“I thought you might have found another dime in your pocket or borrowed one and were calling me or someone else. Anyway, I called the second number, but it didn’t answer, so I thought the second one not answering might be because you stepped away from the phone. So I called the busy one again and when it was still busy, called the one I thought you might have stepped away from—”
“Why would I have? I was waiting for your call.”
“I thought for something; I didn’t know for what. Hot coffee because you were cold.”
“I have no money.”
“I forgot. And it shouldn’t be me apologizing. Not you either—maybe—if you’re really in a hole. But still, when someone you don’t know calls you at two o’clock—”
“I know. I apologize. I didn’t mean to have you explain — I thought I was doing my best not to—”
“Anyway, the person who didn’t answer the first time, now answered, so I was right calling that number back. But he kept talking. It was a nursing home and I’d waked him and now he wouldn’t let me go, nor would he tell me if you were at this place — in the lobby, not in one of the living units upstairs — so that’s what also kept me so long. He was such a sad old man that I didn’t have the heart to hang up on him.”
“You were right. And I shouldn’t expect anything and I didn’t, but do appreciate that you called back. And you mentioned something about my being cold? Here comes my next big pitch for sympathy.”
“You are cold.”
“I’m freezing my life off out here, or the last two-fifths of it. It’s an enclosed booth, thank God — a relic of a distant civilization that still works, which won’t stop it from being torn out and made obsolete and maybe with me in it — but it’s still very cold. It’d be very very if the policemen hadn’t given me an old sweater they kept a few of in their car for such occasions. If it were up to me — if there were no disturbed souls out here — but I shouldn’t go on so holier-than-sanctimonious-thou about it. I won’t.”
“No — what about the disturbed souls?”
“If there were none out here, or homeless, myself excluded, I’d heat them — all these booths. Even if there are these people here — hell, let a disturbed homeless man sleep standing up or huddled on the floor of one, and even provided with a night’s food rations and a tissue packet with a space blanket in it and a Wash and Dry for an extra bit of cleanness and warmth.”
“And the vandals? All you need is to make those booths more inviting than they are. Not that I don’t sympathize with what you say, half serious as it was, and that we couldn’t talk seriously about how there should always be free homes for the homeless and food for the foodless and so forth. But let’s not. You’re cold and keyless and I’m exhausted and maybe to you heartless. But why didn’t you go inside to make your calls, if any places are open now?”
“Some are but I didn’t think they’d appreciate my receiving calls there if I had to — especially when I was so unkempt and wasn’t even buying a coffee from them. And the subway station here — Twenty-third and Sixth — you have to pay the fare to get to the coin phone on the platform, the token-booth clerk said. So I chose, over jumping the turnstile or walking back to Fourteenth Street or going to one of the other Twenty-third Street stations to see if there was a nonplatform phone there or to Penn Station where I know there are plenty, this outside phone on a well-lit though I think fairly dangerous corner, but in an enclosed booth. You see, I also lost my heavy sweater—”
“Wait — back up a bit. Also a sweater? What else?”
“My raincoat in the fight. And an umbrella in the wind in Washington Square Park, right after I left Diana’s. The umbrella couldn’t keep out the cold now, but it would have the rain before which, dry on me now, for a couple of hours kept me chilled.”
“I forgot about the raincoat. Shows how tired I am. But go on. You’re cold, so I shouldn’t interrupt further.”
“I left it on Diana’s hallway rack, the sweater, when I left the park drunk. The party, but I also left the park drunk. But maybe all the alcohol I drank at the party is now keeping me warmer than I’d normally be without it, though without it I wouldn’t have forgotten my sweater or gone into the park and lost the umbrella. Or even gone up to you at the party — no, I hadn’t had much to drink at that time nor when I yelled to you from the unmentionable. It was only after, though I certainly wouldn’t have called your answering service without the alcohol, because by then I was loaded. But the alcohol had nothing to do with my losing the raincoat and its contents. By that time I was sober.”
“About the alcohol, by the way, I heard differently.”
“About me?”
“Alcohol and the cold. That when you think it’s warming you, it’s really doing the opposite, but let’s not waste any more time. If you come to my building — the vestibule, which you don’t need a key to get into — I’ll have the money in a special spot above the bellboard, plus some change and the name of a locksmith I’ve managed to find who will be expecting your call. Forty dollars should be enough. If I can’t find a locksmith, use the money for a hotel. I’ll add another ten for a cab ride here, and at this hour a cab’s all you should take. That’s about all the cash I have on me, which you can pay back when—”
“Listen, I’m not making this up and I appreciate to the utter utmost everything you’ve offered, but a locksmith you’re not going to find. And the way I look — they’re just scratches on my face and head, bumps you can’t see under the hair, some dried blood, torn-to-expunged for clothing — no semi-decent hotel would let me in. And anything less than semi-decent I don’t feel I can take going to tonight, nor waiting till morning with a bunch of madmen and bums in the waiting room at Penn Station or Grand Central. The train cops don’t even let you do that anymore from midnight to seven. Incidentally, you mark which number you got me at? I already forgot it.”
“I know which one. And I called you, so we can’t be cut off.”
“You’re right. My head. Suddenly thought before was now. Not that. After? But — and I’m not talking like this or pretending to be confused for the sake—”
“Enough. Just come here. Money will be in a letter envelope in a metal well in the wall behind the bellboard. Reach up and finger around and you’ll find it. Do what you want with the money and I don’t care when you pay it back, but sometime would be nice.”
“Please, all I want’s a floor. I’m safe. I’m good-natured. I’m very clean other than what came out of me or got stuck on me from tonight’s knockdown. I’ll only ask to wash up, maybe have something warm to drink — hot water, even, with a lemon slice in it if you got — and several aspirins and dabs of iodine. Nothing if you don’t want or have and no washup if that’s what you want also, and a blanket or coat over me on the floor and a towel or coat underneath me if it’s just wood there with no carpet or rug, and that’ll be it. Or just the bare floor and no body cover or anything under, and I promise, my word against anything, you’ll never meet anyone more peaceful and quiet when I get there. Sure, maybe by now Diana’s home or someone else from before, though we’ve been talking so long that it’s probably really too late or too early to call anyone now. Even if it weren’t, I don’t have the energy and maybe not the memory nor another dime to make another call.”
“Okay. How would you get here if you came and stayed on the couch or floor?”
“No couch. The floor.”
“How would you? Cab?”
“I can’t walk it. But I don’t want you going downstairs alone or in any way to put you through anything more. I’ll try to borrow the subway fare or jump over the turnstile.”