I’m not a snitch.
Even when I was a Body, serving my time – which, funnily enough, seemed like an eternity – I never dropped a dime on another Body. Never reduced my sentence or improved my comfort by betraying my cellmate or one of the punk Bodies still dealing on the outside.
I’m free now… in a way. No bars, no skin to bruise, no bones to break. But I’m stuck in this city on some sort of work detail that I still don’t totally understand. When the Man decides I’m done, I get to move on. Until then, I’ve just got to keep making these calls.
The Bodies are awkward, messy and loud. They care about stupid things, complain about stupid things, eat stupid things. They are too close or too far apart from each other. They are sweaty, smelly, selfish and impatient. They are always a little closer to death than they know. Looking at their cell phones when crossing the street, getting too close to something hot or sharp or electrified, or simply being unkind to someone who’s already had a very bad day.
It feels like so long ago since I was one of them. And now, I can’t intervene. I can only inform.
The pay phone is as much of a phantom as me. It’s such a relic that no one bothers to graffiti it anymore. Soon after my death, when I was trying to figure out what was going on, I tried moving my unseen fingers through the yellowed, tissue-thin pages of the telephone book. Not even a flutter. So it’s a good thing I don’t need to drop a real coin to make a call.
It’s a hotline. A toll-free number. I don’t even, and can’t even, press the digits. The handset hangs off its cradle, and I whisper into it. The coin return clinks as I share secrets about the Bodies. It’s like that old movie where every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings. Except that I’m telling the Man how the living hurt each other. How they let Him down. And each clink gets me a little closer to passing over.
I report the corrupt pharma bros and finance bros. I report the abusers – from the dog kickers to the ones that hit their wives to the very worst. And even though I don’t eat anymore, my stomach feels like it's churning when I see it and again when I have to retell it.
I also talk about the junkie who broke his mother’s heart. How he stole and lied. How he wrecked his arms and mind just to feel something different. And still, the last time he got his fix, those other addict Bodies welcomed him as a friend. Knew his name and helped his shaking hands find a vein.
And just two blocks down, there’s a blood bank where a Body is greeted with smiles and balloons for her fiftieth donation. Everyone knows her name. The phlebotomist draws her blood with a sterile needle, wraps her arm with a bright yellow bandage and reminds her to have juice and a pack of cookies or goldfish crackers. Which is nice.
The Body donates blood because it’s one small thing she can do for a stranger. And really, the Bodies do these small, selfless acts all the time. They hold doors and tip well and return lost objects. They bring hot meals to the elderly, the sick, the poor, the mourners. They go back into a house afire just to rescue a pet. They shield other Bodies when shots ring out. Some do the very hardest thing for the living and the dead – forgiving each other.
I whisper all of these good things into the cracked phone handset. The coin return doesn’t clink.
It’s a hotline just for violations. I don’t know why the Man upstairs needs me or other phantoms to observe and report. Or how He uses our tips to make His call.
The living are too complicated to detangle the violations from the virtues. Bodies are vulnerable. I want to tell them that every day is all there is.
Operator, I say. Operator! I try to shout. The O just lingers in the air like a ring of cigar smoke in an old cartoon. The rusted pay phone creaks. Bodies walk past unknowing, unbothered.
I want to make a person-to-person call. I want to talk directly to the Man.
I need to tell him that the living are doing the best they can.