They Were Dolphins, Chapter 4, part IV

The driver yelled at the children, who cowered in fear on the sidewalk. The driver and the passengers yelled at the kids, asking where they lived. The boys knew well enough they were not supposed to talk to strangers, nor ride in cars with strangers, and not to reveal where they lived. The adults in the car were insistent, however.

The boys did what they thought was best in this situation, they took off running toward the dump. The car followed them easily, but could not pursue them into the paths of junk. They hid behind a pile of refrigerators. With the threat gone, the boys decided it was a good place to hide and bide the time.

The boy dolphin pulled some cardboard boxes together to make a fort. They knocked over a TV stand on its side to form a drawbridge. A clothes washing machine made a good wall on the other side. The boys played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and Americans and Russians. The boy dolphin, of course, always got to play the part of the good guys. The good guys never got hurt or shot, but if they did, they shrugged it off. The bad guys, however, always took the shot and always died, just like real life.

Eventually, they tired of games and wandered listlessly through the rubbish. The boy sat on a porcelain seat, which he imagined to be a throne. The took a straight stick as a rifle and began sniping at things that he could see. For example, he shot the bird sitting in the tree on the other block. He shot the top of a church cross he could see in the distance. He shot several rounds at the peaks of the mountain on the northern edge of the valley.

His brother pointed overhead at a tiny jet in the sky. The boy took his rifle “slash” missile launcher and aimed carefully at the airplane. He steadied his shot and…fired. The blast of his powerful shot launched him backward off the throne. He fell on the ground, got up, and he stumbled and fell again. He picked up his weapon again for another shot.

As he looked up and his brother pointed, they saw a trail of white smoke behind the jet against the blue sky. The raised their fists and the boy shook his Kalashnikov in the air. They hooted and hollered at their magical ability to shoot down jets with tree limbs.

The clouds moved in very quickly after that, and the boys sought shelter under a mattress and box spring that leaned on an oven. They sat out the soft, warm rain and passed the time drawing in the mud and puddles with sticks.

The moved further through the dump and noted the decline of the sun. They were sure to be safe from the angry people in the car by now. They exited on the far side of the dump and walked in a zig-zag pattern along the streets to ensure they weren’t being followed. They got home when it was nearly dark. The house was empty and quiet.

The boy dolphin helped his brother go to bed but he himself stayed up like adult. He was loathe to turn on the lights since electricity was expensive and he wasn’t sure how to make the switches go on and off. Instead, he took out the wooden matches from a drawer and lit a candle on the table.

A fun thing to do on an evening like this was to play with the phone. So he sat in the flicking darkness and listened to voices on the party-line. The ghostly voices talked about subjects that were strange and mysterious. Sometimes they talked in foreign languages, or they sounded like foreign languages to him. Often, the voices would whisper, or at least, they would sound faint in the distance.

Whenever someone new picked up the line, there was usually a click, like a light switch being turned on. Whoever was talking, if anybody was, would stop and wait for the other person to identify themselves. Usually the person would clear their throat and cough to warm up for speaking. Then began an endless battle of “hello” and “who’s there” followed by “we’ll be off soon” or “no, you get off”, and so on.

The boy had learned to cover the mouthpiece with his hand so that no one could hear him breathing or giggling. The handset was nearly bigger than his head, so he had to carefully move it in such a way that it wouldn’t click or crackle, alerting people to his presence. The benefit of having the party line open for so long was that eventually the original callers on the line would hang up and he could stay on and no one would know he was there.

If no one came on after a while, the phone company would automatically close the call with a loud snap and the monotonous dial tone would go on. At those times, he would “flash” the clear acrylic switchhook up and down as he had seen adults do. This would bring on the operator sometimes. Invariably, the boy was too afraid to answer the exasperated “hello”s and the operator would close the loop to present the dial tone.

The boy would then hand up with one finger for a few minutes and try again. If he got the dial tone too many times, he would hang up for a while longer and then try again. If he still couldn’t hear any conversations, the boy would dial three fives on the rotary dial. The fives were slow and took a long time to chug chug chug back before he could dial the next number and wait again. But the next sequence of one two one two was very fast and fun to dial.

This dialled up a speaking woman who would read the time. This was perfect for a dolphin who didn't have a watch and couldn't read the time. She would say “At the tone, the time will be…” and she would say the time, “…precisely” (or “…and thirty seconds”) after which there would be a slight pause and a beep. Then she would repeat again, “At the tone, the time will be…” The boy listened as long as he could until the time service hung up or until someone picked up the line.

In the midst of all this fun, a loud ringing came from the kitchen. The people on the party line heard the noise even through the boy’s hand over the mouthpiece. He hung up in a panic and put his hands over his ears to protect them from the loud noise. His heart beat so fast that he saw stars in the darkness.

The boy tried screaming to silence the noise, but it continued. He begged God and Jesus to stop the noise. He made a bargain with them and offered that if they stopped the noise, he would believe in them and he would also stop listening on the phone. But the beeping continued for several minutes.

The boy approached the kitchen, but the noise was even louder as he approached. He could see a kitchen timer on the counter, but he didn’t have the courage to approach it. After a long time, the ringing suddenly stopped as the spring gave up its last.

The boy dropped his hands from his ears and silently told God and Jesus that he was done with them. He wouldn’t believe in them even though he had walked down the aisle (that was just to make his mother happy and to see what would happen), and he would continue to listen to the party-line whenever he could.

He walked into the kitchen and saw a glowing coil in the oven. Apparently, someone had left the electric stove on. Perhaps his mother was cooking something and had set the timer to remind her to turn it off. So she intended to be back by the tone, the time being, something o’clock precisely. The boy hurried to the living room and blew out the candle.

He went to bed so he wouldn’t be caught.

*****

What does it mean?

It means that the party-line used to be a way everyone shared the same phone connection. Not like today where everyone has their own phone.

No, the dolphins.

Yes, they were dolphins.

I don’t get it.