Hello. I am Roy Whitaker. I have mailed you before, or maybe not you but someone else at your office, because my phone has been disconnected. I think this is because you think I am dead, but I am not dead, so I would like you to please reconnect my phone. I am waiting on a call from my daughter and if I have no phone I will never get it. And I would shimmy up that pole and see if I could reattach it myself only I am pretty old anymore and I do not have a little neighbor boy or young man or really anyone to help me. So you can see why I am stressed.
I have mailed your office every week for two months and still every day my mailbox is empty. You have probably noticed that I have not been paying my bill. I refuse to pay for something I do not have, which is a working phone. How could it be so hard to find my house when it is the only one even around. I am waiting here with my toolkit and if you tell me ahead of time I will make sun tea.
Maybe if I tell you why this is so important, you will make sure it gets done. See, there are these five girls in my house. Wait no, I will start with the rooms so when I get to the girls you can imagine them each looking the way they do. So to start, my house has six rooms. A living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, a porch (which is not really a room only it is screened in and I think anywhere bugs can not go is a room), a kitchen (which also has a dining table) and another bedroom. I do not need two bedrooms, but it was already there, so now that is where the phone lives. All the other rooms have a girl, and they all kind of look like my daughter, only I guess she is an adult now and the girls in my house are different ages. I do not really know I do not know when they got here but one day when I came in from knocking icicles off the front porch light there she was, sitting at the dining table. About gave me a heart attack! She looked cold and tiny, and I did not have any coats her size, so I wrapped her up in a blanket, and in the summer, I take it off.
The kitchen girl is probably my favorite one. Her head is down, like she is praying before dinner, even though she never eats. I peeked under her hair once at her face and not to be rude, because I know she can not help looking like that, but I will never do that again. But I like her because when she is praying like that, I think about how lucky I am to have a full pantry, which we did not always have, plus that even if my phone is disconnected (which, it is) at least they did not come to take the whole phone when they thought I died. Which, I did not.
And just so you know, I did not take these girls away from places they should be. I have tried to give them food and ask them, would they like to go home? But they never move or talk or eat, or nothing. It is okay that they are here. There are all kinds of animals in those woods and I would not want them out fighting coyotes and bobcats for sleeping places. There are even black bears. Only, I wish that they would talk to me because no one else is here, and even if my daughter is trying to call me she can not because my phone is disconnected. But you can tell I am alive because alive men are the ones who write letters.
So, that is the kitchen and dining girl. The porch girl is the youngest. She has a face like the other one, and her, I kind of wish she would move because she is on my porch swing so I am afraid to use it, because if I swing too hard maybe she will slide right off. I sit beside her on the swing (not swinging) and we watch the sunset together. It is like when my daughter would come home for the summer every year. She was such a little thing back then and had so much energy, good Lord, but she would settle down in the evening to say good night to the sun. And then it was back to bouncing off the walls. But when she was all quiet looking at the sun I could see the beautiful grown woman I am sure she became. Actually maybe, this one is my favorite. I hope you are still reading, sir, because I have not forgotten about you. It is just important that you know about the girls so when I tell you what the phone is doing to them, you will understand why we have to make it stop. And that means reconnecting my phone, and fixing this whole not-dead kerfuffle.
The girl in my bedroom gives me the heebie-jeebies. I feel bad about this, so when you do come here to fix the phone please do not tell her. First of all there is the way she looks, which, as I have said, the way these girls look is not my favorite. But probably cats were creepy to the first people they lived with, too. Staring, and such. Which is what this girl does, sitting there in the rocking chair that looks right at my bed. It was hard to get used to and this is why I leave the light on when I sleep now. Which means you have one less excuse about finding my house, because even if you got really lost and showed up way after dark, you would see the light on. You must not have tried very hard.
There is one thing I like about the girl in my room, which is, she is the only one that moves (usually, but I will get to that). She rocks back and forth so the chair creaks. Sometimes she touches the chair with her nails and it makes quiet noises like tck tck tck. I always liked sleeping while someone else knits a hat or nurses her baby or takes notes for night school after her husband goes to bed. Anyway, long as I face the other way and keep the light on, I sleep way better now that the girl is there. And if anyone ever breaks in and tries to kill me or some such, she will scare the bejesus out of them.
There are two more, yet. And I know that some people would think it is weird that I am just an old lonely man with all these little girls in my house, but I like to see it as, if a stray cat came and had her babies on my porch I would suddenly have a lot of cats. I did not pick it, and even I tried to just leave them there, but then my daughter named the babiest one Pretzel and once the darn thing is named, it is too late to put it back. I even tried not to name the girls, calling them the bedroom girl and such, but then that became her name before I knew it. My own father told me “Whitaker” means wheat field. I guess a lot of names are plain like that, Pretzel (because she twists all up to lick her rear), Bedroom Girl, Whitaker (wheat field), and Hope.
Actually right now I am sitting beside the girl in the living room. This girl is mostly just quiet and keeps me company while I work on important things like this letter. She is the quietest child I ever heard of, and she does not distract me, or ask questions about nothing like normal children do. The last book she read was Jane Eyre. Or, she was looking at it and when I walked through the house at night for a glass of water or something, usually because I did not want the bedroom girl looking at me anymore, it would remind me to turn the page. When the books are out of pages I get a different one for her. These are not my books, I mean, I guess I own them now, but I did not buy them. They are all women’s books, like Jane Eyre and Little Women and Wuthering Heights. Sometimes when I have a few glasses (my mother always said find what you love and let it kill you, I love Scotch) I read to the living room girl. I do not know if she likes it or even hears. Sometimes I come to a sentence or something that feels like I have read it before, even though I have not, and I hear it in my wife’s voice. Then I stop reading for the day.
Then there is the one in the bathroom. I did not leave her last because I like her less, but she is kind of hard to put into words and I had to think. The reason for that is, she is only inside the mirror. Or maybe she is outside it but also invisible, but I am a little nervous to touch the place where she is standing. I do not touch any of them if I can help it. That one must not be wearing shoes, because when I drip water on the floor it pools around in the shape of small, naked feet. Like a footprint but the opposite. Her feet are shaped the same as mine, with a high, girly arch that is not good for playing sports. She is lucky she is a girl. I maybe am not lucky for that, though, because her being a girl is why I have to wrap a towel all around myself before I take my pants off in there. It is also uncomfortable to hold the towel up while I am having my time on the toilet so she does not see anything shameful. As a man, I am sure you understand. Or maybe this is the first time I’ve thought you’re maybe the receptionist? In which case, I am sorry for bothering a lady with details like that. Please give this letter to the phone man and he will know what to do.
Anyway, I started putting a towel down on the floor when I step out of the shower, so no more puddles, which means no more footprints. The ladies, my daughter and my wife (now ex-wife, I guess), complained about that forl so many years, and I only changed once they were both gone. It is funny how that works sometimes. The bad thing is that she never gets any older, but I do. When she stands behind me it is like a side by side comparison of our faces and wrinkles, or no wrinkles, depending. And her with not a lot of other things on her face either, eyes and so forth. Me, I never thought I would have so many. Wrinkles, I mean, not eyes. I always thought I would die sometime in my twenties, which I guess is why I made the decisions I did. And here I am, so many years later, and I never stopped making decisions the way I do. And now it is too late to change.
See, this is why you have to fix the phone, sooner than later. Some people I am sure have months to sit around with their thumbs up their behinds, waiting for the future. And maybe I am wrong today about dying tomorrow, but I am running out of days to be wrong. Me and my daughter, we have not talked in a while and I just want to know is she okay, is she married, does she hate me. And then when I die for real you can have my phone and anything else you want, I do not care. Only I do not know what you would do with the girls because a school would maybe not know what to do with them. I guess I had better be not-dead for as long as I can.
Unless you would be willing to take them home with you? Would you do that for a tired old man? They do not need much, but I can not stand the thought of them here all alone after the Lord calls my name. Especially as the critters and plants all creep into the house, and you people cut my electricity and water too. That girl in the bedroom sitting alone in the dark for who knows how long, making little tck noises for no one. No one around to even see the bathroom girl, who otherwise kind of is not anywhere. Maybe I think too much of myself, but I feel like they need me as much as I need them. Anyway, just consider about it.
But I have not even gotten to the part where I explain how the girls and the telephone are all part of one big thing. What I mean by that is, I think the girls like when the telephone rings, and they do not like it when it doesn’t. The telephone has to ring every once in a while or else they get restless and start moving around, which is fine, only I would be lying if I said it doesn’t make me nervous. As I said, after her brothers and sisters all ran away I used to have a little cat named Pretzel (this is before she got eaten by coyotes) and she was such a smart cat, she knew when it was dinnertime. She followed me around until I thought oh no! I forgot to feed Pretzel, and when I did she would go back to mostly ignoring me. But like in that way of ignoring that actually means love. Poor thing, I never should have put her out that night she got eaten, only I was so mad at Hope for throwing out half her dinner again, like I wasn’t busting my rump to put food on the table. Another bad decision.
But when the telephone does not ring for a while, the girls follow me like Pretzel used to, wanting something, only real slow. So slow I can not really tell they’re moving, only when I leave a room and come back, I realize they’ve moved a whole bunch back to their normal spots. And it is very hard to read their faces, because they do not look like mine and yours (probably, I can not see you), but I am pretty sure the look on their faces is not happy. Usually this is when I get a call from a telemarketer, or those awful phone banking people, and it puts them in their places for a while. But no such luck these days. Please do not say you won’t take them now. I am sure that you, a Phone Man, probably have a better phone than anyone else. You probably get calls all the time from your friends and ex-wife and daughter. Actually, my girls might be happier with you, and if I was a better man I would beg you to please take them now. But as I said, I have always made bad decisions.
I have to say, the worst one for the moving is the bathroom girl. These days I shower with the curtain open, even with the water going all everywhere. Else when I open my eyes from washing my hair, I see the shapes of little fingertips poking into the curtain. And then I rip it back, wham! There is her reflection of her standing on the other side, reaching for where I was not two seconds ago, not in the corner where she belongs at. At least when there is water everywhere (and I do not bother with the towel on the floor anymore), I can see the not-footprints coming to me. Somehow that makes me feel better. It means she is not just in the mirror, so I do not have to worry about seeing her behind me upside-down in my spoon when I stir my coffee. I will be honest and say that I have not been washing myself as much as I should, but after all, there is no one around to offend their nose. To be clear I do not think she would do anything bad even if she did get her fingers around that curtain but it is hard to explain, I do not want her to touch me. The way her little fingers curl is like when you are so angry that there aren’t any real thoughts in your head, just noise. I know how that goes. Please Lord let her not touch me.
These last few days I have not been sure where to sleep. Usually the bedroom is a good place, but now that the girl in there is moving, I can not fall asleep. It is like she gets up out of the chair in slow motion. It puts her in positions other people can not hold for so long. I dragged a chair over beside her so I could try to match her, and maybe it is because she has young legs, but I can not do what she does, hovering with my legs bent for hours. And the whole time it is tck tck tck with her nails only when she’s out of the chair they are making that noise against each other, not wood. Sometimes I dream that she is making that noise against my teeth.
So when the tcking gets too close I take my pillow and my blanket and I go to the living room. I do not really know what the living room girl wants me to do when she gets like this because she keeps standing up and the book falls out of her lap. But she stares down into her empty hands like the book is still there. It makes me wonder if she ever wanted the book at all, or if there has always been something on her hands only she can see. So she shuffles toward me with her head down and her fingers spread as if asking what have I done, and meanwhile I am just trying to sleep. I know when it is time to go back to the bedroom when I hear her feet slide through dust. My ex-wife would say I should vacuum more, but she never trusted that I have reasons for the things I do.
And the thing of it is, and it is hard to tell, but I think that the girls are getting faster. The tcking and sliding noises come a little earlier every night. I had to move from my bed to the couch and from the couch to the bed again last night. I will probably have to from now on. Whatever room I am in, there she comes, all wanting something except what? I already let them stay under my roof out of the cold and away from the animals. I even gave the one books. What else could they want from me?
Are you starting to understand the pickle I am in? This whole time I have to keep moving from room to room. I never fall all the way asleep so I can hear when they get too close. I do not shower for very long either, and when the weather is nice sometimes I go outside and use the hose instead. But hose water is so cold, and I know there is no one around to watch, but I do not like being naked outside and my feet all muddy, especially when the cold has shrunk me all up (if you know what I mean). It is just not the best situation. And I keep feeling like maybe this is the day I die (not from the girls who I am sure would never hurt me but maybe their skin feels like a dead thing’s and I never liked that), all before I ever hear Hope’s grown-up voice.
I know that your phone office probably did not realize all of this when you disconnected my phone line. And maybe still you are thinking oh, he should just leave, but I can not leave, because this is the only phone number my daughter ever had for me. I can not leave and I can not die because if I do, I will never tell her that I did not mean to mess everything up with my bad little decisions every day.
Thank you for reading my letter. I know it is probably longer than most of the letters you have to read, but if I may, it is also your job. I hope this will convince you that I need help and that your company are the ones to do it, because as I have said, this situation is not the best. And thank you for taking the girls to your house after I am gone. They will be going to a good home.
I hate to ask, but could you do one more thing for me? It is a very little job, but it is everything to me. Please, if something happens, please tell my daughter that I am sorry I was not a part of her life for so long. I would like to say so much more but I do not want the message to be so long you forget the most important parts. I will put out some sun tea today so it is ready when you get here. I also have cards.
Sincerely,
Roy Whitaker