My mom received a phone call the other day from the mother of a kid The Boy used to run around with. “How are you guys holding up?” she asked sympathetically. My mother, beginning to be very confused, responded, “Okay, how are you?”
Old Friend’s Mother, apparently confused herself by Mom’s chipper response, hemmed and hawed around for a few minutes and finally said, “Listen, my son said it’s all over school that The Boy and his friend were killed in a car wreck, and I wanted to call and see how you were doing…”
Mom assured her that nothing could be further from the truth, and that the corpse in question was standing right there in the kitchen looking at her.
I have no idea how this rumor could have gotten started, unless people are confusing The Boy with the victim of a fatality accident we had last week; they do share a first name. Unless The Boy really did get killed and it’s his ghost outside cleaning out my garage.
The Boy and I are much amused by all this. He’s on a 9 week hiatus from school for a variety of reasons (most of them boring) so he hasn’t been able to use his physical presence as proof of his viability. Mother also received calls from one of my cousins and an old co-worker, prompting me to wonder if I should have an anti-obituary printed in the paper. "The Boy was born December 21st, 1990, and was NOT killed on April 21st, 2007, when his car did NOT overcorrect coming out of a turn and did NOT roll three times, after which it did NOT come to rest against a tree and did NOT burst into flames…
I told The Boy he should start calling up everyone he knows from school and moaning, “III am the ghoooost of Spring Break passssttt…”
It could very well be the case that your life is mirroring the literary classic by R.L. Stine, Say Cheese and Die! (Goosebumps series), in which a boy found a camera that took pictures depicting horrible events that eventually came true. Although in your case, instead of a camera, messages of impending doom are being delivered via phone calls from neighborhood mothers.
What a coincidence. Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) calls his son (by his mistress) The Boy, also. His wife does not mention The Boy at all. I hope Your Boy has a better relationship with his pa than Dan’s Boy has.
Once upon a time, I made a phone call–I’m still not sure why I ended up being the person who made the phone call–to the house belonging to the parents of the girlfriend of a good buddy of mine. When Sister (of girlfriend) picked up the phone, I confirmed that I had called the right number.
Me: Is this [blanks] residence?
She: Yes . . .
Me: Is So and So there?
She: No, he isn’t. He went to Girlfriend’s College.
Me: But you did see him today, right?
She: Yes (with a touch of “but why are you asking?”)
Me: He was supposed to take a final exam this morning, and didn’t show up, so we are a little worried about him.
She: No, he’s fine. That’s odd. I’ll call him and let him know about it.
Me: Thank you.
(So she calls him, and explains to him what I just told you. He calls his roommate, gets the phone number belonging to the professor for the class, calls the professor, explains what happened, and comes back to school in time to take a substitute final. Much to everyone’s relief).
Obvisously, this is not at all like your situation. But being on the other end of a phone call when you are afraid that something is horribly wrong is not much fun.
You know your mother has committed a mortal Comedy Sin, here, in passing up this opportunity to fuck with caller’s heads:
“Oh, the car crash? Well, sure, it’s sad, I suppose, but that was last week! And let’s face it, he really wasn’t that good a kid. What, I’m supposed to spend the rest of the month moping over him? No, I’m quite over it. So, did you see Oprah yesterday?”
C’mon, that’s a once in a lifetime opportunity being squandered, right there.
Several years ago I was visiting a friend after being gone for a couple years. Her uncle owned a chain of fast food places all over the country. I’d heard on the news a few months before that Uncle had been killed in a plane crash.
During the visit I offered my condolences. The color drained from my friend’s face. “WHAT?!” said she. I studdered what I’d heard. She marched to the phone and called uncle’s number. Aunty answered. When Friend asked to speak to Unc, Aunty’s response was “Oh, my, did we forget to call you?”
Hee. This just keeps getting better and better. One of The Boy’s friends just called to make sure he was alive (I missed another golden opportunity just then, since I was the one who answered the phone, and he didn’t sound at all sure of himself when he asked if The Boy was there). There are three versions of The Boy’s demise being circulated.
The Boy was stabbed to death by that one crazy kid who’s too old to be hanging around with the teenagers but does anyway.
The Boy and Crazy Kid were running from the cops and crashed the car.
The Boy and Crazy Kid crashed the car without any help from the cops.
The Boy instructed his friend to just play along, and if anyone asks I had him cremated and will be sneaking into the skate park in the dead of night to sprinkle his ashes under the half-pipe (The Boy just loved the half-pipe sob).
I figure we’ll give it another couple of weeks and then hook up a hidden speaker in the skate park and start broadcasting otherworldly moans and knocks.