siren

One of the first years I went hunting with grandad, there were a bunch of other hunters at the cabin, so it seemed kind of crowded. It was fun in a way because it was a boisterous, macho, competitive atmosphere, but I also felt some pressure to act in a social and manly kind of way. Sometimes the other hunters would tease me because I was young and an inexperienced hunter. Or worse, they would be completely dismissive. Also, since I was lowest on the totem pole, I had the privilege of bringing the firewood in, getting water from the lake, spreading ashes on the ice in front of the cabin, taking out and burning the trash and other undesirable or menial tasks.
One of the things that was a consolation to me when I crawled into my sleeping bag after a day of hunting and menial chores was that I had a girlfriend back home. Those guys might give me a hard time and I might have to do a bunch of extra work, but when I got back home, I would be welcomed by my lovely girlfriend, and they couldn't take that away from me, especially since they didn't know about her. I figured they'd probably just tease me if they found out, so I didn't tell anyone about my girl.
She had given me a copy of her school photo, and I kept it in a little shaving bag which I always left near the pillow on my bunk. She had put some of her perfume on the picture, so not only did it remind me of how she looked, but also how she smelled. If I didn't fall asleep right away when the lights were blown out, sometimes I would quietly unzip the shaving bag and take her picture out. I didn't even need to look at it, I could just smell it in the dark and I would think of her. But sometimes I would want to look at it, so I would get the flashlight from under my pillow and pull the sleeping bag over my head and have a private viewing by the light of the little flashlight. Then, even if my legs ached from hiking too far, and my back ached from picking up too much firewood, I'd turn off the flashlight, put her picture back in the shaving bag, quietly zip it up again, and fall asleep happy, thinking of her.
The thought of her, and her picture, provided a form of respite from the rough world of the cabin. There might be sweaty boots hanging from the ceiling to dry, the smell of kerosene and wood smoke permeating the air, wood chips, dirt and little puddles of melted snow on the floor, but the sight and smell of the my girlfriend's picture could transport me to a much more genteel frame of mind.
One evening I went into town with grandad to pick up some food and some newspapers, and while grandad was shopping, I went to a pay phone with a bunch of quarters to try to call my girlfriend. The pay phone was not too far from the Phillips water tower and there was an old steam tractor set up as an exhibit near it. It was dark by then, and very cold. The snow that had fallen a few days earlier had been trampled into mush, then frozen into ice. When I got to the phone, a light snow started to fall and I could see it swirling around in the wind under the streetlight. I had taken the quarters out and put them on the little shelf next to the phone, but I was having a hard time picking them up and putting them in the slot with my gloves on, so I took the glove off my quarter slinging hand. I made much quicker progress, but my hand started to get numb from the cold. I thought I'd have a while to talk to my girlfriend, but the phone call was going to be a lot more expensive than I thought. I had to put about half my quarters in just to get the call started. I put my hand in my pocket and waited for the ringing to start, and as I waited for someone to pick up, I looked up into the dark at the water tower looming over me and the sparse flakes of snow falling down.
Her father answered and I said hello to him, and asked to talk to his daughter. He said he'd get her, and he put the phone down and then there was silence. I could feel my quarters ticking away as I waited, and finally, after what seemed like minutes (but couldn't have been, or I would have had to put more quarters in) she picked up the phone and said hello. We were used to local calls during which we could talk at our leisure, so it seemed odd to be trying to hurry through the conversation. I was stamping my feet and moving around trying to keep from getting even colder than I already was, so I must have seemed a little distracted. After a short while, I had to put most of my remaining quarters in.
As I put my cold hand back in my pocket and we resumed our stilted conversation, I was startled by an extremely loud siren that started wailing from the roof of a nearby building. I don't know if it was a test blast of the siren, or a call to the volunteer firemen or what, but it was so loud that I could no longer hear my girlfriend. I tried to yell into the phone what was happening, but I couldn't tell if she could hear me, or if she had already hung up. The siren seemed to go on and on as my quarters melted away. Maybe it was only twenty seconds, but that seems like a very long time when one is standing in the cold windy darkness paying for a phone call which has been temporarily rendered useless. When the siren stopped, my ears were ringing, but I was glad to find my girlfriend had not hung up. We resumed our conversation, and as I got colder, the conversation seemed to get warmer. Just as I was feeling closer to her, the voice came back on the line demanding more money. I started putting the last of my quarters in the phone, but my hand was cold and the quarters were colder, and I ended up dropping my last quarter. I was relieved to find it and pick it up without too much delay, and I put it in the slot, but I heard only silence. I said hello a few times, but there was no response. I realized I must not have had enough money, so I started searching my pockets to see if I had any other change. Before I was finished checking, the pay phone must have given up on me. There was a clicking noise, and I was disconnected as my last batch of quarters fell into the coin return.
I was disappointed that my call had ended prematurely and I hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to my girlfriend. But I was also happy to dig my rejected quarters out of the coin return, put my quarter hand glove back on, and head across the street and down a ways towards the warm looking store where I was supposed to meet grandad.