The Brass Telephone

The telephone rang. She looked at it speculatively. She was not obliged to answer it. She was not even sure she should answer it. It went a second and a third time. She decided that if it rang six times she would pick it up.

"Hello," she said softly.

"Hello." It was a man's voice, rumbling, cavernous. "Bob there?"

"Bob Schirmer?" she said.

"That's right. He there?"

"No, not at the moment. He'll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes."

"I see. Do you know if he went to a magazine office, Metropole's office?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't know where he went, but I know he'll be back soon."

"My name is Toby Weeks. Would you tell him?"

"Of course. Toby Weeks. I'll tell him."

"Thanks," he said. "Goodbye."

"I could have him call you back," she said.

"I'm in a booth," he said.

"Are you near?" she said.

He laughed, once. "No, I'm a long way off."

"Shall I tell Bob you'll call again?" she said.

"All right," he said. "When would be a good time?"

"I should think in twenty-five minutes or half an hour," she said.

"This's turning into quite a conversation," he said. "You could be getting tired, holding that old stand-up telephone."

"You know about the phone?"

"I was up there the night Bob brought the thing home. He spent half the night getting the black paint oil it, shining up the brass so's to match that old bedstead. He's brass-happy, that boy."

"I'm not holding it," she said. "I'm lying down."

"So?"

"Well, the phone is on the bed beside me, I'm only holding the receiver."

"I see," he said. "What's your name, if I might just ask?"

"Rosa Martin."

"Are you about twenty-two?"

"Twenty-three."

"You live in New York?"

"I live on Cornelia Street. I'm a model. Where do you live?"

"In a hotel, uptown. And I play football for a living."

"Should I recognize your name? Are you famous?"

"Some people know me."

"What do you play, what position, I mean?"

"Offensive tackle."

"Bob used to play football, didn't he?"

"In college he did, Wisconsin. He wasn't big enough for the pros, not for the line anyway."

"Big enough? The man's six feet one and something, isn't he?"

He laughed his short laugh again. "Honey," he said, "I'm six five, I weigh 275-280."

She laughed. "And you're in a phone booth?"

"That's right. Nobody in here with me, I can tell you that."

"I should think not."

"Rosa," he said, "where'd Bob really go?"

"He just went out to buy some things. He wanted some Scotch, some other things."

"You known him very long, Bob?" he said.

"No, not really. We met about a month ago."

"I see. I guess it's possible to get to know Bob pretty quick, sometimes."

She laughed. "I guess so," she said. "I don't know if I got to know him pretty quick, or not."

"You like him, I take it."

"Yes, I like him. I like big men, for a start. He's kind and gentle. He's funny. He can talk. I like it that he's a writer. I'd like to be a writer. And I can take him on his own terms."

"What terms are those?"

"I mean I know I'm not the only thing in his life, the only girl he's got around. For all I know I'm not in the first six. And I don't mind that he's pretty casual and matter of fact about things."

"You're in bed waiting for him to come back now, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You don't mind that?"

"No, I don't mind."

"Maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea for me to call him in twenty or twenty-five minutes."

"You can call him. I don't mind. I'll tell him it's you. I'll tell him to answer it, too."

"You're quite a girl."

She said nothing.

"You talk quite a lot, though, somebody you never met."

"You ask a lot of questions. Anyway, after all, you're his friend, I'm sure he'd tell you a lot more than I have, if you asked him."

"I don't know if I'm Bob's friend," Weeks said. "We know each other a little while. Right now, he's writing a piece about me for that magazine, Metropole."

"You are famous, then. Or are you going to be, when Bob does the piece?"

"I dunno, honey," he said. "I don't know about that fame."

"Where did you go to school?" she said.

"Little place down South, place you never heard of," he said.

"What's it called?"

"Morgan State."

"You're right. I never have heard of it."

"Lots of ballplayers come out of the little schools. I don't know why that is. On my team, now, this season, we haven't got two people from schools anybody ever heard of."

"What team is that?"

"Rollers."

"Were you an All-American?"

"All-America, that is, honey," he said. "No, I didn't make the club. I'm a club member, but I didn't make the club. That's a joke."

"Oh? Am I supposed to laugh?"

"No. Not that kind of joke."

"All right. But going back, I thought most professional football players were All-Americans, Americas, I mean."

"No, honey, other way around, most not."

"I see."

She looked down at herself. She switched the receiver to her left hand and her left ear and stroked, appreciatively, her flat little belly."

"Bob took me to one game," she said. "I should think it would be a hard life."

He laughed. "Depends," he said. "It harder than being a bank president, easier than stevedoring. Depends, you see."

His dime dropped.

"Give me the number," she said. "I'll call you back."

"I've got it right here," he said.

She held the receiver away from her ear until she heard the coin go down.

"Well, you know, I think you should say it," she said.

"You do, do you?"

"Yes."

"I'm not going to."

"All right. I'll say it. I'd like to meet you."

"Bigger man than you've got now?"

"Don't be a bastard. I really want to meet you. I want to know why you're so sad."

"I'm sad?"

"You're sad. Your voice is sad. Why? You're so big other men have to look up at you, you're healthy, you have a good job, all right, a tough job, but it pays well, and I'm sure that if I weren't so ignorant I'd know your name, I'm sure you're famous. And sad."

"Could be, honey. Could be. But I don't really think so. I don't think I'm so sad. Sorrowful, yes, but that's not sad. Hell, I'm madder than sadder!"

"I think sadder than madder."

"Depends. Anyway, that's not such a big picture you're painting there, we meet, and you get to decide if I'm sad or not. I can think of other things to do with my time."

"We might like each other. We might like each other, we might respect each other, we might want each other."

"Suppose we did want each other, without liking, without respecting?"

"We could say goodbye."

"We could make out, and then say goodbye."

"No."

"Respect first, huh? Liking first, every time?"

"That's for sure."

"I think you talk about it more than you do it."

"I hope so."

He said nothing.

"When you talk to Bob, ask him if he minds. I know he'll say he doesn't. Then we can arrange something."

"You want to tell him like that?"

"Well, I'm certainly not going to start a big two-timing operation. It's tiresome. You're his friend, and I'm his girl, his mistress if you like, or one of them. You ask him. I'll ask him."

"It wouldn't work out, honey," he said.

"Why not? Why wouldn't it?"

"Tell me, you white?"

"Am I what? Am I white? Yes, of course I am. I--"

" 'Of course,' the girl says," he mocked. "Of course she's white, isn't everybody? So you see why it wouldn't work out," he said softly. "I'm colored. I'm a Negro."

"You're wrong," she said. "It wouldn't make any difference to me, that (concluded on page 196) Brass Telephone (continued from page 120) wouldn't make any difference to me."

He laughed. "You all heart, aren't you?" he said. "You got yourself into this box and you're not going to quit."

"I told you," she said. "It doesn't make any difference to me. It just doesn't matter, one way or the other. This is 1964. The Civil War is all over. I'm not buying any of that medieval nonsense, and ... anyway, I told you it didn't make any difference, and I meant it."

"You said it didn't make any difference to you. I believe you. But maybe it makes a difference to me, honey. I'm no liberal. I'm no goddamned progressive. Nothing tolerant about me. Civil War ain't over far as I've heard. Not as far as I've heard."

His dime went down.

"Do you have another?" she said.

"No, I haven't," he said. "And I'm afraid I don't need one."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't--"

He cut her off. "That's all right, little ofay," he said. "Forget it. Not your fault."

"What did you call me?" she said. "Ofay?"

"Ask Big Bob," he said. "He heard the word before. He'll tell you. Or you can figure it out yourself, it's only pig latin. Ofay. Ofay."

He hung up.