Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Pants & Payphones

Collin

The sewing needle slipped again, pricking my thumb just enough to make me swear under my breath.

These pants were hideous...

High waisted polyester in a greenish brown shade that looked like army surplus had a baby with a hospital curtain. My mom said they'd belonged to one of her patients, a sweet woman who swore by elastic waistbands and "freedom of movement." I didn't ask questions. I just nodded and took the half hemmed mess home with me like I owed it to someone.

There was something weirdly soothing about sewing something that felt like I was doing a good job at pretending life was simple. That maybe if I stitched in straight enough lines, I could keep myself from unraveling.

I kept telling myself I needed this. The quiet. The stillness. The normalcy. Even if the pants were ugly as sin and the thread kept tangling and I didn't know why the waistband was somehow shorter than the leg openings.

The truth was, I was trying not to think too hard. About anything.

About him.

About whether I'd imagined the whole thing.

I mean, who falls for a guy who calls from payphones and disappears for weeks? Who writes postcards like they're poems and then drops off the face of the earth without warning?

Me, apparently.

The phone rang, sharp and sudden, slicing through the room like a thrown rock through a stained glass window. My whole body tensed.

No one calls the house phone anymore. Not unless it's my mom, or a wrong number, or-

No. No. No. Don't even think it.

I stared at the receiver like it might explode if I picked it up. It rang again.

One more.

Then, almost on autopilot, I reached for it.

"Hello?"

There was a pause.

Then, "Well, if it ain't the ghost of Texas past."

My breath caught like I'd swallowed something sharp.

"Billie?"

His voice. Real. Not imagined. Not bootlegged off a CD in a Houston strip mall.

''Winner, winner, chicken dinner!'' I could picture him smiling over the phone.

"You have got to stop doing this," I said, already smiling.

"Doing what?" he asked, all innocent.

"Calling just when I've barely convinced myself you're a figment of my imagination."

"Ah, so I'm winning." A pause. ''How are ya? How's selling hammers and tipping cows?''

My eyes dropped to the pants in my lap. "Great," I muttered.

"Sounds like you're thriving."

"You've got no idea."

He laughed. Light and familiar, like it hadn't been weeks of radio silence. Like it hadn't hurt. Like he hadn't taken some little part of me with him and left me to wonder if he'd ever give it back.

"Guess where I am," he said, and I could tell he was somewhere noisy. There were people, maybe ocean wind, something echoey in the background.

"Uhh... Alabama?"

He snorted. "Do I sound that miserable?"

"Okay... Louisiana?"

"Closer."