrade co-worker calling me...standing at the kiosk...asking about ringing something up. Maxine gets up and puts her pink coat on and comes up to me. "Ok..girlie...I am out of here. I am going to come back in a couple of months....You keep trying to figure out this damn universe till I get back." She grins and walks off. I am left scratching my head. I feel like the tables were turned on me somehow. Like she was testing me. I told her that I feel like there is a purpose for every moment. I have been trying to think of what that purpose was. Sometimes I think that the earth may have a down moment or two in demon slaying for the angels. I think they might come to us like these servants of God...to test us. I know I flunked. Maybe even to enjoy some entertainment.