New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 18

by Grant Bailie

Robert was working the third shift. He may insist on only being scheduled for four days a week, but management could still pick those four days based on the company’s needs. The manager made that point clear to him.

So there he was, working the phones at night. And night was always worse. Night was when the drunks dialed phones without accuracy and would scream or cry in Robert’s ear for forgiveness or a second chance or an apology. And while they were gasping and refilling their glasses or waiting for an answer, Robert would tell them that they had called the cable company by mistake.

And night was when the lonely or suicidal called, dialing perhaps at random, or off the most recent bill on their table. They poured out their souls, lamented all their errors, apologized to Robert for unloading on him, a perfect stranger, but if he was not too busy, what did he think they should do?

In fact, there was very little legitimate cable company business that needed to be done on third shift. Who would call to complain about their bill at three in the morning? Who would even notice poor reception or a lack of certain channels in the middle of the night? A few, perhaps, but not very many.

The only good thing about working third shift was that no one was tracking their calls and marking the various factors and statistics on the board in the front with their own brand of color-coded hieroglyphs.

The manager of third shift was barely even a manager. He sat at a desk like the others and answered the phone and did what he could with the person on the other end of the line. In between calls, the third shift manager read a magazine or worked on a crossword puzzle or made his own phone calls to people he knew or hoped would still be up.

Between calls, Robert sometimes stared at the back of the head of one of his coworkers at a desk not far from his own. Usually it was the back of the head of a reasonably attractive female coworker, but if it was not, he stared only slightly less often.

He was doing this — and it was the reasonably attractive and female one — when the phone rang.

He answered with the required script of good evening and this is the such and such cable company committed to excellence in service, etc. and how may we be of assistance to you this evening, etc.

The person on the other end of the line did not speak for a moment, but then she said: “Is this the person who I talked to a couple weeks ago?”

Robert looked at the name on the screen. It was the woman who had found her boyfriend smoking in bed with another woman. He recognized the name. He considered saying what he usually said in similar circumstances, something like: what did we speak of then Sir or Ms.?

But he did not. He said: “Yes. How are you, Kate?”

The voice on the other end made a sound that could have been a sigh or release or an exhalation of cigarette smoke or possibly both.

“I was hoping I’d get you,” she said.

“Has something happened?” Robert asked. He looked around to see if anyone in the office was listening. The third shift manager was flipping backwards in the pages of a magazine. The back of the reasonably attractive female’s head was leaning a little to one side. “Are you experiencing difficulty with your cable service?” Robert said quietly.

“I’m sorry to call you. I shouldn’t, I know, but you seemed so understanding before.”

“We are here to assist, Kate.”

“Thank you. I know you’re at work. I know this is just a job for you, but I didn’t know who else to talk to.”

“Of course, Kate. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Listen,” she said. “I know maybe you’re talking that way because you’re at work but is there any way you could not use the plural first person. I find it a little creepy. It makes me feel a little more pathetic than I already do.”

“Of course,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

“I took him back. That’s stupid, I know. He’s an asshole and a cheat and lied about smoking in the house and I took him back anyway. Don’t judge me on that, please. It’s not even why I’m calling. I took him back and he still left me and now I think I’ve done something really stupid. I know I have, actually. I’ve done it and it’s stupid.”

“Go on,” he said. He waited for her to tell him that she had taken a bottle of sleeping pills or had slit her wrists in the bathtub and was bleeding out even then while she was talking to him. Bleeding in a bathtub with slit wrists and still somehow smoking a cigarette. But she did not say that.

“There’s a man in my bed,” she said. “He’s in the other room. I’m calling from the kitchen. It was a mistake, I know. I went out to a bar. I didn’t drink that much but I was upset and this guy started talking to me and I thought: why not? Why not? Phil did it. Phil did it all the time, apparently. So why not me, right?”

“Was that a little rash, Kate?” Robert looked around again; maybe they would mistake what he said for a response to something like: so I yanked the cable out of the wall and tried to patch it back together with duct tape.

“Well yeah, it was a lot rash. Which is why I’m calling. I don’t even like this guy, and now he’s in my bed and I think he’s planning on sleeping till morning. That’s my problem. I have to get rid of him. I don’t know what to do and I have to get rid of him. I didn’t know who else to call. You were so nice before. And so understanding.”

So she had called the cable company. Robert tried to imagine what she expected, what she had hoped he might do for her.

“Do you want me to call you?” he said. “Do you want to hang up and I’ll call back and maybe the phone will wake him?”

“No,” she said. “The phone’s in the kitchen and he seems like a pretty heavy sleeper. Anyway, why would he leave because of that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Could you send a repairman or something out? Say there’s a problem with the line or something and then make a lot of noise and stuff and hang around till he goes?”

Robert knew of a few dozen reasons why he could not do that but only said: “That might work if you were willing to put up with him until between nine and five tomorrow.”

“Shit,” she said. “I can’t have him in my bed all night. It’ll drive me crazy. I’ll do something crazy if he’s here in the morning.”

Robert tried to think, but what could he be expected to do with a computer and a phone? What possible box could he fill out or number could he enter that would change anything? He looked at her address on the screen. It was not far. A block, maybe two blocks away.

“What is your name?” she asked. “We talk but I don’t know your name.”

Robert was surprised by the question — not that it would be asked, but that it would be asked now exactly, while they were working on the problem of the strange man in her bed.

“Robert,” he said, though this too was against protocol — they all had different names assigned to them at hiring, names that they could give to the angry or lonely or suspect so that, while it might seem like the cable company had personable and human people answering the phone, they were human people who would be harder to track down and run over in a parking lot. The name Robert had been assigned was Sean and Robert had never used it once.

He looked around the office, but no one was paying attention to his conversation and some of his coworkers were not even awake.

“Robert,” she said. “Please help me. I really don’t know what to do.”

“Hold on a second, Kate,” he said, then covered the receiver of the phone with his hand and said to the third shift manager: “I have to leave for an hour. Family emergency.”

The third shift manager seemed startled — perhaps he too had been sleeping. He straightened up in his chair and said: “Is that a personal call you’re on?”

“Yes. My sister. She’s having some problems with her son. He ate something. It’s just a few blocks from here.”

The third shift manager looked around the office, at the idle or sleeping workers. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we can spare you for an hour or so.”

Robert uncovered the receiver. “I’m going to be over in about ten minutes, Kate. OK?”

“Thank you. Thank you Robert,” she said and hung up.

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