The Curious Case of the Call at Midnight

It was around midnight last night when I got the call I couldn't answer in time.

My roommate and I were sitting and having a beer. "Rescue Me" was on pause on the DVR as we parsed through the day's events, and the Stuff I Should Be Doing List had gained a couple of new items (starting a blog was one of those things, so... hey, here you go.) My cell phone began to ring.

The usual thing occurred - you spend the first few rings just wondering where the hell the cell phone is, and then you begin a frantic hunt for it. My roommate finally pointed out that the phone was in the kitchen, so I disgorged myself from my recliner and went over to get it. 6, 7, 8 rings? Who knows?

By the time I got to it, though, it was still ringing. Glancing at the phone before flipping it open, I saw that the readout said "Unavailable." I opened it and said hello.

No response.

"Hello?" a few more times.

Still no response. So I hung it up, never knowing who it was. But I had a hunch. It was The Helpless One.

It was nearly midnight on Tuesday, and to the best of my knowledge, the Helpless One had been sleeping in her car since last Friday night. Circumstances wouldn't allow me to offer her my couch to sleep on, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to procure other arrangements for her. So after I finished helping her move her things into storage last Thursday, I made her the best offer I could: If she just needed a place to grab a quick shower, she could call me. Civilization, after all, is the art and practice of making oneself clean, comfortable and well-fed regardless of one's circumstances, and if you're in a situation where you don't have access to regular running water, cleanliness would not only be next to Godliness, it would be second only to food on the list of things you crave the most. That was all I could give her, because The Helpless One seemed unable to help Herself.

Where was she? I don't know. I'd heard nothing from her since I left her Thursday evening in the cluttered remains of the cozy little house she'd been renting, the one she'd been forced to leave now that her money was gone. She'd lost her job 2 years ago and had been unable to find one since. Her one friend in the world, seemingly, was a woman I knew who had moved across country six years ago. That woman, La Generosa, now a single mother, had even gone so far as to give The Helpless One half of her income tax return to tide her over, but even that money was now long gone.

A draft blew through the open windows of my apartment. It had been a sunny, warm spring day, but the night air was turning cooler. I closed the windows. My roommate, finally exhausted at the end of a long day, shambled off to bed. I settled back down into my recliner and pushed "play" again. Denis Leary's familiar snarl sprang to life on my TV screen.

"Unavailable," the cell phone read.