The Artifact

I’m in an old-fashioned telephone booth because this town needs change. It’s raining and my fingers are colder than the quarters I’m holding. People usually stay home on days like this, under a comforter, with their fuzzy slippers on, sipping hot soup in front of the televiewer. I might have been someone like that, except I don’t know where I will sleep tonight.

Waiting for things is not one of my strengths. I get twitchy and irritable every time, and now is no different, but it’s raining, and the booth is filling up with my breath and heat. There is something restorative about being wedged into a tight space, encased in a ratty old parka, like a narrow bed; the small booth is soothing for someone like me, waiting for a phone call. I need swaddling.

A woman with wet hair plastered to her forehead approaches. Half-blurred by the condensation, I see her gesticulations and wave her off. Letting her use the phone is too risky. The call was for six sharp. It’s five-fifty-five. Office closes at six-thirty. I will pray for the next five minutes. What does someone like me pray for? At this point, nothing reasonable or realistic. Time travel would be nice. I’d go back to the day I told Jimmy he could use my car. Strange how that one small decision could have changed my life forever.

I would have told him no. There would have been no accident, no lawsuit, no divorce. The thing about chance or luck is, you never really know if it’s bad or good. What if what happened could not have gone any other way? Maybe I was always going to lose the house, and my wife had already been thinking about divorcing me. It had been a while since she closed up like a box. Maybe only the particular details would have varied, the how of the what. And what if all this misery were just the entrance fee to a better chapter in my life? Sure; right. That’s your positive thinking vibe, the same one that persuaded me that Jimmy was a good guy, harmless. 

The phone rings. Once, twice—my stomach is churning. Jimmy, you lousy bastard. I pick up on the third. I hear the staticky voice in a haze of my own. This could be the turning of the tide. I know it’s worth at least fifty grand.

        “Mister Arenson?”
        “Yeah, that’s me.” 
        “Are you sitting down?”
Has to be a wise guy. The really old phone booths did have seats. 
       “Why do you ask? Just tell me: do we have a deal or not.” 

There was a pause.    

         “I’m afraid not. The client was, shall we say, unimpressed.”
         “Unimpressed? What the hell does that mean? You showed him the certificate?”
         “Oh yes, authenticity is not the problem. It’s just that there is no demand at this time for such an article. He says to try again in a year or so.”
         “A year!”
         “I hear the antiquities department at the Greater Cincinnati Police Museum has a new curator looking to expand their collection. Or you could of course take it to an auction house.”
         “I see. Then I will explore these options. Thank you for your time.”                                                                 

 The scratched receiver hangs crookedly in its cradle. It’s been slammed down too many times, I reckon. 

I really do need to sit down.                    

                                                                        ***