Lynne Tillman

HUNG UP

We were about to move. The next day, in fact. Which I think gives one some right to be deranged. I called my friend, the man I live with, to complain, or explain, I can't remember which. He said, 'Hello,' and after my first few sentences, there was silence. Then he hung up. I instantly called back. He said 'Hello,' I said his name, and asked what happened, and he hung up again. Perhaps I'd been too demanding in the first phone call. I dialed again and realized that I was shaking. It was cold because it was January. 'Hello,' I said, and even faster, he hung up.

I always carry dimes for times exactly like these. And no junkie on Ninth Street was more desperate than I as I stuck my hand in my bag for another one. 'Hello,' I asked, 'is there anything wrong?' No sooner than I'd said that, he hung up. Why was he doing this to me? I dialed again. This time I got angry. 'What do you think you're doing?' I demanded. He hung up. I could see that that approach just didn't work. I was beside myself. I decided to call one more time and then take a taxi to see him. To confront him. This time the answering machine was on. That was the last straw. Now I felt like I was standing beside myself. I left the phone and headed toward the avenue where I waved my arms or rather jerked them upward several times toward the sky, hailing nothing. I forgot about a taxi, and walked in the direction I should've gone - to work - I was already late.

He didn't want to move with me. I'd heard that signing a lease together, moving together, was a form of recommitment, a modern marriage of sorts. An apartment is more difficult to get than a marriage license. But if we broke up, where would he live? It wasn't reasonable. And who would get the apartment? Of course, this had nothing to do with reason. I had to calm down and believe that things might work out. There might be some other explanation. It didn't seem likely, though.

I walked past several phones, wondering if I should give it another shot. I passed another one, two, at the third, I thought, Yes, why not? I'd kind of resigned myself to the inevitable, wanted to be adult about it, and this phone booth was an old-fashioned one, enclosed. I wouldn't freeze to death, an injury to the insult. 'Hello,' I said, 'I'm calmer now.' He didn't say anything, but he didnt hang up. Obviously I'd hit the right approach. I continued in the same vein. I talked about the work that was being done on the place, our place, as if everything was all right. My voice sounded deeper than usual, probably the sound of resignation. 'Why don't we meet for lunch?' he asked. 'All right,' I said, 'that'd be fine.' I figured he wanted to talk to me about the break-up and his feelings. He certainly sounded blasé, considering.

We were to meet in front of a Greek luncheonette at four p.m. Three hours later I walked toward it and noticed him walking toward me. He can't wait, I thought. I set my expression to grave, to suit the occasion, and decided not to be the first one to speak. Let him bring it up. I thought, he wants it. As we entered the restaurant, he said, casually, 'Some crazy person kept calling me today.' Ah, I thought, thats how he talks about me, the me he's disassociating himself from. Or perhaps he's going to act like a man and pretend it didn't happen. 'What do you mean?' I asked disingenuously. 'I'd pick up the phone and there'd be no one there.' 'No one there?' I asked. 'No, the phone kept ringing, I'd pick up the phone and there'd be no one there. Finally I put the answering machine on.' You didn't hear anything?' I asked. 'No,' he said. I drank a little tea and looked him straight in the eye. 'That crazy person was me,' I said. 'You?' he said. 'Yes. Whenever I called I'd hear you say hello and I'd say a few things and then you'd hang up.' He looked at me over his coffee cup. 'Didn't you ever consider that the phone might be broken?' 'No,' I said, 'I thought a lot of things but I never thought of that.' He lit a cigarette. 'Why would I hang up on you?' he asked. He said this in a kind way, much the way that the psychiatrist examining Paul Bowles as to his fitness for the Army spoke. No one's going to hurt you, he reassured Bowles, having already moved a pair of scissors out of Bowles' reach. Why, indeed, I thought. Why does anyone do anything?

On my behalf Id like to say that I am capable of learning, and the next time something like that happens, I will immediately think that the phone is broken. And Ill go on to the next. Flexibility is one of the signs of mental health.