Fire Hydrant Series

Nova — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:58:29 +0000

Tearful Hydrant, Washington Heights, NYC March 2010

The Phone Booth

Nova — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:05:00 +0000

There was a phone booth at the corner of an Inwood block, right beside a mailbox, trash can and a few newspaper receptacles that flash passersby morning news. The phone booth was the first thing I noticed when I walked up that block for the very first time. It immediately became a marker of home, and contributed to why I moved there. It felt right. The phone booth was a cozy fixture, its location seemed so perfect, so residential, so reminiscent of pre-cell phone days. I imagined its use- a lover calling to see if their object of desire was home, a phone in a surrounding apartment being answered as a face peeked through curtains, looking for the caller who is hunched in the phone booth to escape the rain. Surely this phone booth would do some good, and I smiled every time I passed it.

Its phone had a yellow handle that blended so nicely with the fallen autumn leaves.

I suppose the phone might have had other, more diabolical uses. I suppose the logical question is also, had I ever seen anyone use it, outside my romantic fantasy? Perhaps once, but even that is not something I can say with certainty.

So the other week I heard horrible machine noises, buzz saws munching into metal and concrete. I didn’t peek through a curtain to see what was happening- (though that would flow nicely with the story)- I happened to be walking outside and saw Verizon chopping down the booth like a tree. It took something like two vans, a fire hydrant spilling out crystal cold water, and a whole lot of men to down the little phone booth. It seemed an expensive operation.

Why do I find the loss of the phone booth so sad, like I lost a good neighbor? Despite my admiration of it, I never offered it a hello. All that remains of it is a fresh patch of grey cement and a warning bar not to step there, like a tombstone.

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