Phone Fright


Sixty-year-old Nathan Glass adjusted his bifocals, pulled his skinny frame up to the conference table, and tugged nervously at the salt-and-pepper whiskers of his full beard. He looked around at his fellow class members—five women and six men—so brilliant and so arrogant, a couple of them young enough to be his grandchildren. He had entered this creative writing workshop with such high expectations. Now he seriously doubted that he had any talent at all. He was attending his next-to-last session. The professor had just ordered each class member to draw three slips of paper out of a hat. Each slip contained the name of a literary magazine. Class members were required to report on each magazine, review its contents, detail its submission policy, and offer opinions on the quality of the magazine and how well it might receive stories that had been written by workshop participants. Nathan drew his three slips. Printed on one slip was the name of a prestigious magazine headquartered in London. In parentheses underneath it were the words, ‘Be persistent!’ The other two slips contained familiar names. Nathan expected the research on these magazines to be easy. He was sure they both had web sites and all the information he needed could be found there, but he was concerned about that magazine from London.
Before Nathan could say anything, the professor said, “One of you has a slip of paper that says, be persistent. That’s because we’ve had students try to report on this magazine before, and apparently, the editors are pretty slippery. Make sure you pin them down and get straight answers to direct questions. You have two weeks before the end of the semester to get this done. You’ll be reporting on your magazines during our final class meeting.”
The next morning, Nathan lay in bed in his tiny apartment, exhausted and covered with sweat. Instead of sleeping, he had struggled all night, trying to think of possible solutions to his problem. As he stared at the ugly, faded yellow wallpaper in his bedroom, he had to admit that there was no way he could complete the assignment without using a telephone.
He was deeply concerned about this. Whenever he called strangers on the telephone, his pulse quickened, his head throbbed, what felt like gallons of stomach acid refluxed up into his esophagus, and he hyperventilated. No matter what he tried to do to conquer his phobia, his reaction was always the same, and he knew didn’t think it was anything he was going to get over anytime soon.
He had always been a little uncomfortable on the phone, but the final impetus for his fixated telephonic horror was an event that had occurred ten years previous, when he was
destitute, and almost homeless. Back then, he had convinced himself that whatever discomfort he felt while trying to sell somebody something over the phone couldn’t possibly match the feelings of hunger and desperation he would have when he couldn’t pay his bills and would have to move out into the street. So he took a phone sales job with the expectation that he could make enough money to pay all those collectors who kept calling his home and threatening him on a daily basis. Then, after enduring this for as long as he could, he thought he would be able to jump off into some other line of work. At least that was his plan. But after three weeks of flop sweat, dry mouth, throbbing headaches, upset stomach, and ever-increasing terror, he went into the co-owner’s cubicle and resigned.
The co-owner motioned for her husband to come over. “Are you sure you want to do
this?” she asked.
“As sure as the sky is up,” said Nathan. He pressed his arms against his sides in a vain attempt to keep his emotions in check. He didn’t like the prospect of trying to sleep on hot concrete with only a filthy jacket for a pillow during the stifling summer nights of Las Vegas or feeling a hunger so intense that it made him dizzy, but he preferred those feelings to the way he now felt when he talked to strangers on the telephone.
“Come on, Nate!” the husband said. “You can do this!”
Nathan shook his head and tried to fight back tears.
“Nate!” the wife said. “You have to get over this. It’s all in your head.”
“That’s like telling me I don’t have to worry about cancer because it’s all in my
pancreas,” said Nathan.
“You were so good in the classroom,” the husband said. “You were resourceful and
audacious! You were our best student!”
“That’s because it wasn’t real,” said Nathan.
“We hate to see you give up on yourself,” said the wife. “Promise us you’ll work with our consultant before you quit.”
Nathan looked at both co-owners. The man-—tall, lean, and honest to a fault-—reminded him of Abe Lincoln. The woman, a statuesque blonde, who had once been a model, still kept her good looks even though she must have been at least forty. Her most striking aspect was her eyes, and right now they were filled with compassion. He wanted to scream, "No! I can’t take it anymore! Let me out of here!" Instead, he dropped his head and nodded.
The wife picked up the phone, dialed an inside number, and explained to the problem to the consultant, whose name was Sandra. After a few minutes, a pleasant woman with a stout figure, tortoise shell glasses, and a friendly smile entered the cubicle. Nathan thought she had kind eyes.
Sandra took him outside to a concrete bench on the patio in front of the office and offered him a cigarette. He wasn’t a smoker, but he took it anyway. He held it in his mouth while she lit it, and drew its smoke deep into his lungs. He guessed her age to be somewhere in the late thirties. “I know how you feel,” she confided. “I was scared to death when I first started. Please don’t give up. I know you can do this.” He thought her kindness was worse than if she had been totally outraged by his behavior. If she had castigated him, told him he was a worthless coward, and then sent him on his way, he would have been grateful. Instead, soothing words of encouragement seeped from her mouth: “Take it from me,” she said. “A lot of phone sales are really difficult. Punishing, in fact. Luckily for us, our product sells itself.”
Nathan put his hand on the top of his head and tried to scratch hair that was no longer there while she blew smoke rings and gestured with her cigarette.
“When we’re done, we’ll go back inside, and I’ll show you how easy it is,” she said. She smiled, which forced him to smile back as he puffed weakly on his cigarette, trying to prolong the time it was going to take before his ordeal, but when he had smoked it down to its last nub, where he could no longer hold it without burning his fingers, he dropped it to the ground, mashed it with the toe of his shoe, and followed her inside.
Sandra led him into an empty cubicle, where they sat together. She opened the phone book and pointed a number in the yellow pages. “Try that one,” she said.
He saw that it was a C.P.A. firm. He knew she was trying to create a success experience. He ignored his physical symptoms and dialed the number.
A woman answered. He asked to talk to the manager. “What about?” she said.
“I was wondering if he might want to take advantage of some free services,” he said.
“Tell me what they are,” said the woman. “I’ll pass the information onto my boss if I think he might be interested.”
Nathan’s heart raced. This is the part he hated. She can’t see me, he thought. If she could see my face, she’d know how sincere I was. I’m not lying. I’m not trying to pull a fast one. “I, uh—,” he said.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“I really need to talk to your manager,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been asked to do.”
“Look,” said the woman. “No one gets to my boss without going through me first.
That’s just the way things are. Either tell me what’s going on, or get off the damn phone.”
“If she’s stonewalling for her boss, try to sell it to her,” whispered the consultant.
He forced himself to smile, to make his voice sound friendly. “Maybe you could take advantage of our services. Then you could explain to your manager how valuable they are.” He spoke in the most natural voice he could muster, all the time thinking, can’t you hear me, lady? Can’t you hear how real I’m being with you? Can’t you hear how desperately I need the money?
“I doubt if he’d give me the time off,” she said.
“Let me ask him for you,” he said.
“Hey, Bill,” she said. “Some guy on the phone for you.”
“What’s happening?” Sandra asked.
“He’s coming to the phone.”
“Good work!” Sandra whispered. She gave him the “thumbs up” signal.
“Hello,” said Bill. “Make it quick.”
After promising to be brief, he detailed the company’s services succinctly and explained that the first session would be free.
“Free, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you were any kind of a salesman, you’d know enough not to bother me in the middle of tax season. Put a mark on your calendar to call me two months from now. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Just before the man hung up, Nathan heard him mumble under his breath, “What a dumb ass!”
He hung up the phone.
“What happened?” Sandra asked.
“He said I screwed up by calling in the middle of tax season. He told me to mark it down on my calendar to call him two months from now.”
Sandra grinned. “Okay! Not a failure! How do you feel about that?”
His mouth was dry. His heart was racing. “I’m just glad to be off the phone,” he said.
“Let’s try another call,” said Sandra.
“Please, no,” he said. He was shaking.
Sandra looked sad. They sat there until his breathing returned to normal. “Okay, let’s try now,” she said in voice that was less friendly and more forceful.
“No! Please!” he pleaded. “This is like torture to me!”
She waited again until his breathing became more relaxed. Then she said, “There’s
nothing I can do for you.”
He nodded as they both stood up. He went back to his cubicle and gathered up his
belongings while Sandra reported to the managers that he was a lost cause. Sandra and the co-owner came over to him. The co-owner spoke. “Sandra said you gave it your best try, but it wasn’t going to work,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” There was genuine sadness in her eyes as she shook his hand.
“We’d appreciate it if you’d go around and say good-bye to your co-workers,” said
Sandra. “They’re going to be upset about your leaving, and we want them to know that nobody
is angry at anybody.”
He said okay and thanks and that was probably a good idea because he was going to miss everybody, too. He decided to distribute his office supplies and leads to those who tried to help him. He gave Tony his blotter-sized desk calender and Rick his Day Planner. To Sandra, who had always been nice to him, he gave his colored markers.
Then he left.

Now he was reliving that whole experience: the insults, the games, the insincerity, the manipulations, not by him, but by the people he called. He had no rational explanation for it. He just knew how vulnerable and powerless he felt. In three weeks of telephone selling, he had made several calls, but he had lined up only two free appointments and sold absolutely nothing. He would have gladly undergone electroshock treatment rather than subject himself to any more calling. And now he was in a similar predicament: being forced to call a complete stranger and trick him into doing something he probably didn’t want to do.
He decided to check the Internet first. Maybe the magazine had a web site, and he could get all of his information there. He didn’t fear the Internet. Rejection there was always systematic and impersonal. It was so much easier to take.
At the campus library, He logged onto the Internet search engine and typed in the name of the first magazine. Bingo! It came up with all the information he needed, including detailed submission instructions. They even had a sample of a story printed in a previous issue to give the reader an idea of the type of stories they were looking for. He printed out everything. One magazine down, he thought. Two to go.
He typed in the name of the second magazine, and a less detailed report came up. But there was enough information for him to do his report, including a sample story that had been accepted for a previous issue. The submission guidelines were not as detailed as the first magazine, but he thought they were extensive enough for his purposes. Plus, he could refer his fellow class members to the instructions for the first magazine and suggest that, if they followed these more detailed guidelines, they couldn’t go wrong. He printed this information out, too.
He took his hands off the key board and took several deep breaths. He could feel his heart racing as he thought about the third magazine and the professor’s admonition to be
persistent. He didn’t want to be persistent, not if that meant talking to someone who was going to call him a dumb ass and slam the phone down on his ear. If that happened, how could he possibly call back without the other person knowing who he was? Disguise his voice? Trick a friend into doing it? He didn’t know what he would do if he couldn’t take care of things on the Internet.
But even on the Internet, he thought he might have to misrepresent himself. He forced himself to type the name of the third magazine. He stared at it for a while, then he hit ‘ENTER’.
A one page display came up. It indicated that the magazine had one headquarters in New York and another in London. The Editor, whose name was Nigel Sterling, was in London. He could see no way into the editorial department via the web site, but he saw that the marketing people were there to answer his questions. What back issue did he want to order? How many years’ subscription would he like? What were his favorite articles? His heart sank. He would be forced to use the phone. He searched in vain for a phone number for the editorial staff. None was listed.
The next day, he tried a different tack. He visited his professor during office hours. “I think I need to report on another magazine,” he announced.
“Why?” the professor asked.
“I don’t see any point in reporting on this one. Its web site says that it publishes only acclaimed writers, and it’s committed to publishing stories about social issues which are international in scope.”
The professor raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Nobody in this workshop is an acclaimed writer, and only two of us wrote stories that took place outside the United States. That magazine won’t even look at our stuff. They don’t even list a phone number for the editorial offices on their web site.”
“That’s exactly why I want you to persist,” said the professor. “I want you to force them to articulate their submission procedures. I don’t know of anybody who ever enclosed overseas mailing coupons to cover the cost of returning manuscripts who ever got anything back. I think that fucking Nigel cashes them in and uses them for pub money.”
“There’s no way I can get out of this?” he asked.
“Not a chance,” said the professor.
He thought about trying to explain his phone fear problem, but he felt that would have been as scary as making a phone call.
Back to square one, he thought. With all the things he had to get done before classes were over, he kept putting off doing anything about Nigel Sterling and his magazine. Then, on the Saturday before the assignment was due, he went to a local book store and bought a copy of the magazine. On the first page, two phone numbers were listed for editorial offices, one in London and one in New York. At this point, he was determined to do just one thing: the bare minimum amount of calling required to convince his professor that he had been persistent.
Even though time was running out, he rationalized not making the phone call. What if I call and they refuse to talk to me? he thought. What if I call, and because I’m nobody important, they just decide not to give me any information? The words ‘be persistent’ echoed in his consciousness. Somehow, he needed to convince the people at the magazine that he was worth talking to, and even then, they might ignore him.
On Monday and Tuesday of the following week, he received two phone calls that
encouraged him. The first phone one was from an employer who wanted him to interview for a
summer job. He had turned in his application several months before, and when he didn’t hear back, he assumed he had lost out. But the lady who called sounded pleasant, helpful, and encouraging. A second phone call was from a large department store chain. A nice woman who sounded as if she might be around his age, said she was checking on some routine maintenance performed by one of the store’s servicemen on his washer and dryer. She wanted to know if he was satisfied. He had told her yes, they were on time, made the necessary repairs, and conducted themselves in a professional manner.
“Let’s see,” said the woman. “That work was done on a maintenance contract, wasn’t it?"
“Yes, I believe so,” he said. Even though she seemed nice, something about this
conversation made him uncomfortable.
“That certainly was fortunate,” said the woman. “With your maintenance contract, there was no additional charge. Without your maintenance contract, it would have cost you a hundred and nine dollars for your dryer and two hundred dollars for your washer. That means you saved over three hundred dollars.”
As she reassured him, he could feel his anxiety increase. Why did this simple phone call bother him so?
“Your maintenance agreement runs out soon. Would you like to renew?”
He took a deep breath. “When does it run out?”
“November.”
He looked at the calendar. It was July. “So I saved over three hundred dollars?”
“That’s right.”
He took another deep breath and didn’t say anything for a while. Then he said, “Could you tell me the cost of maintenance for one year?”
“For one year?”
“Yes, according to the agreement, or if not for a year, what it costs for whatever unit of time you people use.”
He felt his heart beating faster. His head pounded. The silence on the other end seemed very loud. Finally the woman told him to hang on for a minute and put him on hold. The palms of his hands felt sweaty as a bouncy version of Beethoven’s Ode To Joy, complete with marimbas and steel drums, attacked his ears. He didn’t know which he hated worse, the silence or the musak.
Finally, the woman came back on. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t get that information to come up on my computer. I’m sure the person who calls you in November will have that information for you.” She hung up.
He sat down at the dining room table. What happened? he asked himself. Did I just
thwart someone who was trying to take advantage of me? Maybe I’m not such a phone wimp
after all.
Those two phone successes had given him courage. In his mind, it was simple Algebra: two successes cancel out one failure. On that basis, he decided he could endure the indignity of calling the prestigious literary magazine in London. He would call either Wednesday or Thursday, since the final class meeting was on Friday. Then he could report back his dismal failure at getting any valuable information from them with a clear conscience.
On Wednesday, he got out of bed after a sleepless night. His heart and head were both pounding, and a feeling of nausea was generating in the pit of his stomach. There was no way he could handle a phone call under those conditions. By ten o’clock, he had resolved to forget about the phone call and do something else. He went to the university library and read short stories and magazine articles until the sun went down. When he came home, he collapsed into bed without taking off his clothes.
Then next morning, he woke at five o’clock. In the Pacific time zone, he was three hours behind New York. He didn’t expect anyone to be there at eight, so he decided to make coffee, eat breakfast, type up his report on the other two magazines, and then a little after six—nine their time—he would call the New York number. He kept trying to psyche himself. Plan on being treated rudely, he told himself. Plan on failure, but make your voice sound as if you expected success.
At three minutes after nine, he dialed New York. A voice came on and grunted the
magazine’s name. Must be a delivery person, he thought. Or a disgruntled creative employee. He had already developed his strategy, based on subterfuge and dishonesty—two of the things he hated most about phone calls. “My name is Ken Rafferty,” he said, giving the false name he had invented for this purpose. “I’m a free lance writer working on a story, and I need to interview someone from the editorial department.”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Finally the voice said, “Just a minute.” After a much longer pause, the guy came back on the line. “There’s nobody here,” he said. “Call back in about an hour.” Ten o’clock? he thought. Nobody but that one guy comes to work before ten o’clock? He thanked him and hung up.
Drink the coffee and quit shaking, he told himself. You got past the first hurdle. There was a human being on the other end, and he seemed nice enough. He went outside for a brisk walk. When he came back an hour later, he had one goal: to snatch up the phone, make the call, be rejected, and get the whole thing over with. Quickly, before he could change his mind, he dialed the number, and a receptionist answered. “My name is Ken Rafferty,” he said. “I need to talk to someone in editorial.” He said it in his most officious voice, although he shook as he spoke. He was amazed when the receptionist said she would connect him. He had expected her to ask for more information.
After a few seconds, a new person came on. “This is Joyce,” she said. “How may I help you?”
He looked at his cheat sheet where he’d written all of his phony information. “Hi, Joyce,” he said. “My name is Ken Rafferty. I’m a free-lance writer calling long distance from Las Vegas. I’d like to interview someone from your editorial department about your magazine for an article I’m writing.”
“An article?” Joyce repeated. “What kind of an article?”
He was holding onto his cheat sheet so tightly that he was digging nail prints into it. “Actually, it’s more of a column,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can sell a weekly literary column to one of our local magazines, and one of the things I want to do in that column is write about literary magazines that lead instead of follow, which yours definitely does.”
“I certainly hope we do that,” she said proudly.
“Sure,” Nathan said. “I wanted to make your magazine the very first interview because it has such high standards, dealing with international issues instead of just phony middle-class angst.”
“I see,” said Joyce. “What kind of information are you looking for?”
“Some of it I’ve found already,” he said. “I’ve been looking over one of your recent issues and going over your web site.”
“Oh,” she said. “Do you have our latest issue? I think that’s an especially good one.”
“No,” he said. “I have the one before that. But I was really impressed. It’s all cutting edge stuff!”
“So what did you need to know?”
Nathan tried to control his breathing as he looked down at his cheat sheet. “I have just a few questions. How the magazine got started. How long it’s been in operation. Why it decided to go in its current editorial direction. And maybe something about the way you select stories for each issue.”
“Well, let’s see,” she said. “It’s been going a long time, and—.” She stopped in mid-sentence and paused. He wondered if maybe she’d caught onto his act and was about to call him on it. His heart beat more rapidly. He broke into a sweat.
“I—uh—I have a confession to make,” she said. “I’ve been here at the magazine for only a couple of months. I think the best person to answer your questions is Nigel.”
Nigel? He couldn’t believe it! Nigel was going to be accessible to him? “I’m running tight on deadline,” he said. “Is Nigel available today?”
“I can give you his number in London,” she said. “I’m sure he’d love to talk to you. Maybe you could fax him your questions to help speed things up.”
“Oh, I’m too far out in the country for that. I’m stuck here in a cottage in an isolated part of the desert near Lake Mead.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “Tell me your questions, I’ll write them down.”
Nathan slowly read to her from his list of questions. “Let me take your number,” she said. “Just in case he gets out of his meeting early and wants to call you.”
“What time should I expect the call?”
“Usually, he’s done by two o’clock New York time, but today’s a pretty hectic day.”
“Thank you,” said Nathan. He hung up. His hand was shaking and his underarms were
soaked. He felt that he had gone as far as he dared. If Nigel didn’t call him back, he was going to lie to his professor and say that the magazine had refused to give him the information he needed, even though he had been persistent and had called both the New York and the London offices. He went back outside to walk some more.
At eleven o’clock, Pacific time, Nathan came back inside and sat down at the computer in his bedroom. He was glad he lived alone. The smell of his own sweat was so strong that he could barely tolerate his own odor. He punched up the solitaire games and began playing. It’s all over, he thought. If I’m not here and he calls, he’ll hear my phone message announce my real name, and he’ll know I’m a fraud.
At ten minutes after two, the phone rang. He ran over and snatched it up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Yes,” said the voice on the other end. “I’m calling for a Mister Rifferty.”
He almost said, what the hell’s wrong with you? There’s no Rifferty here! Then he realized what had just happened. “Yes!” he said, reverting to his officious voice. “Is this Mister Nigel Sterling? Thank you so much for calling back.”
“How can I help you, Mister Rifferty? You’re doing some sort of article?”
“Oh, yes! Actually, I’m doing a literary column that I’m hoping to get published on a weekly basis.”
“What publication do you write for?”
“Actually, I’m a free-lance writer, but I hope to sell my idea to either Mercury or City Life here in Las Vegas. What I want to do in each column is to write about the various literary magazines that lead instead of just follow trends, and I wanted to feature your magazine first because, to me, it’s the finest. I mean, it just separates itself from the crowd because of its international scope and its focus on social problems.”
“Of course!” said Nigel. He could hear the obvious pride in Nigel’s voice. “I’ve always said that what one writes about is as important as what’s being written. That’s why we focus a great portion of our magazine on social issues which are international in scope. I’d say what you want to do sounds like a very interesting project. What questions do you want to ask me?”
“I won’t take long. I’ve already gathered a lot of information from your web site and one of your recent issues. I’ve got just a few here.”
“Fire away!”
“Who founded the magazine and when and how did they get the idea for it?”
“A magazine bearing our name was founded in 1887 by three university students to
publish articles and stories by students who attended there. They named the magazine after a river that flows through their campus.”
“I didn’t know that! I find that interesting!”
“Yes, well. The magazine lasted until 1975, then it went under. Five years later, three graduate students sorted of ‘refounded’ the magazine, but the only resemblance it bore to the original magazine was the name.”
“Really!”
“Yes! In fact, the first issue was dedicated to new American writers. We featured—. Wait a minute. Let me run and get a copy from the file. I’ll read them to you.”
After two minutes, Nigel came back on the line and read off a list of writers considered to be among the highest echelon of creative writers in America.
“Another question I have,” said Nathan, “is when did you switch your editorial focus from new writers to acclaimed writers.”
“Oh,” said Nigel. “We never did switch focus. We publish established writers, but we’re always looking for new writers, whether they come from Eastern Europe, the United States, Asia, Africa, or South America.”
“I see,” said Nathan. “How do you select material for upcoming issues? Do you have a specific submission policy or formal guidelines?”
“Oh, we really don’t have any specific policy or guidelines. Our material comes from three—no, make that four—sources. First, the editors get an idea and commission an author to do it. Then too, we get unsolicited manuscripts mailed directly to us at our London address. We have those wonderful people in New York we work with, but they just handle marketing and promotion. All the real editorial work gets done here. Another way we get material is submissions from agents. And we get submissions from publishers, and occasionally, authors themselves. Is that four?”
“That’s what I counted,” Nathan said, going over his notes.
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Yes,” said Nathan. “I think I’ve got all I need now. I can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your busy schedule to share this information.”
“That’s perfectly all right. It was a perfectly enjoyable chat. And if you need any more information, please feel free to call me again.”
“Thank you,” said Nathan. “And if Mercury or City Life picks up my column, I’ll send a copy to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you. And good bye.”
Nathan hung up the phone. He was still shaking, but this time it was from exhilaration, not fear. He went over to his couch, plopped himself down, and propped his feet on the footstool before him. He couldn’t believe what just happened. He threw back his head and laughed at the absurdity of it all.