That Nice Killer Who Answered My Phone

Even at age 32, my mother worries about me.

A couple of months ago, she tried to call me from her cell phone, but apparently did not have my new number in her phone. She had my old number in my phone: one with a Pittsburgh area code. I had changed my number to a New York one about three months earlier. She dialed, oblivious, and:

"Hello?" a man answered.

This is not my son, she thought. This is another man. She panicked, but regained her composure.

"Hello? Is this Phil's phone?"

"No, this is my phone."

It's your phone because you have killed my son and unceremoniously discarded his carcass! I will hunt you down, you bastard! thought my mother, as she stalled for time.

"Huh." Where is my son?? "I am trying to get in touch with him, and this is the number I have." Why have you killed him?? I will kill your babies!!

"Well, this is my phone. I'm not sure what to tell you."

A lover of Court TV, my mother's mind swiftly moved to clues: Did this man have an accent? Yes! Yes! He had an accent -- an Hispanic accent, of some sort! That's it! This man was Hispanic! That's a lead in the hunt for my baby's killer!

"I did just get the number, though... just a few days ago. Maybe it used to be his number. Are you sure you have the right number?"

Knowing herself, my mother couldn't be sure. She asked what number it was, and realized at once her error. I was, most likely, alive. She and the Hispanic man got to talking and after a few minutes of pleasantries (my mother can make a friend of anyone), she hung up.

She called me later, and relayed what had happened. I asked her what the rest of the conversation was like, after she'd realized that I was not dead at the hands of a man who had answered his prey's cellular telephone.

"It was nice," she said. "I just kept thinking to myself 'This is such a nice Hispanic man that didn't kill you.'"

So, my mother frets on, always thinking of me in the Big City. She sees me surrounded by big buildings and honking horns and millions upon millions of people of various nationalities, languages and accents who -- on a blessed, daily basis -- don't kill me.