IT WAS AN ANOMALOUS TUESDAY NIGHT IN 2002 WHEN THE phone calls started. For over a week (at precisely 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights), my apartment became a torrent of moral decay. His moans lubricated the phone lines like a sexually transmitted disease. Whirls of tornadic subjugation seeped through the little holes of the telephone receiver, which, within seconds, was marred by a rapid dial tone. I would answer, and before having a moment to ask who it was—(Paramedic One? Andy Hoskins? the Rigas? my baby brother joking around?)—was hung up on as soon as I spoke.
I didn’t think much of it after the first call. Or even the second, really. It was only after the third that I started to get a little concerned. I believed, even after everything that preceded my incarceration, in honor and in trust, two virtues that belie my current rank. Whoever was calling me was looking for someone and didn’t realize he or she had the wrong number. He’ll stop when he’s ready to stop, I thought. She must have a reason for this. It’s not exactly stalking per se; he’s just looking for someone, and I’ve got that someone’s phone number. His ex-wife might be terrorizing him, and this is his way of getting even. It’s a wrong number. She’s an angry student who got a B on her last biology test. And so on. But Bobby McManahan, the police officer trainee with whom I was sleeping at the time, did not have the same patience. So after five calls, I figured I’d ask him for some vaguely professional advice.
At 6:05 p.m. on that Thursday in February, Bobby was waiting with me for the call before heading back to his night shift. He was working the general street patrol on South Street that month, watching street bums attempt to chat with overstimulated, overprivileged college kids just moments after they pierced their gonads or some other brilliant idea of the like. (The resulting interactions were always humorous for at least one party—and I won’t say which one.) Meanwhile, the phone call was five minutes late.
“See,” I said to Bobby, smiling at the clock. “No need to tell the police.”
His face dropped. “I am the police.”
“Oh, Bobby.” I grinned, cupping his face with my palms. His cheeks were pocked with what appeared to be year-old acne that had since cleared in part, and his dusty blond hair was parted down the side a little too carefully for my taste. But he was fairly benign and easy enough to manipulate, which didn’t exactly bode well for his professional ambitions, which wasn’t my problem, but that’s irrelevant at the moment. “You’re far too gullible to carry a gun.”
He bit his lip. “It’s just a taser.”
“Well, then, I stand corrected.”
I looked over at the clock and again at the phone. He was late. It was after six o’clock. There was nothing to cause concern at that point. He was never five minutes late. He was never two minutes late.
“Go,” I insisted, looking back to Bobby. He wore his nerves like stage makeup. “You don’t want to be late. They’ll stick you at a desk if you’re late another time.”
He grabbed his cap.
“I worry about you, Noa P.,” he said.
I walked him toward the door and inspected the clock.
“To be honest, I’m a little worried about you,” I said, refocusing. It had been a handful of months since we were sleeping together, and we only did that since he couldn’t sleep alone at night because of what they were telling him at work. It was early 2002 and they had just been trained to follow up on every possible threat with urgency—be it a confusing phone call, a white envelope with no return address, a one-way plane ticket, that sort of thing. It’s not that they believed that a crank call was exactly the sign of a terrorist-run sleeper cell with operations throughout the continental United States. But it’s not like they believed it wasn’t either.
“Look, it’s 6:07 now,” I smiled. “We should have put money on this. Would have helped me pay the rent this month,” I said, again looking back to the clock.
“How much do you need?”
“I don’t need anything, Bobby. I’m fine. Relax.” Again, I held those prickly cheeks in my hands. “Nothing to worry about. Go! Go protect our streets.”
He hesitated, holding his hand out to me.
“Seriously, go,” I teased.
“Fine, I’ll go. I’m going.” He kissed me on the forehead before leaving. “Promise to call me if you get another call. Really, we can’t be too certain who has access to our phone lines these days.”
“Go!”
“Okay, okay.”
He closed the door on his way out. I looked up to the clock. It now read 6:10, and, of course, no sooner than Bobby disappeared from my line of vision, the phone rang. Part of me knew the caller wasn’t quite finished with me, and the other part of me was actually sort of excited that he hadn’t given up. Perhaps Bobby knew that. Had he been a better police officer, he probably never would have left me alone. Then again, had he been a better police officer, he never would have gotten involved with me.
I let it ring two or three times before walking over to it. The nameless caller was wading through moments of anticipation, no doubt, and part of me took pride in inflicting that anxiety. I answered it on ring five. At six, it would have gone to voice mail.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” I said, “but you’re damn lucky I haven’t called the police yet. How do you know this line isn’t being tapped as we speak?” I paused, trying to keep a straight face.
Seemingly on cue, the heaving breathing began.
“Your MO is pathetic, you know,” I continued. “Same time, same voice. Who exactly are you trying to reach? Haven’t you figured it out by now? Pick up the white pages, go online, find the right number already. I’m bored with this.”
There was no response. Perhaps Bobby was right.
“What? You have no voice now that we’re actually talking?”
He cleared his throat. It was definitely a man. An older man.
“Hello?”
“Noa?” he finally said.
The voice was tender, almost as if he were recovering from surgery.
“Who is this?” I demanded.
“Noa Singleton?” he asked again, coughing through my name.
“Who the hell is this?”
He didn’t respond, but I could swear to this date that I heard a glass drop in the background.
“I said, who the hell is this?”
“It’s … it’s your father.”