Talk to Me

Due to confusion at the front desk, when they’re supposed to be connecting me to the management to clear up the problem with the restaurant bill, they connect me instead with my own hotel room, and inexplicably, a woman answers. I’m so confused by this that in the moment, I ask for myself by name. “Just a second,” she says. Then she puts me on the phone.

“Hello?”

And so there I am. Immediately I don’t trust myself. It’s not that I suspect this me is an imposter. On the contrary, it’s irrefutably myself on the other end of the line. But while I’d have expected to feel relief, anticipating welcome acceptance from the one person who truly understands me, what I’m feeling is the opposite. I’m fully prepared to disbelieve anything that comes out of my mouth.

So, okay: interesting. My first impression of myself is that I’m a liar. Except that’s not it – it’s that I’m fully aware in a way I’ve never been before that the me who’s answering a phone, who’s prepared to engage with an unknown human being, is not going to be the authentic me. There’s a cloud of consciousness made up of bits and pieces of my myriad selves hovering there.

The true me cannot possibly emerge from this matrix of half-me’s, pretend me’s, me’s that used to be, me’s that want to be other me’s, the me’s my mother has implanted in me, the me’s I’ve artfully constructed to disguise my childhood me’s, the various me’s that are always assembled, like an endless row of shirts upon the hangers in an infinite closet, prepared for interaction with the world.

The realization that there are so many choices for me to make is so mortifying that my next impulse is to get off the phone right quick. But as if paralyzed (all of this transpiring in the smallest portion of a second), I hang there in the interstitial crevice of the yet unanswered greeting: “Hello?”

I can sense that the other me is calculating, is wary, on the defense. That me is incapable of simply meeting this moment with the many masks discarded. I know that no matter who I might be – wife, brother, best friend, idol, my grandfather’s ghost – the me who’s wondering who’s calling won’t be capable of expressing the truth of who I am.

There’s something so sad about this, more absurd than tragic but nonetheless painful, that if only I could reach through the virtual telephone line and grasp myself by the shoulder, I would give me a shake as if to say give it up, let it go – I’d like to think that if I did know it was me I was talking to, I could be honest.

But the specter of the days, months, years of energy already expended in this useless occupation, the creation of an acceptable social self is so overwhelming just now that I, the me who’s yet to answer, can’t bring myself to even invite the conversation.

If truth be told, I can’t be entirely sure that I’m not still on that phone, listening with a curiosity that transcends terror to the silence on the line.

Comments

[Scott Ware]

A great piece. Well written. I especially love "...a curiosity that transcends terror to the silence on the line."

[mernitman]

Thank you, Scott.

[Bob]

I suggest you hang up the phone and hurry to the airport before your other you takes off.

[JLM]

I have a question: Why was the You Who Writes (which is who I think you called) holed up in a hotel? And with a woman?

[mernitman]

Bob: I think he's still at the hotel.

JLM: Traditionally one holes up there to write... and that must be his muse. Or the fascistic guard who's not letting him do it...

[Bradford Richardson]

I'll bet the "other" me ended-up totally stiffing "original" me on the restaurant tab, and the tip.

This is fantastic, Billy.

I've written a scene in my new script where my character chats with his future corpse self who refers to them together as, "we."

[Martha michaels]

Provocative post, Billy. I was contemplating something I read, -- that identity is what you focus your attention on. And when I think about the difference between you and me, or me and me, at any given moment, it's that. If that's the case, then me is really a verb when I'm looking for a noun. Authenticity is a situational moving target and I really wanted it to be so much more, something I could attain and be proud of. The think the advice you want to give to yourself, "give it up , let it go" is wise.

[mernitman]

Bradford: That sounds like quite a conversation.

Martha: "Me is really a verb when I'm looking for a noun"...! C'est magnifique.

Y'all might enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-uQWNd540I