Episode 10 - Dorothy Parker - The Telephone Call

Join us as we explore the wit and dark humor of Dorothy Parker who is best remembered for her razor wit. "The Telephone Call" which originally appeared in the January 1928 issue of The Bookman, is one of her most psychologically raw interior monologues — strips away the wit entirely, leaving a woman in agony over a phone that won't ring. It's Parker at her most unguarded: funny and excruciating at the same time, a masterclass in the way we negotiate with ourselves when we're powerless, so yeah, we’ve all been there. 

So sit back and enjoy the universal Truth of The Telephone Call. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Please, God, let him telephone me now. Oh dear God, let him call me. I won't ask anything of you. Truly I won't. It isn't very much to ask. It would be so little to you, God, such a little little thing. Only let him telephone now. Please, God. Please, please, please. If I didn't think about it, maybe the telephone might ring. Sometimes it does that. If I could think of something else, if I could think of something else. Nobby, if I counted five to five hundred by fives, it might ring by that time. I'll count slowly. I won't cheat. And if it rings when I get to 300, I won't stop. I won't answer it until I get to 500. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. Oh, please ring, please. This is the last time I look at the clock. I will not look at it again. It's 10 minutes past seven. He said he would telephone at five o'clock. I'll call you at five, darling. I guess that's where he said darling. I'm almost sure he said it there. I know he called me darling twice, and the other time was when he said goodbye. Goodbye, darling. He was busy. He couldn't say much in the office, but he called me darling twice. He couldn't have minded me calling him up. I I know you shouldn't keep telephoning them. I know they don't like that, but when you do that, they know that you're thinking about them and wanting them, and that makes them hate you. But I hadn't talked to him in three days, not in three days. And all I did was ask him how he was. It was just the way anyone might have called him up. But I hadn't talked to him in three days, not in three days. And all I did was ask him how he was. It was just the way anybody might have called him up. He couldn't have minded that. He couldn't have thought I was bothering him. No, of course you're not, he said. And he said he'd telephone me. He didn't have to say that. I didn't ask him to. Truly, I didn't. I'm sure I didn't. I don't think he would have said he telephoned me and then just never do it. Oh, please don't let him do that, God, please don't. I'll call you at five, darling. Goodbye, darling. He was busy and he was in a hurry, and there were people around him, but he called me, darling, twice. That's mine, that's mine. I have that. Even if I never see him again. Oh, but that's so little. That isn't enough. Nothing's enough if I never see him again. Please let me see him again. God, please. I want him so much. I want him so much. I'll be good, God. I will try to be better. I will. If you will let me see him again, if you will let him telephone me, I'll let him telephone me now. Oh, don't let my prayer seem too little to you, God. You sit up there so white and old with all the angels about you and the stars slipping by. And I come to you with a prayer about a telephone call. Don't laugh, God. You see, you don't know how it feels. You're so safe there on your throne with the blues swirling under you. Nothing can touch you. No one can twist your heart in your hands. This is suffering, God. This is bad, bad suffering. Won't you help me? For your son's sake, help me. You said you would do whatever was asked of you in his name. Oh God, in the name of thine own beloved Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, let him telephone me now. I must stop this. I mustn't be this way. Look, suppose a young man says he'll call a girl up and then something happens and he doesn't. That's not so terrible, is it? Why, it's going on all over the world right this minute. What do I care what's going on all over the world? Why can't that telephone ring? Why can't it? Why can't it? Couldn't you ring? Oh please, couldn't you? You damn ugly shiny thing. It would hurt you to ring, wouldn't it? Oh, it would hurt you. Damn you. I'll put your filthy roots out in the world. I'll smash your smug little face into bits. Damn you to hell. No, no, no, no. I I must stop. I must think about something else. This is what I'll do. I'll put the clock in the room, and then I won't look at it. And if I do have to look at it, then I'll have to walk into the bedroom, and then that will be something to do. Maybe before I look at it again, he will call me. And it'll be so sweet of him if he calls me. And if he says that he can't see me tonight, I'll say, Why, that's all right, dear. Why, of course it's alright. I'll be that way. The way I was when I first met him. Then maybe he'll like me again. I was always sweet at first. Oh, it was so easy to be sweet to people before you love them. He must like me a little. He couldn't have called me darling twice today. And if he didn't still like me a little, it isn't all gone if he still likes me a little, even if it's only a little little bit. You see, God, if you would just let him telephone me, I wouldn't have to ask you anything more. You see, God, if you would just let him telephone me, I wouldn't have to ask you anything more. I would be sweet with him, I would be gay, I would be just the way I used to be, and then he would love me again. And then I would never ask you for anything more. Don't you see, God? So won't you please let him telephone me now? Don't you please, please, please? Are you punishing me, God, because I've been bad? Are you angry at me because I did that? No, but God, there are so many bad people. You could not be hard only to me. And it wasn't very bad. It couldn't have been bad. We didn't hurt anybody, God. Things are only bad when they hurt people. We didn't hurt a single soul. You know that. You know it wasn't bad, don't you, God? So won't you let him telephone me now? If he doesn't telephone me, I'll know God is angry with me. I'll count five hundred by fives, and if he hasn't called me then then I will know God isn't going to help me ever again. That will be the sign. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five. Yeah, it was bad. I knew it was bad. Alright, God. Send me to hell. You think you're frightening me with your hell, don't you? You think? Your hell is worse than mine. No, I mustn't, I mustn't do this. Suppose he's a little late calling me up. There's nothing to get hysterical about. Maybe he isn't going to call. Maybe he's coming straight up here without telephoning. He'll be cross if he sees that I've been crying. They don't like you to cry. He doesn't cry. I wish God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry and tread the floor and feel his heart heavy and big and festering in him. I wish I could hurt him like hell. He doesn't wish that about me. I don't even think he knows how to make me feel. I wish he could without my telling him. They don't like you to tell them that you've made them cry. They don't like you to tell them that you're unhappy because of them. And if you do, they think you're possessive and exacting. And then they hate you. They hate you whenever you say anything you really think. Oh, you always have to keep playing the little games. Oh, I thought we didn't have to. I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant. I guess you can't ever. I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that. Oh, if you would just telephone. I wouldn't tell him I had been sad about him. They hate sad people. I would be so sweet and gay. He couldn't help but like me. If he would only telephone, if he would only telephone. Maybe that's what he's doing. Maybe he's coming on here without calling me up, and maybe he's on his way now. Something might have happened to him. No, nothing could ever happen to him. I can't picture anything happening to him. I never picture him run over. I never see him lying still and long and dead. I wish he were dead. Oh god, that's a terrible wish. That's a lovely wish. If he were dead, he would be mine. If he were dead, I would never think of now in the last few weeks. I would remember only the lovely times. It would all be so beautiful. I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead, dead, dead. This is silly. It's silly to go wishing people were dead just because they don't call you up the very minute they say that they would. Maybe the clock's fast. I don't know whether it's right. Maybe he's hardly late at all. Anything could have made him a little late. Maybe, maybe he had to stay at his office. Maybe he went home to call me up from there and somebody came in. And he didn't like to telephone me in front of people. Maybe he's worried just a little bit about keeping me waiting. He might even hope that I would call him up. I could do that. I could telephone him. I mustn't, I mustn't, I mustn't. Oh God, please don't let me telephone him. Please keep me from doing that. I know God just as well as you do. That if you were worried about me, he'd telephone no matter where he was or how many people were around him. Please make me know that, God. God, I don't ask you to make it easy for me. You can't do that. For all that you could make a world. Only let me know it, God. Don't let me go on hoping. Don't let me say comforting things to myself, please. Don't let me hope, dear God, please don't. I won't telephone him. I'll never telephone him again as long as I live. He'll rot in hell before I'll call him up. You don't have the right to give me strength, God. I have to give it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me. He knows where I am. He knows I'm waiting here. He's so sure of me, so sure. I wonder why they hate you. As soon as they know they are sure of you, I should think it would be so sweet to be sure. It would be so easy to telephone him that I know. Maybe it wouldn't be a foolish thing to do. Maybe he wouldn't mind. Maybe he might like it. Maybe he's been trying to get me. Sometimes people try and try to get you on the telephone and they say the number doesn't answer. I'm not just saying that to help myself. That really happens. You know that really happens, God. Oh God, keep me away from that telephone. Keep me away. Let me still have just a little bit of pride. I think I'm gonna need it, God. I think it will be all I'll have. Oh, what does pride matter? Why can't I stand it if I don't talk to him? Pride like that is such a silly, shabby little thing. The real pride, the big pride, is having no pride. I'm not saying that just because I want to call him. I'm not. That's true. I know that's true. I will be big. I will be beyond little prides. Please God, keep me from telephoning in, please God. I don't see what pride has to do with it. This is such a little thing for me to be bringing in pride. For me to be making such a fuss about. I may have misunderstood, and maybe he said for me to call him up at five. Call me at five, darling. He could have said that perfectly well. It's so possible that I didn't hear him right. Call me at five, darling. I'm almost sure that's what he said. God, don't let me talk this way to myself. Make me know, please make me know. I'll think about something else. Um I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still. Maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know that it's a lie, that it's a goddamned lie? What do they have to tell about that for? When they know how it hurts, damn them, damn them, damn them. I will No. I'll be quiet. This is nothing to get excited about. Look. Suppose he were someone I didn't know very well. Suppose he were another girl, then I just telephone and say, Well, for goodness sakes, what happened to you? And that's what I do. I I never think about it. Why can't I be casual and natural just because I love him? I can't be. Honestly, I can be. I'll call him up and be so easy and pleasant. You see, if I won't, God, oh, don't let me call him. Don't. Don't. Don't. God. Aren't you really going to let him call me? Are you sure, God? Couldn't you please relent? Couldn't you? I didn't even ask you to let him telephone me this minute, God. Only let him do it in a little while. I'll count five hundred by fives. I'll do it so slowly and so fairly that if he hasn't telephoned then, I'll call him. I will. Oh, please, dear God. Please, dear, kind God, my blessed Father in heaven. Let him call before then. Please, God. Please. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five thirty, and thirty five.