Voice Mails, 3:00 AM

Jacob said, "Sometimes I call your voice mail after midnight and just listen.
I've done it so many times that I've almost memorized your little story, Kevin.
I'd say it's time to record another, but I like that one. I like knowing it's there....
I mean, the sound of your voice....so don't change it--yet, okay?"

Jacob is somewhere in his twenties now and lives down South.
Years ago he attended our local high school now and then.
His world swirled between his gay friends and his family.
His friends remained but his family wrote him off years ago.
So I keep the voice mail message just for him.

And Kelsie, who calls from the group home she's in
whenever she's earned enough phone credits for sticking with her program.
(It's perplexing and humorous knowing that the human service system has
found a way to work phone privileges into their treatment plan.)
Anyway, she calls and tells me how she misses
being in town, and dreams still about one day finding her
father and shooting him in his sleep.

Then there’s John. He takes the cake. (And anything else that isn't nailed down, too.)
John recorded his own little rap song that he's been begging to record on my
voice mail. He sang it on my voice mail once.
It's good, actually... if you take the f____ins' and the gangster
lingo out.

I tell him, "John, You're white bread.
You're whiter than I am come to think of it.
You live in a white town, on a white street.
Even you're ghetto wanna be clothes look like you bought them
in the L.L. Bean White Bread Catalog."

He laughs, smiles. swears like his father taught him, and says
"C'mon Kev. It'll be fun."
"Sure John," I tell him. "Right after I die"

"Greetings, this is Kevin Lee, and thanks for calling. Please leave
your message after the tone and I'll return your call just as soon as I
can. If your situation is urgent, please call my....."

Comments

[anonymous]

I don't think I'd ever told you this.
There was a night, about a decade back, that I had arranged to take my life. I remember you had said in Teen Group, "Don't take a permanent solution to what may be a short term problem." I wanted to call to ask if you thought the problem might be short term or not... I got your voice mail, and listened to a beautiful short story you'd recorded onto it. After that, I put away the pills, the liquor, and the blade.
Now, whenever people mention, even in passing, suicidal thoughts, I casual tell them not to take a permanent solution to what may be a short term problem.