Paul, from Brussels

by Mark Thomas
October 28, 1996. 11:00:11pm

Friend of mine called the other night, calling from an airport payphone using an AT&T calling card number that someone had written on the phonebooth in magic marker. The larceny of it made no impression on me, and the criminal possibilitiy of me receiving "stolen goods" in the form of this phonecall did not bother me in the least.

Instead, I remembered Paul. Paul is a guy in Brussels, Belgium who I reached on the telephone one afternoon in 1983. It was after 3:00; faced with a few hours of nothing to do and occupied with nothing but an Algebra textbook, I started wandering around McKay Auditorium at the University of Tampa. I took music classes there after the regular school day.

There was a locked door that I could open very easily. The door could be locked or unlocked by pressing a button on the inside part of the door. The gap between the door and the doorframe was almost the width of my finger. One needed nothing more than a paper clip or even a pencil to reach into the open space and punch the little button that unlocked the door.

This is sounding like an article out of ScamNews.

Finding myself alone in an office with nothing but a desk and telephone, I called an international operator and requested the city and country codes for Brussels, Belgium. Brussels was not a completely random choice. It is where my sister was born, and I have a dim memory from 1970-something of being there and seeing a statue/fountain of a little kid pissing.

With the city and country codes in hand, I dialed the international access codes and then made up local numbers for Brussels. I had the silly idea that, since this was a call to a distant foreign country, the phone numbers there must be 15 or 20 digits long. How, I thought, could my call be expected to reach very far if it did not have a number 3 times longer than a domestic number?

The number I called is on a blackboard somewhere at the house in Tampa. I think it is also in my black address book, though I can not find it right now. And I think it is in this Bates brand Rolodex-type of device which I used to organize the phone numbers of all my important friends and associates in the 2nd grade.

The first several numbers I tried returned recorded messages (in some foreign language), but I finally got a live "Hello," or whatever word they use in Belgium. It was a female voice, and I said "Hi, do you speak English? I'm calling from the United States." She said something in another language, then I heard her addressing the household, the only words I caught were "United States."

A moment later I was talking to a man, who identified himself as Paul. He spoke English very well, and we chatted for some time. He said "You've called me at my house. This is my family. My daughter answered."

I told him I had dialed his number at random, and that I knew this would seem strange to him, but I was a writer looking for things to write about. This seems juvenile to me now, but he seemed to understand (which is more than I could say for myself if I received a similar phone call today), and we talked for over an hour about nothing of any importance.

There is more to remember of the call simply occuring and being initiated than of what we talked about. He said that there was some American television broadcast there. Dallas, for one, and I think we shared our opinions of The Benny Hill Show, which was a British show big in both Europe and the U.S. Paul was surprised that Benny Hill was very well-known over here.

He'd never been to the States, but I'd been to Brussels once; sister was born there, but I couldn't remember much except a fountain-statue of a kid peeing. Paul laughed at that, then asked who was paying for this call. I said not to worry about it, that I was very lonely and the call would be paid for. He commented that it was a very good connection. For some reason I thanked him for saying that, the way lieder singers sometimes thank people who tell them that they love the Ave Maria.

I remember feeling superior to him, though I do not have any idea why, except that his character just seemed to invite that kind of attitude. Perhaps, at 15 years of age, I had the idea that if I wrote about him then I would make him immortal.

Paul and I did not become friends. I asked him for a mailing address, so I could send him a tape of me playing the piano, but he refused to tell. I thanked him for his time, and he said "I hope you find good things to write about."

I remember hanging up the phone. It was late in the afternoon, streaks of calm sunlight through the filthy windows near the ceiling.

I wrote Paul's number into this rolodex type of device, always meaning to call him again. Maybe now is a good time to do that.

That is a strange little device to have. It pops open and shows the names and phone numbers of friends and neighbors from the 2nd and 3rd grade all the way through the 12th grade. I remember writing the names onto the cards, and always thinking that this collection of phone numbers would be the definitive collection of my life. I've not added to this one for many years, but I'm tempted to start doing it right now, to take all the names from my nearly-exploded black address book and copy them into the Bates organizer.

I see, too, that I jotted down other useful information into this device. For instance, my middle name, which is Alexander. Holding this Bates organizer in front of me, I can clearly remember being in the 2nd grade and writing down my middle name so that I would not forget it. It seems to be mis-spelled.

By keeping this disparate information organized, the plan was to someday have a comprehensive collection of contact information for every person ever known or contacted throughout life. Today, right at this moment, I am tempted to open it and dial the number of Jamie Balzer (a next-door neighbor from the 2nd grade) and talk to him 20 years ago, with me here in New York and he in Tampa, sitting under the trees in my back yard using our dads' shovels to dig a hole to those underground barracks we heard someone built under the neighborhood.

I've long wanted to call the gradeschool numbers of people I knew 15 or 20 years ago and start talking to them as if no years had intervened. I'd call a guy named Jeff Doolittle and say "Hey, did you just get a call from someone singing 'K.C. and the Sunshine Band'?"

I'd ask Jeff, because I know it was he who called my number once and sang some tune to which those words were the lyric. I know it was him, because it was he who, at school the next day, asked me "Did you get a call yesterday from someone singing 'K.C. and the Sunshine Band'?" I said "Yeah," and he said "Yeah, man, me too. That's pretty weird." We agreed: This was weird.

I want to call him now and, through spastic giggling, start singing "K.C. and the Sunshine Band." Then I'll call tomorrow and identify myself as Mark, a guy he knew at Bay Crest Elementary School in the 2nd Grade. I'll ask if he was still getting calls from people singing those words, then I would hang up and that would be that, mission accomplished if I can make it so he still thinks about it, too.

I just stood up and went to the piano, then played the tune that Jeff Doolittle sang on the phone that day. Maybe it's a real song. Never played it before. Sounds like one of those insipid tunes you might never get out of your head.