Oakland Cell

He's walking on a late, dark night on a bridge at the south end of Lake Merritt making his way to Blockbuster to return some movies. He's on his new sleek silver Samsung Katalyst slide cell phone, talking to his girlfriend. He's helping her on her grad school interviews by pretending to be an interviewer.

"So why do you want to come to this school?"

As his girlfriend gives her reasons, he sees an elegant white stork in a shallow area of the lake that's closest to him. He carefully orchestrates using one hand to pull out his camera, a fairly new lite silver Canon IXY Digital 910IS, to take some pictures while his other hand is busy holding the phone. His personal distaste for multi-tasking is superseded by the urge to capture an image of the serene stork silently meditating on one leg.

"Ok, I see. What kind of experience do you believe makes you qualified to attend our University?"

As he turns away from the stork to go on his way, he notices a dark green compact car parked on the road directly to his right. A teenage African-American girl sitting in the passenger seat looks at him and says something to him in a semi-hushed voice.

"...one, " she says.

"Hold on," he says to his girlfriend and then to the girl in the car, "What did you say?"

"......ph......" she says, still in a hushed half hearted tone of voice.

A bit annoyed he says, "I can't hear you!"

"Can we use your phone, it's an emergency!" the young girl belts out.

He stares perplexed at the girl, because she's holding a cell phone or a cell phone-like object in her lap. Plus, "I'm not going to give my phone to someone in a car," he thinks to himself.

A 5'11'', early 20-something African-American girl, gets out from the driver's seat and walks around the car over to him.

"Can we use your phone, it's an emergency," the girl says to him. She's wearing a gray short sleeve sweatshirt and gray sweat pants.

He eye's the car. There's another African-American girl sitting in the left backseat and in the right backseat, the side facing him, there's an African-American teenage boy staring at him. When they make eye contact he says aggressively, "Yeah foo, it's an emergency."

He hesitates. The black girl then looks at him straight in the eyes and says, "It's an emergency, can we use your phone?" In her voice he senses sincerity and disregards the boy in the backseat.

"Sure," he then says to his girlfriend on the other line, "Let me call you back."

He puts away his camera, which the tall girl sees, and then hands her his phone and she looks at it. There are some orange water filled roadside dividers between them that rise to his waist.

"Is it 510?"

"Nah, it's 408 so you have to dial 1 and the area code, wait, you just have to dial in the area code then the number."

She punches in some numbers then yells to the girl in the car, "What's the number again?"

The girl in the passenger seat, as if still talking into a pillow, says something back to the tall girl.

"What I can't hear you."

He looks at the tall black girl and then at the car and the thought that presented itself in hesitation before, becomes a tangible reality in his mind: "They might steal my phone." He takes note of the orange dividers and is confident that if the tall girl makes a break for it, he'll be able to hop it and catch up to her before she makes it back to her seat.

"What'd you say girl?"

She starts making her way slowly back to the car and sits in the driver's seat. Not wanting to provoke an incident he stands there deceiving himself, "Maybe she's just trying to get the number."

This thought seems to gain more truth in the anxious seconds that the car sits idly.

Then the engine starts.

The young punk in the back yells at him, "Gotcha phone nigga!" and slams the door. Everyone in the car laughs. He stands frozen as the car speeds away, focusing all his attention on reciting the license plate before it's out of sight.

"4TDH308, 4TDH308, 4TDH308, 4TDH308..."

As the car speeds out of sight, he continues to look at the direction the car has driven and half-joking to himself, thinks that they might turn back to give back his phone.

"4TDH308, 4TDH308, 4TDH308..."

He knows he's fucked and the only solace he can find is in reciting his new mantra and to find a nearby phone.

-----

It's a bright afternoon and I've just finished tutoring an after school program in Oakland. As I walk down the steps a student asks me, "Can I use your phone?" She's an African-American 6th or 7th grader and tall for her age. The two week old tinge of pain, lying in my emotional background, surges forward fresh and anew.

I answer coldly, "What do you need to use the phone for?"

"I need to call my mom to pick me up."

I look at my old NOKIA, a sad silver solid slab of plastic with a scraped face and a hidden new SIM card, sitting in my hand.

"If you want to steal this piece of shit, it'll probably slow you down and I don't see anywhere you can run where I won't be able to catch you," I think to myself.

I hand her the phone and she looks at it.

"Do I have to enter 510?"

"Yeah."

She types in some numbers and listens to the ring tone. No one picks up.

She hands the phone back to me.

"No one picked up?" I say, feeling the words shoot out with a suppressed anger. I can't believe I just let her borrow my phone.

"Yeah."

"Did you want to call her back?"

"Nah."

"Leave a voicemail?"

"Nah."

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

I put the phone back into my jacket pocket only to double check to see if it's still there 10 seconds later.

A pair of black highschoolers, dressed in jeans and hoodies, make their way towards me on the sidewalk. I feel this mental and physical guard go up and even after they walk away, I'm still tense.

"I hate this feeling," I say to myself.