Dreamland

Activating Cell Phones in the Basement

I just got a new cell phone. The store I bought it from tells me I have to call in to get it activated in one hour, or it will be invalidated and never work. I leave the store, try calling the number they gave me, but the reception is bad. I try walking to different areas but I just can’t get the call to go through, this part of town has so much interference.

I meet a woman who works in the building next to mine. She is also carrying a cell phone. She says she just bought hers too, and can’t get through to activate it. She tells me there is a cable nearby that goes to a rooftop. It belongs to the people that run the little “mom & pop” market across the street. Someone told her that if you hook your phone up to that antenna, you could call out.

The traffic is bad; it takes us forever to cross the street. We finally make it and see the green coax cable coming down from the roof. I trace it from the side of the building, where it’s all encrusted in ice, into a basement window. I check; the door to the basement is unlocked. I scrape away some ice that is causing the door to stick and open it, trying not to make too much noise.

The basement is cold and dark. I find a pull-chain switch to turn on a bare light bulb hanging from the rafters. I’m looking around for the cable end; the woman with me is exploring the basement. There is a dresser next to an old bed in the corner. She opens a drawer, then calls me over: “Hey, look what I found!”

Inside the dresser drawer are some fetish magazines and sex toys. The woman is laughing: “I always thought the old guy who owned this place was a pervert!”

I tell her we should leave it alone, it’s none of our business. Besides, we have to activate our phones; the hour is almost up. Then we should just get out before he finds out we were here.

I find the end of the cable, hook it up, and make the call to activate my phone. When I’m done, she activates hers. We leave the way we came in. Outside, I say goodbye her. She is going downtown; I have to walk east, up the hill. It’s getting colder, and there’s snow on the ground. I want to get home before it gets dark.