phone booth on the side of

the highway
molly mary obrien






1



first female breadwinner

Things are not looking good. Its raining. The tires blown.
The husband is home cooking a roast chicken of some
description. Shes in the car, silently freaking out.

Shes the first ever female breadwinner. Its a big role, she
knows, but someone had to be the first. She started last
month. She knows that some other woman probably went to
work as the family breadwinner maybe a day or two after
her, and a day or two isnt much difference, but anyway,
shes the first, and she takes her responsibility seriously. She
received a pin for it. And a sash with a badge sewn on.

The rain is making drumming noises. She should have never
gone to work, she thinks. She should never have dared to do
anything alone. The worst things happen to people when
theyre alone: being born, dying, and lots of things in
between. Things that arent so terrible when youre with
another person are just awful when youre alone, she thinks.
Setting off the smoke alarm. Seeing an ex-boyfriend at the
diner when your cheeks are full of chocolate milkshake. Stuff
like that. Your face gets hot and youre aware that theres
no one on either side of you. The smoke alarm sounds all the
more ridiculous when no one else hears it. So does the sound
of a tire exploding. Whoever threw their Coke bottle out the
window today can go die.





2
She had wanted to work, and her husband hadnt wanted to.
Honey, would you mind working instead of me? asked the
husband one day at the dinner table. She replied, Thats so
funny. I was literally just about to ask that. Then she
sniffed her fingers, which smelled like garlic. She couldnt
stand when that happened.

She went to work. Learned how to type. Got an awesome
paycheck once every two weeks. Started feeling like a
productive member of society. And her husband learned her
roast chicken recipe. The secret, she told him, was putting
little chunks of butter under the skin of the chicken. It feels
gross to poke them in, but its worth it.

She opens the car door. The rain soaks her hair. She wishes
she knew how to do everything at once. To be a vessel of
useful knowledge. She walks in high heels to the payphone on
the side of the highway.

Shes been working for a company that makes cold cereal.
The cereal is for people who think breakfast is the most
important meal of the day, and also for people who dont feel
like cooking and want to eat cereal for dinner.

She types correspondences.

She seals envelopes.

The dial tone is comforting.

The payphone is exactly the size of one person.

If she gets splashed, shes going to commit a murder.






3

i cant not answer maries call

If you had asked me a day ago whether
I'd have any reason for using a phone
booth on the side of the highway, I'd
have said, no way, because that would be
a ridiculous premise. These are the
parameters that would need to occur in
order to make the situation plausible:
















4

1) Naturally I'd have to be in a car,
driving down the highway.

2) Not only would I have to be on this
particular highway, I'd need to be on this
very stretch of highway, mile 196 on
U.S. Route 6, just outside of Kenesaw,
Nebraska.

3) That means I'd have to have a car at
alland I don't own a car.

4) And that means I'd have to have a
pretty good reason to be in Nebraska as
well.

5) I'd have to have lost my cell phone
somehow, because why would I use a
phone booth if I had my cell phone?

6) I'd need a reason to make a phone call.

7) I'd need two quartersI think it still
costs 50 cents to make a phone call, but
I'm not sure.
5
This all being said, I need to use the
phone booth on the side of the highway,
and I need to use it as soon as possible.

1) Marie called me from San Diego and
said come quick, I have an idea and you
have to be here for it. And I had no
money for a plane ticket. And I didn't
even have enough money for a train
ticket. And I needed to come quick. And I
drive fast. Im a fast driver. That's why
I'm in a car, driving on the highway. Or
rather, why I'm in a car and I was
driving on the highway.

2) Mile 195 is where the gas ran out. I
got out of the car and walked a mile until
I found the phone. I would have been
happy to find a house, or a gas station,
but a phone booth would do. It was so
lucky.




6
3) I stole Sarah's car, which I feel awful
about, even though I didn't really steal it
so much as I borrowed itshe was
face-down asleep and the keys were on
the nightstand and I don't have a car.
I've never had a car. I've driven probably
85 cars over the course of my lifetime
and none of them were mine. But I needed
to see Marie. I haven't seen Marie in two
years. Sarah and I have been seeing each
other for a year and we aren't nearly as
serious as me and Marie. That's just the
way things are.

4) I thought it'd be nice to take Route 6
all the way across. I didn't want to get
bogged down in highway exits and GPS
directions. I didn't want more than two
lanes touching my tires. I mean, Sarahs
tires. I didn't want to pass cars and I
didn't want to have cars pass me. I just
wanted a straight line to Marie.




7
5a) Sarah kept calling my phone, over
and over, and I picked up the fourth time,
which was a huge mistake. She asked
where I was and started crying when I
told her I was in Pennsylvania. What are
you doing in Pennsylvania, she asked me.
You're going to see her, I knew she called
you, you're a piece of shit, you always go
back, what's the big idea now, huh?
What's she going to make you do? You
told me last time you went along with one
of her schemes you almost died,
remember, she tried to launch you into
space like a fucking human satellite. You
remember that, or did you hit your head
so hard that you just up and forgot
again? Huh? Huh huh huh?









8
5b) I hung up, and I turned the phone off,
but I was so mad I wasn't happy with
just having the phone stay offI threw it
out the window and it landed in a field in
Pennsylvania. It is probably still there.

6) I need to call Marie and tell her I'm
still on the way. That I can't wait to see
her, and I'm ready for the next
experiment, and I can be there in less
than 24 hours. I also need to call someone
else who isnt Marie to bring me some gas
in a plastic tub, so I can keep my promise
to Marie.












9












7) I don't have two quarters. I have three
pennies and a dime. My pockets have
failed me.











10
I get in the booth and call Marie collect. I
have her number memorized after all
these years. How did I forget money?
How did I forget to eat? How does she
do this to me?





She doesn't pick up. Her answering
machine is full. I call again. I call again. I
call again. Who invented calling collect?
Who could have predicted the
incompetence of someone who would need
to call someone else collect? Marie is
going to do the sance without me, and
I'll never talk to my father again. Who
would expect that an incompetent,
collect-calling person would even have a
friend who'd be willing to accept the
charges? What an act of faith, to invent
collect calling. How nice was the person
who decided to put a phone booth here in
Nebraska just for me.

11

The night is roaring with crickets. She's
not picking up. I call 911 and tell them to
come pick me up. You can take me
wherever, I tell them. Grand theft auto
and abusing a collect calling system are
two crimes I've committed in the past 24
hours. In the next 24 hours I would have
also probably committed the crime of
trespassing in areas reserved for dead
people. Also I broke a woman's heart.
Also a woman broke my heart. You can
find her in San Diego. At least that's
what she told me on the phone.












12
What area code is Kenesaw, Nebraska?
I'm not hungry. What number did she see
when I called her? She didn't know the
number and didn't pick up. Oh, she didn't
know. I don't want to leave.


































13
allergy season

Hey.

Hey.

Whatd you tell your mother this time?

I didnt tell her anything. She had too much beer at dinner
and fell asleep in front of That Gives Me the Willies! again.

Well. Thats good you didnt have to make an excuse.

Yeah. Last time I had to say that I was going grocery
shopping. That was a pretty dumb lie. I picked a bunch of corn
from the side of the road and came home and said I forgot to
buy anything else. My mom was angry, needless to say. Angry
and confused.

So, whats the story?

I finished my calculus homework. I went for a jog along the
highway and back. Took a shower. Read some Dickens. Bleak
House. I feel like its too warm out to read Dickens, though.
Dickens is wintery. You should eat hot gruel and sit by a fire
and read Dickens. It isnt meant for allergy weather.

Bleak House is an obscure one for your teacher to assign, no?
I thought they always did Great Expectations. I dont know.
Anyway. What do you see right now?

The sky is blue. Dark blue. A car hasnt passed the whole time
Ive been talking to you.

Surprising. I figured thered be Sunday drivers.

Youre such an old man. No one takes Sunday drives
anymore.

Marlene.

Yes?

14
Marlene, why did your parents give you such a sophisticated
name when you live in a cornfield?

Marlene was my great-grandmothers name. I think she was
more sophisticated than anyone else in my family. She lived in
Chicago.

Youre a lucky girl.

I saw a picture of her once and she was wearing a short dress
and she had knobbly knees, like me. You know, like bony young
person knees. Not old person knees. Those didnt come until
later. You know...when she was old.

You dont have to remind me how old I am.

sneeze

You should take an antihistamine.

I wouldnt be lying if I said I was getting tired of this.

You want a plane ticket.

I do. Im so bored here. You keep telling me were going to do
that thing, that crazy thing, youre going to sweep me away
to New York when schools out.

Youre going to need a better excuse for your parents.

Ill say Im going to New York with Jessie. Ill say were
going on an adventure and staying in a hostel and seeing a
Broadway show. That way she can go sneak off and go
camping with her boyfriend. Itll be a good excuse for both of
us.

...

sneeze

I dont like that youre being so hesitant. It sucks. Im sick of
asking you to describe your apartment. No matter how many
times you say which paintings you have on your wall, I cant
15
ever remember all of them. I dont remember things I hear, you
know that. Once I see it, Ill remember it forever.

I think youve got whatever the spring equivalent of cabin
fever is. You know I want you to come here. These things just
take time.

Its getting dark.

Well, its already dark in New York.

I wouldnt know anything about that. Anyway, its a mile
back to my house, and Im going to have to run it. In the
dark.

Next Sunday? The usual?

Youre going to have to make me a good promise to make me
come back for the usual.

I love you.

Ill know that for sure when I see the email with my plane
ticket in it. You keep saying I love you, but each time you do,
the tingle I get down my spine is a little less intense. Im going
to need a bigger promise. You better hope I dont get bitten by
a snake on my run home. Who knows whats crawling around
on the path.















16




the end of telepathy

They came to take the phone booth down. Two
men arrived in khaki jumpsuits that read Bell
Telephone Company even though Bell Telephone
Company turned into Northwestern Bell back in
87, and then AT&T, and then AT&T was bought
out by voices.net, and so on and so forth.

They came to take the phone booth down because
there was no need for a phone booth any longer.
People pretty much just beamed thoughts directly
into one anothers heads. Instead of calling
someone, you sort of mentally knocked on that
someones forehead. If they were available, they
let you in. If not, you just left a message they could
read at their convenience.

In this way, ambulances were called, cops were
summoned, dates were made and broken, gossip
was spread (just as inaccurately as ever), people
talked, just without opening their mouths as much.

So the phone booth by the side of the road was
obsolete. The men came to take it down. The first
man started setting up the uprooter and asked for
the second man to go in and start unscrewing all
the little metal parts in the telephone.

17
People didnt really talk face to face much
anymore, not if they could help it, and especially if
they didnt like one another. The two Bell
Telephone Company men did not like one another,
so they communicated with brusque telepathy. Go
in, was what the first man had beamed to the
second man.

But when the second man went in, he stood up
extra straight and his eyeballs popped out, almost
out of his skull. He started vibrating, standing
with both feet planted, moving almost
imperceptibly back and forth, like a topiary before
an earthquake. The first man looked at the second
man, wondering what the fuck was going on.

We cant sleep together anymore, the second
man said out loud, in a sort of bored, hypnotized
voice.

What? beamed the first man to the second man.

Can I get a ride? the second man asked.

What? beamed the first man.

I need some help, the second man said.

What is wrong with you? asked the first man,
this time out loud, because he didnt know what
else to do.

18
A woman broke my heart. You can find her in
San Diego, the second man said.

The first man beamed the Bell company HQ and
started telling them his partner had gone nuts.

Please help. Just send anyone, the second man
said. Help help help help help. He shook a little
more, then his eyes rolled up in the back of his
head, he went absolutely silent, and he vomited a
giant stream of quarters onto the highway. The
sound of jingling changea slot machine winner,
a big big winneroverwhelmed the silent
highway.


The ambulance came quick. Everything generally
came quick, at that time. The second man went to
the hospital to recover. The insides of his
esophagus were all torn up and needed some
medical-grade salve, but otherwise he was okay.
No brain damage. The first man took a month of
paid leave because he felt a little shaken up about
the whole thing. Bell was fine with that.

It ended up being nearly $20,000 worth of
quarters. The company disinfected them all, and
turned them into dollars, and started a college
fund for the second mans children.




~the end~
19