The Ryan Report -- Episode 412 "Dial M for Mayor"

It was a Tuesday. Cold. The wind slapped the window like a forgotten dog begging to be let in. I sat in my kitchen. Alone. Waiting.

Just wanted to make a quick note here: I don’t really remember if it was Tuesday. And it may have actually been summer, but Castle has been giving me some pointers and he says you need to be specific to tell a good story, and you need to do it with style. So, that’s what I’m doing.

My phone mocked me as it sat silent on the table. Its reflection off the cool metal surface doubled its presence. Twice the phone, but just as useless. What is a phone that refuses to ring, anyway? Just a chest, locked tight, holding endless possibility or humiliating despair. 

Again, I need to interject here. I’m not an idiot; I know a phone that isn’t ringing isn’t really useless. Like if there was an intruder I could still use it to call 911. Or, you know, I could use it to hit the guy in the face. But whatever, you get the point, it’s for effect, Castle says that’s good. So, I’m sticking with it.

It’s funny the way waiting can be physical. Your palms sweat, your heart races, your stomach twists and turns and your…

Okay, I’m sorry, but I’m kind of running out of steam here. It’s taken me like three days to write this much, and I’ve kind of got some crimes to solve. So, I’m just going to finish this up my way. Hope nobody minds. 

Even though it feels like it sometimes, I wasn’t always a cop. I had a series of odd jobs before I made it into the academy. I drove a vegetable truck, I mowed lawns, I delivered every kind of thing you can imagine (live eels, to answer your question of what the strangest thing was), but that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

What I wanted, as you can guess, was to be a police officer. But if that didn’t work out, driving trucks and mowing lawns wasn’t quite going to cut it. The career path that awaited me if I didn’t make it was, how shall we say… in the private entertainment industry? As a… you know… telephone companion… a… uh… personal, private, talking – it was as a male phone sex operator. Okay? Happy? I said it. 

See, one day I was talking on my phone on the subway when I noticed this woman making eyes at me. I wouldn’t call her a knock out, but I don’t get a lot of eyes made at me, so I went to talk to her when I hung up. Turns out she wasn’t making eyes at me – she was making ears at me. She said I had a sensitive, yet masculine voice, and that if I ever needed work, we could make a lot of money together.

If it’s possible to keep any of my dignity here for even considering this, let me just say it wasn’t going to be all me as the muscle bound field hand ravishing the farmer’s daughter, okay? Most of my work would be listening, you know, validating these women’s feelings and giving them somewhere they could let it all out. There would probably be a little field hand work, but really, mostly, it’s therapy. I would have practically been a doctor. Okay, that might be an exaggeration; I guess I just don’t want anyone to hold it against me that I considered this as a career choice. But obviously, what I really wanted was to get into the academy.

I had put my application in and I had done my interviews. Now all I could do was wait. I was supposed to get a phone call from them that Tuesday (or whatever day it was). Thing is, I was waiting on another phone call that day too. The woman from the subway was calling and if I didn’t tell her yes, she’d fill the spot with someone else. I couldn’t have that – if the academy turned me down too I’d be out of luck. But it wasn’t like I could just accept and then quit if the academy called offering me a spot afterwards. How could I be taken seriously? How could I pass my character exams? Basically, whichever call came first, would determine the rest of my life.

So, I sat in my kitchen on that summer or winter day, on Tuesday or whatever and I waited. I knew how important that phone call was, and it weighed on me. Hours went by. I tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. I tried watching TV, but it was in the other room and I was afraid I wouldn’t hear the phone. So I just sat there, bouncing my foot on the ground, trying to remember to breath. 

Then it rang. Now of course you know what happened, you aren’t reading the blog of a phone sex operator, you’re reading the blog of a detective, but at the time I had no idea. I must have let it ring four or five times before I realized they might hang up and I lunged for the phone. Then I brought it to my ear, and I heard the man say I’d been accepted and the weight lifted. 

It was a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying, but it was there. Like I’d been clinching every muscle in my core and now finally I’d released them. I’d released them because I’d finally relaxed, and I could relax, because everything was going to be okay. I was the newest recruit to the New York City Police Department.

Not that I think people who are phone sex operators are not okay, heck, one just helped us solve a huge case, I’m just saying I think police work is more my speed. It’s who I am.