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June 25, 2000
mark thomas I've been placing calls to myself. I dial random phones in Manhattan, and ask for me. I called a place, and said "I need to talk to Mark Thomas." The person who answered said: "I don't think there's a Mark Thomas here." "Are you sure? It's important. He told me he might be at this number right now. I have to talk to him." "I don't think he's here." "It's M-A-R-K T-H-O-M-A-S." "You have the wrong number." Buzzzzzzzz... Sometimes the conversation ends there. Other times, it gets more involved. If the phone is in a public area, I ask the person who answered to please ask around to see if I am there. When I am certain the person yelled "Mark Thomas?" into the crowd I hang up, satisfied. Sometimes I call public telephones. Other times I call big companies. And other times I call gas stations and sandwich/potato chip establishments. On Sunday night I called a payphone at a grocery store in the Bronx precisely every 20 minutes, asking whoever answered (it was someone different each time) if I was there. Last week I figured out that a block of consecutive numbers in the (212) 522 exchange was inside a brokerage on Wall Street. It was hundreds of numbers, hundreds of individuals, hundreds of voicemail boxes. The limitless expanse was endlessly inspiring in the same way as a pile of blank sheets of paper. I called number after number throughout the night, filling the emptiness with messages to "Please call Mark Thomas, it is important. He can be reached at [public telephone number]. Please ask for him by name, so someone can ask for him." I am hoping to grow this conspiracy, and to cause conversations among people who gather at the water cooler of their office building or around the recycling bin of their apartment building and ask each other who Mark Thomas is.
"... yeah, I picked up a phone in the hallway and someone was asking for him ..."There is nothing new to this. I have done things like this for as long as I've had access to a telephone. There is no need to waste time with analysis. I do this because I don't know where I should be, and because I want to call some place and find that I am having a good life at that place, my arrival and continued presence there unexplained but my level of exalted distraction at being there satisfactory. Even on this Sunday afternoon of my 32nd year I find the thrill of directionlessness to be more intoxicating than the beer I have poured into my face all afternoon.
One day in the 3rd grade I was at bat in a game of softball. I remember the field, the fences, the sunshine. More than anything I remember Chris Casper. I was up there at the plate swinging at the ball and lobbing it far but foul. Chris Casper yelled at me "Don't you ever try?" I don't know if I took that as inspiration to slam it out of the park (I have no Charlie Brown memory of ever doing that), but I do know that duh I never had an answer for his question. I have turned Chris Casper's question over and over in my mind during the 25 years since he asked it. I wonder if my life would be different right now tonight if I had ever tried to get the girl, or tried to say something instead of just letting words slither off my tongue like bowel movements. Maybe I could be superman. Or maybe I am just another useless asshole flailing his wares into the crisp morning air.
It is freezing in here. This is my bedroom. Air conditioner is on full blast, reminding me of an Utne Reader story I never read titled "Why we need air conditioning." Right now everything reminds me of the 3rd grade, and that enormous field.
On Thursday night I got an angry call for Richard. I was expecting a call from a pizza pie delivery place, but instead it sounded like someone calling from a cell phone in their car and looking for Richard. For the 3-second duration of the call I thought I heard other people in the background cursing Richard. The person who I talked to sounded like someone who wanted to kick Richard's ass. I have been getting angry calls for Richard for about a year now, but I do not know who he is. I know that whenever I spend any length of time in the kitchen I hear the phone ringing almost constantly. On Thursday night I was making pork chops and macaroni and cheese, and the phone rang exactly 3 rings every 4 minutes for about 2 hours. What's more, for about 8 months I would come home 3 or 4 times a week to 20-25 messages per day from angry collection agencies telling Richard he had better call back. I notice this any time I am at home during a weekday. The phone rings and rings and rings, and the answering machine offers itself as a receptacle for whatever messages cometh, but no caller ever says anything. I assume it is all telemarketers, people who hate me, and people looking for Richard.
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