Night Caller

My father was in his twenties when he received a mysterious phone call one night by a man named “Cold”. “I didn't remember the rest of his name,” he told me, “only that he called himself Cold.” He told me that this man Cold instructed him to visit a certain postbox not far from him in the city, and deposit some quarters in it “like it was a jukebox”. My father believed this man was a crank and almost hung up on him when a sudden desperation had entered Cold's voice, warning my father that if he did not do what Cold implored him, he would be faced with dire consequences.

“Go alone,” Cold added – then hung up.

My father was coming off one of his nightly benders when he shared this story. He didn't say anything for a long time. I looked over to him while I was driving and asked him if I should pull over.

“I had an ex-fiancée in the neighborhood where Cold told me to find the postbox,” he continued. “The corner of seventy-eighth and Madison. It was the red-light district. I called Laina – my ex. We're friends to this day. She was home alone and I told her about my call. I told her I would be coming over and doing this thing Cold wanted done. She thought it was silly – I didn't mind. I thought I'd see her that night.”

“What happened then,” I asked.

“I traveled to her place and placed the coins in the postbox the next morning. I got another call. Cold again. It was the following night. He told me I was late, and I would have to drop the coins in the postbox again. I told him to fuck himself – if he wanted to place coins in a postbox he should just do it himself to save time. He called me again the next night.”

“What did he want?”

“I'm getting to that. You watch the road and drive.”

I did just that as I listened attentively.

“Cold explained to me he was not from this world.” Dad paused. “Do you know who Woody Derenberger was?”

No, I didn't, I told him. He was a man who apparently met Cold years before my dad.

“I never heard of him myself, at the time,” Dad went on. “But Cold told me to contact him. I won't tell you about that. I will tell you what happened between me and Cold afterward, though.”

By that time, we had gotten home. Dad was sober enough to exit the car and hustle across the sidewalk all on his own. I rushed through the rain to unlock the front door, and we both went inside.

“Make me some damn coffee,” Dad ordered, and he disappeared into the house.

I thought about the story Dad had begun telling me not without feeling some consternation. He was always such a hardheaded man and wanted things done his own way. He kept secrets from all of us. Now that I had come back to live with him while the rest of my siblings refused, I had the opportunity to find out what he had been hiding.

I made him his damn coffee.

“Here,” he announced as he entered the kitchen. He offered a large quantity of notebooks and articles. “I hope you'll get to see your old man ain't looney.”

“I know you're not looney, Dad.”

“I'll tell you all I know after my coffee's ready. I'm off to the can.”

He took a while in the bathroom – perhaps purposefully so. I sat down and began reading through his notes and clippings.

According to the journals, the man's name was evidently “Indrid Cold”, and he had shared a lot of information with Dad. When Dad returned to the kitchen, he told me that the notebooks were the only way he and Cold could communicate. “I lost my job and was homeless. Cold told me to leave the notebooks beneath our favorite postbox, and the next day when I would go back his writing would appear. Any question I wanted to ask he would answer.” He tapped the large, square-shaped writing in the books.

“One day, the answers stopped coming, and I had to leave because your grandmother got sick. I received this message at her house.” He reached into a spiral-bound notebook and retrieved an envelope with familiar, square-shaped handwriting on the front. All it said was my Dad's name – Eddy.

“I nearly shit myself when I saw that,” he said.

He opened the envelope for me and it was empty. “Inside there were nothing but coins – three dollars and sixty-five cents worth of coins. It was the amount I knew I had placed in the postbox. I don't know how Cold had found me. Nobody I knew knew your grandmother's address. I told no one I was going. And look – you can't send loose change in the mail unless it's bound up tight-tight-tight, but this guy didn't do that. He just sent the coins anyway. And look, the stamp on the envelope's been postmarked.”

Indeed it was. I didn't know what all that meant, if anything. Dad offered up something peculiar.

“I used to go to your grandmother's local five-and-dime in those days. They were long since considered extinct, but this one somehow managed. I figured it would cost me roughly three dollars and sixty-five cents each time to buy myself a meal, some magazines, and a root beer float. Maybe Cold was telling me to treat myself,” he laughed. It was unusual and gratifying to see Dad laugh; there was a glint in his eyes I hadn't noticed there before.

“Anyway,” he rubbed his face, “that was a long time ago. Way before you were born.”

“How was I born,” I asked him.

“Oh yes.” He stared into space. “Cold was involved in that too.”

There was no way for me to tell if Dad had become completely apprehensive or just plain tired. He rubbed the side of his neck, as was his wont to do when he would go to bed, and yawned. “Read those books,” he said, “they will tell you your story. It's all in there. In the end I'm just another old man who fucked up – a lot. Good night, boy.”

It was late, and I remained seated on my chair at the kitchen table, Dad's work spread out before me. He had been a welder after he had been a postman, and a night clerk after he had been a welder, and a clock repairman after that, and a janitor after that, and a bartender after that, a cabbie... he had done so much during a time when I was young and na?ve. All the while, unbeknownst to my brothers, my sister, and me, he was having conversations with an extraordinary being he had spent years of his life trying to understand. I wonder if Mom knew, or if she understood, while she was alive.

I heard Dad cough from his room upstairs. So many times I would have to go up there to clean his messes, to go to the bars he would visit each night and drive him home. He was usually violent when drunk.

I was checking the dates to some of the entries in the notebooks when I heard a rapping at the front door. It must've been four-thirty in the morning, and my impression was it had to be either police or vandals. Dad kept a Louisville Slugger next to the door for these circumstances.

Beyond the glass panes of the front door, a man wearing black wraparound sunglasses and a suit flashed me a wide grin. He was soaked from standing in the rain but seemed amiable.

“Hello, is Eddy home? It's cold,” he said.

I didn't know what to say at first – it was so unexpected. I instinctively hastened him inside away from the rain.

He didn't remove his drenched jacket or sunglasses as he stood before me in the dark living room. “I would like to have something to drink. Do you have a drink of coffee?”

“Yes – ” I was surprised by his forwardness.

“Eddy is home? I must speak to him. It is cold.”

This man's identity suddenly dawned on me.

“You – you're Cold.”

“The drink – please,” he communicated amicably. “Before I break.”

I hurried to the kitchen, not knowing what to do next. Was this pleasant, enigmatic figure standing in the living room Indrid Cold? Was it an imposter with impeccable timing? Should I awaken Dad?

When I looked back to the living room Cold stood there grinning at me.

I poured him a mug of hot coffee. When I turned around he was standing behind me.

“Eddy,” he explained.

“I will wake him. He is asleep,” I said. I offered him the coffee. “It is late. You shouldn't have come so late.”

He grasped the coffee mug from my hand and I went upstairs to get Dad. When I turned to look back downstairs, Cold stood at the bottom looking up at me. I hustled to my Dad's room. Knocking wouldn't have done any good. When I opened the door the light from the hallway lit him as he slept spread-eagle across the bed, in his underwear. He was snoring and the room stank. Desperation came over me. Letting anyone see him in such a state would shame the both of us. Would Cold know what that would be like? I turned the door closed. I wouldn't let Dad be seen.

I ventured downstairs and saw Cold sitting on the living room sofa. His coffee mug was still full.

“I remember these,” he said, gesturing toward my Dad's notebooks, now on the coffee table. “It was for good times.”

“My father is indisposed.” I felt extremely foolish. “Would you like to leave a message?”

Cold remained silent at that. “Eddy is sleeping,” he finally said.

“Yes.”

“Very well.” Cold's movements seemed confused at first, and this made me feel better for believing myself to be so awkward before. “I have a message for him. Can I leave you this message?”

“Yes,” I said, and offered him a pen.

“So kind.” He smiled warmly. He grabbed a notebook and appeared indecisive for a moment. He then said, “Are you Eddy's son?”

“One of them,” I acceded.

“One of them,” he sounded pleased. “Eddy has done well for himself.”

I only said “Yes, he has done well enough.”

Night Caller, and many other stories, are available in a paperback entitled The Lost Dreams.