A Canadian Werewolf in New York

Chapter Twenty-Six

I got back to my apartment to find a threatening phone call from Mack Halpin on my answering machine.

Come to think of it, there were really only two types of phone messages from Mack Halpin. Threatening and the ones I liked to think of as his exclamation hang-ups. As anyone who has ever dealt with him likely already knows, Mack isn’t the world’s most patient person. One thing he hates more than not reaching someone and getting an answering machine message is getting a long-winded answering machine message.  It’s just something that throws a further delay into his day.

Call it a latent passive aggressive tendency of mine, but, knowing this, I purposely leave really long answering machine messages. I originally didn’t start doing that to piss off Mack, that was just a side benefit. I had originally gotten into the habit of leaving lengthy “I’m not able to answer your call” messages because I didn’t really like getting messages on my answering machine and figured if someone was so desperate to get a message to me they could at least first pass the challenge of listening to my “can’t take your call” statement drag on for close to a full minute. Yeah, I know, one minute doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but when you consider that the average “not here” message is in the realm of 15 to 20 seconds, it takes a whole new world of patience.

And for the most part it was effective. Those who really wanted to leave me a message stuck it out. Those without any patience hung up well before it came time for them to hear the beep and say their piece.

What surprised me most of all, though, is that despite his incurable impatience, Mack ALWAYS seemed to listen to my full message and wait for the beep before violently slamming the phone down. I imagine it was because he wanted me to know how much my “not here” messages pissed him off.

And if there was a single stronger streak in Mack than impatience, it was the stubbornness which allowed him to ensure his point-of-view was communicated crystal-clear. I mean, it was the reason he was one of the most sought after literary agents.

At one point I thought it might be amusing to save a string of answering machine messages from Mack, the latter kind, the ones in which, by the time the little beep sounds and the machine is recording, you usually hear the tail end of Mack’s responding rant, liberally sprinkled with curses and insults as the phone is being slammed down onto the receiver.

I would imagine the messages could be re-mixed into an amusing musical clip perhaps accompanied by still shots of Mack in a wildly viral YouTube video.

“. . . of all the brainless, stupid fuck idiot technologies.” [Slam]

“. . . shit shit shit shit damn!” [Slam]

“. . . so you’re not fucking there – do you have to try to kill me with the longest most fucking boring monologue this planet has ever seen?” [Slam]

“ . . . of course you’re not there you dumb twathead.” [Slam]

“ . . . waste of my fucking time. Goddamn fucking wa--”[Slam]

“ . . . like I’m going to waste my precious breath talking to a goddamn machine that—”[Slam]

The video might be called “Talking to a Machine” and would perhaps go viral the way that a social media blockbuster like “Sh*t My Dad Says” was born out of the simple twitter feed of a young man posting the raw and unedited commentary his “no holds barred” father would quip on a regular basis.

 I knew I was wasting time amusing myself rather than doing the two things I needed to do. Call Gail and let her know that Howard was safe, though most likely arrested. Then call Mack and let him know that I came nowhere near the expected word count.