I just called...
The first call they let us make was horrible. According to policy, they had to allow us a call within the first seventy-two hours to let our families know we had arrived safely; so they waited until the third day and then they lined the hundreds of us up and told us the three minutes started when we picked up the phone to dial. You never think about how long it takes to input all the numbers for a calling-card call back home until you're breathless and devastated that a third of your time is gone before you even hear "hello?". Now I realized that I felt myself coming apart every time I even got close to seeing Tom's face in my mind, but I hoped that hearing his voice and talking to him for whatever amount of time might soothe the hurt. The phone rang twice and then I heard my dad's voice and immediately started weeping without getting a single word out. I love my dad for his response: "Do you want your mom or Tom?" Of course, it's possible he was just uncomfortable hearing his daughter in such desperation, but I think he realized that what I needed right then, he couldn't give me. Another fifteen seconds was lost as my dad handed the phone off to Tom. "Hey Baby," and the sobs are exploding from me. I couldn't even say "hi" back or "I love you." Just throat-closing tears. "You're going to make it Baby. I love you." I could hear the tears starting to leak into his voice too and I felt myself dying to hear it. And the Timekeeper yelling at me, "Time's up! Get off!" I think I managed something like "I love you too," although I know it couldn't have sounded even reasonably close. And it was over, and I was trying to find some corner to recover where the drill sergeants couldn't see me and mock.
A couple days later, before we were shipped off for the start of actual basic training (a little known piece of hell is that the first week or so is spent somewhere called "Reception" where the days don't count even though the pain begins there), they gave us another three minutes for the phone. Remembering the first call, I almost decided not to call this time, but not knowing when the next time would be was too much for me to bear. So I stood in line for over an hour trying to coach myself away from crying so I could actually have a few minutes to communicate something. Anything. I had decided on telling him a story I found relatively humorous from my first days hoping it would make us both laugh instead of breaking down. I was going to tell him about this piece of shit girl I had already begun to hate who had jumped another girl in the bay over some look the girl had given her. I was going to tell him how it was straight out of the movie "White Oleander", and he would see it exactly in his mind and we would laugh at the idiots. So I dialed as quickly as I could, and tried to breathe slowly and steadily as the phone rang. Once. Twice. This time, Tom answered and I felt my damned throat closing instantly. I wouldn't give in completely because I was so desperate to have something communicated this time. Of course, my story, which was not actually funny to begin with, was truly pathetic delivered in the high squawks of someone in the midst of a breakdown. It also didn't help that I was only halfway through the attempt when time was being called and I was saying "I love you" over and over in a panic.
Ironically, I have hated the phone my entire life. Growing up, I would find any excuse to either not call someone or to have someone else call. I have lapsed in long-distance friendships rather than pick up and dial and speak. But in this place, the phone was everything. Once we got to basic from reception, we were told that we wouldn't be able to make calls until blue phase. In other words, we would not hear our family's voices again until we were nearly out of this place, and ever getting out was unimaginable to begin with. While not true, these standard scare tactics did indeed scare the shit out of me. Before and after every activity, we lined up directly in front of the wall with all the pay phones on it, and I began to have pains in my stomach from so much desire for these things I had hated for so long. They became my reason for volunteering for horrible details (something which only the desperately insane would even think of) just in the hopes that I would be rewarded with five minutes. All I managed to accomplish were a few nasty sunburns on my neck from bending over flower beds and pulling leaves out of the decorative rocks or picking grass out of the cracks in the sidewalk. No phone call. Two weeks went by like this and then the most mundane and blessed thing happened: I had to call home over a possible bank error in my pay. Granted, the drill sergeants were hovering and making sure that the talk was all business, but those were the best five minutes of my time up until that point. It is hard to imagine how comforting discussing accounts and balances can be, but I remember and will never forget. The second miracle was a tragedy that devastated a large portion of this nation's population but which afforded me a whopping fifteen minute call: Hurricane Katrina. So what has turned into a national remembrance in mourning is something that will always carry a happy memory for me. After all, it would be months before I had any idea what had happened since we were not allowed any newspapers during basic.
After about three weeks, we were allowed to the phones every Sunday. Knowing this at the beginning would have saved a good deal of heartache and furtive crying in the bunks after lightsout, but comfort was a strategic weapon in the hands of the drill sergeants and was not used often. Everything became about that call every week. Keep in mind that this was true notwishstanding the fact that the calls were always too short and always with hundreds of people screaming around you and pushing for you to get off the phone so they can get on for their own too short time. It just didn't matter. Because for a few minutes on that one day a week, you were connected to your reason, to your life, and to the part of yourself that was hidden here. You could smile, maybe even laugh a little, as you pressed your hand against your open ear to block out the chaos and distraction. You remembered what it was like to be cared for and to care, and feeling that for just ten minutes a week would be enough.
A couple days later, before we were shipped off for the start of actual basic training (a little known piece of hell is that the first week or so is spent somewhere called "Reception" where the days don't count even though the pain begins there), they gave us another three minutes for the phone. Remembering the first call, I almost decided not to call this time, but not knowing when the next time would be was too much for me to bear. So I stood in line for over an hour trying to coach myself away from crying so I could actually have a few minutes to communicate something. Anything. I had decided on telling him a story I found relatively humorous from my first days hoping it would make us both laugh instead of breaking down. I was going to tell him about this piece of shit girl I had already begun to hate who had jumped another girl in the bay over some look the girl had given her. I was going to tell him how it was straight out of the movie "White Oleander", and he would see it exactly in his mind and we would laugh at the idiots. So I dialed as quickly as I could, and tried to breathe slowly and steadily as the phone rang. Once. Twice. This time, Tom answered and I felt my damned throat closing instantly. I wouldn't give in completely because I was so desperate to have something communicated this time. Of course, my story, which was not actually funny to begin with, was truly pathetic delivered in the high squawks of someone in the midst of a breakdown. It also didn't help that I was only halfway through the attempt when time was being called and I was saying "I love you" over and over in a panic.
Ironically, I have hated the phone my entire life. Growing up, I would find any excuse to either not call someone or to have someone else call. I have lapsed in long-distance friendships rather than pick up and dial and speak. But in this place, the phone was everything. Once we got to basic from reception, we were told that we wouldn't be able to make calls until blue phase. In other words, we would not hear our family's voices again until we were nearly out of this place, and ever getting out was unimaginable to begin with. While not true, these standard scare tactics did indeed scare the shit out of me. Before and after every activity, we lined up directly in front of the wall with all the pay phones on it, and I began to have pains in my stomach from so much desire for these things I had hated for so long. They became my reason for volunteering for horrible details (something which only the desperately insane would even think of) just in the hopes that I would be rewarded with five minutes. All I managed to accomplish were a few nasty sunburns on my neck from bending over flower beds and pulling leaves out of the decorative rocks or picking grass out of the cracks in the sidewalk. No phone call. Two weeks went by like this and then the most mundane and blessed thing happened: I had to call home over a possible bank error in my pay. Granted, the drill sergeants were hovering and making sure that the talk was all business, but those were the best five minutes of my time up until that point. It is hard to imagine how comforting discussing accounts and balances can be, but I remember and will never forget. The second miracle was a tragedy that devastated a large portion of this nation's population but which afforded me a whopping fifteen minute call: Hurricane Katrina. So what has turned into a national remembrance in mourning is something that will always carry a happy memory for me. After all, it would be months before I had any idea what had happened since we were not allowed any newspapers during basic.
After about three weeks, we were allowed to the phones every Sunday. Knowing this at the beginning would have saved a good deal of heartache and furtive crying in the bunks after lightsout, but comfort was a strategic weapon in the hands of the drill sergeants and was not used often. Everything became about that call every week. Keep in mind that this was true notwishstanding the fact that the calls were always too short and always with hundreds of people screaming around you and pushing for you to get off the phone so they can get on for their own too short time. It just didn't matter. Because for a few minutes on that one day a week, you were connected to your reason, to your life, and to the part of yourself that was hidden here. You could smile, maybe even laugh a little, as you pressed your hand against your open ear to block out the chaos and distraction. You remembered what it was like to be cared for and to care, and feeling that for just ten minutes a week would be enough.
posted by Jesper | 8:48 PM
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