A Piedmont Porchlight Story
There used to be a telephone booth at Kirk’s gas station, right there on the corner of Ladiga and Main Streets in Piedmont.
Across from First Baptist Church.
I made a considerable number of telephone calls from that booth when I was young, some of which my daddy would’ve been interested in knowing about, and others which would’ve resulted in my immediate confinement to the house until approximately the Second Coming. Maybe longer.
It was an ordinary telephone booth. Glass panels, folding door, little shelf beneath the telephone, and a phone book hanging from a chain that somebody was forever trying to tear loose.
The telephone itself was a heavy black affair with a receiver substantial enough to discourage foolishness. Of course, that didn’t stop anybody.
Kirk’s was one of those filling stations where a man could buy gasoline, get his tires checked, and spend forty-five minutes discussing the weather without anybody thinking he’d wasted his time.
There were always two or three fellows hanging around. Sometimes four. And if Curtis Pope happened by, you could count on losing the better part of your afternoon.
The booth stood near the corner, where you could look across the street toward the church while you talked.
I remember standing there on summer evenings with the door folded shut, sweating like a mule in a cotton field, trying to conduct a private conversation while half the town passed within six feet of me. Privacy was a relative concept in Piedmont.
Still is.
⁂
They took the telephone booth out years ago. I couldn’t tell you exactly when. One day it was there, and the next time I happened by, it wasn’t. That’s the way a lot of things disappear from a small town.
Nobody makes an announcement. Nobody holds a ceremony. They just vanish, and after a while folks quit remembering where they stood. Except, of course, somebody always remembers.
And in this particular case, somebody apparently remembered the telephone number.
⁂
The first person to hear it was Earl. Now, Earl had reached that stage of life where he went to bed early, woke up early, and spent a considerable portion of the hours in between explaining why everybody else ought to do the same.
He was walking along Main Street one October evening, headed home from the Coffee Cup, when he heard a telephone ringing. Not a cell phone. Not one of those little electronic chirps people carry around nowadays.
An honest-to-goodness telephone bell.
Brrrrring.
Earl stopped.
Brrrrring.
He looked toward Kirk’s old corner.
Brrrrring.
There wasn’t a telephone booth there. Hadn’t been one for years. Earl stood listening until the ringing stopped. Then he went home. He told his wife about it. She suggested he ought to have his hearing checked.
Earl said there wasn’t nothing wrong with his hearing. She said she’d been telling him to take out the garbage since Tuesday, so she had considerable evidence to the contrary.
⁂
The next evening, it rang again. This time two people heard it. Miss Lorene was coming out of a church meeting, and Curtis Pope was walking past the corner with a sack of something he’d bought at the store. They both stopped.
Brrrrring.
Miss Lorene looked toward the empty spot. “Good heavens.”
Curtis stared. “Where’s that coming from?”
“Well, I reckon from a telephone.”
“There ain’t no telephone there.”
“Then somebody ought to tell it.”
The ringing stopped. Curtis walked over to where the booth had once stood. He looked around. Nothing. No wires. No box. No telephone. Just the ordinary corner, looking as innocent as a preacher on Sunday morning.
Curtis said somebody was playing a trick. Miss Lorene said she wished whoever it was would find something better to do with his evenings. With that thought, they both went home.
⁂
By the end of the week, half the town had heard the ringing. Not every night. Not at the same hour. Sometimes shortly after dark. Sometimes close to midnight. Always from the same spot. Always the same old-fashioned bell.
Mr. Blackwelder was asked whether there might be some electrical explanation. He said there might be. Curtis asked him what it was. Mr. Blackwelder said he hadn’t the slightest idea.
“Then why’d you say there might be?”
“Because there might be.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“Didn’t say it was.” And that was as far as that investigation got.
⁂
The first person to answer the telephone was a fellow named Harold Vines. Harold was seventy-two years old, a retired mill worker, and not ordinarily given to foolishness. He’d heard the ringing twice before. The third time, he was walking past Kirk’s old corner just after nine o’clock when the telephone began again.
Brrrrring.
Harold stopped.
Brrrrring.
He looked toward the place where the booth had stood. And there it was. Not the booth. Not exactly. Just the telephone. Hanging in the air at about shoulder height, its black receiver resting in the cradle. Harold later said he could see the wall behind it. Could see straight through where the booth ought to have been. But the telephone was there. Solid as anything.
And ringing.
Now, most folks would’ve run. Harold walked over and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
A little boy answered. “Is Daddy there?”
Harold didn’t say anything. The boy spoke again. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
Harold’s hand began to shake. “Who is this?”
The boy sounded puzzled. “It’s me.”
“Who?”
“Harold.”
The old man felt something cold move through his chest. “Harold who?”
“Harold Vines.”
⁂
Now, you can imagine how that conversation affected Harold. He stood there on the corner holding a telephone receiver that hadn’t existed in twenty or thirty years, listening to a child announce himself by the same name Harold had been answering to for seventy-two.
The boy sounded impatient. “Is Daddy there or ain’t he?”
Harold swallowed. “Where are you calling from?”
“Kirk’s.”
“You’re at Kirk’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
Harold looked around. The corner was empty. The service station had been gone a long time, too.
“Where’s your daddy?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“What year is it, son?”
There was a pause. Then the boy laughed. “Well, it’s 1963.”
Harold closed his eyes. He remembered 1963. He remembered being nine years old. He remembered his daddy working long shifts at the mill. And he remembered one particular October evening when he’d been sent to Kirk’s gas station to telephone home.
His daddy was supposed to pick him up. But nobody had answered. He’d waited outside the booth until the station closed. Then he’d walked home alone. He remembered being frightened.
Not of the dark. Of something else. Something he’d spent the better part of sixty years trying not to remember.
⁂
“Harold,” the old man said carefully, “listen to me.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t go home yet.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
“But Daddy said he’d come get me.”
“I know.”
“Are you my Daddy?”
The old man couldn’t answer.
The boy’s voice grew smaller. “Are you?”
Harold looked toward First Baptist Church. Its windows were dark. The street was quiet. And for a moment, he could almost see the old gas station as it had been. The pumps. The Coca-Cola sign. The light above the office door. His own little self standing beside the booth, holding a dime he’d been told not to lose.
Then the boy spoke again. “Mama’s been crying.”
Harold’s breath caught. “Why?”
“Don’t know. Daddy came home mad.”
The old man gripped the receiver. He remembered now. Not everything. Just enough. His father had been drinking that evening. There’d been shouting at the house. His mother had sent him to Kirk’s to get him out of the way. Later, when his daddy came looking for him, something happened. Something Harold had buried so deep that even his dreams had quit bringing it back.
“Son,” he whispered, “listen to me. Go inside Kirk’s. Stay with Mr. Kirk until your mama comes.”
“And Harold?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Whatever happens tonight, you remember something.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re a good boy. You ain’t done anything wrong.”
The child was quiet for a moment. Then he whispered, “You promise?”
“I promise.”
“But Daddy said—”
“Never mind what Daddy said.”
The boy was quiet. Then he asked, “Will Mama come?”
Harold felt tears running down his face. “Yes,” he said. “She will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
A long silence followed.
Then the boy said, “Thank you, mister.”
The line clicked. And the telephone disappeared.
⁂
Harold went home and sat in his kitchen until morning. His wife found him there at daylight, still wearing his coat. He told her everything. She listened without interrupting. When he finished, she took his hand.
“Harold,” she said, “your daddy died when you were nine.”
“I know.”
“You told me he was killed in an automobile accident.”
“He was.”
She waited. After a while, Harold spoke again. “It happened the night Mama sent me down to Kirk’s.”
He looked toward the window. “Daddy had been drinking. He was mad about something. I don’t even remember what. Mama gave me a dime and told me to go telephone her from Kirk’s when things settled down.”
His wife squeezed his hand. “And you did?”
“Yes. But nobody answered. So, I waited.”
He swallowed. “Daddy came looking for me. He was mad because I’d gone off without telling him. Grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me toward his car.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Kirk came out. Told Daddy to let me go. Said I could stay there until Mama came.”
Harold was quiet for a moment.
“Daddy told him to mind his own business. But Mr. Kirk wouldn’t back down. Finally, Daddy turned me loose, got in his car, and drove off.”
“And that’s when he had the accident?”
Harold nodded. “Car went off the road before he got home.”
His wife studied his face. “Harold, you never told me any of this.”
“Didn’t much like remembering it.”
“Why?”
He stared down at his hands. “Because I thought if I’d just gone with him, maybe he would’ve driven slower. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so mad. Maybe he’d have made it home.”
His wife sat very still.
Then she said, “You were nine years old.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t responsible for what your daddy did.”
Harold didn’t answer. She reached across the table and took both his hands. “Harold, listen to me. You didn’t cause that accident.”
He looked at her. And after nearly sixty-three years, something inside him finally gave way. He began to cry. Not loudly. Not the way a child cries. Just an old man sitting at his kitchen table, weeping for a little boy who’d spent most of his life believing he’d done something wrong.
After a while, his wife got up and poured him another cup of coffee. Harold wiped his eyes.
“You know what bothers me?”
“What’s that?”
“That little boy on the telephone.”
“What about him?”
“He sounded so frightened.”
“Well, I expect he was.”
Harold nodded. “I told him to stay inside Kirk’s. Told him his mama would come.”
“And did she?”
“She did. Mr. Kirk kept me there until she came to get me. I remember that now.”
His wife smiled a little. “Then you told him the truth.”
Harold looked down at his coffee. “Maybe.”
He sat quietly for a while. Then he said, “But I wish I’d told him one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
Harold looked toward the window. “That none of it was his fault.”
⁂
Now, you might think that was the end of it. A telephone from the past. A frightened little boy. An old man who finally remembered something he’d tried to forget. And maybe it would’ve been.
Except the telephone kept ringing. Not every night. But often enough. Sometimes somebody answered. Sometimes nobody did. And the voices on the other end weren’t always children.
Once, Margaret Harrison answered and heard her own mother calling from a kitchen that had burned down forty years earlier.
Another time, Curtis Pope picked up the receiver and heard somebody asking whether the barbershop was still open. Curtis said yes. The caller asked if his daddy was there. Curtis hung up so fast he nearly broke the receiver.
He wouldn’t discuss it afterward. Which, considering Curtis’s usual disposition, was remarkable.
⁂
I heard the telephone myself one evening in late October. I’d been down to the Coffee Cup and was walking along Main Street when the ringing started.
Brrrrring.
I stopped. Looked toward the corner.
Brrrrring.
There wasn’t anything there. Just the old spot where Kirk’s booth had stood.
Brrrrring.
I ought to have kept walking. That’s what any sensible man would’ve done. But I’ve never been accused of having a head-full of good sense. So, I walked over. And there it was. The black telephone. The little shelf. The phone book hanging from its chain. Even the faint smell of hot metal and old cigarettes.
I reached for the receiver. It felt cool and heavy in my hand. “Hello?”
For a moment, there was nothing. Then a voice spoke. A man’s voice. Familiar. So familiar that I nearly dropped the telephone.
“Hey, son.”
I couldn’t breathe. The voice spoke again. “You still there?”
I gripped the receiver. “Dad?”
There was a pause. Then the man chuckled. “Well, who else would it be?”
I stood there listening to the sound of a voice I hadn’t heard in years. And for one terrible, wonderful moment, I was a little boy again. Standing in a telephone booth at Kirk’s gas station. Trying to think of something worth saying.
Finally, I managed, “Where are you?”
The voice grew softer. “Oh, I’m around.”
I swallowed. “Are you all right?”
“Doing just fine.”
Another pause. Then he said, “Listen, son. I can’t stay on here long.”
“Why not?”
“Somebody else needs the telephone.”
I looked around. The corner was empty.
“Who?”
Daddy laughed quietly. “Well, you’ll find out.”
And the line went dead.
⁂
I stood there for a long time. The receiver was gone. The booth was gone. The corner looked exactly as it had for years.
A car passed. Somewhere a dog barked. And across the street, the lights of First Baptist Church shone against the October darkness. I started toward home.
Then I heard it again.
Brrrrring.
I stopped. Looked back. The telephone was ringing. And this time, somebody was standing beside it. A little boy. Maybe nine or ten years old. Thin legs. Short trousers. Hair sticking up in the back.
He looked familiar. Painfully familiar. He reached for the receiver. And just before he lifted it, he turned and looked straight at me.
It was me. Not the man I am now. The boy I’d been. He smiled. Then he answered the telephone.
“Hello?”
I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end. But I saw the boy’s face light up. And I knew. I knew exactly who was calling.
The boy laughed. “Hey, Daddy!”
Then he listened for a moment. And said something that made my blood run cold.
“Yes, sir. He’s standing right here.”
⁂
