There was a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. This was notable for a few reasons. First, she sounded a little drunk and it was 8 o’clock in the morning. Second, it was my cellphone she was answering.

Let me back up a bit. I’d lost my cellphone earlier that week, on Monday, maybe Tuesday. I don’t use it much, so I didn’t notice it had fallen from my jacket pocket. Happens a lot to me.  Well, I guess technically it happens to the phone. I should probably get a little holster for it, but then I’d be the kind of guy who wears his cellphone in a holster.

Anyway, my phone had gone walkabout and I didn’t notice until Thursday evening. I tried calling it, but after a few rings I got my own voicemail. I didn’t have anything to say to me, so I didn’t leave me a message. 

Friday morning I got in my car and tried calling my cellphone again. 

[aside]

I was calling from another cellphone, in case you’re wondering about the logistics of all this. Stop fretting over little details like that and enjoy the story, because it has a part coming up with a prostitute in it. And later there’s a bit with her angry boyfriend, and some naked photographs. Ah, I’ve got your attention now.

[end of aside]

I thought I’d hear the cellphone ring or vibrate in the car, tucked down beside the seat or in the little cubby on the door. One time I found it jammed against the brake peddle, like it was saying no no no I don’t want to go to work today. Well, one of us was saying that.

But this time a voice answered. A woman’s voice, pleasant but tipsy. I introduced myself, and I said it seemed that she’d found my lost phone.

“I thought you’d call,” she said, and without hesitation she told me where I could come fetch the phone. “I’ve been using it a bit, but don’t worry about it.”

So I worried about it. I called Ma Bell en route to the voice’s neighbourhood to check if there had been any charges on the phone. Long distance calls, reality TV votes, that sort of thing. There had been a lot of calls, but all local and covered by the calling plan.

I found the apartment of the tipsy voiced phone finder. The still seedy part of a partially gentrified neighbourhood. A stained brown brick building. Squat iron fence and unkept yard. Graffiti. Enter around back, no lock or buzzer, go down a long yellowed hallway. My shoes squeaked all the way down, eek oosh eek oosh eek oosh. Second last door on the left. “It’s number B,” she had said. 

Number B?

She was right. There it was, between door #A and door #C. Hospital blue with a small “#B” stenciled too low. Door number eleven in hexadecimal, I thought. You can take the nerd out of the math club, but you … wait, no you can’t. Anyway, I knocked.

She looked 15. And she looked 40. Tiny frame, knobby elbows on thin arms. Wispy hair with big teased bangs. How do I know about teased bangs? The too sweet perfume choice of a young girl. Makeup troweled on. A wrinkled white tshirt and grey sweatpants, both with large holes and stains.

I think it was the boots that made me realize she was a prostitute. They were on the floor near the door. Shiny, black, plasticky, and long long long. They looked like they’d come up to roughly her armpits. Like hip waders with stiletto heals. A red plastic skirt and white jean jacket had been dropped on top of them. Jacket over the boots, so the boots came off first. Must be uncomfortable. 

The apartment wasn’t an apartment. It was a storage room. Concrete walls, concrete floor, concrete ceiling. No window. Bare lightbulb on the ceiling, a string hanging down. A brown stained mattress on the floor, no sheets, the remnants of a thin pillow folded in half.

I remembered sleeping once in a clean cottage that smelled of sweet cedar, and folding my too thin pillow in half. I woke to the smell of bacon and the sound of my family playing a board game. I think I complained about the shower being a bit cold.

Her storage room home was filled with stuff stuff stuff. Boxes and bags and more boxes and more bags. A bicycle lay on one pile. Clothing strewn everywhere. And is that a crack pipe? Yes. And there’s another one, and another. Pungent smells, smoke and sweat.

She asked me if I wanted a date. I’m a bit of a goober sometimes, so I honestly thought for a minute that she was asking me out. I declined.

I did give her a reward for finding the phone, though. She told me she had a bunch of them, but liked the sound of mine best so she’d used that the most. She’d bought a charger for it. She said she’d only used the phone at night so it wouldn’t cost me anything. Presumed I’d had free nights and weekends. 

She said, “I don’t like your shirt. Shoes are okay, though. Thanks for letting me use the phone.” As if I’d leant it to her.

And what’s wrong with my shirt? It’s a perfectly nice shirt.

I said goodbye. I didn’t offer to shake her hand, just sort of waggled the phone at her in a half-wave of middle class guilt and said thanks. Eek oosh eek oosh back down the hall, past the graffiti and little iron fence, and into my shiny clean foreign car.

It wasn’t until the next day that a friend noticed what was left on the phone, and things got weird.

[to be continued]