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Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine

Papers, Poems and Narratives

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And Yet Another Transparent Plea For Help

Felicia Ackerman
Brown University

"That's what the officer said," Stacey told her supervisor. "He said obscene phone calls usually stop on their own, and the police have limited equipment, so, unless there's a threat involved, they won't put on a tracer until I've been getting calls for three weeks."

"You should have told him you're alone on the evening shift at a government agency." Carl leaned forward at his desk, and Stacey thought about how sometimes you found a man whose face really did reflect his character. Carl's face was blunt-featured and ruddy, attractive in an anonymous, relentlessly wholesome way, like a commercial for fatherhood. She hardly cared to dwell on what her own face might reflect - that she was overeager, overweight, and overly fond of the eye shadow she was slapdash at applying?

"I told him." She didn't add that when she'd told him which agency, the policeman had burst out laughing and said, "Lady, I wouldn't mind making a couple of obscene calls to the National Weather Service myself." Now Stacey glanced across the room, feeling a familiar tingle at the framed photograph of swirling snow. She had forecast that blizzard, when everyone else had thought it would bypass the city. "Hanging up on the calls doesn't work," she said. "That jerk just keeps ringing until I answer again. He knows I've got to keep the line open. So I have to put up with him for ten minutes until he lets me go. Until the next night. And if I tried getting a whistle and blowing it in his ear, he could get one and blow it in mine."

"That's outrageous," said Carl. "He's manipulating you."

"Yes."

"He's harassing you because you're a woman."

"Well," said Stacey, "he could hardly ask a man, 'What's your bra size?' before going on to talk about how he's lonely and miserable and needs someone to be nice to him."

"We have to find a way to make him stop."

Stacey twisted her hair into a bun, then released it. Falling around her face, her hair felt thicker and richer than she knew it looked. She began to giggle. "And I thought I might be in for a lecture on Christian charity," she said. "'Turn the other cheek!' 'Walk the second mile!'"

"Don't be childish," said Carl. "Charity doesn't mean indulging an obscene caller's sickness. That man needs help."

Help, Stacey said to herself, and told Carl about a cartoon she had seen in The New Yorker. "HELP!" a man was shrieking in huge letters as he ran down a city street. And in the foreground one little figure commented to a companion, "And yet another transparent plea for help."

"What are you suggesting?" Carl asked.

"I'm suggesting that he doesn't want the kind of help you mean. He wants me. He wants the thrill of doing something illicit, which you obviously can't get from the Samaritans or a shrink." Or from a weekly visit from some benevolent soul bringing sunshine into the life of a lonely old person; Carl belonged to a church group whose members did that.

"What he wants and what he needs are two different things." Carl steepled his hands. "Are you sure you aren't getting a thrill out of this yourself? You seem rather excited."

It's the forecasting, you twit, but I wouldn't expect a well-adjusted lump of moderation like you to understand that I get a thrill out of that, Stacey thought. "I'm positive," she said sincerely. "I just need a way to get rid of him. He's a disgusting bore and he makes cracks about my forecasts."

Now Carl was saying that he would talk to the police himself, stressing that, as a woman alone here at night, she was in danger. The caller could lie in wait and attack her.

He doesn't seem the type, Stacey wanted to say; I think you're confusing disgusting and dangerous. But at the same time she shivered a bit. The caller knew where she worked. Maybe he knew her name. He might have seen the piece in the city paper where a reporter had asked her how it felt to be the only woman in the Weather Service office. Just for fun, Stacey had said she was trying to bring a much-needed feminist perspective to weather forecasting, and the reporter had taken it seriously and printed it.

Carl hadn't liked that, of course, any more than he would like the new idea now spinning like a tiny tornado in her brain. If even half the caller's non-sexual babblings about himself were true, maybe she could discover his identity on her own. And maybe Kevin - her boyfriend, the first man who didn't seem to mind that she was twenty pounds overweight and always on tenterhooks about her forecasts - would want to help. After all, she and Kevin both read mysteries.

* * *

When the telephone rang four hours later, Stacey answered with the greeting Carl insisted on, "National Weather Service. Can I help you?"

"Yes," the man said, and began his litany of how he was underrated and underpaid because he wasn't publishing. His colleagues, of course, were motivated by their insecurity. They knew their publications were trivial, while his standards were far too high to....

Stacey yawned, picked up her pink felt-tipped pen, and began drawing clouds across a blank sheet of paper. Each fact got entered into a cloud. "Associate professor - never got promoted," she wrote inside a puffy cumulus cloud, and "Has to teach 8 a.m. classes" went into some wispy cirrus. "Very low salary," "Made to share an office," "53".... She wondered how much of this was a disguise. Even his voice might be a disguise. It was low and grainy, with a faint Southern accent that came and went. Soon he was talking about his ex-wife, who had left him after twenty years of marriage ("Divorced" went into a low rain cloud) and who....

"You probably think this sex talk is terrible," he said after a long spate of it, and Stacey answered silently that it wasn't as bad as his snide remarks about her forecasts, and considered revising the overnight low. The night was turning out so cloudy it might not even get into the 40s.

"You probably think I have no self-control, calling you every night. But self-control can't be measured independently of desire. All I ask is ten minutes. If you want something desperately all the time and you settle for getting it some of the time, you have self-control."

Stacey thought of the crushes she had had, how it had taken all her self-control to act like an idiot only part of the time. How she was managing not to betray herself with Kevin now. So far. She looked at her watch; barely a minute to go. If the man didn't get his full ten minutes, he would call right back. "Look," she said, "I'm not interested in you or your problems. I just want you to leave me alone."

There was a long pause. Then the man said something she didn't quite catch. "You don't believe you are your brother's keeper?" he ended.

"I'm not my obscene-phone-caller's keeper. And your time is over. Good riddance," said Stacey and hung up before he could mention that her forecast for the day's maximum temperature had been five degrees off.

* * *

"He could be making it all up," Stacey admitted, glancing at Kevin's hand on the stick shift and then at his round, reassuringly homely face. They were riding in his Chevette. Kevin hadn't suggested walking. He had learned that forecasting the weather didn't necessarily mean you wanted to be out in it, let alone out doing anything remotely resembling exercise. Stacey hated exercise. She liked cars, especially with someone else doing the driving.

"If he is, we'll never find him. So we might as well assume he isn't, and see where it gets us," Kevin said, warming her with the words "we" and "us." She gazed at the fluffy clouds that were cooperating so nicely with her forecast and pointed out that if the caller was expected to publish, he probably taught at the city's enormous university, where the faculty numbered over 2,000. He probably thought his anonymity was safe, especially if some of his details were fakes.

"He may not be thinking clearly enough to consider that," Kevin said. "An obscene phone caller... he's apt to be pretty unbalanced. Maybe he even wants to be caught."

And yet another transparent plea for help, Stacey thought, and said she doubted he wanted to be caught, any more than smokers wanted lung cancer. It was just a risk they were willing to put up with. She shifted uncomfortably on the vinyl seat. She had always been suspicious of words like "unbalanced"; would Kevin apply them to her if he knew her fantasy about her work or what she had done the last time she'd been disappointed in love? It seemed unlikely, but why press her luck by asking? She twisted her hair into a bun, released it, and started talking about the latest detective story they were reading. Kevin had told her that he thought the murderer was the stepmother, but Stacey suspected the beautiful cousin.

When they reached the restaurant overlooking the lake, they took a table by the plate glass window. Stacey watched the clouds slowly shifting while Kevin and the waitress exchanged pleasantries about the weather. ("What do meteorologists make small talk about?" he had asked Stacey when they first met. "The weather," she had said.) Over lunch, Stacey and Kevin switched from the imaginary mystery to the real one and mapped out their strategy. Even if they failed, the investigation was bound to be an adventure.

* * *

The investigation was an adventure, but so much of it was tedious - like most adventures, Stacey supposed. Kevin had pointed out that the university was public and so were the faculty salaries - so public that they were printed annually in the local paper. So they began in the city's library, scanning over 2,000 names and salaries in July's microfilmed newspaper and checking the birth dates and marital statuses of likely prospects in the Directory of American Scholars and American Men and Women of Science. They checked class schedules in the university catalogue. Kevin went to the various departments to see the posted lists of names and offices.

In the meantime, the obscene calls continued. They weren't getting longer or more frequent (Stacey had been worried that, like a blackmailer, the caller might gradually step up his demands); they were just getting whinier, and the sexual fantasies more ludicrous. Not to mention tiresome; it was no wonder, she told herself after a particularly irritating session, that this man said he had no real friends.

But Stacey was happy. She was having a run of good luck. For the last three days, her forecasts had been perfect: maximum and minimum temperature to the degree, clouds, precipitation, wind direction and speed. It was like pitching a series of shutouts. How long could it last? Stacey sat at her desk at the weather station, drawing pink clouds across a sheet of paper and smiling. The Infallible Forecaster, with eyes blue like the sky, eyes that see into the future. She is never in error. Never in doubt. Never even glances at the computerized forecasts out of Washington that lesser mortals use as aids. Her powers cannot be explained or taught. No one else will ever have them. The Infallible Forecaster always wears yellow, like the sun. ("Most people are afraid of yellow," a magazine article had said, "and they should be. It is the most difficult color to wear properly." ) The Infallible Forecaster is not afraid of yellow. She is not afraid of anything.

She also never has to answer the telephone, which has just started to ring.

"National Weather Service. Can I help you?"

"Yes," said the man. "I just want someone to be nice to me."

If you were twenty years older than you say, maybe Carl's church would send you a nice, wholesome weekly visitor, Stacey thought. "My supervisor thinks you should see a therapist," she said.

"Why? I 'd rather talk to you."

"Well, it isn't mutual." Stacey was drawing pink snow. "My supervisor also thinks if you're unhappy, you should try to help others, instead of whining about yourself all the time."

"And how am I supposed to help others? By telling them to help others? When does anyone ever actually get any help in this scheme?"

"Well," said Stacey, "you could volunteer at a soup kitchen for the homeless." Carl did that. Maybe she shouldn't sneer at him. What did she do, forecast the weather for the homeless?

"What a preposterous idea. When you're emotionally and sexually starved, you need emotional and sexual attention, not to dish out food and agreeability to people who wouldn't be interested in your problems."

That is absolutely right, Stacey admitted to herself, thinking of the hopeless crushes she had had.

Now the man was talking about how he had lowered his standards to a bit above the norm and submitted a paper to a series of journals. They had all turned it down, discriminating against someone they had already written off. And he couldn't attract women in the usual way, because he wasn't prestigious, or conventionally good-looking, or rich. Women wanted just those three things.

What a stupid remark, Stacey thought. She wouldn't want a man who was prestigious, good-looking, or rich. He might start judging her by those standards, and he probably wouldn't have enough time for her. I can think of a few other reasons why you can't attract women, she silently told the caller, and began to draw a pink hailstorm.

"The one thing I can have is an interesting fantasy life," the man said. "I cultivate that by calling you."

* * *

Kevin swung his feet up on the coffee table in front of his rattan sofa and put his hand on Stacey's knee. "We did it!" he said.

They had done it. They had narrowed the list down to eight. Then Kevin had telephoned the suspects, pretending to be a student seeking course information. Listening in on the extension, Stacey had identified the voice on the fifth call. It was the voice of Harold Larrabee, professor of history, with an annual salary of $36,200 - barely two-thirds of the average for full professors. He did share an office, but he taught no 8 a.m. classes, and according to the Directory of American Scholars, he was 61, not 53, and had been married and divorced twice. The longer marriage had lasted eight years, not twenty.

Stacey glanced out the window. "Well, at least something's coming out right."

Kevin squeezed her knee gently. "Are you still feeling bad about Tuesday?"

Three days before, her run of good luck had dissolved in an unexpected rainstorm. She spent that evening eating her way through a box of chocolate doughnuts. That was a fringe benefit of weather forecasting, she liked to say: you were always getting results, so you always had an excuse to eat something fattening, either to congratulate or to console yourself.

"So when we give the police his name, do you think they'll make us wait the third week before they do anything?" Kevin was saying.

"Oh, I won't give the police his name unless I have to." Stacey twisted her hair into a bun, then released it. "I'll just tell him I know who he is, and if he ever calls me again, I'll turn him in, but if he doesn't, I'll drop the matter. Don't worry," she added. "I'll also say I've told someone else who he is. Anyone who reads mysteries knows what happens to the only person who's got information that's dangerous to someone."

"Wouldn't it be simpler just to call the police now?"

"Yes, but it wouldn't be fair." Stacey sat up straighter. "He might be brought up on charges. He could be publicly disgraced or forced to see a shrink. His life could be ruined. That's not a fair punishment for just being a disgusting nuisance, if I can stop him some other way."

Kevin cupped her face in his hands. "You're nice."

"I am?"

"Yes. I love you."

"What?" She sat bolt upright now, dislodging her face from his hands, which was the last thing she wanted to do.

"I'm in love with you," Kevin said calmly.

"You are? Really? Oh, Kevin, please don't say that unless you're sure you mean it. I mean -" She was talking very fast and her face was throbbing. "Look," she said. "I think you ought to know what I'm really like."

"I know what you're really like."

"No. I've been watching it around you." Stacey gripped his arm. "I don't usually have that much restraint. I don't even want to. Last time I had a crush on someone - and it wasn't even close to how I feel about you - I made a public fool of myself." She told him about how, three years before, she had downed two martinis at a party and made a hysterical declaration of passion in front of everyone to a man whose engagement had just been announced. "I was awfully embarrassed, and I never wanted to see any of those people again," she finished, "but at the same time I was kind of proud that at least I wasn't too ferociously well adjusted to... be a fool for love."

Kevin put his right hand on her hand that was gripping his left arm. The pile-up suddenly struck her as funny. "Better a fool for love than a prig who never gets excited enough to lose control of herself," he said.

"I also have this peculiar fantasy about my work." But by now she suspected that he would find the Infallible Forecaster rather appealing, and he did.

* * *

When the telephone rang at 6 the next evening, Stacey answered it on the first ring, "National Weather Service. Can I help you?"

"Yes," said the caller, and Stacey had her moment of triumph and release. "Stop right there," she said. "I know who you are. You're Harold Larrabee."

There was a pause. "What? Who? That's not my name. Whatever gave you the idea that it is?"

"My boyfriend and I tracked you down. Remember the call you got yesterday about your American Revolution course next term? That was my boyfriend, with me listening in on the extension. I recognized your voice, and if you ever call me again, we'll turn you in."

"I'm not Harold Larrabee." The voice was talking faster than usual. "Have you told anyone else about this? I could sue you for slander."

Stacey grinned. She had thought people betrayed themselves this way only in detective stories. "If you're not Harold Larrabee, how could you sue me for slander, you idiot? And my boyfriend knows who you are, too, and we've got your name in sealed envelopes in several places, in case you're thinking of trying to... silence me, or something."

"Silence you? Do you mean kill you? What do you think I am?"

Stacey picked up her felt-tipped pen.

"Suppose you were right," he said. "Why would you want to destroy me by reporting me?"

Stacey drew a pink cirrostratus ring around a pink moon and said she didn't want to destroy him. She only wanted to get rid of him. So if he hung up right now and never called again, she would let the matter drop. But if he didn't....

"Is talking with me so terrible? All I ask is ten minutes a night. That's... let's see... barely one-hundredth of your waking life, but it's the only thing I have to look forward to. I would miss it more than you mind it."

"This is ridiculous," said Stacey. "You're an obscene phone caller. I don't owe you anything. You're the only bad thing in my life."

"All the more reason why you shouldn't abandon me," said Harold Larrabee. "You're the only good thing in mine."

"The whole world's on my side, don't you understand?" The felt-tipped pen was drawing a pink tornado in quick, hard strokes. "Feminists would call you a harasser, and people who believe in psychiatry would call you sick, and even Christians like my supervisor don't think listening to your obscene calls is charity. Everyone's on my side; no one's on yours!"

"That's precisely why you shouldn't abandon me," said Harold Larrabee. "You have everything and I have nothing."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," said Stacey.

"You can look at it that way if you like. I've never been a religious believer myself. Think about it," Harold Larrabee said, and hung up.

* * *

For the next two hours, Stacey thought about her forecast. Amazingly for mid-October, snow was on the way, three to five inches, it seemed. The computerized forecasts -"numerical guidance," they were called-didn't say so, but they were often wrong in tricky situations. They were wrong now, she was certain. "The numerical guidance helps least when you need it most," one of her professor used to say. Like most guidance, Stacey supposed. The Infallible Forecaster rises again.

By 8:30, Stacey was striding around the room, too excited to sit still. In her mind, the snow was already falling. "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"-that was the title of a story she had read in high school about a boy who withdrew from the world to bury himself in daydreams of snow. It was supposed to be so tragic. The author thought the boy had schizophrenia. Stacey thought the author had no imagination. Snow fantasies sounded much more interesting than the boy's daily life. She had said so in a term paper and gotten a C+. Even the rest of the class had found her point of view peculiar. Everyone had been on the author's side; no one had been on hers. But now she could think about snow all she wanted. She even got paid for it. And Kevin loved her point of view. He loved her. She had everything. And Harold Larrabee had nothing. But nobody would consider that the guidance to follow, not even Christians like Carl, for Christ's sake, who'd out of charity give this wretched man not what he wanted but what they'd decided he needed, which, of course, they knew better than he did; everyone was turning into the Infallible Forecaster nowadays. Everyone knew everything. Or nothing. Everything... nothing....

The words swirled and blurred like a blizzard in her head as she sank into a chair, gazed out the window, and realized what she would do if Harold Larrabee called again.

First appeared in The Sunday Journal Magazine of The Providence-Journal Bulletin, August 21, 1988, copyright Felicia Ackerman.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2