JK Fowler

Realms of uncertainty abounded. Harri listened as Eddie wept through the soiled telephone in the recesses on the alleyway on South Vernon Ave, her mind rambling through all the reasons she never used public telephones: the germs, the gum on the floor of the blackened metal floor, the dusted-over windows, the flickering orange bulb dangling from the flossy electrical wire above, the coiled steel telephone cord. They were the booths of unseemly losses of virginity, the refuge for the homeless on the snow-ridden nights in the windy city, the scene of the next gruesome homicide on the trail of Rizzy Ricano’s trailblazing string of ten murders. She kept the door shut tight, placing a handkerchief between her body and the panes of glass and pressed her body as tightly against the windows as possible. She sees a well-dressed man approaching, pea-coat, felt fedora and leather black gloves, slams her four inch heel down, wedging it between the bottom of the sliding door and the grime-covered floor. No one would get in, no one would get out.

Eddie weeps uncontrollably on the other side of the line. “I mean, it was ten years ago, right? They didn’t even need the money, said it was a matter of principle. Of PRINCIPLE! Uh huh huh…” The man in the fedora has stopped two inches from the glass doors, looks in with a quizzical look of indifference. Although his fashion is impeccable, his face is bedraggled, his ears pointed, his nose far too small for his face. He is at once comical and ghastly, innocent and guilty of all charges. She experiences his presence to the bone-chilling soundtrack of a man unhinged. “Eddie? I may need to call you back in a second. There’s this guy on the outside of the booth and I think he needs to get…” Bam! The man has taken off one of his gloves and slammed it against the window pane. His palm has been burnt, his fingers are mangled and he trails them down the glass, gathering the dust in the wake of his fingers, leaving clear trails in the dirty mess. “Just hold on. Hold on! Goddamit Eddie, you need to stop! Just stay on the line. I may need you to call the police if this creep doesn’t go away.” Eddie is silent. The man cocks his head to the right, places it  inches from the glass, peers through the clear streaks left by his fingers into the booth and eyes Harri. His gloveless hand remains tightly pressed against the door, his hamburger fingers tap fervently on Harri’s nerves. She begins the conversation.

“Can I help you with something? Need to make a call?” She tries as hard as she can to smile, manages a half-hearted upwards turn of her chapped lips. He glares through the glass, opens his mouth. Rotting teeth and purple, veinous tongue. He emits a sound not of words nor of sentiment; it is a hissing, hoarse, gut-wrenching sound, grates on the steel floor of the booth, rises to the roof and rains a repetitive cloud of poisoned nonchalance down upon her furrowed brow. His teeth rattle in the mouthy winds that hit the booth, fog the windows, seep through the cracks and bespeak of rotting apples and fish gone bad.

“Eddie, call the cops. This guy is creeping me out. No, I’ll be fine. Just call them on another line. No, you can’t leave me. Get your damn neighbor’s cell phone. I don’t care if you two are having a feud. EDDIE! Thank you.” Harri breathes deep now, feels that frozen air being pulled into the recesses of her lungs, listens to the frantic happenings of Eddie and his neighbor on the other line. She wants to be  somewhere else, not in a phone booth in some alley, not in this city, not here with this man. She realizes this is the closest she has been to a man in months, remembers why she has avoided them for so long. “Eddie? Yeah, I am still here. Thank you so much. No, he is just standing here watching me.” She tries again.

“Mister, can I help you with something? If you just step away, I can get out and let you use this thing. I know you’re not well. None of us are. Let me get out and you can do whatever it is that you need to do in here.”

The man closes his eyes in a prolonged blink. She can hear the sound of them peeling, sticky flesh against flesh, as he opens them. He takes a step back, spins to face his back towards Harri, his pea-coat swinging in troubled beats, his fedora flipping downwards into a coy, playful game of hide and seek, and begins walking away.

“Yeah, he walked away. Weirdos all over the place here, I swear. Anyways, call the cops back. Yeah, no it’s fine.” She turns her back to the doors, nestles in to the corner of the booth. “No, go ahead. Sorry. Finish what you were say…”

Glass shatters and the man is upon her. She screams to the unending indifference of humanity gone awry. The gloveless hands cover her mouth. Sulfur, rancid tomatoes, rotting meat, soiled diapers, fennel, woody smoke: the repugnant smells curl themselves around her weeping eyes, her dilated nostrils. Violence erupts from the recesses of a booth unsavory, the gum clings to her tousled hair, drags her downwards, the bulb swings high and wayward, slams against the door and shatters. The sound of sweeping movement and a meaty fist meets her head, her sight fails. She hears the dragging, feels the snow beneath her body, the unpleasant grinding of stones against her back and her senses fail her, she is gone.

The booth light flickers back on, the blood has all but dried into blackened grime, the windows have been replaced. The dangling phone, the twisted cord. “Duh Nuh Nuh. If you’d like to make a call, please insert 25 cents for the first 5 minutes.”