The phone was already ringing when Heidi rushed into the small office and
sat down on the rock hard chair in one of the tiny cubicles. She picked up the
headset and punched the button to intercept the call.
“Took you long enough,” the voice scolded her. “You have just
twenty minutes to talk me out of doing it.”
Heidi automatically looked at her watch, calculated twenty minutes from
now, and tried to switch gears and talk someone out of committing suicide.
“My name is Heidi,” she began. “What’s yours?”
“You don’t need to know my name,” the female caller answered.
“When you read about it in the newspaper tomorrow morning, you’ll know it
was me.”
Everybody wants attention!
Heidi looked longingly at the old stained coffeemaker sitting inactive and empty
on the countertop. “It’s just that it’s easier to talk to you, if I know
your name.”
“I don’t think I like talking to you.”
“You’re right,” Heidi added hastily. “I don’t need to know your
name.” She was relieved when she didn’t hear her first call-in of the night
hang up. Instead, she heard traffic noises in the background. “The traffic
sure is heavy tonight. Where are you?”
“I’m stuck in the middle of it.”
“You’re on a cell phone in your car?” Heidi asked. Usually someone
about to commit suicide is at home all alone or headed for some lonely desolate
place where no one can stop them. “Look. Whatever-your-name-is, why don’t
you tell me where you are, and…we can meet somewhere?” Heidi looked on the
messy bulletin board in front of her and found a street map.
The caller laughed. “I’m afraid that will make it a little too
crowded. I’m on my way to meet someone else.”
“But I thought…” Heidi tried to rethink the conversation. She was
new at this weekend volunteer job. The head of the citywide phone counseling
ministry had assured her that she’d never have to work alone. But, they were
understaffed, and the other volunteers obviously didn’t take the job as
seriously as she did. “Does your friend know what you’re planning to do?”
she asked.
“You sure don’t know much…for a counselor,” the caller said.
“Maybe I should counsel you.”
Heidi felt her face turn red. A cup of hot coffee would help right about
now. She was having difficulty staying focused on the caller’s problem.
“If it weren’t for this traffic jam, I would’ve already done it.
And you haven’t said one word to stop me yet.”
Heidi looked at her watch. It had been only seven minutes, but the caller
was right. She hadn’t gotten anywhere yet. “Okay then. Why do you want to
kill yourself? What’s so terrible about your life that you feel you should end
it all?”
The laughter was like a roar in her ears, and Heidi had to take the
headset off. She fumbled with the buttons until she found the one that switched
the call to speaker phone. After all, no one else was in the office with
her.
“I thought I was calling the phone counseling ministry,” the caller
finally said. “I must’ve called Dial-a-Joke by mistake.” After a moment,
“Hey, wait a minute. You’re doing this on purpose. I’m the only one in
this whole traffic jam laughing. You’re trying to make me draw attention to
myself, aren’t you?”
“I assure you,” Heidi said. “That was not my intention.”
“What made you think I wanted to kill myself?”
the caller asked.
“I don’t know. I just thought…why did you call…? What are you
planning to do?”
“I’m going to kill my neighbor, and I gave you twenty minutes to talk
me out of it,” the caller told her. “You’re one lousy counselor. I don’t
think you could talk anyone out of anything. Even if your life depended on it!
Look. Don’t make me yell. There’s a cop directing traffic just fifty feet
away.”
“Your neighbor? Why do you want to kill your neighbor?” Heidi needed
to keep the conversation rolling.
“She complained to the super about my music being too loud.”
“How do you know she’s the one who complained?”
“Oh, she’s the one, all right. I can tell. She lives in the apartment
next to mine. I listen to my music all afternoon. Then as soon as she gets home,
the super calls and tells me to turn it down or he’ll evict me.”
Heidi felt more sympathy for the neighbor than she did her caller.
“Maybe you could try something a little less drastic. For instance, when you
hear your neighbor come home, turn your music down. Then, if she still
complains, explain to the super that you already turned it down for her.”
“I’ve tried being nice to her,” the caller replied. “It doesn’t
work. One time she came in the door while I was getting my mail. I said,
‘hi,’ and she gave me one of those head-to-toe looks and kept right on
walking, like I wasn’t worth her time.”
“You have to try more than once,” Heidi continued. “This is the
city. Some people use solitude as a defense mechanism. They’re afraid to trust
anyone. In the apartment building where I live, we all pretty much mind our own
business. And that’s the way we like it. All kinds of people live there, and
we just leave each other alone. It’s better that way.”
“Yeah. Well, I have lots of friends in my apartment building. Everyone
else likes my music. It’s just this one neighbor—she’s a know-it-all,
holier-than-thou snot. And no one else likes her either.”
“Aren’t you being a little too hard on her?” Heidi asked. “Just
because she’s stuck-up is no reason to kill her. Maybe she has problems.”
“Yeah. She has problems all right,” the caller responded. “Maybe I
should give her your number.”
“There you go,” Heidi praised. “If you can’t be friends with her,
why not make it your mission in life to help her. I’m sure that would
be more fulfilling than killing her.”
“Nah,” the caller returned. “I’ll have more fun killing her.
Besides, she’s beyond help. She thinks she’s better than the rest of us. She
wears a fancy expensive suit to work, her hair’s always in place, and her
nails are manicured. If she saw a pimple in the mirror, she’d stare at it
until it popped all by itself.”
Heidi laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse. You can’t imagine.” A pause. “Listen. The cop is
motioning me through the intersection. I could swear he just winked back at
me.” Another pause. “Well, your time is more than up. And you haven’t
talked me out of it.”
Heidi looked at her watch. Hard to believe thirty minutes had passed.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
The silence indicated her caller was still on the line.
“You seem like a nice person. I really think you should go back home
and make one more attempt at befriending your neighbor. Do something you know
she would like. Give her a gift. Everyone likes gifts.”
“Listen. It’s been nice talking to you. I’ll think about that gift
thing. But I’m not going back home through all this traffic again.” The
caller hung up.
Heidi breathed deeply and allowed herself to relax. She had done all she
knew how to do, but she wondered if she’d read about a murder in the newspaper
tomorrow morning. It would’ve helped if she could’ve stopped at The
Starbucks Coffee Shop like she did every Saturday night on her way to work at
the phone counseling ministry. The traffic jam had made it impossible for her to
stop and still get to work on time. And, she took her job seriously.
A few minutes later, Heidi heard a knock on the door. She looked around
and wished one of the other phone counselors had shown up for work. This was the
city, and she was afraid to trust anyone.
The door opened. “So this is where you go on Saturday nights,” said
the cheap little blond tramp with ratty hair wearing a skin-tight pants and
sweater outfit chomping a wad of bubblegum, who lived in the apartment next to
Heidi’s. “You should be glad I got stuck in a traffic jam on my way over
here. Some big-mouthed old broad told me I oughta be nice to you instead of
blowing your brains out. Here. Have some Starbucks.”
