Just a Simple Phone Call

That one and only phone call that could have been made, that should have been made wasn’t made.  Why? The guilt, shame, and embarrassment from where I was actually located kept me from making that phone call.  The caller ID would read Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center. How could I make a collect call to my father saying I was in custody and going to jail.

           Now that I’m transferred upstairs to a cell and reality has truly hit me, I long to hear my daddy’s voice.  Just to hear a loving comfort tone to my ears of the nightmare that I was going to begin for the next two months.  I was now surrounded by nothing but cold, hard steel and one filthy glass window to see others' cells just like mine two stories high. There was no knowledge of the outside world. Even the air that I breathed was cold and harsh.

           My thoughts kept rambling around in my head.  I need to call.  I just need to make one phone call. I need to hear my daddy’s voice.  I’m so much a daddy’s girl that even though we live 1022 miles apart now, the distance between Texas and Denver seems even further now.  I usually speak to him daily.  I wonder what he is thinking. I can just feel his hurt, not receiving that call and wondering Where is she?  Our closeness is beyond spoken words. I remember him driving that 1022 miles just to pick me up and take me back to Texas for a reunion with all of my siblings. The joy I felt and the smile not only on my face, but the smile on my heart when I saw him driving up.  

           Something so simple. Something that I've taken for granted so many times before in my life without even thinking.  A phone call. 

           Finally at 6:30 pm it’s my turn.  After day seven I’m able to call my daddy collect.  Only he doesn’t understand that it’s not like the good old days when you simply push #6 to receive a call from an inmate in Denver Detention Center.  Instead he has to search for a credit card and try his best to input the information before the timer cuts him off.  In the meantime I’m listening to the recording saying the person is inputting card information to receive this call.  As I hold my breath waiting to hear his voice, the recording says the caller did not accept.  It wasn’t because he wasn’t trying, but at 80 years old he has never had to accept a call from jail from his kids until ME. 

           Well, there goes my 30 minutes, and I didn’t even get to shower. I feel that I’m a forgotten hostage. So back to my new cold, made of steel apartment feeling drained, disappointed and dirty!