Telephone Prank
Telephone pranks came into being
with the anonymity of the dial phone.
No operator to direct your call …
or listen in.
(“Is your refrigerator running?”
“Well, you’d better catch it.”)
But I take rueful pride
in carrying the art
of the prank call
to a new, higher level.
Here’s how it went:
We’d open the phone book,
a friend and I,
and choose a name.
Any name.
Let’s say Frank Connolly.
We’d dial the number—
let me be honest,
I dialed the number,
my friend in the background,
giggling—
and ask for “Uncle Frank.”
Told he wasn’t home—
few men were home on a weekday—
I’d say that I was his niece, Rosie,
and my daddy was sending me
that very day
to live with
my uncle Frank.
I would arrive on the 4:30 train.
Sometimes I made my voice sound
like a very little girl.
Sometimes like the teenager
I almost was.
Always, I described myself
in the same way:
brown hair, curls, blue jacket.
If Mrs. Connolly insisted
her husband had no such niece,
I would cry,
tell her my father had promised,
promised
my uncle Frank would take care of me.
Usually, the wife agreed.
They would meet me
at the depot
at 4:30.
Each time,
after I hung up,
we wrapped our arms around ourselves
in an ecstasy of more giggles,
then we’d choose new name,
and I made another call.
After all these years, I still wonder …
how many arrived at the train station at 4:30
looking for a girl with curly brown hair
and a blue jacket?
And as they wandered the platform,
concerned,
confused,
did they happen to talk
to one another?
I, a blonde girl with stick-straight hair,
who never owned a blue jacket,
am regretful now.
As I should be.
But I was such a good girl,
such a boringly good girl,
so eager to please,
that I remember
my small meanness
with something
like relief.
Even with a tiny bit of pride.
