The Phone Call

So there I was just minding my own business. Actually I had problems with my sleep pattern, which has now developed into insomnia. So let's start there. As I was saying I was just passed out sleeping after coming home from school; 10th grade to be exact. I was big shit now, no longer a freshman, but a sophomore with sleeping problems.
For sometime now I had my own phone line in my room. You see I was blessed with having a stepfather and the sack of shit tried to start trouble with me for anything I did. Thank God the air we breathe is free otherwise I wasn't chipping in or pulling my weight with the air I breathed. Anyway, the phone had become my Gettysburg with him. People called me, I was 16 at the time and he was always bitching that I was always on the phone. So I would get off the fucking phone and guess what, no one called for him.
So I'm sleeping, my after school nap and the phone, or my private phone line rings. (Gotta make this sound good) I'm half asleep when I hear a voice, this chick is asking for me to get my cousin Myra on the phone. Did I wake up in another universe or house? So it went something like this:
"Hello"
"Hello, is Myra home?"
"Myra?"
"Who is this?"
"You called me, who is this?"
"I'm M……….Erika Smith. (Not the actual name of the girl who called me. The smith part gives it away I think.)
"Okay. I'm Luis. (That's my actual name.) You got the wrong number. Myra is my cousin however, and her phone number is a lot like mine. You dialed 446-1740 and her number is 466-4017.
"Luis right? What school do you go to?
"I go to Turner."
"What year are you?"
"Sophomore."
"You might know my sister. Her name is L…Mandy Smith."
"Yeah, I know her." Then I had a confession, I was sleepy and when in that state I will say just about anything stupid. "I'm kind of into her."
"Oh so you're the Luis she mentions?"
"She talks about me?"
"Not much. But she has mentioned you."
"Oh."
"Well I'm going to call Myra. Thanks for the number."
Click. Click.
I thought that was the end of that. The fact was that I was into her sister. I thought that her sister was into me as well, but as in the case of alcohol, that was not for me. I would call asking for Mandy and every once in a while I ended up talking to Erika.
Mandy and Erika have teacher parents. Parents that are teachers for the school district, so Erika was a little younger than me and she was a great person to converse with, she was very smart, so I liked talking to her. She eventually started calling me and we became good friends over the phone. I felt really close to her. Even though I had never met her in person, I thought she was just about the greatest thing going.
The phone thing went on for about a month and then an opportunity to meet in person came up at this party. So I went with my friend Emilio. As chance would have it, Emilio's girlfriend was friends with Erika. I was pretty excited to finally meet with this person who by chance I met over the phone. By the time I met her we had established a special friendship and based on what we spoke about. I was interested and I really didn't care about her looks, or what ever she turned out to look like.
So here I am, in the car with my friend Emilio, and we pull up to the house where the party is at. It was cold that night as I remember. We walked in, and Emilio's girl just jumped on him, she really was into him. They were in front of me, and I was trying to get them out of my way so I could see this mystery person and at least shake her hand. Being that we were at that teen age, teenage, they had set up the party with something like a red light in the primary room.
I looked around and I don't remember what she was wearing, but I do remember seeing curls. Curls, nothing but curls, heaven had dropped to the earth in the form of curls, her oval face and her smile. Yeah, it was at that moment that I fell in Love. Not only fell in Love, but in Love for the first time. I hadn't really tried booze up to that point, just a swig or something you know, but I felt drunk just standing there looking at her as she got up and walked towards me. I guess I was frozen in place, so when I wouldn't move she got up and came up to me, which was great. Well actually it kind of sucked that she came up to me because I saw she was slightly taller than me. What was nice, was that she hugged me.
So we talked and I think it was at this party that she asked me to stand up in a 15th with her. That means I was going to be her escort when one of her friends has her 15th birthday which is a big deal in the Latin culture. It might have been that she had already asked me but the thing is that I said yes. I don't remember too much about what we talked about that night, but I do remember that I asked her to go outside with me. We were outside alone and she was talking away and that's when I just dived. I kissed her and she kissed me back. It sounds corny now but, that was it. I don't know if to stop the story here because after this, some things happened that are not worth mentioning. Or I could skip that and get to another part.
Anyway we were interested, me more than her. She saw it as another guy I think, and I saw it like, this was it. I think the age difference came into play there. It didn't come to a relationship at all; she lost interest as a boyfriend pretty quick, but not as friends. So we kind of made things that we were friends, although I wanted to be more. The 15th she asked me to came and went. That night I she told me she wanted to get with one of my best friends which was extremely heart breaking. I told her that she could do what she wanted and but not to parade in front of me. Well at the reception she paraded with my best friend. Okay let's fast forward a little.
She asked me, after parading with my friend in front of me, if I could give her a ride home. Yes, there were other girls there. Yes, they were beautiful and yes I told her "yes" I would give her a ride home. You see I was devastated and all those other girls didn't matter, it was her I wanted and I couldn't have, and I knew my best friend would not see all that I saw and would not appreciate her.
Now that I think of it there was this beautiful girl that was there that night, and she was really throwing her panties at me that night, but I was caught up in something else. I hardly paid attention to her. For the rest of the night I really didn't speak. I didn't have words. I wanted to be alone but yet there I was at a party with dozens of people. See, that's life for you, you want something and it gives you the exact opposite.
That night when the time came Erika asked me if could take her home so I did. On the way home she tried to start up a conversation, but I wasn't there. I was somewhere else. When we got to her house I said something to her but I can't really remember what it was. It wasn't anything nasty it was something about say hi to your parents for me or something. I drove home and that was it.
When ever I tell this story to someone they always ask me, "That's it?" "You never spoke to her again?" Of course I spoke to her again. After the 15th I shut myself off from the rest of the world. Erika could do whatever she wanted, I wasn't going to watch. It was hard enough to accept the situation. I dreaded that fucking phone line I had which got this story rolling. It was about 2 months I think that Erika and I didn't speak. Every once in a while I would call her house and hang up when she would pick up. I missed her terribly.
It was summer now and I wasn't at school. I was out with a lot of time on my hands to think about how I would never be happy. Of course this wasn't true; I came to be happy again when I really discovered booze. So there I am, asleep again and the phone rings. Now, back then the big thing was three way, not the sex thing, the phone thing. So you were like the bomb if you had three way. Your the bomb if youve done the three way sex thing too. A friend of mine calls me up, it went something like this:
"Hello"
"Hey man, what's up?"
CLICK
"Hello? Hello?"
"Yeah man I'm still here, dammit, let me call you back."
"Who was on your three way?"
"No one man just let me call you back."
So I hang up. I was still kind of sleepy so I laid down. The phone rings again and it's this friend, by the way his name is Saudi, and he starts talking to me:
"Hello?"
"Hey man, what's up?"
"What was all that shit about? Who was on three way and hung up?"
"It was Erika."
"What?"
"Yeah she has been calling me and telling me how she wants to talk to you?"
"About what?"
"Well man, I know you've been feeling like shit since the 15th. So I thought it was a good Idea to call you. I didn't tell Erika that I was calling you, so when she heard your voice pick up she hung up?"
"Doesn't sound like she really wants to talk to me then."
"Man she wants to talk to you, but she thinks that you hate her, and I know that ain't true."
"I don't hate her."
"Well call her. Wait, you're not going to tell her to fuck off or anything right?"
"I don't know man. Doesn't sound like a good idea."
"It's her birthday today."
"Okay, I'll call her. She ain't going to hang up on me is she?"
"Dude no. She wants to talk."
"Okay, I'll call her now."
"Cool."
"Later."
"Later."
Click. Click.
So I call her and it was kind of weird. It wasn't too long before we were talking like the first time. Then she told me it was her birthday and that she was alone. I thought that was weird, why would she be alone? She sounded sad. In the two months that we didn't talk she told me she would call my phone to hear me and then hang up. I confessed the same thing. We talked about other things. Then eventually she asked me if I could come over. I wasn't going to say no to that. So I got my mom's car and went off to her house. She was waiting for me outside. I got out of the car. Now this sounds really corny but it happened. I got out of the car and she started walking towards me and we hugged on her front lawn.
We sat there in her front lawn for a long time talking. I told her what I felt hadn't changed, and she told me that she cared a great deal for me, but it wasn't in a boyfriend kind of way. She didn't budge neither did I. We kept on talking and we established the ground rules that we were friends. My thinking was that it was better to have her in my life as a friend than not at all.
There is really nothing more to tell about this. I carried the torch for her for a long, long time. I threw a lot of booze on that fire and it grew more and more. I wanted to burn in it so I wouldn't feel that pain.
A lot has changed since then. I fell in love the second time. Same thing again, but not as painful as the first time though. That one isn't worth writing about. That came and went. Since then I haven't fallen in love again. Since then I have taken some opportunities that were kind of like jobs. I have risked my life for ideals. I have been shot at. Some friends have died. Some friends have killed themselves. I drank a great deal. I drank and almost got my head shot off for my political affiliation. I got sober, 4 years now, and fixing to be 5 in November. A whole lot of pain, but all of it put together didn't match that first time.
Some of the things that have caused me pain I wouldn't do again, but if I could go back in time and know that when the phone rang it was going to be Erika on the other line, I would pick it up in a heartbeat. Even if I had to go through all that pain again, I would gladly pick up the phone.
I didn't use Erika's real name because it's not anybodies business you know, her identity. I write this with no regret at all. I still correspond with her. She lives very far from me, and I live in the third world. I haven't seen her in 10 years or more I think. I hope if she reads this, that she is not offended and can smile like I am smiling now. My Favorite Mistake.